Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 02/12/2009: Diet Chromium Emerges



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • What to do with that old computer?
    Use it in front of the TV or in your kitchen. Install Linux on it. It will cost you nothing to try. You burn a Linux image onto a USB drive or a CD, put it in your old computer and install. You then have a working system. While it may not be fast, I bet it would still be good to look up recipes in the kitchen or movie actors in front of the tv. We have an old laptop that regularly overheats and has to be plugged in sitting on the coffee table in front of the TV just to answer random questions. (Or take a quick peak at email or Facebook.)


  • Linux Pranks
    Do you know what people think about us linuxers? No Clue!! Get some Popcorn coz I am going to tell you a great story. A long long time ago, back when linux was getting powerful, there was a boy who started using it. He liked it so much that he would spend all the day learning and exploring.


  • Linux and the sheer utter misery of viruses
    The only solution is to identify the infected desktops and take them off the network.. pronto.

    An infected Windows workstation of XP vintage often needs a clean image reinstalled to fix it. This means of course keeping a stock of up to date Windows workstation images. Next, all staff and students (if it is a school or college) need to have their usb sticks checked to save them trashing their often even more vulnerable home machines. Lots of work.

    Thanks to SAMBA and OpenLDAP companies have been able to take advantage of the cost savings and performance offered by Linux infrastructure and keep their Windows workstations. They wish to do the latter because sometimes they need to use Windows-only applications and sometimes they wish to avoid any retraining overheads for their users.




  • Desktop

    • bug one resolved, at least in one mall, thanks to Apple
      With Linux offerings from HP, Dell, and Lenovo, the big names are covered. Heck, it is not hard to find a eeePC running Linux if you really want one. How about Penguin Computing, Linux Certified, System 76, Zareason, and other countless Linux specialty or Linux friendly white box vendors? All of these companies would not be in business if there was no money to be made by competing with Microsoft. Once ChromeOS kicks in, it will be all over for Microsoft Windows.


    • Bells & Whistles
      Watching the carnival of publicity for both Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7, I can’t help but think that the world has forgotten just what an operating system is for. An operating system should not be a big feature of a computer. An operating system should instead be the platform that enables you to get on with using the computer in question, with the minimum of fuss and intrusion. Sure, it’s good to have useful tools and features in there, but surely the purpose of such features is as an add-on, so that the user can pick what they intuitively require. If it needs a press release and several big-money presentations to explain why someone needs a particular extra or gizmo, then there’s a compelling argument that they don’t need it in the first place.


    • Some Things Linux Can Do, That Windows Won’t.
      4) Automatically update all my software and the OS.

      With Windows, I notice that there are regular updates, patches, security, fixes, etc. to the OS. With Linux, my updates include the OS as well as all the applications! Needless to say, I'm happy that I can obtain the latest features, fixes, updates etc. in one update action on Linux, without having to manually update each application (which I have to do on my Windows box).


    • Dell Precision M6500 Workstation Taps Intel's Core i7 Chips
      The Dell Precision M6500 offers Intel’s Core i7 processors, Nvidia Quadro FX or ATI FirePro graphics, as well as up to 16GB of memory and the option of four memory slots. There’s also a choice of Linux or Windows operating systems, and up to three hard drives.


    • Dell Unveils Precision M6500 Workstation
      The screen is 17-inches and an optional RGB LED unit is available with 100% color gamut. OS options include 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Red Hat Linux. Dell also offers the Quadro FX 3800M GPU as an option.


    • IGEL's Linux Universal Desktop Now Supports Touch Screen Monitors
      IGEL Technology, the world's third largest thin client vendor (2009 by revenue, IDC), today introduced its new Linux Universal Desktop firmware adding support for new hardware, additional user customization options, and enhanced multimedia and virtualization functionality to its wide range of Linux-based thin clients.








  • Server

    • PIKA Upgrades WARP PBX Appliance Platform
      Just about a year ago, Enterprise VoIPplanet spoke with the folks at PIKA Technologies about their then-new WARP appliance, the popular Asterisk development platform in a compact, telephony-equipped Linux system unit.


    • SYNAQ celebrates five good years - looks forward to many more
      SYNAQ, the Johannesburg-based Linux and open source managed services and software services company, has made a significant impact on the local IT scene since its establishment five years ago, by two (very) young entrepreneurs, Yossi Hasson and David Jacobson.


