Trusted Computing and BitTorrent

This Guy is claiming that Trusted Computing is like BitTorrent. I disagree.

My first observation would be that while BitTorrent is voluntary, Trusted Computing is being forced upon us. One enforces liberty, the freedom to do whatever we want with our files. The other locks it down. They are really polar opposites.

Both technologies can be used for good or evil. However, just as BitTorrent is predominantly used for pirated materials, I don’t really see TC being used for much more then DRM. Yes, it could be used for distributed computing. BitTorrent could be integrated with apt-get to distribute Linux updates, too.
Will either happen? Maybe, but not right now and probably not for a while.

Another thing; this *will not* stop music from being pirated. I doubt it will make a dent. If you can play audio, you can capture it. If not by software, then by hardware. Plug a cable from the headphone jack to the mic jack and start recording. Might cut down on software piracy a bit, but I’m sort of doubting enough companies will be organized enough to make things work within three years. Maybe, maybe five or six. If all these web 2.0 people are to be believed, all the important stuff will be online, accessible from anywhere by then, anyway.

Meh. I don’t know how Trusted Computing will work out, but my gut tells me two things. One, people will pirate software and music no matter what. Two, I can’t see the average consumer liking TC when they find out what it is and what does in the grand scheme of things.

Mail.app: new scourge of the internet

Apple recently released a “sneak peek” at the next version of OS X. It looked pretty spiffy… until I read about the new changes to Mail.app Behold the doom that awaits us all: “With Mac OS X Leopard, Mail transforms mere email into personalized stationery.” Why, Apple? Why? Why?

Sincerely yours

Mail for Leopard features more than 30 professionally designed stationery templates that make a virtual keepsake out of every email you send. From invitations to birthday greetings to travelogues, each stationery template features coordinated layouts, fonts, and colors — everything’s designed to keep your mind on the message. You can even effortlessly add pictures to your email via a new Media Browser. Just find the perfect photo and drag it onto your template. Hit “Send” and get ready for some astonished replies from everyone — even folks on PCs.

A problem with the Thunderbird feed reader

…Is that it does not support organizing feeds in different folders. Not directly, anyway. An even larger problem is that it breaks feeds when you do so.

There is a workaround though, which is the only reason I'm posting this to a blog rather then just filing a bug report. (Blogs tend to be higher on Google searches then bug trackers, and I've found I'm often not alone in breaking things like this.)

If you make a directory and drag some feeds into it they will die. They just won't be updated. If you drag them out again, they still won't be updated. It's as if Thunderbird has lost track of them or something. If you try to re-add the atom/rss/xml address you'll get a notice that they are already in the system. It's really a mess.

Here's a work around I've discovered:

1. Make a list of all the "dead" feeds.
2. Export your feed list. It will only include the good feeds.
3. Goto where ever your Thunderbird email directory is and back up the contents of "Mail/News & Blogs". Then, delete it.
4. Open Thunderbird and import that list of feeds you exported at the beginning. It will be missing any dead feeds, but you'll have rebuilt the evil database, so it won't think you still have them.
5. In that backup you made, there will be a file named feeditems.rdf. It's human readable, so you can look though it with a text editor and and manually pick out the addresses of your missing blogs.
6. Manually put them back into Thunderbird using the "Manage subscriptions" dialog. Never touch any feed related stuff without using this.
7. Note the usability issues and politely ask Mozilla to do something about it.

Actually, there is no need for me to post a bug report. This bug has been known about for a year and a half. *cough*

allSnap

Right now I'm using Windows because an Ubuntu driver update has left my Wifi card useless. It'll probably be fixed within a few days, but till then I'm stuck using Windows XP. As I was hunting around for apps to make XP just a little more bearable, I happened across allSnap. It's a neat little app that sits in your system tray and makes all the window edges "snap", like in Gnome, XFCE or KDE.

This means, you can tile your desktop with windows and slide them around on each other without worrying about aligning them precisely. It's a bit hard to explain, but it makes window management a ton easier. Check it out if you're interested in usability and efficiency.