Vintage electronic memory

Having relatively cheap, 64-bit, multi-core processors readily available for desktops is great. The boost in performance is more than welcome. The only monkey wrench in this scenario is that some software still has to get properly ported to run as 64-bit applications.

I recently had a nearly week-long nightmare trying to get Firefox to play Flash content. I moved to a newer, Intel-based 64-bit system running CEntOS 5.4, from my four-year old, single-core AMD64-based system. Things generally went well, even though I had to manually reconstruct a few mail directories. The real big snag was when Firefox just would not play any Flash content.

I got to working on the problem as soon as I could. I followed the instructions to download the Adobe Flash plugin. Then I made sure to download and install the nspluginwrapper plugin and Viewer (nspluginwrapper and nspluginwrapper-i386), which you can download from here. I ran nspluginwrapper and imported the Adobe plugin, which was copied into the correct directories.

Then I ran Firefox. No cigar. it just wouldn’t work.

After doing some reading, I tried another tack. I could uninstall the 64-bit version of Firefox and install the 32-bit version. That way, I could use the 32-bit Flash plugin directly without having to use nspluginwrapper. But that led to a dead end. Firefox kept on exiting abnormally. I even tried re-installing nspluginwrapper (wrapper and viewer) and testing various combinations of the wrapper, viewer, and flash plugin. No dice. The only time Firefox would keep running was when I removed the Flash plugin, or after I re-installed the 64-bit version of Firefox. But, alas, Flash content would not play.

I was at the end of my rope on this until I ran into an entry on PluginDoc (Part of Mozdev.Org), about an alpha-quality, 64-bit Flash Plugin. Now that might work! I wasn’t too happy about running alpha software on my system, but it was worth a shot. Here’s the link on PluginDoc:

• Mozilla Plugin Support on Linux (x86_64)
  http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/linux-amd64.html#flash

The Release Notes and download link for the software can also be found at:

• Flash Player for 64-bit Linux Alpha Release Notes
  http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/releasenotes_64bit.html

Installation was simple. Simply unpackage the tar.gz file and copy the libflashplayer.so file into my plugin directory (~/.mozilla/plugins). I also had to remove any existing 32-bit plugins. This meant uninstalling the nspluginwrapper and nspluginwrapper-i386 (running rpm -e as root).

That worked! Finally!

What’s funny is that I forgot to uninstall the 32-bit Adobe Flash plugin. I guess it didn’t matter though, since Firefox looked for plugins in the folders within my home directory.

I hope they have a stable, General Availability version of the 64-bit Adobe Flash Plugin soon!

I’ve had an interest in photography ever since the early 1980s. Back then when film was the medium, I had a Petri viewfinder camera and a Rolleicord twin lens reflex. Sadly, when the cost of film and processing became prohibitive in the early 1990s, I had to turn to other, less costly hobbies.

From a seaside resort in Tabuelan, Cebu

Fortunately, low-cost digital cameras have made photography affordable again. In 2007, I bought my first digital camera, a Sony Cybershot S650. I have also made use of various phone cameras. But I have never owned a single lens reflex (SLR) camera, let alone a digital one. So when I came to buying a digital SLR, I wanted to make sure I got a camera that I could enjoy and actually use.

The good news was that, when it came to capabilities, the big names were generally even in each given skill level. Neither Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony, Pentax, and so on had any huge advantage. That realization pretty much helped me avoid long hours of going over technical comparisons and reviews (although I did read some). What was important now were certain subjective preferences.

With film, I used to experiment with long exposures (10 seconds to a few minutes). The time allowed me to play with flash, ambient light, and various colored lights to get interesting effects. So I naturally wanted to be able to do the same with my new camera. That meant that the camera should be capable of fully manual operation. After all, what’s the point of getting an SLR if you intend to stick to presets and automatic exposure? Part of the creativity — and certainly much of the fun — lies in controlling the important parameters that can affect your photos. Manual exposure lets you play with light and motion, and that’s something I really like to do.

