Well, honestly, it's about time.

Bloggers are all over the story, and are espousing a variety of opinions, but I have wondered for years when Microsoft would finally crack down on software thieves and simply not allow their software to run unless it was legitimately licensed. I'm responsible for cutting a big check each year to Microsoft to pay for the software we use at the company I work at. It costs me more, in effect, because others are taking without paying.

So, Windows Vista will detect piracy and take action. In Microsoft's words:

"Collectively termed the Microsoft Software Protection Platform, the new technologies will introduce improvements in how Microsoft software activates, is validated online and behaves when tampering or hacking is detected."

Thinking about this from a security guy's perspective, one thing bothers me: Turning off the anti-malware capabilities on unlicensed copies? Are you kidding me? That means the rest of the world falls victim to everyone out there that's running pirated Windows? Please, please, please change this one - Microsoft might be a victim, but no need to invite the rest of the world into that club. And it looks like Richi Jennings agrees with me on that one. That's just poor prioritization. Hopefully someone will rethink the approach in that specific area...

Elsewhere, Ed Bott at ZDNet has written a very good piece describing the changes and his thoughts on the matter. He has some important point, ones that Microsoft should make sure they have thought completely through and have a plan for - especially where it comes to Volume License customers. Those are the people you don't want to aggravate, for sure.

Among Bott's comments:

Microsoft denies that this is a "kill switch" for Windows Vista, even giving it a separate question and answer in its mock interview announcing the program. Technically, they're right, I suppose. Switching a PC into a degraded functionality where all you can do is browse the Internet doesn't kill it; but it's arguably a near-death experience. The accompanying white paper describes the experience in more detail:

By choosing "Access your computer with reduced functionality," the default Web browser will be started and the user will be presented with an option to purchase a new product key. There is no start menu, no desktop icons, and the desktop background is changed to black. The Web browser will fully function and Internet connectivity will not be blocked. After one hour, the system will log the user out without warning. It will not shut down the machine, and the user can log back in. Note: This is different from the Windows XP RFM experience, which limits screen resolution, colors, sounds and other features. [emphasis added]

My head practically exploded when I read this sentence describing the new, improved punishment regimen: "Windows Vista will have a reduced functionality mode but one that is enhanced." Enhanced reduced functionality? Orwell would be proud.

Snarky as ever, Engadget reports:

Well, Microsoft has fired the first salvo in this war on pirates -- according to The Associated Press, the Redmond crew will be taking "much harsher steps to curtail piracy" than in years past. First, the company will "deny access" to some of the "most anticipated features," including Windows Aero, the new GUI. Then, Vista will start issuing ransom demands (we're not kidding about this part), demanding that a legitimate copy be bought within 30 days, or else. What would such consequences entail? How about limiting Web access to an hour at a time? Further, what about not being able to open documents from the desktop or "run other programs such as Outlook e-mail software" ? However, the article goes on to say: "Microsoft said it won't stop a computer running pirated Vista software from working completely, and it will continue to deliver critical security updates." So for those of you keeping score, Microsoft wants to make using your computer as miserable as possible, while keeping it as "safe" as possible, ok?

People out there will whine and complain and say it's not fair, that it's all a bunch of red tape and people will be inconvenienced (and they might be right about that one point), and a million other things that go along with the typical victim mentality (sorry guys, but possession of stolen goods is illegal, even if it's inconvenient, and possessing stolen stuff unknowingly doesn't make the goods any less stolen). And Microsoft needs to make sure that legitimate users are not impacted in a truly meaningful and workable way. But the fact of the matter is that Microsoft is right on this one. In fact, it seems to me that if I ran a company that created software for use by consumers and businesses, and if I wanted to make sure it was being legitimately used and paid for, I'd just keep it from working at all if it was obviously stolen.

But the politics of huge-mega-corporation-attacked-by-angry-mob is a multi-billion-dollar business, apparently.

Glad to see they're finally doing something about it, though.