    • eCube Delivers Linux on System z Support for NXTera High Performance Middleware
      eCube Systems, a leader in legacy evolution and application modernization, today announced that it has achieved the IBM Ready for LINUX mark for its NXTeraâ„¢ high performance middleware. This mark certifies NXTera has met compatibility and integration specifications established by IBM for LINUX on the System z mainframe, which run the daily computer transactions for many of the world's top banks and multinational firms.


    • SunGard’s MarketMap Provides Tinbergen Asset Management with Real-Time Financial Information
      SunGard’s MarketMap provides Tinbergen with real-time market data flows that can help the company automate and streamline its processes for monitoring real-time market information, ranging from asset prices to executed orders. The solution’s Java-based feed offered easy integration with Tinbergen’s existing systems, using the firm’s Linux platform.


    • A Little Virtual Machine Recreation
      It’s time for a little VM recreation and you don’t even have to get sweaty in the process.


    • Linux Vs Windows Which One to Pick?
      The significant difference in Linux version does not speak about the software quality or the drivers` availability, but the support offered. Depending upon the Linux distribution package, the user may get a quick and 24/7 paid support, and this should well suit any corporate environment. Purchasing the operating system and hardware together ensures the support for installed hardware, else it may be required researching to ensure the motherboard, network adapter, chipset and others are supported by the Linux version. The other non Linux options include OpenSolaris and many variants of Berkley Software distribution.








  • Google







  • Applications







  • Desktop Environments

    • Window Maker - your NeXT window manager
      Window Maker is an X11 window manager originally designed to provide integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment. In every way possible, it reproduces the elegant look and feel of the NEXTSTEP user interface. It is fast, feature rich, easy to configure, and easy to use. It is also free software, with contributions being made by programmers from around the world.




    • KDE

      • Multitouch screencast overload
        Going a bit more deeply on how KDE SC 4.4 will support multitouch, here are 3 longer videos:

        The first one shows marble. Is now possible (with the usual disclaimer on devices and systems that support it, hoping it will become a more pervasive feature) to zoom the earth with a two fingers gesture, making a retty natural interacion

        OGG version

        The second one shows Plasma: it's possible to move, resize and rotate the widgets with two fingers, making them a bit more "real objects".


      • Kdenlive
        For the last screencasts I had to do, I needed some tool were it's easy to cut little pieces of various short movie files and that could have let me to assemble them togeher, maybe with some simple not too heavy transition effects.

        [...]

        Since it seems nowdays I can't finish an entry without a screencast, here it is s quick and dirty "making of" of the Plasma multitouch video, well not actually that one, but shows how fast is possible to create a simple montage.

        OGG version










  • Distributions



    • Gentoo

      • Gentoo wins again with Python 3
        Despite being heavily involved in Ubuntu advocacy and promotion, being a member of the Ubuntu project, and using it on my personal systems, I've had to keep my servers and development machines running Gentoo.

        [...]

        Python 3 is a great example of this; Gnome 3 will apparently use Python 3 for many applets, and Gnome 3's release schedule sets it for inclusion in Ubuntu 10.10 (next Fall), but at present Python 3.1 is packaged but none of the 3rd party packages are available for it - even those which explicitly support Python 3 already.


      • Gentoo service announcement: keep clear of GNU patch-2.6








    • Red Hat Family

      • Fedora 12 Review
        With the release of fedora 12 ,we decided to give it a try with a 64 bit live cd on a Toshiba machine.There is no good difference in appearance with the older editions of fedora ,just some changes in Nautilus icons.What to say,they offer a clear and clean appearance.


      • [Hippies]








    • Debian Family

      • Howto switch from Ubuntu to Debian – My Experience – Part I
        After long time I’m posting this. In this time, I got a fantastic experience of switching myself from ubuntu to debian.


      • AntiX-M8.5 beta release is available for testing
        Anti has announced the first public beta of antiX-M8.5. It is available at MEPIS mirrors in the released/antix directory as antiX-M8.5-pt1-beta.iso.


