How to break the internet: Put judges in charge of the technology

imageSoftware can’t be programmed by committee and technology doesn’t work when law makers and judges make programming decisions that they’re utterly under qualified to make.

 

 

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Program logic works as a package deal.  It’s part of a larger picture… a larger plan.  You can’t have people that don’t understand the technology making technological and micro decisions, like judges dictating that some software must do X or must do X in a specific way, or that search engines must “know” not the serve results that might offend.

Take this latest example of a judge in Germany ruling that YouTube is responsible for everything its users upload and is dictating to YouTube that they must apply a certain type of filter that the judge came up with.  Here’s the ZDNet story about it:

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You (judges) can’t make these dictates because you don’t understand:

  1. The feasibility.
  2. The development cost.
  3. The performance cost.
  4. The effectiveness of it.
  5. Whether it’s even possible.

Non technological people tend to understand technology through the eyes of fictional Hollywood productions.  They tend to think that computers and software are decades or even centuries more advanced than they really are.  imageFrom CSI’s fictional holodeck like morgue to Criminal Minds’ Garcia performing cross join queries across disconnected datasets from different sources as fast as her boss asks for it, while he’s still asking (sometimes before he asks), which, in reality, would take days or weeks to research if the database exists, where it’s housed, who owns it, gaining permission to access it, learning their technology to get a feed of it, writing code to import it into your local database so that you can then write a query against it, which might take minutes to execute (after your weeks of research and development to get to that point), depending on how complex it is.

imageIt’s not just judges, but lawmakers too.  You can’t just insert any gear you want into the middle of a complex machine and expect it to just work.  These technologies are very carefully thought out an rigorously tested by very experienced and knowledgeable people who’ve been doing it every day of their lives for years or decades.

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Understanding the Android App Store: ArsTechnica.com doesn’t understand it nor risk vs freedom

imageIn this story on ArsTechnica.com, I find it funny, annoying, and pointless that people point out that there are some malware apps in the Google Android app store. The Google app store (now called “Google Play”) is nothing more than a consolidated place for apps that would otherwise be available on the creator’s on web sites. But, unlike the web, Google can and does take down apps that are proven to be malicious. Just like on Windows, it’s the user’s responsibility to not download junk from sources they don’t trust and to use common sense. It’s the difference between freedom on an open system vs. a closed system. With freedom, there are risks. With a walled garden, there are fewer risks (not zero), but much less freedom. Each has its own merits and no one can be blamed for which they choose. I personally choose freedom. I’m a big boy and I’m educated and can manage my own risks. But that’s just me.

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See also:  Understanding what Android actually IS

Take this quote from the ArsTechnica.com story:

“The apps, which were reported here by McAfee researcher Carlos Castillo, masqueraded as video players offering trailers of Android games and anime content. In the background and without warning, they also obtained the phone number and a unique identifier of the infected device and sent the information in clear text to a remote server under the control of the software developers”

Whenever you install an Android app, you’re given a list of the phone’s data and features the app is requesting access to from the OS. So, I call bull sh!t on “and without warning”. If you’re downloading a video player and the app store says it asks for access to your contacts, you simply refuse to let the app be installed. I have refused the installation of several apps based on this simple logic — apps whose function has nothing to do with what it’s requesting access to. Simple. BTW, the “unique identifier” is normal for all apps that have ads to support them. Not much different than a web site getting your IP address or a Windows/Mac/Linux desktop app that sends your MAC address and/or other hardware IDs, but unlike Windows/Mac/Linux desktop apps, Android apps can’t be installed without you being told, point blank and openly, what they’re requesting access to from the OS.

Pointing out that there are malicious Android apps is no more relevant than pointing out there are malicious Windows apps or malicious Mac apps or malicious Linux desktop apps. Yep. We know that. That’s the price of freedom — risk. And, for people that “don’t know any better”… I call BS on that too since the app store shows you what any Android app you’re about to install is requesting access to. It’s usually a very small list and takes only seconds to see and decide. I have no pity for morons that blindly click “Allow” and neither should you. If you’re intelligent enough to read and install an app, you’re smart enough to decide if a video player should have access to your contacts.  Hint:  The answer is “NO!”

