Download Squad

Flipping the Linux switch: My OS is okay, your OS is okay

Kristin Shoemaker — 2008-05-13T13:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Features, Linux, Open Source, Analysis

Today we're committing blasphemy.

Okay, technically we're not. We're not saying that any one system or way of doing things is the only right way. Face it, the only place there was only one right answer to a question was eighth grade math class.

So while it may seem like it's blasphemy for us to suggest that Linux may not be for you (or your girlfriend, or your boyfriend, or your uncle), it might be true. You might be better suited to a Mac way of life, or a Windows sort of environment at the moment. It doesn't mean it'll always be that way. It doesn't mean, if it is always that way, that you (or Linux) are not up to the task. You're just not right for each other.

All right, let's quit the touchy-feely psycho-babble talk. There is a lot written about choosing distributions, desktops, and other fun stuff that comes with Linux. But how do you really know if it's something you want to invest time in trying at all?

There are liveCDs that allow you try to out a number of different distributions, and they can give you a pretty good feel of how Linux looks, and feels, and to some degree, how it works. You can see how your hardware is supported, and experiment a bit with alternative applications. That's great, but the truth is, it doesn't always give the whole picture of what you might encounter using Linux.

Continue reading Flipping the Linux switch: My OS is okay, your OS is okay

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Ubuntu Hardy: The latest and greatest or a total mess?

Ian Dumych — 2008-04-01T11:00:00+00:00

Filed under: OS Updates, Features, Linux, Open Source, Analysis, Canonical

Ubuntu has become so popular, so quickly, that it is almost synonymous with the word "Linux". Common wisdom holds that it is the easiest to use, simplest, and most stable Linux based OS out there, and that it is the best hope for "Linux on the Desktop". This reputation is a well earned one, but after trying out the latest beta of Ubuntu Hardy, due out this April, I can't help but wonder if they are getting a little careless. More on this after the jump.

Continue reading Ubuntu Hardy: The latest and greatest or a total mess?

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"Beacon Sucks" sums up SXSWi Facebook keynote

Christina Warren — 2008-03-10T09:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Features, Analysis

While Grant and I been having a great time at SXSWi, meeting lots of great people and learning about really cool services, Sunday's keynote/interview with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg was definitely a low-light.

I would write up a humorous transcript of what actually happened, but someone else already did (and frankly, better than anything I could have achieved). Suffice to say, the most apt description of the entire hour long interview of nothingness (we learned that Facebook will be launching in French, everything else was a rehash of every interview or article about Zuckerberg and/or Facebook written in the last year) was b5media's Aaron Brazell's heckle, upon the first mention of advertising, "Beacon sucks." (Full disclosure: I told Brazell I would pay him $20 if he yelled that out)

South by Southwest Interactive is a conference for people interested in interactive technologies and media. We do not want to exclusively hear about the business model. We do not want to only hear the PR scripted blurbs about the company and something that seems like a venture capital pitch, especially from the Goliath of the social media sphere. We wanted to hear about where Facebook is going in the future and why users should continue to care, not a reenactment of the 60-Minutes interview with softball questions, especially concerning the very valid user privacy fears.

The web has been buzzing about the interview, how disastrous it was (especially at the Q&A section, which basically turned into a revolt), with much of the blame being put on interviewer Sarah Lacy (from BusinessWeek and Yahoo's Tech Ticker). While I agree that Lacy was less than stellar, I disagree with the assertion that the audience was pro-Zuckerberg and anti-Lacy; by the end of the whole thing, we were all pretty anti-Facebook.

In the aftermath, it's interesting to read Lacy's post just before the interview, noting that she did the exact opposite. It's even more interesting in light of this video interview right after the backlash, where Lacy seems to place the blame on the audience rather than the fact that Zuckerberg is an awful speaker and that she wasn't prepared for the conference she was actually at.

The whole Facebook backlash groundswell has been coming for a long time, and frankly, is totally unsurprising. As soon as anything has a breakout moment, the detractors are already lined up predicting a fall from grace. However, after that trainwreck of a keynote, the whole "Facebook has jumped the shark" cliche feels a little bit closer to reality. Don't get me wrong, I hardly think Facebook is going anywhere, but a surefire way to make your service less useful for its actual members is to anger the community of program developers who are using your API to make add-ons to your service for free.

Lacy may not think that people like Zuckerberg need to talk about APIs and the future of the site as a whole -- and she may have a point, that isn't typical CEO speak for a company with the hype level and on-paper value as Facebook -- but that doesn't mean the issue shouldn't be addressed. If Zuckerberg is incapable of doing it, he should have the foresight to hire someone who is and send that person to an event like SXSWi.