      • Ubuntu System Panel: Simple? Is it heck… [Opinion]


      • Forensic Cop Journal 2(1): Ubuntu Forensic
        Ubuntu Forensic is the use of Ubuntu for digital forensic purposes. As it provides a wide range of forensic tools as well as anti-forensic and cracking tools, so it is reliable to investigate a computer crime and analyse digital evidence on it. The significant difference on forensic applications between Ubuntu and Ms Windows is that Ubuntu applications are freeware, while the application running under Ms Windows are commercial. The results obtained between these applications are relatively the same. It means that digital forensic analyst should also be well understood on the use of Ubuntu forensic applications as well as Ms Windows’s applications. If they do it, so they will have many forensic tools which can be applied in the investigation/analysis. When a tool does not give satisfied results, they should be able to use other tools either under Ubuntu or Ms Windows to yield the best results.


      • Sim romance, Ubuntu manga and women in the know
        Second course this week is with the lovely Martin Owens. He's a programmer and an advocate and educator for the open source community. He's also working to create the English translation of the Ubunchu manga. A comic book about an open source sys admin after school club in Japan - who can fault that?


      • Linux Mint 8.0
        Mint 8 didn't blow me away quite so much as their last release. It worked well as far as I could tell and there were some definite advantages to their package selections (lack of Evolution for one). The improvements to MintInstall continue to make it a pleasant and useful tool.

        I'm not going to immediately wipe my Ubuntu Karmic install on the laptop for this release of Mint. It might grow on me, but for now I'm happy with the parent distro. Maybe Mint 9 will have some must-have feature for me, or at least a couple of games. Hey, I can dream.


      • Review: Linux Mint 8
        In summary, Linux Mint is really a unique distro, catering to a wide audience. People who just came from windows would most like feel comfortable with Linux Mint and Linux Mint does really work great with older computers They just need to do something about Ubiquity. The MintInstall software manager is really great, making installing applications really a breeze. IMHO, Mintinstall is what we need to break those biased opinions that installing software is difficult for Linux

        The MintUpdate is also a Plus point. Many new users screw their systems up through updates. ( especially major ones) This surely would help a lot. I went in with the opinion that Linux Mint would be just like any other remastered distro, but came out changed! Its really a great distro.

        I personally would recommend it to any one who just came out of the windowed world or any one who is looking for a light and simple system. Linux Mint 8 is really on the right track on making Linux user friendly..


      • Ubuntu Lucid To Use Plymouth; Non-Intel Users To Lose Out?












  • Devices/Embedded

    • Archos 5 Internet Tablet
      Archos has created quite a stir when he was introducing a version of the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet runs on Android to be the owner of, based on Linux operating system announced. We examine here the Cyber-shot Archos 5 Internet Tablet with flash memory, 32 GB with about 230 prizes. Two models of thick disks are also available: a 160 GB version for about 250 and 500 GB for a 290 or thereabouts.




    • Phones

      • Qualcomm to win spot in next iPhone generation?
        Not content with the current crop of high profile smartphone launches - Motorola Droid and Nokia N900 leading the pack - the industry is full of talk of what new devices may appear after the new year. Of course, Apple leads the way, with sources claiming glimpses of the successor to the iPhone 3GS, as well as the latest variations on speculation about the 'iTablet'. Then there is the reputed 'Google phone', but Nokia refuses to join in the fun, promising only one more device based on its Maemo Linux operating system in the coming year.


      • Nokia sees industry handset volumes rising 10% next year
        Nokia Corp. on Wednesday predicted that global mobile phone unit sales would recover to rise 10% next year, forecast an improvement in the operating margin at its main division and vowed to revamp its creaky user interface.


      • Zii Labs Unveils Trinity Phone Platform for Android
        Zii Labs has announced the Trinity smart/media phone platform for the Android and Plaszma operating system. The platform is a complete 3.5G/4G smartphone development platform supporting optimized Android and Linux-based Plaszma OS'.


      • Under the Hood of Native Web Apps for Android
        Web Development for Mobile Devices is the latest rage. But what if you want an “off-line” web application? No problem!


      • Access Linux appears in first phone, LiMO may be its best hope
        Emblaze, now renamed after its first smartphone, has often made a surprisingly loud noise at events like Mobile World Congress, showing some genuinely innovative thinking on user interfaces. It has collaborated with Access on a user experience called








    • Sub-notebooks

      • ARM COO wants netbooks to be more than just cheap notebooks
        Right now, however, ARM netbooks are really only able to run Linux distros tailored to their non-x86 processors. On top of that, there aren’t many to choose from at the moment.