I also like shooting at night. For quick shots or for documenting an event, a built-in flash is important. I also had to make sure the camera had an attachment for an external flash unit and maybe a remote.

Using a camera shouldn’t require a degree in rocket science. I do not like poring over manuals of consumer equipment. The on-board menu system had to be easy to use and understand. The camera also had to be easily connected to a PC so I could move files without the need for proprietary software.

I found myself drawn to the vivid colors I saw in both entry-level and professional Nikon SLRs. I had used a friend’s D40 and it seemed easy enough to handle and care for. So when I went shopping, I was already leaning towards a Nikon. A Canon could be in the cards as well since I had also played with a friend’s EOS 450D and had fun with it

Finally, I had a budget to think about. I have no intentions of ever becoming professional photographer so I would never have the chance to recover the big bucks that I would have to spend for a high-end rig. I would have to choose among the entry-level SLRs.

The Final Buy

In the end, the budget factor, availability, and my previous experience with Nikons won out. I got myself a brand new D60 with the standard kit lens (18-55mm), a UV lens filter, hard LCD protector, and upgraded to an 8GB SD card and a nicer camera bag. And I got it for only a grand more than what you would pay for a new D40 in SM. Using my credit card hurt a bit, but I guess I still got it cheaper than most.

So how good is it? The camera meets my requirements. It works for me!

NOTE: This article originally appeared in Bliss at Cebu Daily News on October 8, 2009. The FaceBook page of that issue is here.

Now that I’ve had the camera for over a month, I’ve discovered some things about it, both good and bad.

First, the camera isn’t automatically detected by my Linux system whuich runs CentOS 5.3. i installed Picasa 3.0, which easily detects the camera. It works but can be slow when downloading a lot of pictures. So now I use gphoto2 to download and Picasa to preview and perform batch editing.

I also found that after the credit card company got through charging me using a very high foreign exchange rate, and having to make an international call to them because some numbers on the card were not legible, the camera effectively cost quite a bit more than I expected. To top it off, it turns out that a Nikon D60 sells for about the same (cash) price in the Philippines. A Nikon D3000 is only P500 more.

Hmm… maybe I should have gotten my camera at that nice store in Parkmall (North reclamation Area).

Ah well, a lesson learned!

The pictures in this article were taken using the D60 in manual mode. They have been resized and one was cropped. No other post-processing was done.

Nice interplay of color and shadow

Power lines somewhere in Penang

The London Sunday Times, in the story Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation, reported:

SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.

The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.

Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.

Bill Gates, it seems, was the man pushing for the population control agenda. The Times report noted:

The issues debated included reforming the supervision of overseas aid spending to setting up rural schools and water systems in developing countries. Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.

Looking under the veneer of good boy philanthropy, however, observers have noticed a sinister — if perhaps unwitting — agenda, as well as a strong undercurrent of plain old misinformation.

Gates Gets It Wrong — Again

It is truly amazing to see how a man who made a corporate empire on products that manage information can be so misinformed. Has gates somehow missed out on the fact that there is no proven causal link between population growth and poverty? Hasn’t he figured out that other factors such as governance and economic mismanagement are the prime determinants of poverty? Where has he had his head buried in the last 20 years?

Barry Mclerran pointed out the bankruptcy of Gates’ thinking, as reported in the story “‘Demographic Winter’ Producer says Billionaire Population Controllers are Aiding a Disaster-in-the-Making“:

Commenting on a May 24 story in The London Times, “Demographic Winter” Producer Barry McLerran said an association of liberal billionaires (called the Good Club) was “working with a 1960s paradigm” and that their philanthropy will exacerbate a 21st century problem.

. . .

McLerran commented: “Gates forgot to mention — or perhaps he doesn’t know — that birth rates have declined by more than 50% since 1979. In most of the developed world, fertility is well below replacement level.”

. . .

The “Demographic Winter” producer added: “Wherever the world’s population caps, with rapidly falling birth rates, it will begin declining shortly thereafter — perhaps as early as 2030, according to the United Nations Population Division. Instead of over-population, the crisis that confronts us in this century will be how to keep economies and nations going in the face of the coming de-population.”