In the end, I find that this whole experience perfectly personifies why many members "mainstream media" can't connect with web savvy audiences. We don't want to be fed the same lines and the same pitch over and over again. When the undercurrent of this conference is making personal and real connections, its pretty telling when the #1 social network on the planet comes across as the most impersonal.

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Three reasons IT departments are shrinking

Todd Ritter — 2008-01-07T20:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Business, Features, Analysis

Reading Network World's article about Nicholas Carr's new book The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google got us thinking about the future demise of corporate IT departments. So, in everyone's favorite format, here are our 3 reasons why traditional IT departments are shrinking:

Outsourcing - Whether it's customer service or application hosting, outsourcing is becoming more and more prevalant in the corporate IT world. Avoiding the financial overhead associated with running certain IT functions internally is often impetus for choosing to outsource. For instance, companies are presented with a choice between running e-mail in-house (pay IT staff salary and benefits, purchase servers and software, and find quality rack space) or outsourcing it to, for example, Google Apps which is free (though ad-supported) and includes popular groupware features like calendars, web pages, document sharing, etc. Similarly, sites like Salesforce.com can offer full customer-relationship management (CRM) software online for a fraction of the respective overhead required to run CRM in a company IT department.

Continue reading Three reasons IT departments are shrinking

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Scobleized : Why Facebook will never give your data back

Grant Robertson — 2008-01-03T12:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Business, Web services, Social Software, Analysis, web 2.0

Blogger/Internet socialite Robert Scoble has a problem. In attempting to scrape his personal data from Facebook (where he *had* several thousand "friends") he angered some of Facebook's internal monitoring drones and was forcefully removed from the service. True enough, what he was doing clearly violates Facebook's terms of service which state, "Thou shall not use automated means to scrape thine own data" but, should Facebook be allowed to collect the dossier you create through using the service, and then forbid you from getting a copy?

What's really at issue here is, who owns all this crazy social data you're constantly creating? Here's a tip; it's not you. All those clickwrap agreements -- or EULAs, also known as the Terms of Service document you never read -- say that Facebook can pretty much do whatever it wants with whatever data it manages to extort extract from you.

Still happy about the amount of time you spend on the most popular social networking site in the world? Or, rather, are you getting that icky, spine crawling feeling you get when you meet someone who knows just a little too much about you?

Continue reading Scobleized : Why Facebook will never give your data back

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The 5 most annoying programs on your PC

Ian Smith — 2008-01-01T09:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Audio, Business, Internet, Features, Windows, Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Analysis

Elephantware. That is what we are talking about. Bloated programs that make brand new PCs boot like Pentium 2s with 64 MBs of RAM.

This is software that causes your screen to freeze while it works, consumes enough system resources to display a reminder box letting you know there is a new, even bigger, version available for download. Software we've been forced to install so we can read some special document format, enjoy some DRM infected piece of media, or communicate with others who also live with the same brand of behemoth riding on their backs.

We all have it. We are all stuck with it. And, aside from a glimmer or two of hope, we can't expect to escape their boot screens, quick launch icons, or update reminders anytime soon.

This is the worst of the worst.

Continue reading The 5 most annoying programs on your PC

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Want to take an Ivy League course? All you may need is 'net access

Jason Harris — 2008-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Open Source, Analysis

An increasing number of educational institutions are putting courseware online for public consumption. We've known for a while that MIT had OpenCourseWare, but now Yale, Utah State University, Virginia Tech,and other schools are putting more educational content online. Some institutions are using YouTube while are others are using iTunes to allow web users entrance into their courses and lectures.

What do the educational institutions get out of putting their content online? Many things, including luring potential applicants, cheap marketing, money from donors, and keeping alumni connected to their alma mater. On the flipside, online courses offer users the ability to gain knowledge and skill in areas they may not be able afford a college class in.

Some professors have been trying this on a smaller scale. Individuals put some of their written materials on their websites or post podcasts and video podcasts on to video sharing sites. However we applaud entire universities who are coming together to make a wholesale stab at spreading knowledge through the Internet.

[via Washington Post]

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HTML 5 Wish List

Ian Smith — 2007-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Features, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Analysis

Application are moving online at a frighteningly speed. People are increasingly using their computers as little more than internet terminals and media players. All of this innovation has happened, in part, because HTML and the browser marketplace has been relatively stable (even FireFox's original goal was to work like IE - only better). All that said, we've started to push Javascript, CSS, and HTML about as far as they can go.

