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GeekNights 070910 - Tech News Roundup
Tonight on GeekNights, it's a Tech News Roundup! We cover everything interesting from the last several weeks in the world of technology. Instead of the "news" news, Scott has a geekbite and Rym has a geekback.
Scott's Thing - Solar Plane
Rym's Thing - Internet People
Scott's Thing - Solar Plane
Rym's Thing - Internet People
Comments
I like the art enough that I'm going to actually write a stupid id3 thing, simply for the fact that I HATE using a GUI and all of the command line editors like to make broken id3s.
It all ties back into the DRM issue as well. Your computer is fully capable of copying the music, but the presence or lack of software prevents it from happening. The iPhone, iPod Touch, and the Zune are all capable of being podcatchers, PDAs, etc. but the manufacturers of those devices do not write software which allows the hardware to be used to its full potential. Even the Wii and DS have this problem with Nintendo not making games that fulfill the potential of the hardware. This is why you have people installing Linux on iPods and such.
Thus is the frustration of the tech geek. We walk around carrying a fistfull of gadgets that contain hardware capable of performing tasks A-Z, but one performs A, one B, one C, one D through Q, one L through V, and one W through X. None of the devices do Y or Z, which is what you want to do most. It sucks.
I do agree that 99 cent for the ability to use a song I already own as a ring tone is both incredibly brilliant marketing ploy and also incredibly annoying from a DRM rights issue.
TV Listings: http://titantv.com/quickguide/quickguide.aspx
I'm not sure if it outputs XML but it's fairly useful for checking times.
Most of it was stuff which is less than 3 years old...and a lot of it was this year (chocolate rain, dick in a box, etc.) only thing nostalgic I saw in it was Rocketboom - but that was because I stopped watching it after it changed the host...and I believe that was meant to be Amanda in the video.
I have a very good IMAP account at the university. I can check my mail with the web interface everywhere, but it's far easier to use a mail client. I agree that the IMAP account alone could be replaced by Gmail, but I also have to check several other POP accounts regularly (*). My beloved Thunderbird email client checks every account, filters spam and transfers mail from the POP accounts to the appropriate folders on the IMAP account making old messages available to me when I'm not at home. I also need to send mail from the different accounts (official club mail), which Thunderbird handles nicely.
(*) I'm responsible for the official mail accounts for a couple of clubs. I also have ISP and web hotel messages, and I can't redirect the mail at the server side for all those accounts.
I actually have a grudge against Gmail. I got an account just to check it out, but have so far only used it to send test mail back and forth between my own accounts. I have never given the address to anybody else, but I still get about 100 spam mails per day, much, much more than any other of my accounts. Gmail filter most of them nicely, BUT WHERE THE HELL DID THE SPAMMERS GET THAT ADDRESS?! It must have leaked out of Gmail somehow, because my user name is not easy to guess for the spam bots.
If you have several email accounts like I do, Gmail is not sufficient.Again, forwarding. Trivial to set up.
HERE THE HELL DID THE SPAMMERS GET THAT ADDRESS?! It must have leaked out of Gmail somehow, because my user name is not easy to guess for the spam bots.First, if your user name appears anywhere else on the Internet, it's likely part of the spam bot lexicon. Second, it's basically free to spam every single combination of email address possible per domain. It's highly unlikely that Google "leaked" your address.
Also, why on earth would you care how much spam an account gets if it's all blocked? It doesn't affect you if you never see it.
All email can be redirected. If it can't, then the service you're using is extremely broken, or else you simply don't know how to do it...
Conclusion:
Since I learned today that Gmail can check other POP accounts, and because I will lose my IMAP account in a not so distant future, I will probably move to Gmail unless something better comes along. I did a search and found out that my Gmail user name is used quite often in Spanish speaking countries (I would never have guessed that), which could explain why the spam bots have tried that user name at Gmail. I have now made a new account with a less obvious user name. If that isn't flooded with spam in a few weeks, I will seriously consider moving.