        After attending the Ubuntu Developer Summit, Shane Fagan lamented “Where’s my ARM netbook?” noting that only three models were available (four if you count a board-only unit). With Intel’s Atom able to run Windows and just about every interesting Linux distro under the sun like Moblin and Jolicloud, ARM has their work cut out.


      • Dell releases unofficial Chrome OS Linux desktop
        But as Anson points out, "This image comes with absolutely no support of any kind and is to be considered highly experimental and completely unstable [but] with a network connection, ChromiumOS shines. The Chromium browser is extremely fast and makes for a great web-centric browsing experience. Boot time appears quick too — about 12 seconds from hitting the power button." Sounds like good Linux techie fun to me!


      • Intel launches beta SDK for Intel Atom Developer Program
        Just to put my cards on the table, I think the Intel Atom Developer Program makes about as much sense as a netbook with a 17 inch screen. The whole point of netbooks is that they’re fully functional computers, unlike smartphones and other mobile devices that offer only a limited feature set. And that means that you can run virtually any program on a Windows or Linux netbook that you could run on a larger, more traditional computer.


      • Acer's crippled GNU/Linux
        A free software supporter alerted us to a crippled version of GNU/Linux shipping on some of Acer's netbooks.

        A few weeks ago, a free software supporter encountered an Acer netbook that came pre-loaded with a distribution of GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux has made real headway in the netbook market, so nothing unusual here, and you would think any free software supporter would be delighted to encounter GNU/Linux pre-installed on a mass market product.












Free Software/Open Source

  • NoSQL: Not Going Anywhere For a While?


  • 2009 Open Source Best Practices: Why CLM is Transforming the Commercial Open Source Industry
    CLM Converts are proclaiming their businesses can’t function without these tools. Others worry about privacy issues and upsetting customers, but most haven’t found that to be a problem. Converts recommend starting small. Start with marketing automation. It doesn’t take nearly as much time as most think. Once comfortable with that, move on to real time behavior monitoring and situational activity alerts. As a result, CLM users claim the financial rewards are high.


  • New approaches to going open highlighted in 2009
    Looking back through our 451 CAOS Links posts there are a number of examples of companies “going open” in 2009 - either embarking on an open source project for the first time or expanding their engagement with open source through new initiatives.


  • NCC Publishes White Paper on Open Source
    The Open Learning Centre and Open Forum Europe worked on behalf of The National Computing Centre to produce a white paper examining the significant advantages and the potential hurdles for business when considering Open Source Software.


  • Scammers get better tools for tapping social networks
    Paterva describes Maltego as an open source intelligence and forensics application that can import and correlate data from almost any publicly available online source, including social networks, search engines and PGP key databases. A community edition of the tool also can be downloaded.

    The application can be used to determine relationships and real-world connections between people, groups of people such as those in a social network, companies and Web sites. It can also be used to find links between domains, DNS names, IP addresses and even documents and files on the Internet.


  • Open Source enables customized applications
    We adopted open source mainly because we can build an application suiting our needs. Moreover, if we are locked in a proprietary set up, we will be forced to do frequent updates. Often we have found that most of updates do not give the level of business benefits that we look for. To put it simply, we do not want to be forced to do an upgrade just because a new version is available.


  • Exhibit Pavilion at Digium/Asterisk World 2010 Completely Sold Out
    Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC€®) and Digium€®, the Asterisk€® Company, today announced that all exhibit space has sold out at their expanded Digium|Asterisk World, scheduled to take place January 20-22, 2010 as part of ITEXPO East in Miami, Florida.


  • Yashada, NIC develop open source software for libraries
    The Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (Yashada) along with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has developed a software called eGranthalaya for the automation of libraries.


  • The value of Open Source Software in enterprise IT
    If the vendor’s product strategy breaks the underlying contract of mutual benefit with companies and people that contribute code, many of the benefits of open source software beyond cost reduction are potentially eliminated.

    Moreover, such vendors might risk losing their differentiation from traditional closed sourced vendors long term. In such a case one might raise the question whether the ultimate goal is exploiting communities in order to be eventually acquired as opposed to promoting communities, the backbone for innovation, vendor independence and quality.


  • The New Economics of Open Source in the Enterprise
    Commercial software vendors, of course, are hoping this is all just a fad that will go away once the economy improves. In reality, the open source economy is the new enterprise software economy.