Said McLerran, “If the ‘Good Club’ really wants to do good, instead of adding fuel to the fire, it will consider the reality of declining birth rates and their impact on humanity in this century. Then perhaps they’ll begin to realize that people are the one irreplaceable resource.”

Bill Muehlenberg, in “Humanitarians: please spare us humans“, warned:

Indeed. So how exactly does our alternative world government intend to “overcome political and religious obstacles”? Will Bill Gates apply the ruthless monopolistic business strategies he perfected at Microsoft to reduce the population of developing countries? What pressure will the world’s richest man apply to his opponents to persuade them to follow Netscape into oblivion?

. . .

Isn’t fertility a personal decision? As population expert Steven Mosher asks, “What happens when governments, often in response to pressure from abroad, attempt to directly regulate the fertility of their people? Both humans rights and primary health care, it turns out, tend to suffer setbacks. Urging governments to interfere in the intimate decisions of couples concerning childbearing does not encourage limited government and the rule of law, but their opposite, an intrusive bureaucracy and human rights abuses. Nor does concentrating scarce health care resources on fertility reduction programs lead to improvements in the general state of health of a population.”

As Mosher argues in his important book, Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits,, “For over half century, the population controllers have perpetrated a gigantic, costly and inhumane fraud upon the human race, defrauding the people of the developing world of their progeny and the people of the developed world of their pocketbooks.”

Of course fat cat elites will suffer nothing from such programs, just the poor and voiceless. But never mind, it is for the good of humanity.

Real Bad Ubiquity

It’s bad enough that Gates has been trying to impose his will on the open source software community for years. Now he’s going outside of the computer industry and using his billions to run roughshod over pro-family and pro-people values, all to impose his outmoded population doomsday thinking on everyone else. Will he be sticking his mug into people’s bedrooms through coercive government population control programs?

Talk about being ubiquitous! This is going way too far.

Hey Bill, keep your greedy hands off my computer and our families! And while you’re at it, try disabusing yourself of the overpopulation myth. It’s the 21st century, for goodness sake! The “population bomb” fizzled out a long time ago. It was always a dud anyway.

I’ve been using my Nokia 7210 Supernova for over three months now. Here’s a quick review of how the phone has fared thus far.

I bought it mainly because I wanted a simple and cheap camera-phone that I could use on my solo road trip from Manila back to Cebu (the trip was called “Ride 4 Life“). I was attracted by its 2-megapixel camera and low cost (at around P6000) and its large phone directory (around 1000 contacts, at least). The main screen was large and bright and the case was slim and light. Clinching the sale was its expandable storage via a micro-SD slot. I left the store with an additional 2GB micro-SD card.

I left Manila after a day or two and eagerly put the camera to work. During the first day of my trip (which ended in Gumaca, Quezon), I took photos of several old churches and got acquainjted with the capabilities and limitations of the camera. I found that it took decent and fairly sharp pictures in good light, but under poor lighting conditions the shots were “noisy” and often blurred (I guess it was compensating with a “longer” exposure). The digital zoom was practically worthless too since it resulted in blurred, unfocused pictures. This built-in digital camera is strictly for daytime outdoor use, or for brightly-lit indoor venues. Forget about using it at night. It does not have a flash unit. It does video too, but I haven’t made much use of that feature yet.

You can check out some photos taken with this camera at my Multiply site.

How does it fare as a phone? Good enough. The large phone directory is versatile, allowing multiple numbers per contact as well as other information. I’ve already transferred several hundred contacts from my SIM card (there’s a simple utility for doing that too) and I’m only using 20% of its capacity. I did notice, however, that sending a contact to someone else (as a “business card”) involves digging through the menus. Adding a number to an existing contact also requires similar effort. Overall, I found that the menus could be made more intuitive and simpler.

Connectivity is pretty good too, with Bluetooth, packet data, and Micro USB 2.0 support. It comes with PC Suite software. The included applications allow you to upload pictures to Flickr or connect to Yahoo!