Let's face it, HTML 4 is old. Really old. No doubt older than your PC. Older than your iPod (older than the very first iPod). It was built and designed solely for document rendering in the days before NetFlix added ratings to their website and Google started mapping. Now we have spreadsheets, word processors, work flow engines, games, and outlook style email clients running within the web browser. All on HTML 4. All with multiple hacks to make the code run correctly in as many browsers as possible. All with inherent security vulnerabilities . Isn't it time for a new version of HTML?

Douglas Crockford thinks so. The man behind JSON, JSLINT, and Manic Mansion (of all things) has a lot to say on the subject and offers so very timely and useful suggestions on what the next version should look like.

Here is the a quick summary of his wish list and an explanation of why Google (of all people) may make fixing HTML impossible.:

Continue reading HTML 5 Wish List

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What happens on the web does NOT stay on the web

Brad Linder — 2007-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Analysis

The voice of the London Tube system lost her job this week after posting funny, but kind of inappropriate fake train announcements on her personal website.

Look, how many times do we have to tell you, the internet is not a private place? We understand when teenage kids who aren't thinking about their future post embarrassing photos on MySpace that could cost them jobs in the future. But if you're a grownup, shouldn't you be thinking twice about posting potentially inappropriate content online?

There does seem to be some question as to whether London Tube announcer Emma Clarke was fired purely for posting funny announcements on her site, or if it was because she as bad-mouthing her client in the press. But the truth of the matter is, it probably wasn't a good idea to poke fun at the train system or passengers in a public forum while drawing a paycheck.

Fortunately for Clarke, she appears to be a freelance writer and voiceover artist. And something tells me that the publicity she's getting for this whole dust up will keep her working for a little while. If her mock announcements were just a bit funnier, maybe she could get work as a comedian. But honestly, most her jokes just weren't all that funny.

[via Boing Boing]

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Douglas Crockford: The State of Ajax

Ian Smith — 2007-11-08T12:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Video, Adobe, Microsoft, Mozilla, Yahoo!, Analysis, web 2.0

It isn't every day that Douglas Crockford (the father of JSON and JSLint) pops up with a new tech talk. In this one he discusses the current state of Ajax development, why mashups are inherently insecure, why the standards process is broken, and how our best hope for a newer better platform may be mobile. Say what?

Basically he proposes the idea that because the replacement rate on mobile phones is so quick (around 2 years) it would be possible to move that industry to a new platform for website interactivity. The traditional PC market moves slowly and requires that you support many many legacy platforms. But with mobile, you can run and gun with your technology and count on people upgrading. A new web platform for mobile could be Flash, it could be Silverlight, it could be a future version of ECMA Script (JavaScript) with a better CSS implementation.

The video also gives a good overview of the history of computing over networks and why the web has lagged behind on everything from rounded corners to security.

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Facebook News Feed Fatigue

Ian Smith — 2007-11-07T14:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Social Software, Analysis

Do you login to your Facebook account each morning and immediately feel exhausted? Does looking at your friends weekend activities, application adds, and recent comments make you want crawl back into your nice warm bed and never get up again? You may be suffering from a sleep disorder known as "Facebook Fatigue."

Fear not! Facebook Fatigue is a common problem that is easily remedied with caffeine and lots and lots of super pokes.

Seriously though, is there anything actually useful in Facebook news feeds these days? Aren't most entries a crude form of personal spam? It is like free web mail all over again. Only instead of body modification drugs and unbelievably good stock deals cluttering up your Inbox, you have to wade through an endless stream of meaningless updates on the lives of your sort-of-friends.

Its like Star Magazine, only the people in it aren't rich, they aren't beautiful, they certainly aren't popular, and the most interesting thing they've done in the last 48 hours is add the True or False application. Come on! Get over yourselves people!

Facebook is like a personal invitation for people you hardly know to cry "Hey! Look at me!" over and over again each day. And now, to make matters worse, there is a Facebook News Network! Can things get any worse?

Probably.

This little gem was produced by Train of Thought sketch comedy in Seattle. Hopefully we'll see more like it in the future. Overzealous Facebook users need a good round of mocking once in a while.