  • Nominations Now Open for Nation's Top Honor in Public Interest Computing
    The Tides Foundation Pizzigati Prize will award $10,000 to an open source software developer whose work is helping nonprofits succeed


  • Capital markets finding joy with open source tech
    Financial services organisations are going beyond operating systems when it comes to the use of open source technology.


  • Opengear Joins OSSI's Efforts to Expand Secure Open Source Network Communications Within Federal Computing Environments
    Opengear (www.opengear.com) today announced it has joined the Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) and will work to contribute software that will expand the use of safe, secure computing protocols in Federal computing environments. As a part of Opengear's commitment to open source, Opengear has extended the OpenSSL cryptographic module -- for the first time making it FIPS 140-2 compliant for ARM-based processors.


  • 11 open source business models
    Telling people to pay you and go away worked for an amazingly long time. It sounds like it shouldn’t. It sounds a bit like theft. But software is a miracle, and for decades EULA Ware was the only model there was.

    Open source companies, on the other hand, they have to use their imagination.


  • Keep the cash: think open source
    Open source has come a long way since Linux, with the advent of software programs in many universities. There are open source and freeware programs available for everything from antivirus software to media players. Open source differs from freeware in that the code is freely available and can be modified under certain conditions, while freeware code is not.

    In theory, users could replace most of their purchased software with open source software. For example, you can use Songbird as a music player, OpenOffice.org in place of Microsoft Office, Gimp to replace Photoshop, and AVG as antivirus. But these substitutions are not yet commonplace.




  • CrunchPad







  • Mozilla

    • Critical bug fixed in Thunderbird
      I've been using the beta and release candidate builds and have found them to be as stable as Thunderbird 2, but with far less memory hogging.


    • Mozilla announce Extend Firefox winners
      In the Best Updated Add-On category, the enhanced find utility Smart Find, book price searcher Book Burro and the favourites extension Speed Dial took the three grand prizes. Best Game and Entertainment Add-on was awarded to Destroy The Web's extension which turns the contents of any page into a shoot-em-up video game. Grocery List Generator took the prize for Best Shopping Add-on. The grand prize winners in these other catagories will recieve a 13" Mac Book Pro and a package of software books and other items.








  • Databases

    • Who owns the customer in the cloud?
      The starting point for all of these solutions will be LAMP and open source applications. But each will focus initially on automation to simplify the effort, like RDS. Then they will deliver interoperability. Finally they will innovate in proprietary ways to deliver a better experience. And with each step they will further establish their ownership of the customer. This is why every major technology company, with the exception of Oracle, is assembling their own cloud solution, because they don’t want someone else owning their customers.


    • CIOs can avoid costly database price increases with open source
      A few weeks back I met with a senior architect of a large bank to discuss how open source might fit into the bank's strategy, particularly in the area of database where they had recently had some pretty unpleasant price increases levied by two of their incumbent suppliers during renegotiation of their corporate site licenses.








  • CMS

    • Squiz Now Provide MySource Matrix Supported Open Source CMS as a SaaS (Software as a Service) Package
      Squiz UK today announced the availability of its enterprise-class Supported Open Source CMS, MySource Matrix, on a SaaS (Software as a Service) basis. The new package enables start ups, brands and enterprises to deploy sophisticated Matrix sites with more security, flexibility, scalability and cost control.


    • Technology: University of Westminster Launches New Website on Squiz’s Open Source CMS Platform, MySource Matrix
      Squiz UK today announced the successful launch of the University of Westminster’s new website, based on MySource Matrix Open Source CMS. The site was co-developed and implemented in only eight weeks and hands complete control back to the university's content and technical teams.


    • Kapow Technologies and Hippo Partner to Streamline Content Migration
      Hippo, the leading developer of Web-based, open source Enterprise CMS / Portal software, has partnered with Kapow Technologies, the leader in Web data services for business applications. Under the partnership Kapow's Web Data Server helps companies streamline and automate the process of migrating their existing Web content to Hippo CMS. This allows businesses to perform migration of any Web based content in one tenth of the time and cost associated with traditional methods.


    • WordPress forum volunteers recognised
      The support forum moderators were the first people to get credit from Ms Wells. These include those going by the Wordpress.org usernames Otto42, jeremyclark13, MichaelH, samboll and Chris_K, while Moshu, Podz and Kafkaesqui also received a mention.