Some Techmeme-tracked discussion on the topic:

• Matt Hickey / CrunchGear: Microsoft Readies Vista for Piracy Wars
• Jordan Running / Download Squad: Microsoft threatens to cripple pirated Vista PCs
• Cisco Cheng / Gearlog: Windows Vista: Reduced Functionality Mode
• Chron.Com / TechBlog: May I see your Windows license and registration, ma'am?
• Jack Schofield / Guardian Unlimited: Microsoft's Software Protection Platform — WGA will get tougher
• Computerworld Blogs blogs: Vista's SPP: bastard child of WPA and WGA? (and geek wallets)
• Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report: For Vista, WGA gets tougher

Google Labs has deployed Google Code Search, which allows regular expressions to be used to search public source code on the Internet. You can also restrict searches by language, license or filename. Earlier this year, Krugle launched a source code search engine, too. I'll need to think about the potential IP, license and security implications of this (there are many software licenses being used in the world, so how do they respect those that don't allow republication, for example, or what if they don't detect a license in the crawl?), but I suppose if it's out there, it's out there. At any rate, it's interesting what you can do. I bet a lot of people will get a lot of mileage out of this:

• Google Code Search for: hello world
• Google Code Searches for: dasblog and dasBlog
• Google Code Search for: lifetheuniverseandeverything
• Google Code Searches for: a couple not-safe-for-work vulgar words (hmmm)

Google crawls as much publicly accessible source code as their system can find, including archives (.tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar, and .zip), CVS repositories and Subversion repositories. And there's also a GData API available to allow mashup apps access to the functionality.

Syntax and Examples (more about regexp syntax)

regexp
Search for a regular expresion
go{2}gle hello,\ world ^int printk

"exact string"
Search for exact string
"compiler happy"

file:regexp
Search only in files or directories matching regexp
file:\.js$ XMLHttpRequest file:include/ ioctl
file:/usr/sys/ken/slp.c "You are not expected to understand this."

package:regexp
Search packages with names matching regexp.
(A package's name is its URL or CVS server information.)
package:perl Frodo package:linux-2.6 int\ printk

lang:regexp
Search only for programs written in languages matching regexp
lang:lisp xml lang:"c++" sprintf.*%s

license:regexp
Search only for files with licenses matching regexp.
license:bsd int\ printf -license:gpl quicksort

(via Google Blogoscoped)

I just submitted my name at the BerryWare site to get information about availability of the "bimmerberry" line of custom-finish housings for Blackberries.

From the BerryWare site:

“Available in 6 colours - Red, Pink, Green, Blue, Midnight Black, and Silver, these replacement houstings are not the clip-on cases you find everywhere, but an actual refinished housing for your Blackberry painted by a certified professional refinisher using high quality paint and clear coat.”

You have to admit, that's kinda cool. And with my Cingular 8700c and the not-so-cool finish Cingular chose, a metallic black or red finish sounds good to me.

Blackberry Cool says: "Pretty neat, but we’re really hoping the combination of this and the adoption of the BlackBerry in celeb-world doesn’t result in a 'Pimp My ‘Berry' scenario. That would not be pretty."

Ummm... Oops. :)

via Blackberry Cool - Disguise your BlackBerry

(the one where I ponder the personalness (or is it personality? (both?)) of blogs and notice how level the playing field really is...)

I was glancing at Techmeme.com this evening to see what I have been missing the past day or so, and I started browsing the names of the weblogs listed there. I noticed mine was listed, which was pretty cool, and a whole slew of others. For those that don't know, Techmeme lists current online news and blog entries about - you guessed it - technology. Where a topical post appears, the author is attributed and when others write about the same topic, those weblogs or news sites will sometimes also get listed under the main entry. You can click on each one and see what each author has to say about the topic at hand. It's really very slick, and it's all automated. You can blame Gabe Rivera for it's creation. It's really pretty much virtual ice cream for a geek's hungry mind.

Anyhow, as I was passing through Techmeme during my end-of-day, finally-got-home-from-work, just-have-to-see-what-the-rest-of-the-world-is-thinking time, I realized that not many people with tech blogs use their own names in the title. That got me to thinking that tech blogs are often "properties" by name, rather than direct representations of the people that author them, which is interesting to me since one of the things I like best about blogs is that they are uniquely personal.