One of the 7210’s pleasant surprises is the sound quality of its speakers. When placed close enough (about 6 inches away), I could hear even the lower frequencies of my stored music. The phone has a music player for MP3 and WAV files, and FM radio with a programmable autotuner. The supplied earphones act as the unit’s radio antenna and comes with a small channel switch button. Alas, the headphones themselves aren’t very good, and the ill-fitting earpieces can cause some pain after a while. I later purchased an adapter so I could use more comfortable earphones. After doing so, I found the sound to be quite good, considering the cheap equipment I was using, and got booming bass and clear-enough highs. I had to give up the convenience of the radio channel switch button, but the comfort was worth it. The music player comes with a stereo widening feature and configurable equalizer which I put to good use.

If there is one major complaint I have with the 7210, it’s with the keypad. Not only are the keys too small, they do not have enough tactile feedback so errors are frequent. Worse, the placement of certain keys is terrible. The call-cancel key (with the little red phone symbol) also acts as a function-cancel, and it’s placed right where you can accidentally press it. I have had many a text message sent to the “draft” folder, as well as many canceled operations, because of it. Nokia would do good to move the blasted thing someplace else. The layout plain sucks!

Take note that this phone uses a micro-USB port, and a USB cable is not supplied. You will have to buy one (aroundP250). You should also be wary of the stores that try to sell you the micro-SD cards. I bought my 2GB card at the same outlet where I purchased the phone. The charged my over P1000 for it. Less than five meters away, there was a store selling the exact same thing (as in same brand even) for just P500. Don’t forget to buy better earphones and an adapter.

This phone’s many features make it worth its price, as long as you can get over the lousy keypad. It’s not the best experience, but I am mostly satisfied. If, however, you can get a phone with better keys and menus, along with the same features, go for it instead.

Absurd as it may sound, that is effectively what the draft of an NTC Memorandum Circular may end up doing if it is implemented: taxing online content from the Philippines!

The draft Memorandum Circular, dated December 22, 2008, is entitled “GUIDELINES ON THE PROVISION OF CONTENTS, INFORMATION, APPLICATIONS, AND ELECTRONIC GAMES“. In section B Registration, number 1, the document states:

Contents, Information, Applications and/or Electronic Games Providers, Contents Developers, Information Sources, Applications Developers, and Electronic Games Developers are required to have commercial presence in the country and shall secure Certificate of Registration (COR) from the Commission.

The NTC document defines “Providers” as:

… persons or entities offering and providing contents (or information, applications, or electronic games — additions are mine) to the public for compensation through the networks, systems and/or facilities of authorized networks, systems and/or facilities providers.

Take note, it says these are those who provide something for compensation. At first blush, this would seem to exclude most bloggers, those who post on forums and social networking sites, and others who don’t really get paid for putting content online.

On the other hand, the NTC document also makes these other definitions:

i. Contents Developers – are persons or entities creating contents.
j. Information Sources – are persons or entities providing information to Information Providers.
k. Applications Developer – are persons or entities creating applications.
l. Electronic Games Developer – are persons or entities creating electronic games.

All of these are also required to have a “commercial presence” in the Philippines and to register with the NTC.

Now it looks to me that these definitions are broad enough to actually INCLUDE bloggers and others who create and post free content online since there is no compensation requirement specificed (unlike with “providers”).

So, does that mean I have to register in order to legally continue with this blog?

The NTC wishes to impose a P300 filing fee and a P6000 annual regfistration fee. Do these people think I am going to give them my hard-earned money for some nebulous claimed benefit? They know what they can kiss!

This latest shenanigan from the NTC is yet another putrid exhalation from some vacuous chamber atop a pair of shoulders. One would think that if the NTC would like to regulate certain commercial entities (ostensibly for the benefit of the public and the entities themselves) then it would at least try to define the extent of the regulations properly. As it is, this draft Memorandum Circular is so broad in coverage that even a child posting something in his Facebook account could be required to register!

Did the people who drafted this document even deign to examine the text thoroughly before inflicting it on the public? Do they expect us to do their work for them?

I guess you all know the answer to those questions.

