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10-23-03
The RIAA has chosen this week to slink down another rung on the ladder to Hell. Seems they have chosen another 204 targets, accusing them of flagrant copyright violation, but this time they are contacting the “criminals” before papers are filed.
The RIAA is magnanimously
offering to settle out of court before court papers are even filed. After the poor saps on the receiving end
of such missives have changed their undies they are presented with a difficult
choice. Pay up or be
sued…
If this is not outright
blatant extortion I don’t know what is.
Webster defines extortion as “The act of extorting, or getting money,
etc. by threats, misuse of authority, etc.” Seems pretty cut and dried to me. Next thing you know file sharers will
start getting visits from Guido “Tone Deaf”
Caducei.
I’m sure a couple of
different problems with their last round of subpoenas suggested that they change
tactics. The PR fiascoes that
ensued following suits filed against a 12 year old girl, Grandma Mac user and
the fiendish “Latin music lover”, who supposedly hosted hundreds of south of the
border tunes despite the fact that he didn’t know the difference between Julio
Iglesias and a soft shell taco all come to mind. Couple that with the fact that a few of
our Congress Critters have pulled their heads out of the sand long enough to say
“Hmmm… maybe this DMCA thing wasn’t such a good idea” and BANG, Cary Sherman
opts to switch gears.
The new and improved La Cosa
RIAA has obviously decided that going through the court system is a waste of
time and cash resources. Now they
just go straight for the money, bypassing any legal oversight at all (not that
the DMCA offers much oversight in the first place).
As one would expect the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org)
has led the charge against the outrages perpetrated over the years by the RIAA
and MPAA. Online resources like
“How Not To Get Sued By The RIAA For File Sharing” at http://eff.org/IP/P2P/howto-notgetsued.php,
the “Let the Music Play” campaign at http://www.eff.org/share/ and the amusing
Flash movie “The Great MP3 Caper” at http://www.eff.org/share/mp3caper.php#nextScene
are a good starting point for individuals looking to participate against any and
all electronic atrocities.
Stay the course, avoid
buying CDs, spread the word among your friends and hopefully within a few short
years the RIAA will go the way of the Pet Rock (they do after all seem to share
a similar IQ).
Until next
week,
Kevin Mefford,
Editor
This week I'm going to take
a look at hardware support in Linux.
It has been a common misconception that Linux doesn't natively support
many popular hardware components available on the market. By the end of this week’s article, I
hope that you'll see that isn't quite the case.
Hardware
and Linux
As I mentioned above, one of
the most common concerns with Linux is its ability to support current hardware
technology. Granted that Linux
isn't 100% guaranteed to support every piece of hardware available on the
market, it is however very likely that the device you want to use is
supported.
Below are examples of
hardware that are used commonly with other operating systems. I've included if the hardware works in
Linux and if its supported by vendors or by independent
programmers.
·
Keyboards,
Mice, and Monitors
It might just surprise you
to find that Linux supports a huge number of keyboards, mice, and video
monitors. Considering that these
items are usually the most important part of computing, Linux programmers have
provided drivers for almost every keyboard, mouse, and monitor out on the market
today.
·
3D/2D
Video Cards
As I've mentioned in a
past article, 3D card vendors have caught up to Linux. The two most powerful
players in the market, namely ATI and NVidia, provide their own drivers for
Linux. Often you will find that the
drivers for Linux are well written and are updated frequently. Most Linux gamers even claim that their
performance in Linux is vastly superior to that of Windows. Linux also has support for multiple
monitors, which works quite well with either multihead video cards or two or
more video cards.
·
Network
Cards
Since Linux is by
default a network operating system it only makes sense that it support a large
variety of network cards. As a
matter of fact, its a good bet that Linux will support more network cards than
Windows XP and/or Mac OS X, as it supports a large amount of legacy networking
hardware. There are exceptions
however. I recently discovered that
PNA networking (networking via phone wires) isn't supported very well. If you're lucky, you might be able to
find a vendor who provides drivers for Linux.
·
Sound
Cards
I have yet to run into a
sound card that Linux didn't recognize.
Many vendors either supply their own drivers or support the independent
programmers who have written the drivers for sound cards in Linux. You can find support for the latest
technologies as well, such as 5.1 surround sound and
more.
·
CD
Burners and DVD-ROMs
CD burners tend to
double in speed every few months, but Linux has been able to keep up with the
changes rather well. I recently
purchased a 52x24x52 CD burner, installed it, and I was able to burn within
Linux immediately without having to make any changes whatsoever. Linux also supports DVD-ROMs and will
play your favorite DVDs with the right software installed. Most of the drivers for burners and
other CD/DVD devices are written by independent programmers, but work very
well.
·
Printers
(USB and Parallel)
If there's one thing
that Linux does quite well its the support of a large variety of printers. Vendors provide some of the drivers, but
independent programmers write large majorities. As with sound cards, I have yet to run
into a printer that Linux didn't recognize. Keep in mind, however, that the newer
the printer the greater the odds that Linux won't have a driver for it
yet.
·
USB and
Firewire Support
Linux supports USB 1.1
without question. Both my mouse and
keyboard are USB devices, and Linux had absolutely no problem detecting and
installing either device. USB 2.0
support is rather lacking as of the 2.4 kernels, but the next major kernel
release, 2.6, will have full support for USB 2.0. Expect the 2.6 kernels to be out in the
next few weeks. Firewire support is
also included in the 2.4 kernels, but it's labeled experimental. Look for full support also in the 2.6
kernels. Independent programmers
write both USB and Firewire support in Linux.
And there you have it; some
of the most popular hardware in use by the more popular operating systems is
also available for use in Linux.
Keep in mind that as the Linux kernel improves, support for new hardware
will increase as well.
Ed
Engelking
This
article was written on OpenOffice Writer, a free word processing program for
Windows, Mac and Linux that is completely compatible with Microsoft Office. Try it today at http://www.openoffice.org/.
Download
of the Week
Over
time your Windows OS can build up a ton of junk on your hard drive ranging from
temporary files to extremely large (and privacy threatening) log files that no
amount of manual deletion can begin to get rid of. For the geekier among us Fred Langa has
written several batch files that can reclaim an astonishing amount of space
while doing a better job of “covering your tracks” than many commercial programs
that claim to eliminate evidence of your personal activities
online.
These
files are free and available from http://www.langa.com/cleanup_bat.htm
but be warned, you need to read the instructions very carefully. While these batch files are extremely
useful when used correctly they can also be quite dangerous if the proper
changes aren’t made to tailor them to your particular system.
Email
Question of the Week
Q: Bob, I just went over from Windows to
MAC, (I learned in a MAC). I was wondering if there was a spyware program for
MAC like for Windows, like AdAware, and so on.
A: As far as I know there are no spyware
programs that run on OSX. And by that I mean the actual malicious
programs. They were very rare even in
OS9. I have never found
the need to run any spyware detection programs
on my Mac. The secure
nature of the Mac Operating System makes it very
difficult to near
impossible for a program to run without you being
aware of it. All
applications on Mac OSX require your permission to
install and run, so
spyware is easy to catch on a Mac.
Thanks for
listening,
Hash
hash@ucanweb.com
If you have
tech support questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please
email them to bob@iglou.com.
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