Then it also occurred to me that except for certain specific blogs I already know (Engadget, TechCrunch, big names like that), I am naturally drawn to blogs that have someone's name in them. I had not thought about it before, but often I want to know what other people think about something. So, I guess when I see a person's name, I am drawn in. Interesting.

SO I went back and looked for examples at TechMeme. There are some people names scattered around. My name is right there, listed as "greg hughes." Robert's is listed as "Scobleizer," which is a play on his name. And Ed Bott's name is part of his weblog's title. But look at all these other names - most are some pithy or cool geeky blog name. Here's a partial representation of what's on there this evening:

Download Squad, Engadget, TechBlog, The PC Doctor, Ed Bott's Windows Expertise, Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog, Guardian Unlimited, Silicon Valley Sleuth, Blackfriars' Marketing, Tech Digest, Ed Bott's Microsoft Report, Microsoft News Tracker, Gearlog, Slashdot, Under The Stairs, TechCrunch, Search Engine Journal, Office Evolution, Download Squad, Screenwerk, ContentBlogger, InsideGoogle, Black Voices, paidContent.org, 21talks, GigaOM, robhyndman.com, Between the Lines, Silicon Valley Watcher, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Valleywag, Googling Google, Search Engine Journal, Google Blogoscoped, Download Squad, Mashable!, Digital Inspiration, Google Operating System, digg, Scobleizer, Beet.TV, AdJab, IP Democracy, TechEffect, Search Engine Journal, ClickZ News Blog, Bloggers Blog, Digital Micro-Markets, Techdirt, rexblog, CNNMoney.com, E-consultancy, Web Worker Daily, StrayPackets, rexblog, greg hughes, Gadgetopia, Scripting News, digg...

Quite the mix of properties, blogs, new sites, names and sources there. Also quite a group to be associated with, to be honest. Often individuals who post on personal weblogs are listed right alongside pro bloggers from big organizations and companies. That's proof that the playing field is as level as you care to make it. Listed in the same context as CNN Money, Todd Bishop, Michael Arrington and Om Malik? That's a level field, alright. Heh.

And another thought... I find that even though I subscribe to Techmeme via RSS, I prefer reading and using it via the browser because of the way it positions and presents information on the page. You just don't get the same dimensional organization in RSS, and not everything works best in "river mode."

Do you read Techmeme? You should. Really.

Rob Bushway over at gottabemobile.com has posted some pre-announcement specs about the forthcoming ThinkPad X60s Tablet PC, which is highly anticipated as the next big Tablet PC thing from Lenovo (the company that now makes those ThinkPad notebooks we all love).

Supposedly, from what people are saying, the actual announcement is not scheduled until next month, but here's what Rob says he hears we can expect (go to his site for the details). If it all holds true, this looks like a very interesting machine. I have to hope the graphics and DualTouch will support Vista. In fact, one has to wonder when Vista will be the default OS on these things. When you consider RTM is likely to happen early next month for the new OS, the stars do seem to align. Hmmm...

Anyhow - back to the geek-out specs:

• Intel 945GM chipset

• Intel Core Solo and Core Duo Processors Low Volt Processors

  • Core Duo ( L2400 (1.66ghz) and L2500 (1.83 ghz)

  • Core Solo (U1400 (1.2 ghz) to announce in January 2007

  • new 2.5" SATA high-speed, standard models with 5400rpm, up to 120gb capacity and optional 100gb 7200 rpm HD available

  • 128mb of Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950

  • Up to 4gb of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory (667 MHz) - 3.2gb available to the operating system

  • 2 memory slots - memory is no longer soldered to the mother board

• connectivity

  • 802.11 a/b/g

  • Embedded Wireless WWAN

  • Bluetooth options

  • Integrated modem and Gigabit

• 12.1" XGA Wide angle display ( 170 degrees) comes standard with

  • Anti-glare / anti reflective coating, now with dynamic screen orientation that adapts the screen to how you want to work ( we are assuming this is like the M200 and M400 accelerometer that auto rotates based on the angle you hold the screen)