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Understanding what Android actually IS

imageAndroid is not a 1 to 1 comparison to any other mobile OS.  Android is something that unifies many mobile devices that used to be different.

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See also:  Understanding the Android App Store: ArsTechnica.com doesn’t understand it nor risk vs. freedom

In reality, all those mobile handsets, tablets, and “phablets” are still different from each other, but now they share a significant amount in common.  They now share so much in common that people now mistake them as interchangeable like Windows desktop PCs pretty much are.

Folks need to remember that they’re still devices created by the same phone makers that still want their phones to stand out and be unique… like they were before Android.  The fact that these phones now have a similar UI and more than zero compatibility now is a huge improvement over the state of the market just a few short years ago when there was NO compatibility.  But, this compatibility should really be thought of more as a side effect than as an intent.  Sure, the handset makers know there’ll be some compatibility with their competitors simply because they’re starting with the same base code and yes they even sell on that fact, but you should understand that it is really more of a side effect of the fact that they’re starting with the same base code.

Each mobile handset maker still has their OWN OS, despite the fact they all call their OS “Android”.  In reality, HTC had “HTC Android”, which is different from say, “Droid Android”, which is different from the “Amazon Kindle Fire Android”.

“Android” simply means that they started their custom OS from a public base of an OS that others also started theirs with, so there are bound to be some similarities, and there are, of course.

If you look at it that way and adjust your expectations to that actual reality, it’s harder to get upset.  If you’re looking for an iPhone “exactness across all models” experience, you’re going to be sorely disappointed because it is NOT that, nor is it supposed to be.  That could change at some point in the future, but that also would change what Android actually is… which is a base OS that others branch from to form their own without having to start from scratch to save heap-big money.  As a side effect, we get a lot of compatibility between devices.

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64bit and 32bit versions of IE

Please forgive the “E-Maillyness” of this post because it actually is an E-Mail message.  I spent a good deal of time on it and it’s a common question, so I wanted to share my answer here.  All “low quality post” forgiveness to e-mail should be applied here as well! Smile

On 3/30/2012 11:38 AM, George wrote:

Hey CSharpner,

I have been needing to use skype for video conference calls and downloaded the update the other day.

Ever since I downloaded the update, skype shuts down in about 10 to 15 min of each session without me touching anything…(it had been working fine before that)…

(I am trying to troubleshoot that.

One thing I noticed is that the IE that I have states in properties that it is 256 bit Cipher Strenght ….I was checking to see if I needed to update flash, and the instructions there said

to make sure one has the correct bit for IE. My operating system is 64 bit, and I assume IE should be the same. Do I have the wrong version of IE?

Thanks for your guidance!

George

You’re confusing bits with, er, uh, bits! 🙂  Does that help?

heh… Let me see if I can explain it better:

Here’s a blog post I wrote on the subject:  32 bit vs. 64 bit: What’s it mean?

In short:
Unfortunately, you’ve asked a simple question with a complicated answer.  It requires several layers of understanding… each upper layer requiring an understanding of the layer beneath it.  I’ll do my best to uncomplicate it, but it’ll take many words to do so.   But the words will be fairly simple in and of themselves.  Let’s get started:

When home computers came out in the 1970’s, like the original Apple computer and the Apple // computers shortly thereafter, they were 8 bit computers.  This means that when the CPU chip (the brain) talks to the Memory chips, it can send and receive data 8 bits at a time (8 actual wires on the motherboard between the memory and the CPU… to severely over-simplify the explanation).    Now, as technology increased, they doubled the amount of wires between the CPU and the memory to 16 bits.  This means the CPU can send and receive TWICE as much data in the same amount of time as the older 8 bit CPUs without actually running the CPU clock any faster.  Later technology doubled it again to 32 bit.  32 bit became the norm in the early 1990s.  Around 10 years or so ago, 64 bit machines started to become normal.  Today, virtually all machines are 64 bit.