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The Squadcast - Episode #01

Grant Robertson — 2007-11-06T14:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Video, Features, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Apple, Google, Analysis, Podcasts

In this episode:
The Asus Eee PC : Portable Linux at four-hundred bucks
Gmail + IMAP = love.
Christina's first week with OS X Leopard

Have topics you'd like to see us tackle in future episodes? Corrections? Email the Squadcast team, 'squadcast (at) downloadsquad.com'.

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Digg's failing democracy

Ian Smith — 2007-10-22T12:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Internet, Features, Social Software, Analysis, web 2.0

Digg has a problem. What was once a haven of obscure, insightful, and breaking news has become a cesspool of dated headlines, generic brand commentary, and fan-boy-blog spam. What happened? Why do the vast majority of front page links come from "popular" websites who feature a prominent "digg it" button on every article? Is there some conspiracy afloat? Is digg rewarding websites that send them a lot of traffic?

Can we demand a recount?

Sadly no. Digg's problem isn't one of cronyism or corruption, it is far worse. Digg has always been a poorly planned community. There, we said it.

To make matters worse, digg's phenomenal growth illustrates its own failure. If it were a nation, we would call it a failing state with a bumming population. A population easily and unwittingly manipulated by the craftiness of other large and powerful websites.

Need proof?

Of the 15 front page articles this morning:

7 were from popular blogs that featured the familiar "digg it" badge
5 were from popular sites that featured a prominent submit to digg button
2 were from popular mainstream news sites
1 was from a small town newspaper.

The problem really starts on the upcoming page. Here digg's increasing popularity attracts far more submissions than the diggers on the upcoming page can handle. A random check reveals 34 new links in the last two minutes. In another two minutes those links will be buried on the 4th or 5th page having never received a digg. A visit to page 40 in the upcoming queue reveals only one link that has garnered more than 3 diggs, and that link is from a popular website with the (you guessed it) digg it button at the top of the page.

How could this happen? Have diggers simply stopped caring about their own community?

Continue reading Digg's failing democracy

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AT&T Wireless drops iPhone from main page

David Chartier — 2007-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Business, Design, Internet, Apple, Analysis

[Update: As readers are pointing out, the iPhone is appearing in various other, though sometimes obscure, areas of AT&T's site. We stated in our post that this could simply be nothing, so that fact should probably be reiterated given that this does seem to be a false alarm. Guess the version of the site in our screenshot could have easily been a fluke, capped in the middle of a redesign or who knows what else. Thanks for keeping us on our game everyone, as for now, there doesn't seem to be anything else to see here. Let's all move along.]

Rumors that Apple is wearing the pants a little too often in their iPhone relationship with AT&T have received a boost, now that the wireless carrier seems to have stopped promoting the pricey phone on their main page barely a month after its June 29th launch. While we know that Apple negotiated an unprecedented deal for a percentage of every iPhone customer's monthly contract, many suspect AT&T is becoming less and less happy with the rest of Apple's plans. Note, for example, the iPhone's lack of any integration with AT&T's profitable video, audio and ringtone offerings - all things that Apple either sells through their iTunes Store right now or, in the case of ringtones, is widely expected to with a future software update. The more software and media-based services Apple prepares to unleash, the more monthly, revolving revenue passes by AT&T's bottom line.

Of course, another possibility here is that the iPhone has received all the promotion it needs from AT&T. The device has arguably succeeded in Apple's marketing efforts to get it inserted into all the major media hubs, from the Today Show to Steven Colbert. Still, after adorning the pages of Cingular-turned-AT&T during the six month period since its announcement in January of this year, the iPhone's sudden disappearance from the main page and even the phone-specific page is raising our eyebrows.

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Acer president slams Windows Vista, says industry is "disappointed"

David Chartier — 2007-07-25T22:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Business, OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft, Analysis

It's one thing when a blogger or a journalist harps on Microsoft for one thing or another - but it's something else entirely when the president of the world's 4th largest PC manufacturer claims "the whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista." In a statement to Financial Times Deutschland this week, Acer president Gianfranco Lanci bashed Microsoft and their latest OS, citing the fact that many home and business customers of Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo (formerly IBM) and Toshiba are so upset with Vista that they're demanding Windows XP be made available for order. It's a bold statement from a company on the up and up in the paper-thin margin, highly competitive PC industry.

Not surprisingly, the other companies joining Acer in the XP bucket haven't made any kind of statement, but they have to be feeling at least some of the same burn. With mainstream users getting confused by Vista's new features and a 3rd party industry dragging their feet to offer support for the new OS, Vista is stuck between a rock and a hard place, struggling to gain market share from adopters who are reluctant to make the leap until support for all their existing software and peripherals arrives. Frustration and hesitation is further compounded by the fact that Windows 7, or 'Vienna,' is right around the corner for 2009 or 2010, as it is reported to be a complete rewrite of the Windows code base from the ground up, requiring everyone to follow suit with complete rewrites of their software and drivers.

