Recognizing "Hinky" vs. Citizen Informants

This kind of thing isn't easy to train. (Much has been written about it, though; Malcolm Gladwell's Blink discusses this in detail.) You can't learn it from watching a seven-minute video. But the more we focus on this -- the more we stop wasting our airport security resources on screeners who confiscate rocks and snow globes, and instead focus them on well-trained screeners walking through the airport looking for hinky -- the more secure we will be.

Technical ways to get around censorship

The decision to use circumvention technology should be taken seriously, carefully analyzing the specific needs, available resources and security concerns of the end-user. There is a wide variety of technologies available for users who want to circumvent Internet filtering. However, using them for successful and stable circumvention service depends on a variety of factors, including the user’s level of technical skill, potential security risk, and contacts available outside the censored country. Governments may also take counter-measures to effectively block specific circumvention technologies.

In other news today, Wikipedia has begun blocking TOR.

Dell Brings Back Windows XP

"We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings," Dell said on the Idea Storm portion of its Web site, dedicated to implementing customer feedback.

This is almost funny! They are trying to put a positive spin on what has been a failure and make it look like they are being responsive to their customers.

A customer of mine purchased a brand new dual-core Dell with Vista on it, and the sound card would not work properly -- failed DRM. It defaulted to 16-bit stereo rather than delivering the promised surround sound. I suspect it works just fine under XP, however.

Using Google as a Proxy (or HOW TO: View MySpace at School)

I'm not a fan of MySpace, but I think much less of censorship. This technique should work with any blocked URL.

Survey: most people know about Vista but few intend to upgrade

The Harris Poll of 2223 US online adults in early March found that 87% were aware of Vista. Unfortunately for Microsoft, only 12% of Vista-aware respondents were intending to upgrade to Vista in the next 12 months.

I don't think the numbers for XP were that different. XP was forced upon you when you purchased new hardware. I suspect that's how Vista is going to be as well.

But Dell wasn't selling a new PC with Linux on it back when XP came out. Today you have a choice.

30 Days with Windows Vista

Based on my personal experiences with Vista over a 30 day period, I found it to be a dangerously unstable operating system, which has caused me to lose data.

I really did want to like Vista. Yes, it is possible to enjoy both Windows and Linux - but unfortunately this product is unfit for any user. I still intend to keep a Windows XP partition on my computer for gaming and some multimedia editing, but as of the time of this publication, I have removed Vista entirely.

The Daylight Saving change: no savings, no point

As it turns out, the US Department of Energy (and almost everyone else except members of Congress) was correct when they predicted that there would be little energy savings. This echoed concerns voiced after a similar experiment was attempted in Australia. Critics pointed out a basic fact: the gains in the morning will be offset by the losses at night, and vice-versa, at both ends of the switch. That appears to be exactly what happened.

Tear Down the Walls

EMI and Apple announced that they will beginning offering every song in their catalog in a "premium" service. You will pay more, but you get no DRM and twice the audio quality. Apple's iTunes will let you upgrade all your existing music to "premium" by paying the difference ($.30). Is this the beginning of the end for DRM? Where will Vista go when DRM is gone?