Now, that’s the hardware story.  Let’s switch over to the software side:…

Operating Systems like Microsoft DOS in the 1980’s or Apple DOS for Apple // computers in the 1980’s and the Mac OS are written for a specific type of hardware.  The Apple // operating systems were written for 8 bit hardware.  Microsoft DOS was written for 16 bit IBM PCs and the Mac OS was written for 16 bit hardware for the original Macs (might have been 32bit… I wasn’t in the Mac world then).  Let’s narrow the discussion to Microsoft OS’s and the hardware they’re written for:

MS DOS of the 1980’s was written for 16 bit hardware.  Later, Windows arrived on the scene and was still written for 16bit hardware, but while 16 bit Windows was out, 32 bit hardware started becoming available.  But, 16 bit Windows was still written for 16 bit hardware.  The 32bit hardware could run 16 bit software just fine… the software just wouldn’t gain any benefits of the 32 bit hardware because, obviously, they were pre-programmed for 16 bit operations.  So, software and hardware don’t have to be the same “bits”, so to speak.  Later, when Windows 95 and Windows NT came out, Windows became a 32 bit operating system (for the most part).  Then, the hardware advanced again to become 64bit hardware.  Windows 95, 98, and ME were still 32 bit.  It wasn’t until Windows XP came out that they finally made Windows 64 bit capable (well, they did with NT, but let’s not confuse an over-simplified story here).  They actually had TWO versions of Windows XP… a 32bit version and a 64bit version.  The vast majority of computer users bought and installed the 32 bit version, even though almost all PC hardware was 64 bit capable… Even PC manufacturers would pre-install 32 bit Windows XP on their machines.

Right now, it’s finally starting to become the norm that new PCs have a 64bit version of Windows installed.

But, there’s more:

We talked about 8, 16, 32, and 64 bit hardware and 8, 16, 32, and 64 bit Operating Systems, but to move forward to answer your question, we must introduce one more item (believe it or not, I’ve left out a LOT of discussion on this!)…  Applications.   Apps too can be 8, 16, 32, or 64 bit, regardless of the operating system under which they run and regardless of the hardware on which they run.  Of course, an app can’t have a higher “bit rating” than the operating system it runs under and and operating system can’t have a higher bit rating than the hardware it runs on.  But, a 64 bit piece of hardware can run a 32 bit operating system that runs a 16 bit app.  Follow?

A 64 bit piece of hardware can run 64 bit software, 32 bit software, 16 bit software, and 8 bit software (and maybe even 4 bit software… not sure because we’re talking early 1970’s at that 4-bit level).  Ditto for an Operating system.  An operating system can run apps designed for the OS’s highest bit rating or lower.

Now, we can start answering your question!

64 bit Windows comes with TWO versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer:  a 64 bit version and a 32 bit version.  Under your Windows 7 start menu and under “All Programs”, you should find BOTH of them.  The 64 bit version should be labeled as “Internet Explore (64-bit)” or something like that.  The 32 bit version should just be labeled, “Internet Explorer”.  If you only have one, then you probably have a 32 bit version of Windows installed and that’s a problem in and of itself which we’ll discuss later if that’s the case.  If you’re not sure which is which, just launch one, then open the gear menu, then choose “About Internet Explorer”:

You’ll see something like this:
image
Or this:
image
Notice the difference?  No?  Look at this:
image

One says “64-bit Edition”, the other doesn’t.  THAT’s the thing you need to look at, not the “Cipher Strength”.  “Cipher Strength” has absolutely nothing to do with any of this discussion and nothing to do with your question.  All “Cipher Strength” is, is how good your browser is at encrypting web pages.  That’s it.  The answer to you next question is “NO!”.  It still doesn’t have anything to do with your Skype issue.  No!  Not even then!  No, seriously!  Stop trying to connive of a way to make it relevant.  It’s not!  Just stop!  Can we move on now? 🙂

Now, virtually all browser plugins require the 32 bit version of Internet Explorer.  Hardly anything supports the 64 bit version.  So, make sure you’re running the 32 bit version of IE when using Skype.