Aside from niche markets and power users, Lanci might have been half right with his statement. Though instead of being 'disappointed' with Vista, it seems like the industry might simply be 'disinterested' in the OS, at least for now.

[via 1 Microsoft Way]

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Backpack receives major update

David Chartier — 2007-07-25T00:59:00+00:00

Filed under: Design, Internet, Text, Features, Productivity, Web services, Social Software, Analysis, web 2.0

After all that teasing, 37signals has flipped the switch on a major upgrade to Backpack, their incredibly popular web-based PIM service that can store and organize lists, notes, pictures and files. As if features like sharing / collaboration and mobile phone access weren't cool enough, this major release takes Backpack productivity to entirely new heights.

One of the most interesting on the list of new changes is a much-updated UI, from a movement of the toolbar to the top of the pages (pictured) to the much-requested ability to drag and drop any list, note, pictures or file from one page to another. While the toolbar's new location initially feels like a good move, we find ourselves missing the authority of the previous design, as the buttons to create new lists and notes stood out a bit better.

Almost as drool-worthy as drag and drop abilities, users can now also search across all their Backpack pages. A new searchbox mounted in the upper right (directly underneath the 'Make a new page' button) should satisfy most users who use Backpack for more than a few tidbits of info. Searching seems pretty zippy, and your search term is highlighted among the listed results.

Continuing the healthy list of changes are other welcome new features, such as multiple photo galleries per page and RSS feeds for shared pages so you can keep an eye on changes made by everyone else. Altogether, this is a great update and we're very satisfied with the new features. With accounts ranging in price from 'free' up to $14/month, we recommend Backpack more than ever for anyone from casual users who need a simple web-based locker for storing bits and pieces of their daily adventures, to power users with a serious case of GTD or project management on their back.

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Majority of Support.com users confused with Vista's new features

David Chartier — 2007-07-23T11:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Business, Windows, Productivity, Analysis, Troubleshooting

Todd Haselton at Ars Technica's 1 Microsoft Way journal is reporting that the majority of Support.com's customers are confused by some of Vista's significant new changes. After opening their doors for service in June, a tally of that month's support calls revealed that a whopping 77 percent were to get help with Vista, with a surprising 30 percent of those calls simply asking for help on how to navigate Vista's controversial new Aero interface.

Considering that Support.com is a commercial service, we're going to agree with 1 Microsoft Way that their greater constituency is probably more on the newbie side than your typical Flash drive-slinging, Google-searching computer nut. That said, Support.com's report of confusion among the mainstream ranks can be taken in a number of ways, depending on whether you're a fan of the significant changes - some arguably for the sake of change alone - that Microsoft made with Vista. The findings become even more significant when you consider the fact that Windows users - people who have already been using the product for months, years or perhaps decades - are getting lost when they sit down and try to navigate through the new translucent black jungle Microsoft introduced.

Still, Support.com is but a drop in the bucket of the mainstream Vista reaction, so it would be interesting to see support request results from larger players like Dell and Best Buy's Geek Squad for a much larger gulp of the big picture.

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YouTube needs a system for detecting duplicates

David Chartier — 2007-07-04T11:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Internet, Video, Social Software, Analysis, Search

Considering YouTube's undeniable 800 lb gorilla status in the video sharing space, it's becoming more and more apparent that the company needs to develop some sort of a system for detecting duplicate video uploads. Even digg and Netscape - who are admittedly social news and bookmarking sites with different issues to worry about - have a decent dupe system, as they both watch for identical URL submissions and titles, alerting the user when they aren't the first to submit a link.

So why can't YouTube make its user's lives easier by doing something like this? Granted, YouTube and others are still working on video analysis and detection technology, but what about a simple system that watches for duplications and similarities in titles, descriptions and video lengths? Searching YouTube for just about any popular music video typically returns at least half a page or more of the same exact video uploaded by users who either couldn't bother searching, or those who simply don't care and feel some need to provide their own copy for their loyal viewers.

If YouTube got their act together and created a duplicate warning system, as well as a way for users to link and share each other's videos under their own accounts, it would do wonders for cleaning up the expanding mess of duplicates, as well as simply navigating and searching the web's most popular video sharing and streaming service. As a bonus, YouTube would no longer need to host endless copies of some videos, and stats like ratings and view counts would be far more accurate due to what could be a significant drop, or possibly even an eradication, of duplicates. Everyone wins.

