Mmmmm.... Slack...

So, despite liking Vector as the distro for 'ol lappy, I reinstalled slack 10.1 (as well as on the newly revived media machine). It makes me remember how much I enjoy using slackware. Things just work. I install stuffies from source and they work. I have some well thought-out reasons on why I like using Slackware, but I'm not going to get into them now; that's a rant for another time. Quickly, however, I will touch on how incredibly awesome MPD is. Kudos to Carl for suggesting it. MPD stands for the Music Player Daemon (a daemon is a service/server that runs in the background on your computer). The MPD machine is a Pentium II 350mhz beast with 256MB RAM. I know that's overkill in the memory department, but I've got nothing better to do with it. This "musicbox" sits in the corner waiting for an MPD client to control it. These clients are programs that look like your standard mp3 players, but instead of playing music on the machine the client is running on, they interface with the MPD so delicious music will be played on the glorious speakers in the frontroom. It's all very handy for when you want to just sit and listen to some music. Thanks to wireless I can sit anywhere and control the music as simply as if it were playing on the laptop. I'd rant a little longer, but I'm dead tired, and have writing to do in the morning, so it's off to the sleeps for me. Night.

Holy Crap!

I hate the thought that this post will be one of eleventy-billion about AIM's new TOS (terms of service), but I want to talk about it, on the off chance that someone reads this and learns something new. Fairly recently, AOL changed the terms of service in regards to AIM usage. The TOS is that thing we never read, but have to click on "I agree" before we can install stuff. I first read about the changes on some news site, but went to AIM.com to check it out for myself. The paragraph in question goes like this: "Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses." (taken from: http://www.aim.com/tos/tos.adp) For me, the line that catches my attention is "YOU WAIVE ANY RIGHT TO PRIVACY." AOL has declared that anything and everything that you type or read from IM's can not only be read by them, but also may be distributed however they see fit. That's pretty screwed up. I'm not one of those freaky guys found at bus stops who reek of garlic and alcohol and mumble conspiracy theories, but I am disgusted by this. I don't think that AOL/AIM is some terrible company out to steal our souls, but the fact of the matter is that a vast number of people rely and trust AIM to be a private method of communication. I mean, it's the internet, and information can be stolen, but that's behavior we expect from acne-prone 13 year-old crackers, not from the company that's providing the service. The part that gets me, is that this information wil mostly go unnoticed. Most folks won't read the TOS, especially if they've already been a user for years. Secondly, when people do hear about this, they won't think much of it. We're somewhat complacent when it comes to our privacy. It's hard to imagine AOL using the drab chats from our daily lives against us, but it's way too easy for them to harvest e-mail addresses, home addresses, and other such info without our knowing. I don't think they should have the right, especially when most users aren't aware. Unfortunately, there's not a crapload of options available to those of us that are mildly outraged by this. It's not like I can spark a revolution to get everyone to use a different chat service, considering a lot of users use AIM as their main method of communication on the web. The option that I use, and that I encourage you to use as well, is to use encryption. I hate endorsing it like this, but there are open source alternatives to the AIM client that can encrypt conversations with a degree of security that's bordering on unstoppable. Firstly, I'd like to talk about the program I use to chat: gaim. Gaim is an open source application. I'm not sure if I've talked much about what open source really is. It's actually a collection of liscences that software can be released under, the most prominent example being the GPL. If you do a google search for GPL or open source, you'll find out the nitty-gritty details; which I won't bore you with, as the topic of this post is AIM's lack of privacy. Long story short, open-source means free; free to copy and use as much as you want, with no ads, fees, or guilt-trips. Gaim is free. You don't need to register to use it, no one monitors your use of it- it's just free. I used to use gaim because I liked it better than AIM for a lotta reasons. It's quicker, no pop-ups, and you can login to MSN, Jabber, and other protocols all form the same window. I love it because it does what I want it to do, and nothing more (what a concept, eh?). Gaim is not affiliated with AIM, and is available for Linux, most Unixes, Windows, and MacOS X. The encryption plugin for gaim is available as well, the links I'll include at the bottom of this post. The downside to encryption is that both parties in the conversation must have it enabled for it to work. So I'm trying to influence as many people as possible to use these free tools to enhance privacy. I hate to be one of those people that pushes a certain program or idea, but this is a pretty big issue. I intend to protect my privacy to the bitter end and I don't intend to be forced into changing my current setup, though I will begin to look into other chat options, because if this is how AIM is going to start treating its users, I don't know how long before other things get worse. The gaim site is http://gaim.sourceforge.net and the windows version is available on the right hand side under "Windows Port" The gaim-encryption site is http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/ and the link to the download is under "Latest Release." Click on the self-exracting win32 binary link. If you have any questions on how to set-up gaim and the encryption tool, or anything else regarding this post, feel free to IM me, just be sure not to write any personal information. -Anonymous and Proud Update: Hey, good news. I did a little bit of work looking into gaim-encryption and whether or not it's a feasible option. By feasible I don't mean "possible," but rather I mean "is something that is easy to set and something you won't need to worry about once it's set up." Here's a painless step-by-step howto for you folks who are willing to give this new AIM client a shot. 1. Download gaim. 2. Double click gaim to install it, all the default options should be just fine. 3. Download gaim-encryption. 4. Double click gaim-encryption to install it, and the default options should be fine. 5. Run Gaim, and login to AIM as per usual. 6. On the buddylist window, go to Tools->Preferences, and then select "Plugins" 7. Select gaim-encryption by clicking it's checkbox. 8. In the left hand list, under "Plugins," click on the "Gaim-Encryption" 9. Of the 5 checkboxes, 1, 3, 4, and 5 should all be checked. There you go, you're all set. Start conversations just like usual, and Gaim will automatically detect if the person you're talking to has encryption enabled and will act accordingly. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Also, if you do try gaim, check out the other plugins, there are some handy features there. I honestly believe that people who have used AIM for a long time will be pleasantly surprised by gaim's simplicity and capabilities. Consider giving it a shot.

