Corporate Lawers at Creative and T-Mobile are like Dumb and Dumber

 Credit to Ryan Block for the image.

Just when I thought corporations and their lawyers couldn’t get any dumber, I’m proven wrong.  There’s been two incidents in the last few days that show just how out of touch most corporations care.  First, Creative sent a Cease and Desist to an independent developer for writing working Vista drivers for some of their products.  (Warning: This post is high on internet dramaboy-ism.)

Then our friends at T-Mobile send a Cease and Desist to Engadget for using the color magenta.  Apparently the color magenta is trademarked property of Deutsche Telekom.  Who knew?  Anyway, Engadget and the Internets are fighting back.  Engadget is “Painting the Town Magenta”  and others are joining in solidarity.  I’m joining in on the fun because I can’t resist a meaningless internet revolt.  Besides, someone has to stand up against the over-excited corporate lawyers. 🙂

So for today, I’m painting the blog magenta.  And I’d like to say to Creative and Deutsche Telekom in the words of Ben Stern: “Don’t be stupid you morons.”

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A year on WordPress

The blog has now been up a year.  It has been a fun, interesting, and educational experience.  I’m proud of what I have been to contribute over the last year.  I look forward to another exciting year.  Thanks for being a part of it!!!  Harry

Happy New Year!!!

2007 was a fun year in technology.  I can’t wait for 2008!

Must read blog for the 2008 election season

If you’ve read my About Me page, you know that one of my interests is politics.  I’ve found a blog that’s is the best of both worlds for a politics loving geek like me.  It’s called techPresident.  Here’s what they say about themselves:

TechPresident was started by Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry as a new group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web, and vice versa, how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign.

The 2008 election will be the first where the Internet will play a central role, not only in terms of how the campaigns use technology, but also in how voter-generated content affects its course. TechPresident.com plans to track all these changes in real-time, covering everything from campaign websites, online advertising and email lists to the postings on YouTube and who’s got the fastest growing group of friends on MySpace.

Our team of bloggers is made of veterans of the 2004 and 2006 elections, ranging across the political spectrum. Their expertise covers everything from website design to the latest in mobile tools and social networking sites. And we’ll look closely not just at what the campaigns are or are not doing, but what voters and activists are doing online to independently affect the election.

There is also a long list of contributors.  Have fun and Remember to Vote!

Advice to Apple Store shoppers: Don’t take pictures of yourself.

I went shopping yesterday at the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island.  I stopped at the Apple Store to check prices and do a couple minutes worth of surfing.  I noticed a shared drive on the desktop, so I decided to look around.  One of the funny things I found was pictures people had taken themselves (probably using iChat).  The first picture I saw was by far the funniest.  Enjoy:

Lots of stuff to talk about…

I apologize that I haven’t posted anything in a while.  I got married on June 30th and I disconnected from as much as possible for most of June.  There’s a lot going on in my world.  I have been promoted at work, while we are moving to a new location, and several ongoing projects are … ongoing.  Oh, and someone quit.  On the tech front, there’s lots of interesting little news stories out there.  Keep an eye out for all the techno babble to come.  🙂

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the most recited number since 867-5309.

Last night I witnessed the digital equivalent of the LA Riots.  You probably know the story already, so I am going to give you my take.  Someone posted a 2 month old  hex code that somehow cracks HD-DVD DRM on digg.com.  The code was deleted.  Then someone reposted it.  It got 15K+ diggs.  It was deleted and Digg.com users went nuts.  Digg’s CEO pulled a Rodney King and asked people to “give peace a chance.”  That didn’t work out so well.  The site was inundated with stories that included the code soon after.  Anything that wasn’t the code was dugg down.  Eventually digg caved.  I have a few thoughts on this:

• People went nuts because someone was trying to delete something as simple as a hex code off the Internet.  It’s not just about cesorship or just about DRM.  The idea that someone would try to delete something off the internet is offensive, scary, and revolting.
• The code is unimportant.  Most people don’t know what to do with it and those that do will get it either way.  Reminds me of the history of the 21 Club.  Coincidentally, I had lunch there today.
• The RIAA, MPAA, AACS, and others need to stop treating “consumers” like criminals.  We’re customers, not criminals.  Make a worthwhile product and people will buy it.  It’s a bad thing when your “customers” hate your guts.
• Yesterday’s Digg riot will go down as a significant moment in the history of the Internet.  It’s a day when a Top 90 site had to face a digital revolt over bad policy.  The site’s own features were used against it.

There are plenty of news articles on this all over the place, so I am going to link to something else.  The cynics at Something Awful had a lot of interesting things to say.  Check them out here and here.

Update: And the You Tube responses are just hysterical.

Binary to Hex converter tool

I found a nice tool for your Binary to Hex conversion needs.  Here’s a sample binary code:

1001 11111001 00010001 0010 10011101 01110100 11100011 01011011 11011000 01000001 01010110 11000101 01100011 01010110 10001000 11000000

http://www.easycalculation.com/binary-converter.php

Lots of Visio stencils in one place

A site called Visio Cafe has compiled a large collection of Visio stencils for many HW manufacturers.  This is very useful.

http://www.visiocafe.com 

Tool to convert just about any file type to any other file type. Also convert YouTube video to file.

I found an incredibly useful tool that allows you to convert just about any file type to any other similar file type.  MP3 to AAC, WMV to AVI, DOC to PDF, etc.  This tool also allows you to enter a URL and convert the content to another format.  That means that you can convert any YouTube video to any video format and store it on your machine.  SWEET

http://www.zamzar.com