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An open response to an IFPI board member

Grant Robertson — 2007-06-15T16:07:00+00:00

Filed under: News, Blogging, Analysis

Recently, when a counterclaim was filed by Ms. Del Cid against the RIAA containing allegations of Trespass, Computer Fraud and Abuse, Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices, Civil Extortion, and Civil conspiracy, we published a short editorial on our perception of the unfolding events. Del Cid's allegations are quite serious; in her and her lawyer's view the RIAA broke serious criminal statutes while amassing evidence for their case.

Our editorializing seems to have ruffled the feathers of an IFPI executive who is now threatening action, not against us, but against another blog who simply linked to our piece. In an effort to quell what Paul Birch of Revolver Records calls, "malicious statements and blogs on the internet" he has threatened Andrew Dubber of the blog New Music Strategies with veiled words about lawsuits, and by directly threatening to file a formal complaint against him with the University of Central England, Dubber's employer. All because in the course of discussion on the topic Andrew Dubber's blog follows exclusively he felt it relevant to link to something we wrote.

Shame on you Mr. Birch.

We may not like hot dogs Mr. Birch. However, when we see someone eating one we don't attempt to knock it out of his hand, we simply continue to eat our hamburger and remind ourselves that the hot dog eater is free to hold whatever belief, preference or opinion he wishes. If the juicy hamburger of opinion we attempted to share with our readers offends you, you have every right to say so. Threatening the career of another human being who shares our distaste for hot dogs is unethical and wrong. Just as it would be if we slapped the hot dog from your hand.

The defendant in this case has every right to file counterclaim against your sister organization, the RIAA and we have every right to offer opinion on that counterclaim. Andrew Dubber has every right to link to our opinion in the course of conversation. These are all luxuries we enjoy and obligations we undertake as members of an advanced and free society. You also have the legal right to complain to anyone about whatever you deem worthy of complaint; Ethically and professionally however, you've planted yourself on rather shaky ground.

Let me make perfectly clear; We'd do it again. I've personally followed the RIAA/BPI/IFPI's litigious nonsense for years, writing many widely read and well respected articles on the subject. I've never, nor has anyone who writes for this blog, made any threatening statements -- as Paul Birch claims -- or given more than opinion from the perspective of a music fan, computer expert and hobby-grade legal analyst. RIAA lawsuits are a subject we feel passionate about; Not because we support widespread and rampant piracy but because we are dedicated to individuals like ourselves who increasingly come under attack from corporate interests, and the erosion of fair use rights. We firmly believe that the RIAA's legal tactics are unfair, advantageous and despicable, and we know quite well the stories of lives which have been torn apart financially and, emotionally by their incorrectly aimed "scattergun" approach to legal action.

If Paul Birch would like to discuss how he feels we've been wrong -- how we've "singled out RIAA management" for malicious statements -- we welcome his inquiry. I'd personally love to discuss the concept of malice with a high-ranking executive in the music business.

Paul, you can personally reach me, Grant Robertson, the Lead Blogger of Download Squad by email or through our comment system. I look forward to your reply.

Update: Andrew Dubber's blog has gone off-line for reasons which are still unclear. Jon Newton of P2Pnet has republished the email exchange between Dubber and Birch in full, Thanks Jon!

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Cameroid - blatant Photobooth rip, but well done

Jason Clarke — 2007-06-14T12:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Design, Fun, Kids, Photo, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Web services, Apple, Time-Wasters, Analysis

Windows users: if you've ever been jealous of a Mac simply because it comes with Photobooth built in, (you know, that silly webcam toy that lets you make yourself and your friends look ridiculous? Yeah, that one...) well now you have one less reason to be jealous of Macs. A website called Cameroid has taken the Photobooth concept and put it online. And let's just say that if you didn't know Photobooth that well, you could easily mistake Cameroid for it.

So long as Apple doesn't mind, who are we to judge anyway? Cameroid is a very well done web toy, using Adobe's Flash functionality to gain access to your webcam. Once that is working, there are veritable minutes of fun to be had squishing your face and saving the pictures to... um... look at later? While the fun value of taking distorted pictures of oneself is clearly in the eyes of the beholder, Cameroid is a well executed site that performs exactly as advertised.

Cameroid works on any platform that supports giving Flash access to a webcam.

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