  • Plus two other new screen options

    • Optional models available with SXGA ( max res of 1400 x 1050)

    • Optional models available with indoor / outdoor viewing capability with touch screen for enhanced ease of use and flexibility

      • MultiTouch screen allows either finger or pen touch to move cursor for ease of use and more natural interaction with tablet

      • MultiView display provides better screen technology for viewing indoors, outdoors, and from wide angles ( 170 degrees )

• UPDATE: The pen has an eraser on the end of it

Jeremy Zawodny's been looking at options to replace his traditional home backup server with something a little more modern and potentially better from a cost and maintenance perspective. He's looking at Amazon S3 for that purpose.

Not too long ago, Amazon released their Simple Storage Service (or "S3" for short). It provides a hosted storage platform which developers can build all sorts of applications on top of. Smugmug, a popular photo sharing web site, is using it to store and host pictures.

I've been considering using S3 as the backend to an on-line backup, since I'd been beating that for a while (see: Swimming Pools and Hard Disks and Cheap On-Line Storage Coming Soon).

In a few days I'll write about how to do this--I'm only partially through the process right now. But right now I want to lay out the motivation for doing this.

I'll be keeping my eye on this, since I was thinking about trying something similar. The idea of buying yet another piece of hardware, which could sit at home on a slower connection and potentially break on me over time, is less appealing than a sufficiently secure system that I could get to from literally anywhere. And as I work more and more with larger pieces of personal data, the need continues to grow.

Source: Replacing my home backup server with Amazon's S3
Originally published on Wed, 04 Oct 2006 04:51:36 GMT

My job is all about catching bad guys, building great software to help do that, protecting information, and a variety of similar things. the company I work for builds software than somewhere around a third of the country uses in some manner to conduct financial transaction on the Internet, so the topic of security is important to me.

I'm regularly participating these days in interviews with members of the media, and recently one resulting story was published that I thought did a nice job of covering the bases regarding security in financial services and the human elements. What has to be recognized in order to succeed in this fight is that the user is not predictable, accountable or reliable. It's the truth, it's important to know, and it's a fact we have to plan for and design into our security models.

Read the story here: Finance on Windows - "For Your Eyes Only"

From the "Department of You've Got To Be Kidding Me" comes word that BlackBerry users are blaming others for their problems:

"CrackBerry addicts: Why the workers who can't switch off are suing their employers"

... now these discreet handheld gadgets, which provide workaholics with constant email updates, are being blamed for chronic insomnia, relationship break-up, premature burn-out, and even car crashes.

British employers are being warned they could face multi-million-pound legal actions from BlackBerry-addicted staff on a similar scale as class law-suits taken against tobacco companies. Research by the University of Northampton has revealed that one-third of BlackBerry users showed signs of addictive behaviour similar to an alcoholic being unable to pass a pub without a drink.

The report found that some BlackBerry users displayed textbook addictive symptoms - denial, withdrawal and antisocial behaviour - and that time with their families was being taken up with BlackBerry-checking, even at the dinner table.

That's awesome. So what this means, basically, is that I am set for life. I have a guaranteed lawsuit at this rate, I mean you should see me with this thing - I blame the world for my addiction! Who can I sue next?

What ever happened to plain-old, self-assigned-responsibility? Jeez.

And, for your related viewing pleasure (note the video contains some video-blurred nakedness):

As I mentioned before. I recently acquired a Nikon D200 camera (new) and along with it a used but immaculate lens - the Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 ED AF-S model. Both the body and the glass are exceptional pieces of equipment. I can't say enough about them. I also added the MB-D200 batter pack and extension to the body, which allows more battery time as well as vertical shooting trigger and wheels (mandatory in my book - I spent too many years with F3's and F4's not to have that capability).

