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Del.icio.us Bookmarking

As a (spoiled) multi-computer user, one of my small annoyances is keeping tracks of my bookmarks on different machines. I’ve tried the Firefox extension that syncs bookmarks via FTP with mixed success, and a while back I signed up for a Del.icio.us but didn’t make great use of it.

Well, now Del.icio.us built a Firefox extension that makes it a cinch to keep track of all your bookmarks via their service. Use it to find new sites, see what others think is popular, or just keep to yourself and keep track of your own bookmarks.

I’m adding bookmarks like crazy, and may just wait for the import service to kick back in as it seems to be down. I highly recommend del.icio.us.

MP3tunes.com

Michael Robertson has done it again. Mr. Robertson founded MP3.com in the mid-90’s before selling it, and went on to found Linspire (I’ll give him credit for owning a Linux distribution, especially one built off Debian, but still…) as well as a VoIP company, and now he’s back in the music business with MP3tunes.com. He was in the news a few weeks ago for hiring DVD Jon, aka Jon Lech Johansen, who cracked the DVD encryption a few years back, as well as iTunes DRM.

What is MP3tunes.com? From their FAQ:

Q: What is the MP3tunes Locker?

A: The MP3tunes Locker gives you unlimited online storage to back-up your entire personal music collection, including your playlists. You can sync your music collection in your MP3tunes Locker with your computers, portable players and devices. You’re able to webload free tracks you find on the Internet directly into your MP3tunes Locker or sideload with one of our partners. You can play your music collection and playlists in iTunes and anywhere you have an Internet connection. The MP3tunes Oboe Software Suite is free and includes Oboe Sync, Oboe for iTunes and Oboe for Firefox.

The Basic MP3tunes Locker includes webloading, sideloading, MP3tunes Oboe Software Suite, and streaming inside iTunes on the Internet at a medium quality bit-rate (56k).

The Premium MP3tunes Locker is $39.95 per year and includes back-up with unlimited storage, syncing, webloading, sideloading, MP3tunes Oboe Software Suite, and streaming inside iTunes on the Internet at a high quality bit-rate (128k).

Do you remember when MP3.com got hosed by the RIAA? Basically, they had an idea that you inserted a music CD in to your PC. Their website said, hey look – you own that CD, thanks for verifying it. Now we’ll stream it to you wherever you are! Well, the RIAA went through the roof, and they took that feature out.

It looks like Mr. Robertson has brought that idea back, but in a much, much bigger way. This time you’re the one uploading your music – and while it may take forever to upload a large collection, you’ve proven that you’ve sent over your files. And now, you can “sideload” – buy music from another provider and have it synced.

Check the site out, and read the FAQ. While some of it will require using their syncing software to get the heavy lifting done, I do give MP3tunes.com credit for having Windows, Mac and Linux clients, multiple music format support, such as MP3, OGG and WMA, as well as a plugin for iTunes and Firefox ready to go at launch.

I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this.

Apatheia.org Down

It appears Peony, the server Silenae.com and Apatheia.org live on over at my webhost, Site5, has had a hard drive fail.

If you’ve come here for an update, you can track the status at the Site 5 forums here.

If they can’t restore the hard drive, they’ll load backups from last night.

10 Things That Make Ubuntu a Neophyte's Distribution

I don’t think of myself as a neophyte when it comes to Linux or Ubuntu, but the All About Linux Blog covers 10 things that make Ubuntu great for a new Linux user.

I won’t cover them here, as he does a great job of explaining them. And I whole-heartedly agree – Ubuntu is the only distribution I would recommend for someone new to Linux. Or even to a user who’s used Linux for a while. By far the best distribution I’ve ever used, and it’s still my day to day OS at home on my two primary machines.

Evil Corporations #3: Macrovision

I haven’t done an Evil Corporations story in over two years, and it’s definitely time. The focus: Macrovision.

From their About Us page on their website:

Macrovision helps solve the global need for content protection, DRM and software licensing solutions.

Now we all know that I’m no fan of DRM or Digital Rights Management, and right there in their company description Macrovision makes it a point to let you knwo that’s exactly what they’re about.

Macrovision’s claim to fame was protecting VHS tapes in the 80s – did you ever try and copy a videotape from a rental store, and got those rainbow lines at the top and bottom? That’s them.

Even though it’s legal for you, as a consumer in the United States, to make one copy for backup and archival purposes, they make sure you can’t.

