Places and Faces
Around lunch time a few of us ventured up to the Apple Store to try and get a copy of iLife ‘09. To our surprise it had only shipped today, and we were told not to expect it until later in the week. That certainly didn’t line up with what I had read online, but there wasn’t much we could do. We also checked out Best Buy and Future Shop with the same luck. I was a little frustrated, seeing as quite a few reports I had been reading online were saying that people were picking up their copies at the Apple Store. Perhaps that was limited to the US retail locations and not the Toronto Eaton Centre location? Come on Apple, why can’t you offer direct downloads? You already have the infrastructure to deliver it, it’s called iTunes! Plus you might even save some money on packaging, media duplication, distribution. But I won’t tell you how to run your business, you have Steve Jobs…. oh wait…. never mind.
Anyway, our frustration lead us to procure an “Evaluation Copy”, from what source I will let your imagination decide. I really had intended on buying it, and probably still will. But what software companies, and the movie/music industry should remember is that all people aren’t inherently criminals, but rather take the only/easier option to obtain the product they want. So make sure the easiest option for them to do so is also the profitable option for you and everyone wins. I couldn’t get what I wanted, when I wanted, so I looked elsewhere.
I have spent most of my time with iPhoto so far. The changes in iMovie didn’t blow me away compared to the 08 version, and didn’t have the patience to let a video run through the stabilization. I really like the Places and Faces features of iPhoto though. I must admit a huge amount of my afternoon/evening was spent tagging peoples faces and testing the face detection. Which led me to the Facebook integration….
Some may know that I was a vicious non supporter of Facebook for quite a while. I did start using Twitter a little while ago though, which a few people told me was just one step away from Facebook. Well, they were right. The Facebook integration in iPhoto ‘09 pushed me over the edge. I ended up creating a profile, and spent almost the rest of my evening adding friends and learning what my “wall” is and why people were writing on it.
The other feature I was interested in was Places. Just seeing a map with my pictures plotted on it, without any manual intervention was awesome. In fact, I almost completely forgot that almost all of the pics taken from my iPhone were tagged with GPS data. I did manually add some locations to other pics though. The coolness of this feature really stands out when you go to search or create Smart Albums based on locations/landmarks and see all kinds of pics come together. This feature actually leads me to a prediction….
I think we will be seeing a lot more of GPS enabled digital cameras within the next year. I know this is not the first time this technology has been used, I just think this is one of the better implementations, and one that is going to really reach the masses. I think Apple may have been banking on this too. I guess maybe I’ll be proved either right or wrong at next years CES! I will leave you with a screenshot of my Places Map from iPhoto:
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OSX in Windows
That’s right, more fun with VMWare. This time the host OS is Windows XP, and I got a pre-made VM of Mac OSX Tiger. I figured what better way to make my Windows XP work laptop a bit more enjoyable than running Mac OS on it. It wasn’t all fun and games though, it was really slow and I couldn’t get the screen resolution above 1024×768. And it was Tiger, which is a bit weird to go back to after running Leopard for a while now.
Anyway, it was worth a try. I even got networking working thanks to the supplied .kext and scripts. Here is a screenshot of the ordeal:
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Another addition to my VMWare list
Since I currently run a Windows box as a media center PC to stream audio/video to my XBOX 360, I decided that I wanted to see how the media center options are on Windows 7. Instead of doing anything fancy on that PC, and knowing I already had VMWare Fusion installed on my Mac, I decided to keep things simple. And simple they were.
I downloaded the Windows 7 Beta ISO, created a new VM in Fusion, and simply told it I was installing an x64 copy of Vista. Mounted the ISO in Fusion and the install kicked off. I gave the VM 1 CPU, 40GB of space and 1GB of RAM. Before I knew it the install was done, and it was sitting at a login screen. Below you can see my growing list of VM’s including the Windows 7 addition:
I haven’t had much time to mess around with it, but it seems pretty stable so far. It seems to boot and do most things a tad faster than Vista. The media center app seems to be a bit more function and again a bit quicker than on Vista. Internet Explorer 8 didn’t really impress me much, and I really wouldn’t have that much of a base for comparison given I haven’t seriously used IE for several years now. I usually divide my time between Safari or Firefox these days. IE 8 didn’t seem to do anything wrong, though. So that’s a plus.
Overall, Windows 7 does seem usable. I guess Microsoft had quite a bit on their plate making up for some of the blunders with Vista. Windows 7 still does look and feel almost like Vista, and I never really had many problems with Vista since I only use it for media center purposes. I’m probably not a good resource for review or comparison, but it seems OK for what I have done with it so far.
Here is a screenshot of the Windows 7 desktop I grabbed while I was messing around for a bit:
Chewbacca trapped in nightstand?
Shame on you
Whoever you are:
Dear Mr __________
Rogers Cable (Rogers) has received a notice stating that activities associated with your IP address are infringing copyright in material(s) owned or exclusively licensed by others.
The full notice is appended to this e-mail below.
Under section 4(d) of the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet End User Agreement (EUA) and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), you are prohibited from using the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service to engage in illegal activities, including activities that infringe copyright. Copies of our EUA and AUP are available at:
http://na.edit.client.yahoo.com/rogers/show_static?.form=terms&.intl=ca
Where there has been a violation of our EUA and/or AUP, including the unauthorized distribution of copyright-protected material, Rogers has the right to take appropriate action against you.