    • Commerce weighs open-source content system for Web sites
      The White House recently adopted Drupal’s content management system for its site. The system has gained attention as a platform for social media and semantic Web applications.


    • Fully packaged Drupal distributions now deployed on drupal.org
      3281d Consulting is very pleased to announce that a new era on drupal.org has begun: Drupal distributions (also known as "installation profiles") can now be automatically packaged with Drupal core and all of their required dependencies. When you download the distribution, you just unpack it into a web root directory, visit install.php, and you're done. This should vastly lower the barriers to getting a new Drupal site up and running. Please read on if you've ever considered installing a Drupal distribution or if you maintain one on drupal.org.


    • Interview with Louis Landry – Joomla Development Lead
      I’m trying to rethink the architecture. Joomla as it exists now is based on the same principal concepts as Mambo in 2000, namely being centered around software designed to run on a $6 a month hosting account on some offshore server.








  • Releases







  • Government







  • Openness

    • OPEN SOURCE AUTOMOBILES
      The other reasons that open source automobiles are interesting is that it overcomes the slowness of innovation we see in traditional traditional car manufacturing. The designs are open sourced. This means that designers from around the world are able to generate innovation either alone or in teams with others and deploy them as plans that have the potential to get built (including electric vehicles).


    • Open Source MLS
      Recently Jimmy Conrad wrote a piece at ESPN's Soccernet about his vision for MLS. He likens it to Linux, but honestly, his ideas are not in the mold of Linux. Sure, he's willing to respond and listen to feedback, but he is not necessarily advocating adopting an Open Source and/or Democratic model for MLS, just for his own "blog" at Soccernet.








  • Programming







Leftovers

  • Sequoia opens kimono with e-voting code handout
    Not that Epstein is fully satisfied with Sequoia's disclosure. Reading the company's license, it remains unclear if reviewers are permitted to compile the source code so they can run the resulting binaries in their own laboratories. Simply reading the source code makes it hard to know how the various pieces work together.


  • McKinnon team granted extra week to file extradition appeal
    Government solicitors have granted an extra week for solicitors acting for Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon, to lodge a judicial review on the Home Secretary's recent decision to allow extradition proceedings against Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon to proceed.


  • UNIX turns 40




  • Finance

    • A Lesson From AIG: How to Fix the Fed
      Of all the villains responsible for the Great Economic Wipeout, the Federal Reserve is pretty far down the list. It's certainly behind members of Congress who deregulated the banks in 1999, allowing once staid institutions to gamble recklessly. Then there are notorious CEOs like Martin Sullivan of AIG, Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial, and Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers whose greed and hubris wrecked their companies. Crooked mortgage brokers, rapacious Wall Street traders, and millions of irresponsible homeowners were key supporting actors in the revolting drama, too.


    • SEC Steps Up Insider-Trading Probes
      At least some of the inquiries are focused on potential information leaks around health-care mergers of the past three years, these people said. Some retail-industry deals also are a subject of the SEC inquiries, these people said, including Sears Holdings Corp.'s aborted pursuit of home-furnishings retailer Restoration Hardware in 2007.


    • Goldman Sachs's PR Has Been A Bigger Disaster Than The Exxon Valdez


    • Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public: Alice Schroeder
      “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

      I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.


    • "Goldman Sachs Is Like The Mob"
      That's what a money manager told Bethany McLean, the author of a big new Vanity Fair piece, about the empire that is Goldman Sachs. The claim is kind of funny given the news that just broke about Goldman execs stocking up on firearms.


    • Goldman Sachs Bankers Already Dangerous, Now Armed


    • Goldman Sachs loading up on guns


    • Goldman Sachs Bankers Ready to Open Fire on Mob


    • Goldman Sachs Arms Itself


    • Goldman Sachs (GS): Best of greed?
      In his Invest with an Edge, he says, "While the firm conjures up images of Gordon Gekko saying 'Greed is good,' that's not necessarily a bad thing if you own the stock." Here's his review.

      "Formerly an investment bank, Goldman is now a commercial bank, a change that allowed it to take billions in taxpayer assistance during the financial calamity of 2008.