The latest story hitting the web today, is a follow-up to one from June. In June, Macrovision sent a cease and desist letter to Lightning UK!, makers of DVD Decrypter. DVD Decrypter lets you strip the DRM off a DVD so you can archive to a hard drive or make a physical copy. Macrovision claimed the ability to strip the DRM violated their patents.

Well, the latest story has Macrovision claiming they’ve bought out Lightning UK!, and sending takedown notices to websites hosting DVD Decrypter. I’m sure they paid off the original developer thinking if you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em (ala Microsoft).

This is unfortunate for two reasons – one, reverse engineering should not be illegal, and in the U.S., under the DMCA, it now is. Two, if the developer had released this under a free software licenses, such as the GPL, the code would be in the wild. Now, due the evil greed of one corporation, we’re going to lose the ability to back up our DVDs. I know, as the father of 2 (almost three!) children, that I want to back up the movies they watch a lot and put them on a home theater PC. No more scratching and wrecking movies – which has happened with a few already.

But no, I’m no longer allowed to. And that’s why Macrovision is being added to my list of evil corporations.

HTPC Case

I had picked out the Silverstone LC16M (in black) case for my upcoming Home Theater PC.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn, via a blog on Planet GNOME yesterday, that the Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD) on the Silverstone case is Linux compatible. Linux drivers, linked from Silverstone, take you here: to the Imon page that has integrated Lirc support for the remote, and the VFD.

Bonus!

Installing and Configuring Ubuntu on a Laptop

LinuxDevCenter.com: Installing and Configuring Ubuntu on a Laptop. Jeremy Jones of the Weather Channel purchases a Dell, and installs Ubuntu on it.

It’s a pretty good overview, and he runs into a couple quirky things that installing Linux on a laptop always seem to have, but no more than desktop installations now. Linux installs on laptops have come a long way in the last two years or so. While I had a similar experience with HP dv1000, it always comes down to the little things. The only big thing I’m still stuck on is suspend support.

Pretty good article if you’re looking to install Linux or Ubuntu on a laptop, especially a Dell.

Wikis as Websites

One of the latest trends in open-source development, is for the projects website to be created with MediaWiki.

This article on Acts of Volition lists a couple others, as well as one of my current favorite pieces of software, Banshee, a music management and player for GNOME. (I’ve been meaning to blog about Banshee for well over a month).

I still have to put a long term plan together on integrating silwenae .com/.net/.org, and MediaWiki might address it. I don’t need all of the power of a Drupal, WordPress is already running my blog, Jinzora will power my music, and Flickr does my photos. I just need something sticky enough to link it all together.

I went and installed MediaWiki on the Apatheia.org website to see if the guild had any interest in using it as a tool. I’ve long thought it might help facilitate guildmembers signing up for a raid, managing rosters, etc, as the guildmembers themselves could update it, and you’re not reliant on one webmaster or officer to step up.

I integrated this hack to use logins from the guild forums into the Wiki, which was quite helpful. And my lack of knowledge around PHP & CSS started to show as I spend two hours last night, just playing with the header image. There aren’t a lot of good tutorials on creating a skin – especially one with a Novell-type flavor that utilizes a Wiki as a normal website. I came across this one, but it was pretty darn high level, and didn’t even go into the PHP elements.

I’m going to tinker with it, especially the navigation pieces and see what happens. I’m also curious from a social networking experiment to see if any guildmembers latch on to it.

The link of the day is Postsecret.

Extremely popular at Technorati, I had never heard of it, and it’s pretty interesting. What is it, you ask? From the site itself:

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

And they put up the pictures of said postcards.

Projects to do after Basement is completed

Already looking past the present, things to do once the basement is done, and I consider building a HTPC part of doing the basement.

  1. Make a podcast
  2. Build a MAME cabinet
  3. Drywall the garage so Kelly has a work area
  4. Technorati Tags integration on this here blog
  5. Get Fuse running to manage all my computers / websites
  6. Hack my Buffalo TeraStation to use SSH so I can use the afore-mentioned Fuse
  7. Catalog (online!) my cd, movie and book collections
  8. Fix my server (silwenae.net) (Probably should do this sooner…)
  9. Get paulcutler.org /.com / and .net integrated somehow
  10. Inventory all my stuff (and send updated list to insurance company)

I’m sure I’ve left a bunch of stuff off this list – I always have more ideas than motivation. And this doesn’t include adding the 3rd kid to the family, enjoying my new home theater setup and whatever else pops up.