Wait!  You’re using Internet Explorer?!??!?!??  WHY?  Stop that right now!  Use FireFox or Chrome!  Holy Crap Dude! 🙂

I’ve not heard of any issues with Skype lately.

Hope that helps!

How to get the Best Prices on Hard Drives [Updated for May-June 2012]

The technique I outline here for finding the best hard drive prices is timeless, but the specific models and prices I’ve listed are good for only a few days.

Whenever I need a new drive, I shop around online for prices, but like most people, I’m quickly overwhelmed with the plethora of offerings (Thank Goodness for Competition!!!!).  There are so many models, with so many different characteristics (speed, capacity, interface, internal/external, brand, warranties, store, taxes, shipping, reliability, etc…) that I always fear that no matter what choice I ultimately make, I’m making a HUGE mistake by not getting another drive from another place that’s significantly cheaper, or faster, or with more storage capacity, simply because there’s not enough time for me to research them all.

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So, I’ve come up with a technique to help me greatly speed up my research and have a reasonable confidence that the choice I make is close to the best available, even if not the absolute best deal ever.

Here’s what I do:

First, I make a simple spreadsheet.  It doesn’t matter which spreadsheet program or online spreadsheet you use.  Pick your favorite, then follow along.

  1. Create a spreadsheet in your favorite spreadsheet app.
  2. Add columns for source (a link to the product page of the drive), capacity, & price.  Feel free to add more columns like Make, Model, Interface, RPMs, etc…
  3. Add a calculated field for price/capacity.  The formula for row 2 should look like:  =E2/D2 if column E is your price per drive column and column D is where you’re holding your drive capacity.  Make certain you use the same units for capacity for all drives.  For example, if you write Gigabytes for one drive, don’t put Terabytes for another or your calculations will be wrong (by a THOUSAND FOLD!!!).  Choose either Gigabytes or Terabytes, but don’t mix and match.
  4. Go to your favorite online store and search for hard drives, filtered to your needs (for example, maybe you’re only interested in external drives, so filter by that).  Use that online store’s feature to sort by cheapest first!
  5. Start entering the data into your spreadsheet.  I recommend to NOT add columns that aren’t critical to your decision.
  6. Once you enter a drive with a certain capacity, ignore any drives later in the list that are smaller in capacity because they’re a worse price/GB (since you’ve sorted by price).
    1. This part is important to the whole process.  Pay special attention to this part!  Since you’ve sorted by cheapest first, the first drive of say 500GB you come across will be the CHEAPEST 500GB drive.  If you run into LOWER capacity drives, just skip them.  Scan ahead in the list until you find a drive that’s BIGGER than 500GB!  THIS is how you significantly reduce time browsing the site!
  7. Go to another online store and repeat steps 4-6 at a different online merchant.  Continue this until you feel you’ve shopped enough online stores and have enough data to make an informed decision.
  8. Now, sort your spreadsheet by your calculated column.  The cheapest price per GB will be at the top.

Below, is a screen shot of my spreadsheet with affiliate links to amazon.com and plain old links to bestbuy.com.  Click the image to be taken to my actual Google Docs spreadsheet with the actual data in it and links to each product.  Keep in mind though that hard drive prices change on a daily basis, so this data is only relevant for a couple days, but the technique I outlined here should save you hours of research and hopefully save you lots of cash too, as well as give you confidence that when you do make your decision, that it’s well informed.

May-June 2012 (below)

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February 2012 (below)

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Oh!  One more thing:  I strongly encourage you to avoid buying a hard drive until the last possible moment that you need it.  Why?  Because hard drive prices are ALWAYS falling and capacities are ALWAYS getting bigger.  The later you wait, the better deal you’ll get.

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Is your ISP hijacking YOUR browser search preferences?

Many Internet Service Providers are overriding your choice of search engine on your own computer so they can show their OWN search page and advertisements, regardless of what you chose for your search provider.  Yes, this is slimy and unethical, but what can you do about it?

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First, you need to test to see if your ISP has actually hijacked your browser’s search settings.

