Apparently there’s quite a lot in a name actually. Especially when it comes to online handles and call signs, to use the CB radio terminology. People spend ages trying to think of the right nickname for them and then checking nobody else has taken it before embarking on their online lives. I never did that, you’ll be surprised to hear. Much like a lot of what I do there was no grand plan at all in the beginning of my digital life. I would just go around signing up for different websites under different names and not really thinking about it. I wasn’t heavily into social networks and other such things early on anyway. That was until I joined the microblogging service Jaiku in early 2007 and my life changed forever. I quickly became hopelessly addicted to chatting with my new friends and we started so many podcasts, websites and other things together it was amazing. Many of those people are still my closest friends now, both on and offline. I didn’t have any specific username in mind when joining the service as I said. My usual logic (I use the term loosely) goes something like this:

“What shall I call myself…?”

“Dan, yeah that’ll do.”

“How can that name already be taken? I’m Dan, this is an outrage!” Read the rest of this entry »

As many of you know I’ve been supporting the Open Rights Group for some time. You’ll see the little banner in the sidebar of this site.  They campaign on behalf of ordinary people in the UK and try to protect our collective digital rights from new threats, which seem to pop up almost daily. I’ve talked about the proposed “Three Strikes” law in the UK before and how it won’t help artists, only large media conglomerates, who would rather criminalise people than bring their business models into the 21st Century. If like me, you live in the UK and you’d like to add your voice to this debate, have a look at the ORGs new campaign. You can add your picture and message for Lord Mandelson to the growing number appearing at threestrikes.openrightsgroup.org. I’ve added my message, here’s a screen shot so you can see. Click to enlarge if you want to read the text.

Click To Enlarge

If you’re a UK citizen and you care about people being cut off the Internet with no proof of guilt, just on the accusation of content industry reps, please join the campaign! You can also write to your MP and let them know how you feel. We have to do everything we can to stop this draconian law dragging us back into the dark ages. The French have already fallen for the HADOPI law, let’s not compound that mistake. It won’t stop Internet piracy, it will only drive it further underground, hurting ordinary people and besides, it’s completely impractical to implement anyway. I hope common sense will win the day, but it won’t without our support. So let’s stand together and send a message to Mandy.

Thank you,

Dan

The Times Online

After the recent debacle of Ubuntu‘s appearence and relatively firm bashing on BBC breakfast television (as chronicled by Popey), I was pleased today to come across some positive coverage from the online division of The Times newspaper. Journalist Jonathan Richards has posted his guide to installing Ubuntu for beginners. There are some sections of the article that don’t ring 100% accurate to me, but that’s understandable for someone getting to grips with a new platform, and I don’t want to detract from the overall good vibe. The objective is to encourage other newcomers onboard, so perhaps it’s written in a more simplistic manner to communicate with the intended audience.

While I understand the overall undertone that Ubuntu is good for reviving older ailing machines, I think it’s an even better option on fast new hardware, and this really isn’t discussed. Also, most wireless drivers come included with Ubuntu despite the assersion that “One slightly annoying thing about Ubuntu is that it doesn’t come with built-in wireless drivers.”. I think they must have been unlucky with the test machine they got (a Dell XPS M1210 apparently). There have certainly been problems a plenty with wireless cards on Linux over the years (particularly those of the dastardly Broadcom variety); I would never deny that, or even want to, but I haven’t had to install an addition wireless driver in many years.

Anyway, I don’t want to criticise what I think is a very fair article and I hope it encourages more people to try out Ubuntu (other distros are available in all good bookshops) and see that it’s not scary. I’m really glad to see mainstream news outlet having the balls to tell people to try Ubuntu. The Guardian also ran an excellent recent piece comparing Windows 7 to the latest Ubuntu, it’s very well written and fair (Thanks to Laura for pointing this one out to me). I think most people would be shocked by how easy it is to install these days, you don’t need to be Stephen Hawking to do it any more.  We wouldn’t have seen this level of interest from the media at large just a couple of years back, I hope it’s a sign of good things to come. Not just for Ubuntu, but for Linux in general and all the great people working so hard out there. Thanks to Jonathan Richards for this write up, I hope you’ll continue your Ubuntu adventure and should you get stuck there’s an army of people willing to help. That goes for anyone reading this, just drop me a line. If I can help, I will. Come and join the party!