What a waste of taxpayers’ money!!!

I was sorely disappointed when I learned that Google and Apple — arguably two of the most innovative and powerful technology companies in the U.S. — decided that they should try to influence voters going to the polls on November 4.

No, I am not talking about the Presidential elections (although that too was on November 4). I am talking about the sizable contributions of these companies to the campaign against a proposed amendment to the California Constitution to protect marriage, also known as Proposition 8.

Google’s official stand is here: Our position on California’s No on 8 campaign. Apple, for its part, was widely reported to have made a large donation to the campaign against Proposition. Here’s the Technology Chronicles story on that: Apple donates $100,000 to fight Prop. 8.

Proposition 8 is an amendment to the State Constitution of California to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. It is a reaction to an activist California Supreme Court ruling that effectively legalized same-sex marriage in that state. This occurred despite a previous California law (known as Proposition 22) that defined marriage as between a man and a woman, and which was overwhelmingly passed by California
voters. Since Proposition 22 was declared unconstitutional by a 4-3 decision of the high court last May 15, supporters of traditional marriage in California have now offered the Proposition 8 amendment to the California State Constitution, which will effectively overturn the activist court decision.

Early returns from California shows the Yes vote leading by a wide lead. Thank God for that!

Apparently I’m not the only blogger dismayed by this latest politicking by Google and Apple. Here’s what the Kazoolist has to say in “In Search Of: Non-Political Tech Companies“:

But, what concerns me even more than the fact that Apple and Google took this position in favor of gay marriage is the fact they took a position at all.

Having giant corporations put huge sums of cash behind social-issue political causes gives me pause. This isn’t an issue that affects how well Google can provide search or Apple can make iPhones. Google and Apple, in my opinion, have no business injecting themselves into this issue.

It would take 10,000 individuals giving $20 to pro-Position 8 organizations to offset what Google and Apple did. Do we really want tech companies crowding out the advocacy of thousands of individuals?

Let me make clear that although I am a Catholic, I also have purely rational,  pragmatic, non-religious reasons for opposing gay marriage and therefore being in favor of Proposition 8. No matter how Apple, Google, and the opponents of Proposition 8 cut it, the fact remains that their reasoning is wrong. Marriage is NOT simply about “marrying someone you love”. If it were, then we would have to allow family members “in love” with each other to marry (incest); or adults and minors who are “in love” to marry (pedophilia); or those in love with many people to marry them all (polyamory, polygamy). Now what if someone really loves his dog? Extreme, but you get the idea.

The Kazoolist agrees with me on that:

Furthermore, should you allow the argument that everyone has “rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love” – to be logically consistent, you’d need to allow pedophiles the right to marry kids they love and/or immediate family members to marry each other should they be “in love”. I know that sounds over the top, but I challenge anyone who disagrees to show me how that’s not the logical extension of that argument.

Google making such a FUD-filled, and, frankly, dishonest, statement about Proposition 8 really turns me off to the Google brand. So much for “don’t be evil.“

Redefining marriage to accommodate the sexual leanings or orientation (whether voluntary or otherwise) of one group means that, to be fair, we must make the same concessions for all such groups. Marriage will eventually mean nothing and the damage to families will be tremendous. Marriage, after all, is more than just about love and companionship. It is the primary instrument through which human beings beget and nurture children, thereby propagating the species. No one has found a better way yet.

It’s hard to estimate the influence of these well-known and very rich corporations. It certainly isn’t common for either Apple or Google to go out on a limb on these issues, as the Technology Chronicles article notes:

It is not common practice for either company to take a stand on political measures. It remains to be seen what effect the move might have on Proposition 8 supporters, who might avoid doing business with companies that oppose the measure.

It would seem, however, that Google and Apple seem to think that precisely because of their popularity and the ubiquitous nature of their products, they can get away with such things with little fear of a backlash from ordinary people.

Well, that may change. At least I know for sure that I am NOT going to buy a Mac, iPod, iPhone, or something running Android. And if some nice person gives me one, I can always sell it. My only regret will be that it will be too late to make a contribution to the Yes On 8 campaign.