    • Goldman Sachs Vanity Fair Profile: Bank Can 'Practically Mint Money' And 'Never Loses'
      The entire battery of charges against Goldman is, of course, lengthy. There is the assertion that the bank received a de facto bailout through its investments in AIG, which McLean says clearly helped Goldman and the entire financial system. Goldman, for its part, has always asserted that it would not have gone under had AIG collapsed. And McLean also addressed the benefits Goldman Sachs continues to receive by virtue of its transition to a bank-holding company, and its $21.6 billion in funds still guaranteed by the FDIC.


    • Chelsea Clinton Engaged To Goldman Sachs's Marc Mezvinsky
      The former First Daughter and her investment banker boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky became engaged before Thanksgiving, ABC News' Jake Tapper reports.


    • Goldman Sachs' Shareholders Seethe
      For fiscal hawks, we're about to enter a lost decade, as Uncle Sam is now expected to rack up $9 trillion in public debt between 2010 and 2019. CNNMoney.com calculates much of that gaudy sum will be in the form of interest. "More than half. In fact, $4.8 trillion" will be nothing more than interest payments, CNNMoney.com bluntly writes.


    • Goldman Bans "Last Suppers"; Suspends 1st Amendment!
      Employees received the seasonally-festive, "no parties of 12 " command via voicemail blast as part the CEO's Weekly PR Blunder Address.








  • Internet/Censorship/Web Abuse/Rights

    • A step forward for white space networking
      "White space" networking, which will use unused TV spectrum to deliver broadband services, has moved a step closer. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission said it would begin establishing databases that will warn white space devices when existing TV signals are present, according to a story on our sister site eWEEK.

      [...]

      Both Microsoft's Bill Gates and Google's Larry Page are said to have personally lobbied the FCC in favor of the use of white spaces.








  • Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights

    • Spanish activists issue manifesto on the rights of Internet users
      Javier "Barrapunto" Candeira writes, "Last Monday the Spanish Government sent the parliament the latest draft for the Ley de Economia Sostenible (Sustainable Economy Act), which contained riders modifying the current laws on copyright and interactive services. These amendments give the Spanish Ministy of Culture the administrative power to take down websites (or order ISPs to block those hosted overseas), all without a court order and in the name of 'safeguarding Intellectual Property Laws against Internet Piracy'.


    • My Hilarious Warner Bros. Royalty Statement
      I got something in the mail last week I’d been wanting for years: a Too Much Joy royalty statement from Warner Brothers that finally included our digital earnings. Though our catalog has been out of print physically since the late-1990s, the three albums we released on Giant/WB have been available digitally for about five years. Yet the royalty statements I received every six months kept insisting we had zero income, and our unrecouped balance ($395,277.18!)* stubbornly remained the same.


    • Author Sherman Alexie's Rants On Colbert Against Ebooks, Piracy And 'Open Source Culture'
      He starts out by insisting that he won't put his book on the Kindle or any digital book format because he's afraid of piracy -- but that makes no sense at all. By not giving readers what they want, he's actually encouraging more piracy. There are probably plenty of people actively willing to buy ebook versions of his book, and his response is that because of piracy, he won't offer it to them.


    • Free Content Undermines Democracy?
      Of course, there are so many fallacies wrapped up in this argument, it's difficult to even know where to start (though, one would have hoped that a journalism professor would have done the decent thing and checked into these things a bit more carefully before writing a silly opinion piece based on a variety of myths):
      * Newspapers need readers to pay to survive. Not true. Not even close to true. First, newspapers have almost never made money from subscription fees or newsstand purchases. Those fees rarely even covered the cost of the newsprint and delivery. Newspapers have always made their money on advertising and classifieds (a form of advertising).


    • Games Workshop Goes After Its Biggest Fans With Takedown Order
      Basically increasing the value of those games so that it's easier to play them and easier to keep playing them. And, in response, Games Workshop sends out its lawyers? How does that possibly make any sense at all?


    • No Cost Too Great for Copyright
      Presumably courts are more willing to ping ISPs because they are perceived as having more capacity than a bus company to control the actions of their passengers, but this is an illusion. A bus company has much the same ability to control its passengers, as an ISP does its users. The difference however is that courts respect the rights of passengers, but don’t respect the rights of users. The bus company’s passengers have a right not to be subject to a demeaning search by the bus company and courts are happy to respect that right. However, courts do not afford the same respect to passengers when the fire up their internet browser. They ought to.










Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Tara Hunt wraps up the Valentines weekend CitizenSpace build-in (2009)

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