Dan

You may already know my feelings about software patents, I’ve mentioned them before, but after the events of today I felt it was worth exploring the subject a little more. In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft themselves have now fallen foul of the software patent system in the US. News stories all over the net are reporting that they’ve been ordered to stop selling their popular Word package by a court in Texas. It’s hard to say just yet how serious this ruling will be for them or even if it will stick, but understandably it’s big news. I use OpenOffice.org but even an Open Source advocate like me can’t deny most people in the world have used Microsoft Office at some point in their lives, it’s still a dominant product. The problem in this case seems to revolve around the use of XML to specify formatting in OOXML document files. The patent is so vague it seems it could apply to almost any use of XML, a technology designed to standardize data transfer and help remove the glut of competing standards. But if using XML in this fashion was patented back in 1998, then what use is it as a standard?! Many people will be quick to gloat at Microsoft and take great pleasure in this decision. You might expect me to be among that group but I’m not, and here’s why. I’m not concerned for Microsoft or their troubles, I really couldn’t care less what happens to them. In many ways perhaps this is poetic justice for their aggressive use of software patents against other companies, so it’s hard to have sympathy. It’s also easy to laugh at them and cry “live by the sword, die by the sword” but the reality is software patents are a problem for all of us. They’re stifling creativity in the software sector and scaring developers, which is ironic when you consider why patents were actually invented in the first place. No pun intended. Read the rest of this entry »

My Bank's Computer

Please forgive the forthcoming rant, but I wanted to relate my recent trials in trying to send some money to Germany via electronic transfer. As some of you will know I went to Germany last month to visit my Linux Outlaws co-host Fab, and also attend Linux Tag 2009. It was great fun and obviously there were various costs for hotels in Berlin and travel, amongst other things. I wanted to send some money to Fab to cover these things and a bank transfer seemed the easiest and quickest way to do that, or so I thought. I knew I needed an IBAN code and the SWIFT code for his bank, I thought this would be enough. First off I looked for a way to arrange this with the Natwest Online Banking site, which at the time of writing still hasn’t been updated to accept Firefox 3.5, but that’s another matter. It seems you can’t do International transfers online. I was disappointed by that but it seemed fairly reasonable. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mono Project

There’s been a lot of controversy and argument over the use of Mono in the Linux world rightly or wrongly, and this long running issue recently reared it’s head again when Richard Stallman (founder of the FSF) chipped in. Now, the controversy may be over thanks to a surprising move from Microsoft themselves. It’s been talked about everywhere in the the technology press I know, but just in case you don’t know the situation, I’ll give you a quick outline. The Mono Project is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s popular .NET development framework. It enables developers to code in C# – a language developed by MS – and run their applications on a variety of platforms: Linux, Mac OS X and the iPhone amongst others. I was a professional ASP developer at the time .NET arrived on the scene, and it certainly held a lot of promise. I originally thought the idea was to enable cross-platform development in .NET by using the CLi in a similar way to the Java Virtual Machine. I even asked when there would be a CLi released for Linux and other platforms at an official Microsoft training course. My question was met with muffled laughter and it seemed the intention was not to open up .NET to other platforms. Miguel De Icaza, the creator of the Gnome desktop and well known Linux developer decided to try and address this problem with Mono. It enables .NET developers stuck on Windows to port their applications to new platforms and expand their horizons. This is all a good thing, nobody would argue against this, not even RMS himself. On the Linux desktop many popular applications have been developed with Mono such as Banshee, F-Spot, Tomboy and Gnome-Do. The problem for Mono has been a fear in the Linux community that Microsoft would wait until it had worked it’s way into the Linux desktop (and Gnome in particular) significantly, then pull their software patents out and go to town. Some people saw this as an attempt to attack Linux by stealth. This is probably exaggeration and I am no doubt that Miguel and the team would never intentionally hurt Linux at all, as some have intimated. Read the rest of this entry »