If you have any questions about the attached copyright notice, please contact the sender of the notice using the contact information provided in the notice. Please do not reply to this e-mail.
We trust you will comply with our policies and all applicable laws in using the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service.
Rogers EUA Management Team
Sincerely,
EUA Management Team
Rogers Yahoo Hi-Speed Internet
http://info.yahoo.com/legal/ca/rogers/terms/all/
00941049
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Rogers Cable Inc.
1 Mount Pleasant Road
Toronto, M4Y-2Y5 CA
RE: Unauthorized Distribution of the Copyrighted Motion Picture Entitled
Seven Pounds
Dear Rogers High-Speed Internet:
We are writing this letter on behalf of Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., (“Columbia Pictures”).
As you may know, Columbia Pictures is the owner of copyright and exclusive distribution rights in and to the motion picture entitled Seven Pounds.
No one is authorized to perform, exhibit, reproduce, transmit, or otherwise distribute the above-mentioned work without the express written permission of Columbia Pictures, which permission Columbia Pictures has not granted to X.X.X.X.
We have received information that an individual has utilized the above-referenced IP address at the noted date and time to offer downloads of the above-mentioned work through a “peer-to-peer” service.
The attached documentation specifies the location on your network where the infringement occurred, the number of repeat violations recorded at this specific location, as well as any available identifying information.
The distribution of unauthorized copies of copyrighted motion pictures constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 106(3). This conduct may also violate the laws of other countries, international law, and/or treaty obligations.
Since you own this IP address, we request that you immediately do the following:
1) Disable access to the individual who has engaged in the conduct described above; and
2) Terminate any and all accounts that this individual has through you.
On behalf of Columbia Pictures, owner of the exclusive rights to the copyrighted material at issue in this notice, we hereby state that we have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by Columbia Pictures, its respective agents, or the law.
We also hereby state that we believe the information in this notification is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that MediaSentry is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive rights being infringed as set forth in this notification.
Please contact us at the above listed address or by replying to this email should you have any questions.
We appreciate your assistance and thank you for your cooperation in this matter. In your future correspondence with us, please refer to Case ID ________.
Your prompt response is requested.
Respectfully,
A Kempe
Enforcement Coordinator
SafeNet, Inc.
------------------------------ INFRINGEMENT DETAIL -------------------- Infringing Work: Seven Pounds First Found: 17 Jan 2009 16:01:22 EST (GMT -0500) Last Found: 17 Jan 2009 16:01:22 EST (GMT -0500) IP Address: X.X.X.X IP Port: 36300 Protocol: BitTorrent Torrent InfoHash: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Containing file(s): seven pounds.[2008.Eng].DVDScr..DivX-LTT.torrent (932,085,261 bytes) ----PTCP_3124410204675a07d9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable
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Another video
Feels kind of cheap to post another video, but I just found this and it’s pretty good:
Laughing shark
Don’t know why I find this funny, but thought I would share. Credit goes to Lemon who sent it to me originally:
So close
Because of a lack of access to a certain box at a certain colo facility, I had to take my normal bittorrent downloads into my own hands at home. And because of that, I managed to come very close to reaching my cap on Rogers Extreme service, which is 95GB. It’s surprising how much more bandwidth you use with a torrent, given you upload at the same time as download and really end up downloading quite a bit more than the actual file size.
Truth be told, I knew I was reaching the cap about 3/4 of the way through the month and at that point it just became a game. I did find out that Rogers uses their DPI to insert a warning message into your http packets, letting you know you are above the 75% limit of your cap. While I agree, this is pretty awesome technology, it also makes me wonder if they are able to inspect not just every packet at the application level, but the entire stream (which is what would be required to insert a header and keep the rest of the page intact) what else are they doing?
I really can’t complain about the throttling because if left overnight, most of my downloads complete before I even know it. I even saw a few in the wee hours of the morning ripping down at over 1000 KB /sec, which is a testament to why I pay for the Extreme service. Back on the topic of DPI though, I did take exception to Rogers clear disregard for RFC’s and the DNS spec when they decided that their DNS resolvers would no longer return a value of NXDOMAIN for a DNS lookup that was not found. Instead, they chose to return an A record for non-existent domains, which pointed you to a splash page of theirs that even included some advertising. Not cool. I now run bind at home, and enjoy a faster and un-altered DNS service.
Now back to what I was talking about before… I didn’t actually manage to break past the cap this month, but I did come close. BTW, I’m not at all angry with this new policy of Rogers. Way back when they first started cracking down on “heavy” users, I had my service shut down with no explanation. When I called in, I was told that I had downloaded too much and thus my service was cancelled. When I inquired as to what the limit was, I was told there wasn’t a limit, but I had simply used too much. I totally agree I probably downloaded a whopping shitload, but if you are going to have the balls to terminate my service, please have a leg to stand on with your argument. Anyway, that forced me into a several year hiatus with Rogers, but I’ve been back with them for about 3 years now with no complaints. I now consider myself a medium-heavy user, but I don’t mind being capped. I now know that I have a 95GB limit /month and that I still have the option of going over at $1 /GB. I know that the upstream band on a docsis cable network is a priceless commodity and p2p filesharing is the devil. I don’t mind staying within the limit, and paying if I go over, but at least I know where the line is and when I have crossed it. Speaking of which, here is me coming within a 96% proximity of that line this month:
