intodimensions.com

Boing Boing:

Earlier this week on BB, I pointed to Jon Lech Johansen’s blog “So Sue Me.” Several astute readers reminded us that the blog’s title is thought to be a punny reference to “Sosumi,” an Apple system sound file with a colorful history. Over time, it became a widely mis-reported bit of computing lore.

Jim Reekes was the engineer on Apple Sound Manager for System 7, and he created the Sosumi sound — so I asked him to set the record straight. Here’s the Wikipedia entry (which is now being updated), and here’s Jim’s reply to Boing Boing readers!

This is compelling reading if you’re an Apple Mac fan.

And when you’re done reading, listen to a brief song composed entirely from Mac System 7 sounds. Or why not try a Windows alternative.

[posted with ecto]

The Local:

A man in Västerås has become the first Swede to be charged with illegally sharing files via the Internet. But prosecutors say that unless the case results in a prison sentence, other cases of web piracy might never get to court.

The 27-year old at the centre of the case is accused of having the film Hipp Hipp Hora on his computer, which he allowed others to download. If convicted, he could face up to two years imprisonment.

The case was brought after a tip off from Antipiratbyrån (APB), a lobby organization set up by the media industry to combat illegal downloading in Sweden. Since the man was reported APB has found itself in hot water, with an Internet company accusing the organization itself of illegally downloading films and games.

Uppsala prosecutor Katrin Rudström says that this is a vital test case, and that the result will have big implications for future prosecutions. She told Aftonbladet that if the case resulted only in a fine, it was unlikely that other file sharers would be prosecuted in the future. This was partly due, she said, to the fact that police would not have the right to demand information about which computers were sharing their files if the crime was only punishable by financial penalties.

And in my hometown of all places

[posted with ecto]

BusinessWeek:

Cellular carriers such as Verizon and Cingular are hesitant to sell the Apple-Motorola gizmo. Here’s why

It seemed like a sure thing: the iPod mobile phone. What could be more irresistible than a device combining the digital-music prowess of Apple Computer (AAPL ) with the wireless expertise of Motorola (MOT )? Motorola sent its buzz machinery into overdrive in January when it leaked word that the product would debut at a cellular-industry conference in New Orleans in mid-March.

Well, hold the phone. At the New Orleans confab, a frustrated Edward Zander, Motorola’s chief executive, stood before a roomful of analysts and reporters and said the handset’s debut would have to wait.

Why? Zander said Motorola and Apple want to hold off until the phone is closer to hitting store shelves. But three industry sources say a lack of support from such giant cellular operators as Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless was instrumental in delaying the unveiling. So far, the wireless companies are reluctant to promote the Motorola-Apple phone.

Behind the clash are two very different views of the future of music on mobile phones. Motorola and Apple would let customers put any digital tune they already own on their phones for free. That would help Motorola sell more phones, and it would help Apple expand its dominance of digital music.

SKIMPY PROFITS. Verizon, Cingular, and other wireless operators want customers to pay to put music on phones. They think getting a full song should be like getting a ring tone, snippets for which customers now pay from 99¢ to $3. The carriers have no interest in conceding the booming digital-music market to the tech players. “When carriers see this future, Apple is front and center,” says Andrew Cole, head of the wireless practice at consultant A.T. Kearney. Apple is “a competitor not to be embraced, but to be rejected.”

At issue is whether Apple and Motorola leave room for carriers to benefit. Their phone could be loaded with songs simply by dropping it into a cradle attached to a PC, so that music wouldn’t have to travel over carriers’ airwaves. There’s not a whole lot of profit to share, either. When customers buy songs from Apple’s iTunes music store, they pay 99¢ a tune. But Apple only gets about 4¢ of that, after paying the record company and others, says researcher Strategy Analytics. Apple says iTunes is only a breakeven business.