Do this:  In your browser, set your preferred search engine:

  • Chrome:  Open the wrench menu, choose “Options”, in “Search” section, pick a search provider, any one of them.
  • FireFox:  [Alt]+[D], type about:config in the address bar, then [Enter].  find browser.search.defaultenginename and set it to Google or Yahoo or Bing.
  • Inter Explorer:  Stop using this browser and use Chrome or FireFox.

Now, in your address bar, type a search term like, stop sopa then hit [Enter].  Did your search results show up in your selected search engine?  If not, your ISP has hijacked your personal preferences.  What do you think about that?  You like it?  You like that someone else has decided they know better?  Of course you don’t.  Now, call your ISP and bitch.  Bitch like it’s going out of style.  What right do they have to do that to you?  Then, read below to find out how to override their hijacking.

Did you search come up in your chosen search provider?  Still doesn’t mean your ISP didn’t hijack it.  It just may be that the search provider you chose is the same one your ISP chose.  Now, go back up to the bullet list and change your search provider to something else and repeat your search.  Did it come up in the new search provider?  Then you’re golden.  Your ISP has NOT overridden your choice.  But what if they do in the future?  How can you prevent it from happening in the first place?

How to tell your ISP to go to hell and tack control back of your search preferences:

You need to change your computer’s DNS settings.  Don’t be intimidated.  It’s easy.  Here’s how in Windows 7:

  1. Open your start menu and type “network and sharing center”, then click the name of your network as in the section below below:
    1. image
    2. image
  2. Click the “Properties” button.
    1. image
  3. Then select “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCPIPv4)” and click “Properties”.
  4. In the “Inter Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties” dialog box, in the lower half for DNS server addresses, WRITE DOWN WHAT’S THERE IN CASE YOU NEED TO CHANGE IT BACK!!!!!  Then enter the values shown below:
    1. image
  5. Click OK, OK, then close.

Go back up to the top to verify your search provider preferences are now respected.

So, what did we actually do?

When you type in a domain name like CSharpner.com, your computer doesn’t know how to get to the server that hosts that web site.  Your computer has to get to web sites via their IP addresses.  So, the structure of the internet has servers that will convert the domain name you provide into a current IP address for that site.  These servers are called Domain Name Servers (DNS).  There are thousands and thousands of Domain Name Servers, but you only use 1 or 2.  Your ISP has their own DNS servers and most likely, your computer is using THEIR DNS servers.

Now, here’s what normally happens when you enter an invalid domain name:  Your bad domain name is sent to the DNS servers, which don’t find it and return an error that your browser then displays, unless you have a default search provider set up in your browser.  In that case, instead of displaying an error, your browser then submits that text to your preferred search engine and then displays the results.

So, here’s what your ISP did to hijack your preferences:  When you enter an invalid domain name, instead of your ISP’s DNS servers returning an error to your browser, they instead do NOT return an error and will do their OWN search with a search company they’ve partnered with to get a percentage of the advertising revenue.  So, your browser will NEVER receive an error from your ISP’s DNS servers, hence your search preferences in your browser are never used.  You’ve now been hijacked.

What we did with the instructions above was told your computer to NOT use your ISPs DNS servers, but instead use some free DNS servers whose IP addresses happen to be 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.3.  These aren’t the only ones out there that you can choose from.  Google hosts some.  Their IP addresses are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Now, if your ISP did, in fact, hijack your search settings.  Call them up and let them know what you think about it.  I highly recommend switching to one of their local competitors and let your old ISP know why you’re switching.

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Software Piracy & Illegal Downloads: Not necessarily wrong

And not necessarily right either.

Say what?  Yes, you read that headline right.  Don’t confuse the words “wrong” and “illegal”.  It’s still illegal, but is it morally/ethically wrong?  It’s entirely possible for something to be against the law, but now wrong, such as speeding up past the posted speed limit to prevent being squashed by an 18 wheeler.  It’s also possible for something to be wrong, but perfectly legal, such as being rude.  So, let’s not confuse the 2 terms and note which word I chose in my headline!