Long time... again.

Wellp, I'm taking a quick reprieve from video games at the moment. Bush came over, hauled my ass around, and then we played some good, clean CS. When we got back to my apartment from errandsy-things Mike was entertaining some folks, so Bush and I set up in my bedroom; the problem being that my apartment is WiFi geared, and Bush's machine is not. What we ended up doing was shooting a crossover cable from his box to mine and then "shared" the internet connection. I hate windows. I've found I've actually become worse at using it because I'm so use to the Linux answer. I started by peeking through the registry, turning ENABLEIPROUTING on, and then attempting to configure the machines to behave properly. I spent a good 15-30 mins looking at routing tables and checking addresses before I realized there was a "share internet connection" feature built in. I had to set the registry back the way it was before the 'feature' would work again, but once we figured that out it was smooth sailing. I'm tossing the idea in my mind to drop a few bucks and invest in the latest version of Cedega. I have a partially-dual boot setup now, as in I actually pull the hardrives I'm not using from the machine (I don't use windows much at all). If I could make Cedega and Steam play nice, I really wouldn't have much reason to dual-boot. Not that I've been using the desktop much anyways in the past few days (weeks?). I compiled the latest kernel version 2.6.10 and a few things went wrong with the machine. Firstly, on a positive note, burning audio CD's is possible again; which was the reason I felt compelled to upgrade. On the other hand, my WiFi card's driver decided that it didn't want to compile under 2.6.10. Also, xterm no longer works. I'm not sure how I managed to break xterm, but it's a fact. The problem with not having a wifi driver installed at the moment is it's awfully hard for me to get inspired to find a method of transferring an updated driver to the machine. With no internet or Xterms I quickly reverted to the laptop. The laptop is a sexy beast. As I said before, lappy is an oldschool PII 333, but it handles linux quite well. I honestly couldn't be more pleased and am certain that I'm maximizing the bang for buck. I'm still running Vector 4.3, but with extras I stuffed in there, including XFCE 4.2 (default window manager) Firefox, and the latest thunderbird build. Thunderbird is a little sluggish, but if one were to just look at how well most programs run, they'd figure the lappy was running at least a 1Ghz. I've also re-invested time into the pocketPC. It's now running Familiar 0.8.0, a shiny new release which is built open the Open Embedded's structure. The overall distribution has appeared to have matured greatly since my last dabblings. It feels more and more like a solid Linux than a hodgepodge of software tweaked to behave somewhat. I've been trying to make strides in personal organization, and have been succeeding to a small degree. If you remember my previous rants about GPE and OPIE, you'll recall that I'm drawn to GPE because of my Gnome preference, but the apps for GPE are scarce. OPIE has once again become the interface of choice when using the PPC. It's very slick. Well, there's the update. That is all that's new. I also have come accross a second monitor for the desktop, but it's in my car, which is in the shop, so I'll have to wait to mess with that. Another quick blurb; I mention that I hate windows quite a bit. I don't believe Bill Gates to be the antichrist or anything, and I don't think of MS as being a terribly corrupted company. I don't like windows because I don't like windows. I don't like the feel of it all. I enjoy switching my window manager every coupla weeks. I like the openness and the ability to more clearly see and understand what's going on "under the hood." I know that there are ways to do this in windows too, but it seems such a hassle, and isn't as readily available. I also would like to see more healthy competition in the commercial OS business. That'll help push companies to churn out better products. I don't know if I'm ready to claim that Linux is ready to take the computing world by storm. It has some clear advantages, but I haven't been following the work of companies who focus on making a simpler desktop for novice users. K. I'm done. I'll billow more garbage later. -Me.