Archive for July, 2006

Hold music interviewed and podcast!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 31/7/2006
in PodLeaders and Podcasting
. 3 Comments

I had a podcast interview lined up for today with David Hayden of Jeteye. He didn’t show, so I spent 17 minutes listening to the hold music on the conference call.

I had taken time to prepare for the interview and made room in my schedule today when he postponed last week hours before the interview was due to go ahead.

I tried to setup a Jeteye account so I could ask knowledgeable questions about the site but failed miserably to do so. I had some problems with the logon process.

In any case, getting bored listening to the hold music and having done all the preparation, I decided to go ahead and interview the hold music!

The result is here.

Digg’d (Dugg?) here.

Digital Rights Ireland challenges the government

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 31/7/2006
in Technology
. 3 Comments

Via Bernard and Damien comes news that Digital Rights Ireland is going to challenge the constitutionality of an Irish law which mandates telcos operating in Ireland to retain the details of all electronic traffic for 3 years.

This data can be requested from the telcos by the Gardai (Ireland’s police force) without a court order if the Gardaí are satisfied that it might be useful in the prevention of a (not limited to serious) crime.

When you consider that your mobile phone is constantly broadcasting your location under current legislation you are, when carrying one, effectively wearing a tracking device for the Gardaí (one with a three year memory).

Support Digital Rights Ireland in this battle. Let everyone you know, know about this and head on over to the Digital Rights Ireland support page and lend them some support.

WordPress updated to 2.0.4

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 31/7/2006
in WordPress
. 4 Comments

WordPress was updated to version 2.0.4 over the weekend.

This release contains several important security fixes, so it’s highly recommended for all users. We’ve also rolled in a number of bug fixes (over 50!), so it’s a pretty solid release across the board.

WordPress 2.0.4 is available for download here.

Blogger meetup

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 31/7/2006
in Blogging and Technology
. 0 Comments

Annette is proposing a blogger meetup in Dublin on August 19th.

What with the new baby and all, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it along. I’ll have to see if I can get permission to abandon the homestead.

Hopefully I’ll be able to make it along - if not, have a great time!

How to beat the RIAA?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 31/7/2006
in Technology
. 14 Comments

Via Bernie comes news that the RIAA is starting to drop cases against people who have open wifi networks!

The RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) has to date, sued over 18,000 people in the United States suspected of distributing copyrighted works, and have settled approximately 2,500 of the cases. Sue first and ask questions later seems to be their motto. As I have witnessed first-hand, bringing out the lawyers is never a good PR move.

In any case, now it seems that:

if you want to win a lawsuit from the RIAA, you’re best off opening up your WiFi network to neighbors. It seems like this strategy might actually be working. Earlier this month the inability to prove who actually did the file sharing caused the RIAA to drop a case in Oklahoma and now it looks like the same defense has worked in a California case as well. In both cases, though, as soon as the RIAA realized the person was using this defense, they dropped the case, rather than lose it and set a precedent showing they really don’t have the unequivocal evidence they claim they do.

I wonder would that work with a FON network or does it have to be completely open?

Free label printing software for Mac

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 31/7/2006
in Mac
. 4 Comments

Via UCC’s Dave Murphy comes news that Avery have released free label printing software for the Mac.

For anyone who has struggles printing of labels in the past - this is great news. The software has:

templates for all Avery printable products, support for both Printer Fonts and Macintosh Fonts. Mail merge from Excel, Word, ClarisWorks, FileMaker and AppleWorks. Graphics importing and graphics tools.

Avery Mac Label Expert

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