Updates to this post (1)

From the article “Gay-rights advocates to challenge Proposition 8” in the Chicago Tribune:

“This is exactly the type of behavior that brought us to this position to begin with,” said Proposition 8 co-chair Frank Schubert. “The people voted eight years ago overwhelmingly in favor of traditional marriage, and they seem to be saying in pretty strong terms again … that they favor traditional marriage, and yet this is not accepted by gay-rights activists.”

“Now, if they want to legalize gay marriage, what they should do is bring an initiative themselves and ask the people to approve it. But they don’t. They go behind the people’s back to the courts and try and force an agenda on the rest of society.”

Former California Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grodin said the legal challenge will be a “tough battle” for supporters of same-sex marriage.

Updates to this post (2)

It would seem that trends over the past decade should give us reason to worry. Just as more Americans have come to accept same-sex marriage, there also seems to be some move to normalize pedophilia! Homosexuality was once considered a psychological disorder, but the American Psychiatric Association (APA) changed that long ago. Now, the APA has changed the definition pedophilia, which theoretically leaves room for a “normal pedophile”. The report, “The Problem of Pedophilia“, is very disturbing, to say the least. It notes:

The American Psychological Association did not denounce the positions advanced within the that journal. In fact, just recently, the A.P.A. published a new, major study (2) written by one of those same Journal of Homosexuality writers.

This latest article appears in the A.P.A.’s own prestigious Psychological Bulletin. It provides an overview of all the research studying the harm resulting from childhood sexual abuse.

The authors’ conclusion? That childhood sexual abuse is on average, only slightly associated with psychological harm–and that the harm may not be due to the sexual experience, but to the negative family factors in the children’s backgrounds. When the sexual contact is not coerced, especially when it is experienced by a boy and is remembered positively, it may not be harmful at all.

The authors of the article propose that psychologists stop using judgmental terms like “child abuse,” “molestation,” and “victims,” using instead neutral, value-free terms like “adult-child sex.” Similarly, they say we should not talk about the “the severity of the abuse,” but instead refer to “the level of sexual intimacy.“

The authors conclude that behavior which psychotherapists commonly term “abuse” may only constitute a violation of social norms. And science, they say, should separate itself from social-moral terminology. Religion and society, these writers argue, are free to judge behavior as they wish…but psychiatry should evaluate behavior by its own set of standards.

In fact, the authors of the Psychological Bulletin article propose what they consider may be a better way of understanding pedophilia: that it may only be “abuse” if the child feels bad about the relationship. They are in effect suggesting a repetition of the steps by which homosexuality was normalized. In its first step toward removing homosexuality from the Diagnostic Manual, the A.P.A. said the condition was normal as long as the person did not feel bad about it.

Few laymen are aware that the American Psychiatric Association recently redefined the criteria for pedophilia. According to the latest diagnostic manual (DSM–IV), a person no longer has a psychological disorder simply because he molests children. To be diagnosed as disordered, now he must also feel anxious about the molestation, or be impaired in his work or social relationships. Thus the A.P.A. has left room for the “psychologically normal” pedophile.

If we accept same-sex marriage, can acceptance of pedophile relationships be far behind?

After OOXML-Gate, a distasteful and anomalous affair wherein a proprietary and flawed format was somehow declared a “standard”, observers predicted a backlash against the standards bodies involved. It would seem that, at the very least, the credibility of the culprits would be tarnished. At worst, they could become irrelevant.

Well, Microsoft got what it wanted in the OOXML vote, but the radioactive fallout from that fiasco is still fouling the air, so to speak. As reported in Norwegian standards body implodes over OOXML controversy by Ars Technica just last week, things have been unravelling in Norway:

Standards Norway, the organization that manages technical standards for the Scandinavian country, took a serious blow last week when key members resigned in protest over procedural irregularities in the approval process for Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) format. The 23-person technical committee has lost 13 of its members.

