Xmarks may stay open if they can get enough interest in payment

PCWorld has the story. The pledge site is here.

The Twitter Name Crunch

You know that there's a problem when you're frustrated that all the good Twitter names you come up with are taken, you mash on the keyboard to create a new Twitter handle, check it, and find out that it's taken already. Yes, Virginia, there is an @dfsdfdsfs.

Used Computers a Casualty of the 9th Circuit Ruling

The ruling, noted below, that denies first sale doctrine to software could also potentially render older computers worthless, since the software that would run on them cannot be purchased new. Or would if Linux and Open Source weren't available. It would also appear that even the software already on a used computer would legally have to be deleted before sale if the EULA doesn't allow the transfer of the software.

Court Rules that EULAs Trump First Sale Doctrine

The AP and Slashdot have the story. From the AP story:

There are also fears that book publishers, music labels and movie studios will try to come up with their own licensing agreements to restrict the rental or resale of their copyrighted material.

That's what's terrifying about this ruling. It is easy to see how knowledge and art could be lost to the public through this kind of extreme copyright system. If the company holding the rights doesn't feel like making it available anymore, and you're not allowed to sell used copies, that work is essentially banned as effectively as if the government had censored it.

Now, I don't see this as likely applying to books, movies, or music in the too-near-term. What I'm more concerned about is video games, which are just another kind of software after all. Masterpieces could simply be lost. This will also fuel the fires of piracy.

And yes, people resorting to piracy is worse for software and other media vendors than buying used. The copyright holder might not get any more money from the sale of a used program or game than a P2P download, but that person buying a used program or game is far more likely to buy more new items than the pirate. He's playing by the rules, don't rob him of the that avenue.

Using it more, I've warmed up to Google Instant

It is of limited utility to me, though, since most of my searches are done from the browser address bar.

I'm afraid I don't like Google Instant

The search suggestions drop-down was quite sufficient. I don't want the contents of the whole page swimming around me while I'm trying to type my query. Even if the result I want appears before I'm done typing, I doubt I'll notice it as my concentration at the moment is on typing, not browsing (and yes, I do look at the screen while I type, not the keyboard). Thankfully you can turn it off.

So, is Google Instant to search what Microsoft Active Desktop was to Desktop Operating Systems?

Update: Okay, okay, I'll use it for a day before I pan it completely.

United States behind ACTA secrecy

I'm not a bit surprised. This is one issue where there really is zero difference between the two parties. Both are on the side of maximum profit for the copyright and other IP holders even if it is to the detriment of the honest consumer. Hence the DMCA being approved by Unanimous Consent in the Senate and a voice vote (i.e., so overwhelming it need not be recorded) in the House (source).

Stanford's Cathedral to Wikipedia's Bazaar

At least as far as the field of Philosophy goes. As the story submitter points out, their idea of what belongs in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is broad enough to include an article on Quantum Computing.

Chrome has the oddest gaps in its feature set

There is no simple image properties. Yes, you can inspect element, which gives you a massive amount of information about the styles attributed to the image, and if you dig deep enough even the natural height and width of the image, but I'd still very much like to cut through that cacaphony with a simple Image Properties dialog that tells me the size, the file size, and the url of the image. Like in other browsers, and image viewing programs for that matter.

Another peeve I ran into today is Chrome's lack of facilities for handling RSS and Atom feeds. Not only does it not help you subscribe, like Firefox, it doesn't even display the RSS feed in a readable way. It's just a jumble of text. I can live with it, but it's annoying.

On the bright side, I just discovered Chrome's tab-pinning feature and I love it. There are four or five sites I use constantly and being able to make them take up less space, and make them harder to close, is fantastic. I've found myself using the same windows all day rather than constantly opening, closing, and reopening them.

I assume Google's wacky new Mousaphobic logo...

is a gimmick to get people to pay attention to their event tomorrow. Reading through the linked article, I see that I was right.

Possible Sighting of FaceTime in the Wild

I was going to a walk yesterday and saw a woman holding her cellphone out in front of her while speaking audibly. She certainly wasn't talking to me, and there was no one else around, so I assume she was video-chatting over face-time.

I have to admit: I don't get it

I was browsing ThinkGeek last night and ran into the Moleskine notebooks. Apparently a little outfit in Italy has decided to turn out notebooks in a style common in Paris near the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century and which were allegedly used by the likes of Van Gogh, Wilde, Hemmingway, etc. Naturally they cost a fortune, at least for notebooks (go find the equivalent mini-notebooks at your local Target to the $6.99 ones listed at Thinkgeek and you'll see what I mean). Here's a good treatment of the whole phenomenon.

Personally, I'll stick to my college ruled Mead composition books for under $2 a pop and various generic storebought cheap booklets and notepads for writing on the go. When I'm not writing on a computer, as now, of course.

I'm back on Chrome

Firefox's big annoyance, on my Lucid Lynx system at least, outweighs Chrome's annoyances: Firefox will periodically start opening the dropdown menu on the Awesome Bar behind the browser window so I can't see it. I have to switch between programs to fix it. Very annoying.

Firefox, Chrome, and Me

I have to say that while I'm very impressed with Chrome, I'm back on Firefox again. The two main reasons are, I really like being able to drag-n-drop bookmarks into specific locations within folders on my bookmarks toolbar (rather than have them go automatically to the bottom) and I like having a mouse gestures extension that doesn't screw up context menus for me (the premier Chrome gestures extension makes you double-right-click to open a context menu). History is also handled much better.

Oh, and just to vent a little frustration at Firefox while singing their praises: I'm on the latest stable version because every frakking major new version breaks all the extensions. Naturally most extension writers haven't caught up with 4.0 Beta yet.

The Abomination that is IE 6 is Dying

Thank goodness. This is why, even if I were using Windows on my main machine, and even if IE were the best browser, I'd still want to use something else: when Microsoft has no competition, they produce garbage like IE 6. And it stays around forever.

I was right about one thing, though

The iPod Classic lives, though without a rev, just as I said. I expect it to die as soon as a 128GB iPod Touch is available, which will probably be a year from now.

Color me surprised about the Apple TV

It's HD and $99, making it the second piece of cheap merchandise, after the iPod Shuffle, that Apple's ever peddled. Like the Shuffle's missing screen, it has the oddest limitations: it is HDMI+Optical only (with no converter on sale at launch), but it will only do 720p video. So if you want to watch Netflix or purchased video on an SDTV, or in full HD (after the forthcoming 1080p update), you'll still want to get a Roku.

At least some of the content is apparently going to be protected by HDCP, which indicates that any converter, third party or not, would not work, at least for all content.