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) would have you believe that downloading one song is the equivalent of walking into a record store and stuffing a Lady Gaga CD down your pants and sneaking out the door with it.  They would have (and have had) judges believe that allowing 24 songs to be downloaded from your PC is the equivalent of a major crime ring stealing 100,000 CDs worthy of a fine of nearly $2,000,000.  They would have (and have had) a UK court believe that simply providing a hot link on your website to a Michael Jackson MP3 file on someone else’s website (not even offering the MP3 on your own site) deserves a harsher prison term than actually KILLING MICHAEL JACKSON!

You think those are crazy examples?  Nope!  Well, actually yes, they are crazy, but unfortunately, each one of those really happened!

But, let’s get back to the main topic:  The morality of downloading digital files that you didn’t pay for, whether it be MP3 music files, movie files, photos, or software.  Is it the equivalent of stealing a physical product from a store?

Absolutely NOT!  And it doesn’t take a lot of brain power to understand why.  But, apparently, the lawyers at the RIAA and MPAA don’t have enough of that gray matter to understand it, so please allow me a moment to explain it to that crowd:

You see, when you steal something tangible (like a CD or a car), the person you took it from doesn’t have it anymore!  There’s an actual loss there.  Something of value is no longer there.  Actual loss occurred.  Now, when someone downloads a file, the original file is… guess what?  STILL THERE!  The file it was copied from is unaffected.  The person that owns the original file still has it.

Hey, RIAA and MPAA… Still following along?  Good.  Now, that’s NOT a justification for copying.  That’s just an important part (a really important part) to understand.  You must understand and accept that to move on.  Denying that simple truth proves 1 of 2 things:

  1. You’re excruciatingly closed minded.
  2. You’re an idiot.

Those aren’t insults.  They’re just simple, factual observations.  It’s not possible to logically deny the fact that when you copy, the original is not gone.  Therefore, making a digital copy is NOT the equivalent of stealing something tangible.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there wasn’t a loss.  There very well could have been a loss.  But, copying, in and of itself, does not equate to loss.  There has to be something else:  That being that the file being copied was for sale.  Those two things still don’t equate to loss.  It also has to be true that the person copying the file didn’t pay for it.  But, there still has to be more.  That file would have to have been available for sale to that person at the place and the time when they copied it.  What I mean by that is say a file is only available for sale in America, but the person copying is in the U.K.  If the UK resident can’t buy it anyway, it’s impossible for there to be a loss when he copies it.  That person that copied the for sale file without paying for it would also had to have paid for it had they not been able to copy it and it would had to have been available for sale in his location.  In other words, if that person would have and could have paid for it had it not been possible to copy otherwise, yet they still copied it, then, and only then could that be a loss.

I submit that the vast majority of copying does NOT fit that category.  For example, in the 1980’s, when I was a pre-teen and teenager, the “thing to do” for all us computer enthusiasts was to share all the software we had.  I’m talking hundreds of games and utilities.  Now calm down RIAA and MPAA readers… No one’s saying that’s a justification.  Just follow along.  Now, think of that situation:  Teenagers copying thousands, or possibly even millions of dollars of software (per teenager), if you add up the retail value of it all.  Do teenagers have that much money?  No, of course not.  Hey!  I said CALM DOWN!  Again, this is not meant as a justification.  Please follow along RIAA and MPAA readers…  We’ll all pause for a moment while you unbunch your panties.

All better now?  Good.  Let’s continue…

So, back to the teenagers that copied thousands of dollars or even a million or so dollars of software.  Was that an actual loss by the software companies?  Well, only if those kids would have forked over thousands or hundreds of thousands, or in some cases, millions of dollars (per kid) had that software not been copyable.  Obviously, that is not the case, so it’s impossible to claim that they lost sales for each of those copies for the full retail value    It’s mathematically impossible for there to be a loss greater than the value of money the copier has available.