The standardization process for Microsoft’s office format has been plagued with controversy. Critics have challenged the validity of its ISO approval and allege that procedural irregularities and outright misconduct marred the voting process in national standards bodies around the world. Norway has faced particularly close scrutiny because the country reversed its vote against approval despite strong opposition to the format by a majority of the members who participated in the technical committee.

In Sweden, where there was also controversy over the way the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS) participated in the OOXML approval process, things have taken an interesting twist: the body has now throw its support behind ODF, which is often seen as a competing format to OOXML. That’s poetic justice, after what happened in the OOXML vote. An SIS official commented on the sorry affair, as reported in SE: ODF made national standard in Sweden:

SIS CEO Lars Flink explains that in August 2007, SIS decided to abstain from voting on OOXML at ISO, after finding out some of the members in its OOXML committee had voted more than once. “Also, at the day of the vote, the SIS committee had also gotten between 25 and 27 new members, most of which were in favour of OOXML. At the time, our rules allowed such late-comers at the time. We have changed those rules.”

I wonder… will there be any such justice in the Philippines?

The Internet and open source software are great enablers. These two innovations allow a large number of people to do things that previously required a huge investment or could not do at all in a practical manner. They empower people.

Whereas 30 years ago publishing was an expensive proposition, now you can get your message to the world through blogging, online forums, and desktop publishing software. Today, you can run an entire office network using free software only. You can communicate freely, obtain information from diverse sources, and make informed decisions without having to leave your desk.

There are still, of course, areas where ordinary people can get shafted, sometimes without their knowing it. Too often, consumers are left at the mercy of big business. Various service and utility providers, for example, get away with rotten service, erratic connections and downtime, unexplained or hidden charges, spam, and all sorts of shenanigans. Most of the time consumers can do little about it.

Well, Switzerland is a way to fight back.

What’s that? Here’s a quote from the Switzerland Network Testing Tool website:

Is your ISP interfering with your BitTorrent connections? Cutting off your VOIP calls? Undermining the principles of network neutrality? In order to answer those questions, concerned Internet users need tools to test their Internet connections and gather evidence about ISP interference practices. After all, if it weren’t for the testing efforts of Rob Topolski, the Associated Press, and EFF, Comcast would still be stone-walling about their now-infamous BitTorrent blocking efforts.

Developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Switzerland is an open source software tool for testing the integrity of data communications over networks, ISPs and firewalls. It will spot IP packets which are forged or modified between clients, inform you, and give you copies of the modified packets.!

Now this is a way cool idea! It’s not so much the tool or its capabilities that are important, but rather the very idea of empowering users to check up on their service providers. Yes, Switzerland has its limitations: it only watches your ISP and not other utilities; it only checks for only a narrow range of questionable actions; and it’s for the tech-savvy for now, being a command-line tool (as for that last limitation, however, I bet it won’t be long before graphical front-ends will be developed for it;. then even relative newbies can get in on the game).

Switzerland is licensed under the GP, which means that the community can improve it. As the tool’s website suggests, a developer can even take the routines and automate it in his own program. It seems that there are quite a number of ways to splice, dice, mix, and match Switzerland with other projects.

Here’s hoping that we will have even more tools to protect our rights and keep an eye on those who claim to be serving us. Kudos to the EFF for this one!

One thing I’ve noticed about programmers: they can’t kick the habit — the coding habit, that is.

That statement should expose the fact that I’m not a programmer. I may have dipped my toes in BASIC and assembly language, and I can write bash scripts, but I don’t have the patience, doggedness, and outside-the-box creativity that makes for a brilliant programmer.

There’s also one more quality that I’ve noticed in the best programmers: they just love to code.

It’s not easy to stop programmers from doing what they love to do. Poor pay can make things difficult, but this obstacle can be — and very often is — overcome. Many (very many) programmers even work for free. Lousy corporate management, while it can cause much dissatisfaction among developers, just drives them away to work for someone else. And when a programming language slips out of favor, learning a new language is a quick solution to that problem. Many (if not most) decent developers know several programming languages.

A good programmer always finds opportunities to code; usually, some form of economic compensation can be found as well.