I shot a few pictures out in the yard this afternoon to post here, since people have been asking me to do so. What I didn't realize until I uploaded them was that I had the ISO set to 800, which is ridiculously high for daylight, heh. So the image noise is a bit higher than it should be. But anyhow, they still look pretty good. The pictures below are clickable and will take you to my flickr feed, where you can see them in their full-size glory if you want to.

I highly recommend the D200 - I have not found a single thing I don't like about it yet (well okay it eats batteries for lunch, but hey - what can ya do?)

So, this is a pretty cool find. I recently acquired a Nikon D200 (which, by the way, is super-sweet and I still need to write about it and the lens and stuff I picked up), which has (or will soon have) a cable that can plus into a GPS device to record your position on the face of the earth in the image EXIF data. I may just make my own cable -we'll see.

Meanwhile, Jelbert has this nifty new thing called GeoTagger:

"The Jelbert GeoTagger connects to a Garmin Geko 301 GPS device and fits into a DSLR's flash shoe. Every time you take a photo the camera triggers the geotagger, which records the precise position and heading of a camera using the GPS device."

So let's say, not quite so hypothetically, that I was going to be in Vienna, Austria for a week in the late-October and early-November timeframe (for work-related stuff). Let's also say that I happened to have an extra week of vacation time available, so I went ahead and got the plane tickets on the cheap(er) and I am arriving in Austria a week before I have to start the work effort. Meaning I have an extra week to see an area of the world I have never visited.

Since that means eight days to do pretty much whatever I want (and to travel wherever seems best) before spending five or six days in Vienna proper, I wonder what people think would make for a good plan? I don't have to stay in Vienna for the extra week, mind you - and I think I'd prefer to get away for that week and see some other places in the region.

I was thinking that maybe a Eurail pass that lets you cross into a couple other countries might be good? So - Where to go and what to do? A friend of mine will also be with me, so we were thinking the "saver" pass for the train system is a good idea.

I've done a bunch of Internet searches to see what others have done, and I have found some interesting and helpful information. But I figured maybe someone who reads this has been there before and will have some ideas. Plus, the bulk of the Internet information I have found is commercial search-optimized generic content meant to drive click revenue, and I am looking for some real-world advice and experience here.

Anyone? :)

On10.net has a video demonstrating the forthcoming Zune media players (the guys there got a couple pre-release models to mess around with). The video demo shows sharing pics and music between devices wirelessly.

I think I'm-a-gonna get me one of those... Looks like it will be a even better option than my iPod for video on airplanes maybe.

Watch the video here.

the Zune is scheduled to be available November 14th for $249.99. It includes a whole host of cool features:

WMA, MP3, AAC, JPEG,WMV, MPEG-4, H.264 media playback
Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) connectivity
30 GB Hard Drive
3 inch video LCD 320x240
White, Black, and Brown Colors
FM Radio
TV output connectivity 640x480
Dedicated song download site (Zune Marketplace)
DJ Mode
Podcast playback
Updateable Firmware
Estimated 12 hr battery life for audio, 3.5 hr video
3 day playback of Wi-Fi transfered songs from friends (hmmm...) 
XBOX streaming
XBOX (Microsoft) points compatability
Preloaded music videos
Over a dozen accessories at launch
5.6 ounces in weight, 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.58 inches size
Metric: 158 g, 112 x 61 x 14.7 mm size
Custom background images
WiFi transfer of photographs
Tag based storage system (Will not appear as drive)
PC Compatability (no Mac client at launch)
Zune tag enabled
Horizontal and vertical video orientation

Technorati tags: Zune

I've had some personal experience in the past couple of years - mostly all good - what some call "agile" programming styles. One thing I don't like much, however, is the sometimes "religious" slant that can invade agile development teams. If you think about it, an agile methodology that doesn't allow itself to be flexible is just about as non-agile as possible. In other words, agile zealots can at times defeat the benefits of the methodology.

The one thing I have found is truly necessary for any agile-ish method to work is 100% participation and buy-in on the part of all involved, from the workers all the way up through every layer of lead and management. Without that, it will fail eventually.