Further more, there ARE cases where pirating digital content actually HELPS sales.  How? Let’s go back to the 1980s again.  Why did so many teenagers talk their parents into buying them a home computer in the first place?  Because of all the “free” games!  Yes, software piracy kick started the PC revolution in the 1980s.  The possibility of free software caused more sales of hardware.  And, as a natural feedback loop, once people had the hardware on hand, they were now entered into the software market.  No one will buy software if they don’t have a computer!  So, even though lots of software was pirated in the 1980s, it let to a larger market, which in turn, led to more software sales.

The point is not to legally justify digital pirating.  The law is clear.  It’s against the law.  But, on the moral front, there ARE cases where it actually HELPS!  That environment in the 80s actually got ME into computers and since then I’ve spend probably over $100,000 in hardware AND software!  Not only that, but because I’m an expert in my field, I have somewhat of a rippling effect of software and hardware purchases due to my recommendations.  I even brought other people into the computer market in the 80s that otherwise probably wouldn’t have until the mid to late 90s, increasing both hardware and software sales.  So, there was most definitely a net GAIN.

Take another example:  Say a really expensive piece of software like some high end CAD software or 3D rendering software… Some teenager gets ahold of a copy and learns how to use it, decides that’s what he wants to do in college, gets a degree, gets a job, starts a business and BUYS CAD software.  When teenagers pirate software, many times it creates a whole lifetime of a career including all the hardware and software they purchase along the way.  And, since the teenager could never have purchased the software in the first place as a teenager, it wasn’t even a lost sale.

Now, what about today and what about music and movies being copied and shared online?  Let’s take some real life examples.  It’s not unusual for college students to amass a library of say 100,000 songs.  If they were to pay for those, it’d be $100,000.  Clearly, no college student is going to (or even COULD) spend $100,000 on music files.  They’ll never even listen to the vast majority of them.  Clearly, the vast majority of that collection does NOT represent lost sales.  There’s no way those sales would have EVER occurred.  In fact, many studies show that as people download songs for free, they get exposed to new music they’d have never been exposed to in the first place, generating new interest in new artists, eventually generating actual sales!  Again, this is still illegal, but is it immoral?  In many cases, it is an emphatic “NO!”

Got it RIAA and MPAA members?  Good.  Apologies to everyone else that followed along with something they already knew and was so blatantly obvious, but someone needed to point this out to them.

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Review: Toshiba Satellite L775-S7309 Notebook PC

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Toshiba’s Satellite L775 Notebook PC is a great bang for the buck, so much so that I bought it myself.  I’ve avoided laptops for, well, forever, because for whatever laptop you could buy, you could by much more computing power in a desktop for the same money.  I’m a tech junkie and spend too much time browsing around stores like BestBuy.  Every time I’m there, I examine the notebooks and every time I’m sorely disappointed at the high prices and lack of power.  I’ve never found anything worth using under $800 or so.

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Finally, after years and years of browsing through the laptop aisle, I finally found a laptop with enough power and a low enough price, and, this one’s radically important for me, a high enough resolution (vertically) for me to personally get some programming done.

[Here’s my affiliate link to this notebook on Amazon]

So, let’s get into this PC’s specs:

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Feature Value
Screen Resolution 1920×1080
Screen Size 17.3″
Screen Aspect Ratio 16:9 Wide Screen
RAM 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz
CPU Intel Core i3-2330Mhz CPU, 2.20Ghz
Hard Drive 500GB
Mouse Touch Pad w/ Multi-Touch
Keyboard Full keyboard with full number keypad.
Ports 3 2.0 USB, 1 HDMI, 1 RJ11, 1 VGA, Power, Media Card reader
Optical Storage DVD +/-R/RW with LightScribe (The drive can print images on the label of your DVDs if you buy the right kind).

What’s Good about it?

The price vs. performance is the best I’ve found – ever.  With all of the specs above, I was able to get it for under $500.  And, all other notebooks I ran across with a vertical resolution over 1024 were nearly $1,000 or more.  With 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HD and a Dual Core processor, it’s plenty powerful enough for most anything I’d need for a computer on the go.  All I really needed was something with a decent screen size to remote control my home desktop, so power and hard drive space weren’t really all that important for me, but this one’s got enough to use it as an actual computer as opposed to just a remote terminal.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that the touch pad is a multi-touch pad.  Yes, you can pinch to zoom.  It has built in wireless networking (as should be expected by any modern laptop) and a full size, wide keyboard.

