Gettin' Tracked

There is a big uproar in the media right now about digital privacy and tracking. People are uneasy about the idea of the Goog tracking their every move and selling that information to 3rd parties.

I am struggling to understand what the big deal is.

I get really annoyed at spam. I get really annoyed at junk mail. But I haven't noticed this online tracking resulting in significantly more spam. If anything the spam filters are getting better and better. I still get a little but not that much. The junk mail that the USPS delivers to my house every day is more annoying.

I get a lot of free stuff from Google. Hell, this blog your reading now is a service from google that I enjoy for free. I'm not opposed to compensating google with a little tracking info in exchange for all this free stuff.

Other than being annoyed by spam... I can't think of any material way that I have been harmed by all this tracking. Yet.

There is one thing that annoys me... I constantly have to log out of google in order to get proper search results. If, for example, I go to the YouTube site without first logging out of google; then youtube is only going to feed me videos that relate to my recent google searches. Sometimes I DON'T want my search results prioritised like that. So I have to log out.

Gettin' Hacked

My home network was recently hacked. I am only aware of the intrusion because I happened to be using the computer they gained access to at the moment they gained access. Their address pointed back to Spain, but they could have been anywhere.

My home network is connected to the rest of the world through a Motorola WiMax modem running on *gag* clearwire networks operated by Sprint. The modem is a Sprint branded device.

Let me say that again... the modem is a Sprint branded device.

I hate how all these networks brand their hardware. They don't make the hardware. They don't know about the hardware. But they sure know how to screw it up.

The Motorola CPEi 150 WiMax modem has a web-accessible interface with password protection. You can set the password to anything you want.

Sprint thought this would be too confusing for people. So they permanently set the password in firmware.

So if anybody would like to install a backdoor in my modem that will let them access my home network with ease... the password is MOTOROLA.

Thanks to Sprint, there is nothing I can do to change that. They won't let me. Bastards.

I called Sprint and asked for new firmware that would let me fix this. They said I would have to get it from Motorola. When I called Motorola, they told me their contract with Sprint prevents them from offering any customer support at all.

What the F--- has happened to customer tech support?

Astrophotography

I did some astronomy projects back in school and was really amazed by how much more a camera is able to see than the human eye. Even a basic point-and-shoot camera mounted in front of the eyepiece of a telescope can take some pretty amazing shots. I just wish I had more time for hobbies like this!

So here is a picture of Betelgeuse I took last night. The image of Betelgeuse is not amazing. What's really amazing is the field of stars behind it. When I looked through the telescope with my eye I could see Betelgeuse and maybe a hint of one or two other stars. But when I "developed" the digital picture by increasing the brightness and contrast, hundreds of other stars came into view.

Now, this is only one picture from one night. Another really amazing thing to do is take the same picture night after night and make a flip book out of them. You can watch darkness fall on the moon or a planet make its way across the background stars. This is also how some near-earth objects are found.

(click on the picture to open the full-size version)

Windows 8

Linux has repositories. Repositories are nice. Every distribution has their main repositories and it's not difficult to get software into them. People can even set up their own repositories in the form of a ppa. You can add or remove repositories from your system as you need to. The system gives you the control. It has been this way for years. It is good.

Apple saw this and thought... what a great way to make money! Enter the app store or whatever you call it. It's genius. Instead of person A making software and person B buying it, now person A pays apple money to put their app in the app store and person B pays Apple money to buy it. Apple gets you coming and going.

Now they have put this on their desktop Mac OS too. The newest version is restricted to ONLY allow software from the app store. Of course this can be overridden... for now.

Now comes along Windows 8. They changed the UI just enough to make you have to re-code your old programs for the new interface. And where will those new programs be? Why, in the app store!

What happens when they remove the override? What happens when you have to jailbreak your desktop too... or else only run programs from the app stores?

(on a side note, i believe paid app stores are making nice, good software harder to find while fart apps top the charts as most popular... but i digress...)

I didn't like the iphone and I don't like android because the user experience is too restricted to what the companies want you to have. They are taking over control of our devices.

And now it's spreading to our desktops...

Long Live Linux!

Custom EDIDs

Is technology getting any better?

When I used analog video to a CRT I could get 1600x1200 resolution and it was easy. I could manually set the PC to output whichever resolution I wanted. The greatest invention was a piece of software that automatically reverted the video settings within 10 seconds if I didn't click 'OK'. Things were easy.

Now I use digital video over hdmi to a 5.1 receiver and a 1920x1080 flat panel. Better? The resolution is about the same, but the surround sound is nice. But the PC tries to automatically detect the resolution of the display. This fails of course since the receiver is between the PC and the display. But I don't get any failure message, the PC just reverts to some low resolution. No problem, I can just manually set the resolution higher, right? Wrong. If the graphics driver isn't SURE the monitor can do it, it doesn't even give me the option. No, I have to download the ID file from the display to my hard drive and then manually override the detected monitor with the saved file. It took me twice as long just to EXPLAIN that situation.

The thing is... the software has a million options and can do just about anything. But GUIs don't exist for any of it. I have to find manuals, read them, and use command-line options to implement them. Why do they make me work so hard? Where are the GUIs? Grrrr

2013 predictions

My tech predictions for a year from now:

Microsoft Windows will lose market share to Mac and Linux. Combined with the flop of Windows Phone, Microsoft will have a major change in marketing direction.

After the flop of Windows Phone, Nokia and Canonical will start selling handsets with Ubuntu and Nokia will regain market share. This will restore market demand for platform-independent mobile apps. Android will do something to bring support for other high-level languages but will fall short. Apple will do nothing and release new devices with ever-increasing price tags.

"Big TV" will still be completely against internet streaming.

More prototype transparent video glasses will be demoed and they will still be too expensive for the commercial market.

Ubuntu Unity

Unity + CairoDock = Mac. err....

I'm not going to complain about that. I wouldn't use Unity without cairodock. It gives me a fall-back "start menu." Seriously... if you installed a program and then forgot about it... how would you ever find it again?

But if you have lightweight hardware... Ubuntu is no longer a viable distro. But that's fine. It never was the best for light hardware anyway. There are lots of other distros for that.

I can see how Unity has evolved to a point where you can do "real work." I actually like that I get more screen space when maximizing windows.

Now please... get it on a real handset device... no side-saddling with android!