Is there anything that can kill off programming?

Yes there is and I can name it in two words: Software Patents.

Software patents are the one sweeping legal instrument that can be used to shackle programmers — and back up that immoral imposition with legal force. It is used to restrict innovation in one of the largest software development markets in the world: the United States. To make things worse, tts advocates (and beneficiaries) are pushing other countries to adopt software patents.

Mike Gunderloy, a former Microsoft developer, saw just how dangerous software patents are. His experience and thoughts on the matter were the subject of a recent Linux.com story, “Veteran developer ditches Microsoft for open source“:

The beginning of the end for the developer was when Microsoft went patent berserk. “What finally pushed me over the edge to ‘I’m getting out’ was when Microsoft started to assert non-intellectual property rights over the its Ribbon interface, making that level of sweeping intellectual property claims. Microsoft went from not patenting much to patenting everything,” Gunderloy says.

Microsoft essentially tried to patent the new Ribbon interface that appeared on Office 2007 products. The Ribbon is a series of controls for various functions of Office programs. Redmond, Gunderloy says, “basically told any control vendor that wanted to make a control that the Ribbon was Microsoft property and they had to license it from Microsoft. They had to acknowledge that Microsoft owns that piece of the user interface. I said to myself, that’s nuts. You may have copyright rights in code, but the arrangement of controls in the user interface is not something that’s intellectual property.”

If that happened, Gunderloy reasoned, it could become impossible for a developer to write any code that didn’t tread on some vendor’s patent somewhere. “It was the sweeping land grab by Microsoft that pissed me off.”

He’s right to be angry. Sweeping software patent claims like Microsoft’s turn the programming landscape into a veritable minefield — you’ll never know when you’ll step on a nasty that will blow up in your face. I’ve tried reading some software patent filings. They are hard to understand, not because of the technical concepts involved, but because of the legalese in which they are written. It can be very difficult — if not close to impossible — to make sure that a software project does not infringe on some patent somewhere.

The article cited earlier also ends with a very insightful comment from Gunderloy:

By bucking Microsoft for open source, says Gunderloy, “I’m no longer contributing to the eventual death of programming.”

Make no mistake about it: software patents, if widely adopted, can and will strangle programming. At the very least, it will stifle innovation and independent creativity. Many programmers will be forced to hide behind the protection of large companies who can afford to fight off patent claims. Those who don’t work for the big software manufactuers will have to do their coding anonymously or in relative obscurity, flyuing under the radar of patent sharks. The independent developer (or small group of developers) will be an endangered species, under constant threat of litigation.

Remember that next time you hear someone from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) spout some garbage about how software patents help protect developers.

Chin Wong gave me a penguin!

Well, at least a personalized drawing of a one on the penguin collection graphic on his website (www.chinwong.com). You can see my penguin (notice the beard) in the blown-up version on the right . The original is a cool, high-resollution affair, and you can get your own penguin on it simply by asking Chin. His site has a form just for that.

Chin was the Editor-in-Chief of Computerworld Philippines, a position he ably held for many, many years. He is also a happy convert to Linux, having made the switch in 2006. In his blog article, “Secret Weapon“, he says this of the tale:

Two years ago this month, I erased Windows XP from my home PC and installed Ubuntu on it and have not looked back since. Today, the Linux-based system I have is more secure, more efficient in its use of resources—and more fun to use— than any Windows-based installation on comparable hardware. It certainly blows Windows Vista out of the water. Remarkably, it’s also 100 percent legal and 100 percent free, which is something you could never say about Windows, whether you used a licensed version or a pirated knock-off.

Now how’s that for a ringing endorsement? it’s these success stories — and helpful users like Chin — that win new converts to Linux.

I first began using Linux in 1999, when I installed Red Hat 5.0 on my 180MHz clone. Just like Chin, I had my ups and downs. Linux was certainly not as easy to install then, and the Red Hat graphical desktop was usable but had some pretty rough edges. I’m now running CentOS, a free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

If you have a Linux success story to tell, let Chin know about it and get yourself a penguin. You’ll be in good company.