Articles


iPod pushes WMA off of Audio CDs

According to an article from Wired, Apple's success with the iPod has pushed MacroVision and SunnComm (the leading producers of audio CD copy protection) to get rid of their Microsoft Windows Audio (MWA) format songs on the current crop of copy protected CDs. What's in the cards is not entirely …

Paulsen Clan gets larger

No, I'm not talking about my "honeymoon weight", I'm talking about our new nephew, Griffith James Paulsen, son of Derek and Stacey Paulsen, born on July 9th, 2004. Mother and child are doing well (as are father, and all of the assorted grandparents). I'll post a link to Derek's web …

A tale of two developer's attitudes

So, what makes one developer (NetNewsWire's Brent Simmons) so different in attitude from another (Konfabulator's Arlo Rose? Is it just basic bent? Viability of their idea? Or a lack of understanding of the creative and industrial processes. What's the deal? At Apple's World-Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC) this week, Apple announced …

Ridiculous INDUCE act with commentary

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has proposed the INDUCE act of 2004 (originally the Inducement Devolves into Unlawful Child Exploitation Act of 2004, but retitled Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004). The act would potentially outlaw anything that anybody could do that would conceivably be considered by any reasonable person …

XGrid agent comes to Linux (and other unixes)

In another interesting demonstration of open protocols and open source, Apple's grid computing initiative, XGrid, has been ported to generic Unix (including, especially, Linux and Solaris). Code, instructions, and details can be found at the XGrid for Linux web site.

iTunes Music Store sells 800,000 songs in Europe

In it's first week of operation, Apple's iTunes Music Store has sold 800,000 songs. According to Apple, their closest competitor (OD2) has sold just 1/16th the number songs last week in the UK as Apple, who sold 450,000. OD2 appears to operate: MyCokeMusic.com Virgin Music Tiscali …

Apple toots own horn at congressional security hearing

Apple's Chief Software Technology Officer, Dr. Avie Tevanian, has given testimony (PDF) along with a number of other computer industry executives, about computer security in the home. The testimony basically talks about how building security in from the ground up, providing good security tools, frequent updates, and network diversity all …

US commercial space vehicles

The FAA's Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) has published a bunch of information including a very nice glossy brochure about the launch vehicles and launch sites in the US being used for commercial launches. Find them here.


DRM talk to Microsoft

EFF representative Cory Doctorow gave a talk to Microsoft about DRM (Digital Rights Management) on June 17th, 2004. An electronic transcript is available. Not surprisingly, it details why DRM is bad and will lead to no good in technological, social, and business terms. One of the most interesting passages was …


Sony's circuitous IP attack on Apple?

OK, I'll admit that this one may be even a bit far fetched for me, but take a look at the information and tell me if it doesn't look like a good deal for Sony. According to reports from a number of locations, including CNet, Sony has settled with European …

OQO shows off pocket Windows XP machine

Startup company, OQO is showing off their OQO Model 01 hand-held computer. It's a bit larger than an iPod and weighs 14 oz., but runs full-fledged Windows XP on a 1GHz Transmeta CPU with a 20GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM. The machine also packs Bluetooth, WiFi (802.11b …

Xerox Phaser 8400 printer

As I was preparing for the wedding, I finally decided to change my main printer (after 2 mostly happy years with the Xerox 860DP). The 8400 is the first "true Xerox" version of the Phaser product line and I evaluated costs and features of a number of printers before deciding …

Alias releases SketchBook Pro for the Mac

Alias, formerly Alias|Wavefront, now owned by SGI (although in the process of being acquired by management) has released SketchBook Pro, a sketching program for free-hand artists. The software has been available for Windows for about a year, but Alias has decided to make it available to Macintosh users. Basically …

Back from the honeymoon

We're back from the honeymoon and the pictures aren't ready yet. I need to do some modifications to the server over the next few days, so I likely won't be getting around to posting the travel info for another week or so. Thanks to those of you who sent pictures …

DirecTV launches additional satellite using SeaLaunch

In an effort to bring local channels to another 41 local areas in the US, DirecTV has launched another satellite, this time using the Sea Launch sea-borne commercial launch facility. Sea Launch uses a sea-borne launch facility usually position near the equator in the Pacific Ocean to launch commercial payloads …

AMD beats Intel in CPU sales

As the folks at Ars Technica explain, it's only one week, but for the week ending April 24,2004, AMD beat Intel in desktop CPU sales. Laptops are still the purview of Intel (81% or so), but losing the 60% desktop race still hurts.

The parking lot ate my car

I don't want to write a thousand words about this one, so here's the picture from the Baltimore Sun. Editor Unfortunately, the picture related to this story is no longer available at any link I could find.