What’s NOT to like about it?

It gets HOT…. REALLY HOT!  If you put it on your lap, you left leg will burn.  You’ll get actual flesh burns.  Also, and I find this unacceptable (aside from the low price); where you rest your right palm while typing gets really hot too… hot enough to cause bodily damage.  They actually have warnings about these 2 hot spots.

The volume is pretty low.  You’ll have to turn it up to max for most things to hear it.  And, even though I mentioned the full size of the keyboard and the large screen as an advantage, it makes the whole unit pretty big… a little too big for a notebook, but if a compact size isn’t an issue for you, then this won’t be a problem.  It fits nicely in my notebook backpack.

Installed Software

It comes pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium.  They are also guilty of shoveling on lots of other software.  Here’s a list of some of it:

  • WildCoins games.  Lots of fairly decent games, including Pac-Man (you can NEVER go wrong with Pac-Man!)  imageBut, you’re given a handful of virtual coins and can play the games with your virtual coins, but when they’re used up, you’ll have to purchase the games(s) you want.  Also, if you run the game launcher, it’ll install an icon on your desktop EVERY TIME YOU RUN IT!  I like to keep my desktop slim on icons and this stupid thing keeps adding an icon on my desktop, against my will, without asking, without warning.  Shame on you WildCoins!  And shame on youToshiba for lowering your standards to allow this.
  • Corel LabelOnce – This app let’s you design labels to print directly onto your CDs and DVDs (if you buy the write kind of discs made for this).
  • Google Chrome
  • NetZero dial up software?  Really?  What centuryis this???
  • Skype – Not something I’d install for myself and easy enough to download if you want it.image
  • Toshiba utilities – Lots of Toshiba specific utilities, including making your own rebuild media discs.  This is inexcusable to NOT provide the Windows Media discs.  It would cost Toshiba maybe $1.  But since they didn’t it will cost YOU many hours of babysitting the computer while you’re burning DVDs, making many trashed “coasters” in the process.
  • Microsoft Office 2010 – Don’t get too excited… The filesare there, but if you don’t have an install key, you can’t use it.
  • There was some anti-virus demo app on it too… either McAfee or Norton… don’t know, don’t care.  I uninstalled it and installed Microsoft’s free “Security Essentials”.

Battery Life

Of course, no mobile device review is complete without talking about battery life.  Toshiba has pre-installed some software to maximize and monitor your battery and your enabled features.  It will dim your screen, slow down the CPU, stop spinning the hard drive, etc… to reduce power consumption.  It’ll even give you a score of green leaves (a little annoying if you’re not a tree hugger), and a real time graph showing power usage so you can tune things to get a good balance of performance vs. battery usage.

Conclusion

I’ll end this review where I started it.  This is the best value vs. performance notebook I’ve ever seen… so much so that I bought it… I’m even writing this review with it.  Let’s put it this way, on a 5 star scale, ALL prior notebooks I’ve run across would never score more than 2.5 because of the ridiculously high prices and unusable low screen resolutions.  This is the first one I give a higher score to.  I’ll give it 4 stars out of 5.  If it weren’t for the painful heating and lack of install media, I’d give it a full 5 stars.

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[Here’s my affiliate link again to this notebook on Amazon]  (I don’t provide affiliate links to products I don’t use myself or that I don’t want myself.  This is one I definitely use myself).

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[poll id=”6″]

Poll: Have you READ any of the text of SOPA?

imageEverybody seems to have an opinion on this and not just an opinion, but a passionate opinion.  But, how many of us have actually read the text of the bill itself?  Have YOU?  What are you waiting for then?

[Here it is]

 

 

 

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What parts of it are good and what parts are bad.  Comment below with the references to the text of the bill you’re talking about.

Be sure to also vote on the poll of what you think about SOPA here.