[posted with ecto]

PCWorld.com:

If you’re thrifty and you use an office suite, it’s hard not to like OpenOffice.org, the open-source set of office productivity tools. Version 1.0, which first appeared in 2002, does most things Microsoft Office can do (including smoothly trade files with users of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). Plus it’s free. So what’s to improve in version 2.0?

[posted with ecto]

Columbia Spectator:

Microsoft had better watch its back.

Firefox, the descendant of Netscape, which was the last Web browser to give Microsoft’s Internet Explorer a run for its money, has been gaining devotees at an astonishing rate. Twenty-five million users downloaded the program in its first 99 days after it was launched on Nov. 10, 2004.

Columbia is currently adding Firefox onto University computers in a phased approach, and will have it installed on all AcIS public stations by Sept. 2005.

The move to Firefox has been sparked in large part by the increasingly evident failings of Internet Explorer. Recently, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, warned, “Microsoft Internet Explorer does not adequately validate the security [of Web sites] … An attacker could exploit this vulnerability.”

According to ScanIT, a company that tests the security of Web browsers, 98 percent of Internet Explorer users were vulnerable to an attack last year, compared with just 15 percent of those who used Firefox. Many colleges have issued statements telling students to switch from Internet Explorer. Since June of 2004, Internet Explorer’s market share has dropped from 96 to 87 percent.

[posted with ecto]

CNET News.com:

It took Red Hat 16 months to produce the newest version of its premium Linux product, which went on sale in February for as much as $2,499 per computer per year.

It took a group of programmers less than two weeks to release a free clone. But the move could help Red Hat as much as it appears to hurt it.

The clone is from a project called CentOS–Community Enterprise Operating System–one of several “Red Hat rebuilders” that have partially nullified Red Hat’s business decision in 2003 to stop giving away its supported and certified product for free. CentOS and others–Lineox, White Box Linux, Tao Linux, X/OS Linux and Scientific Linux–all rebuild a copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux from the source code components Red Hat releases.

[posted with ecto]

Bensbargains links to a Newegg.com deal. It’s a 160W MicroATX power supply which comes to $7 shipped. If you have a simple PC with a low-end graphics card, a moderatly fast CPU, and only one or two hard drives and optical drives, then 160W should be ok. For a fast PC with lots of drives and high-end graphics card it’s not going to be ok.

[posted with ecto]

Mac OS Rumors:

The more we look into these developing rumors of Apple’s planned HDVN high-defintion content delivery system, with each new report this is becoming one of the biggest stories in our 11 years dishing dirt — right up there with Mac OS X, the iMac, the iPod….yeah, that big. Seriously.

Apple’s interest in satellite HD content delivery has become more than obvious. Just a note to Phil Schiller and company: your (potential) competitors are taking notice!

Just because Apple rebuffed Sirius is by no means an indication that Apple isn’t interested in satellite content delivery. Apple just doesn’t want to piggback on someone else’s network — they’re interested in building their own on existing satellites and potentially launching more than one of their own in the next few years as well.

Sure it’s rumors but it’s fun speculating.

[posted with ecto]

WindowsBeta.Net:

Linspire makes the jump from Windows to Linux easy. You will find free replacement applications for most of the popular Windows programs, and it supports most filetypes. The web experience is the same as on Windows. Email and IM is just as easy.

When it comes to applications and file management, linux still has a little way to go. While Linspire has replacement applications for most of the popular applications, the less used applications rarely don’t. Also, you will not be able to run the exact same programs as your friends, making suport harder. Linux applications tend to be more advanced and can be more complicated than their windows counterparts.

It’s also harder to navigate. While Linspire certainly looks good, its overwhelming graphics make navigating hard at times. Its hard to separate menus and there are almost no borders (And where there is, they are usualy faded).

In general, I would recommend Linspire to users who are interested in testing Linux for the first time.

Linspire has managed to make the best looking, and user friendly Linux distro I have seen so far.

[posted with ecto]

A minor update of Firefox is now available. Mostly small, but important, security fixes.

[posted with ecto]