Steve Yegge lives up there in Washington and has written an excellent (and beautifully opinionated) piece about what he calls Good Agile and Bad Agile. If you're a developer or a manager of developers you'll either agree or disagree with Steve, probably strongly in whichever direction you lean. Regardless of your position, it's worth your time to read what he has to say.

I mean hey, he's so colorful, even if you don't have a clue what agile development is you can enjoy the writing. Heh. Forgive the language quoted (like I need to say that). Here's an excerpt:

... Up until maybe a year ago, I had a pretty one-dimensional view of so-called "Agile" programming, namely that it's an idiotic fad-diet of a marketing scam making the rounds as yet another technological virus implanting itself in naive programmers who've never read "No Silver Bullet", the kinds of programmers who buy extended warranties and self-help books and believe their bosses genuinely care about them as people, the kinds of programmers who attend conferences to make friends and who don't know how to avoid eye contact with leaflet-waving fanatics in airports and who believe writing shit on index cards will suddenly make software development easier.
You know. Chumps. That's the word I'm looking for. My bad-cholesterol view was that Agile Methodologies are for chumps.

But I've had a lot of opportunity to observe various flavors of Agile-ism in action lately, and I now think I was only about 90% right. It turns out there's a good kind of Agile, although it's taken me a long time to be able to see it clearly amidst all the hype and kowtowing and moaning feverishly about scrums and whatnot. I have a pretty clear picture of it now.

And you can attend my seminar on it for the low, low price of $499.95! Hahaha, chump!
No, just kidding. You'll only find seminars about the Bad kind of Agile. And if in the future you ever find me touring around as an Agile Consultant, charging audiences to hear my deep wisdom and insight about Agile Development, you have my permission to cut my balls off. If I say I was just kidding, say I told you I'd say that. If I then say I'm Tyler Durden and I order you not to cut my balls off, say I definitely said I was going to say that, and then you cut 'em right off.

I'll just go right ahead and tell you about the Good Kind, free of charge.

It's kinda hard to talk about Good Agile and Bad Agile in isolation, so I might talk about them together. But I'll be sure to label the Good kind with a happy rat, and the Bad kind with a sad dead rat, so you'll always know the difference.

How can you not read what this guy has to say? That's just a start - read it all on Steve's blog.

Nice to live here, dontcha know. The sunrise view from my front porch this morning as I left for work:

Saw this coming a mile away. It's always fascinating when people - or companies - show their true colors.

Apple Computer is sending cease and desist letters, apparently, so a number of companies and organizations that are using the term "pod" in their positioning or names, claiming it causes confusion in the marketplace. Podcast Ready is the latest victim among several.

Give me a break.

The deal is this: It's said Apple has recently applied for coverage from the USPTO to get protection via trademark for the word "pod" in addition to the already protected term "iPod." They've not been granted protection, and I would hope they won't get it. "Podcast" is probably next on their list, at this rate. I see several others have already applied for the term and several variants.

But , after all, it doesn't take a solid legal footing to be a bully, it just takes - well - a bully mentality.

And now, it appears the fight is being taken to the podcasting playground. Despite the fact that Apple didn't invent the term "podcasting," and despite the fact that they adopted - even embraced - the term (and created a whole section and special logo for iTunes, etc.), Apple apparently believes they can Monday-morning-QB this one into the courts - and they must think they can win. One would hope that's not the case, but in California, who knows.

Don't get me wrong - Apple's a company that makes cool stuff and I own a Mac in addition to my PCs. But hey - no one likes a bully, especially when there's really nothing to gain, and a lot of people who could be negatively affected as a result of this move. The idea that the terms "Podcast Ready" and "myPodder" could be confusing in a way that hurts Apple is a stretch. "Podcast" is practically a household term now, and the fact is that Apple didn't jump in until well after it became the defacto standard name and term (despite some heated debates early on around the terminology).

Apple really needs to go find someone or something else to pick on, lest all the other kids on the playground get tired of the black eyes and bruises. Or send some of the lawyers out for a vacation or something. Their judgement is getting clouded.