October 22, 2012
by sjvn01
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Big Brother comes to BitTorrent

Lots of people download movies and TV episodes off the various BitTorrent networks. That’s always been asking for trouble, but it’s about to become a lot more dangerous.

I get why people download some of their videos from BitTorrent. If you’re a cord-cutter, there are some shows it’s very hard to legally rent or buy. My wife, for one, would kill to get copies of The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, which is pretty much unavailable anywhere thanks to a complicated combination of copyrighted songs that were played on the show.

Be that it may, the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) has announced that they’ll be soon out gunning for anyone they suspect may be violating music or video copyrights. They’ll be doing, in partnership with ISPs using a system called the Copyright Alert System. This, in turn, is ran by a brand protection company called MarkMonitor.

The name of their name is to monitor your network traffic, with the help of your friendly ISP, Their justification for this is the usual made-up facts that content thief leads to “More than 373,000 Job, $16 Billion in Lost Wages, and $2.6 Billion in Lost Taxes” Yeah, I’m also sure someone downloading copyrighted porn leads to cats and dogs living together.

Big Brother comes to BitTorrent. More >

October 22, 2012
by sjvn01
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How to get the Chromebook’s free goodies

The new, great ARM-powered Samsung Chromebook came with two great free offers: 100GBs of free Google Drive storage for two years and 12 free Gogo in-air, Wi-Fi passes. With a combined list price of $269, that means if you buy the ARM Chromebook today at $249, you’re actually getting $20 back! That’s my kind of deal. Here’s how you get it.

How to get the Chromebook’s free goodies. More >

October 21, 2012
by sjvn01
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Review: The ARM-powered Samsung Chromebook

was already a big Chromebook fan before I got my hands on Samsung’s just-released ARM-powered Chromebook. Now, after a weekend with it and with its amazing price of $249 I think it’s going to find a few million more fans. Indeed, as of October 21st, the ARM-based Chromebook is Amazon’s best selling computer.

Why? It’s not that the new model Samsung Chromebook has awe-inspiring hardware. It doesn’t.

Review: The ARM-powered Samsung Chromebook. More >

October 19, 2012
by sjvn01
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Ubuntu moves some Linux development inside

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and its popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, announced in his blog that they’ll be working on some new features behind closed doors for the next release.

Shuttleworth wrote, “”Mapping out the road to 13.04, there are a few items with high ‘tada!’ value that would be great candidates for folk who want to work on something that will get attention when unveiled. While we won’t talk about them until we think they are ready to celebrate, we’re happy to engage with contributing community members that have established credibility (membership, or close to it) in Ubuntu, who want to be part of the action.”

This news came immediately after the release of Ubuntu 12.10.. Shuttleworth knows, “The skunkworks approach has its detractors. We’ve tried it both ways, and in the end, figured out that critics will be critics whether you discuss an idea with them in advance or not. Working on something in a way that lets you refine it till it feels ready to go has advantages: you can take time to craft something, you can be judged when you’re ready, you get a lot more punch when you tell your story, and you get your name in lights (though not every headline is one you necessarily want. ;-)”

Slideshow: Say hello to Ubuntu 12.10 Linux

Some have already suggested that Shuttleworth is doing this because Ubuntu’s switch to its Unity interface has proven unpopular. That doesn’t seem likely to me.

Ubuntu moves some Linux development inside. More >

October 18, 2012
by sjvn01
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Will the new Boxee be worth buying?

The first generation all-in-one Internet TV, Boxee tried to do everything you could do with TV and the Internet…and it wasn’t very good at doing anything. Oh sure, if you put in the sweat equity you could do great things with it. At day’s end, though, the Boxee was a device for hardcore Internet TV geeks. The new Boxee, which will be available in some U.S. markets on November 1st for $99 and a monthly $14.99 service fee, also tries to do a lot, but it’s meant for Joe TV-Watcher instead of Joe Techie.

Boxee co-founder and CEO Avner Ronen claims in a statement that with the new model of Boxee “you’ll be able watch live TV broadcasts in beautiful HD from channels like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, Univision, and many others.” To do that, “It works with antennas and unencrypted basic cable. The device has two tuners so you can watch one show while recording another. So far, that’s just an ordinary DVR, but Boxee’s special sauce is that Boxee records your videos to its own cloud storage service for a “No Limits DVR” experience.

That sounds OK, albeit you’re going to need a darn fast Internet up-link to actually save your HD over-the-air or cable broadcasts to your service.

Will the new Boxee be worth buying? More >

October 17, 2012
by sjvn01
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Ubuntu Linux 12.10 review: Better, but slower

On October 18th, Ubuntu 12.10, the latest and greatest version of this popular Linux distribution arrives. On the eve of its arrival, it’s looking pretty good, but it’s far from flawless.

There’s been a lot of fussing over Ubuntu’s business-related changes. Some people are upset that Ubuntu is actively soliciting donations. Others aren’t happy with how Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company, is dealing with Microsoft attempt to block other operating systems from Windows 8 PCs with UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) Secure Boot.. And, probably the most people were upset with Ubuntu’s attempt to add Amazon search results by default to Ubuntu searches.

Those are all noteworthy issues, but they are also beside the main point: This is a new release of Ubuntu. What’s new in it? How good it is? I’ve been using Ubuntu 12.10, aka “Quantal Quetzal, since its first beta and, hours before it’s official release, I can safely say that this is a newer, better Ubuntu… for most users.

Ubuntu Linux 12.10 review: Better, but slower. More >

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