Monthly Archives: February 2007

acts_as_paranoid and acts_as_versioned

So you’re writing a web-based application and you want journalling: when database records change, you want to keep track of the changes so that you have an audit trail. There are many ways to do this. If your application is … Continue reading

Posted in Rails | 3 Comments

Eric Flint on the folly of DRM

Eric Flint, a sci-fi author, published a great essay on the counterproductiveness of DRM. It’s worth a read. Now if only the content industry could get their collective heads out of the sand and start listening to this guy… He … Continue reading

Posted in DRM | Leave a comment

LinuxBIOS on the Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4

Yesterday, someone posted a message to the linux kernel mailing list announcing LinuxBIOS support for the Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 board. The M57SLI-S4 is a higher end desktop-class board that can be had for around $120. This announcement was reported all over … Continue reading

Posted in coreboot | Leave a comment

Dell’s looking for suggestions

Dell is looking for suggestions, and they are publishing the results as they evolve. The top request – by an almost 2:1 margin – is about shipping machines with GNU/Linux preinstalled. Dell, are you listening? That extra option needs to … Continue reading

Posted in Free Software/Open Source | 1 Comment

gene patents

Michael Crichton (the author) has a most interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times today about the folly of gene patents. Patents are supposed to cover inventions. Genes are most certainly not inventions. They are ‘features of the natural … Continue reading

Posted in Copyright, patents, and trademarks | Leave a comment

Steve Jobs’ thoughts on music

Apple has posted an essay by Steve Jobs, with his thoughts on music. More specifically, his thoughts on the mounting pressure from Eureopean governments on Apple to open up it’s Fairplay DRM scheme to its competitors, so that consumers could … Continue reading

Posted in DRM | Leave a comment

google search history

Have a Google account? Or more than one? Did you know that while logged in, Google keeps track of all the searches you do in your ‘search history’, and makes them accessible via your Google account? Did you know you … Continue reading

Posted in Privacy | Leave a comment