Serious props to the EFF guys for cracking this.
I had heard about this inter-governmental-corporate scheme for a few years, but since I’ve never owned a color laser printer didn’t have much of an opportunity to check it out.
The way they cracked it is a pretty tricky technique, but determing the parity bits was a big help in separating data from structure. Hooray for reverse engineering!
…Linux will be viable on the desktop. On this day, Microsoft and Apple will actually be worried about an upwards kink in the slowly growing curve of Linux marketshare. But first, Windows Vista and Mac OS X86 will arrive with interfaces that ‘just work;’ where the computer gets out of the way and takes care of the semantics.
Linux will always be huge in the realm of IT and CS users. It fosters programmers in a way that Windows can’t really do – but the cost is a huge degree of user unfriendliness.
So with this contemporary 2006 scenario in mind, programs like NetworkManager that simply make existing technology “just work” are big deals.
I think programs like this one reveal just how technically and culturally difficult it is to create technology that “just works” for Linux. The majority ofsoftware operates within one “layer”: Userspace, daemonized, or in the kernel (modules).
Gallery 2.0 came out. Like I wrote about before, this is a really great upgrade. It’s matured in many ways: SQL for the database backend, significant UI improvements (especially for the installer), and a ton of modules (plugins) for extra functionality. Try out my demo or go check it out yourself. Gallery 1 upgrades are supported too!
Kudos to the Gallery 2 team on a great product.
The year is 2005. The web has become commonplace, and people are ready for more dynamic content in their browsing experience. The ensuing battle of AJAX and Flash is fought tooth and nail. Macromedia Macrodobe claims 98% penetration of the Flash client on web-enabled computers, and even if that sounds decidedly optimistic AJAX likely has a level near that. The competition only becomes greater and greater for Web 2.0 apps, and everyone has the potential to benefit.
So. Check out this cool Flash revamped version of popular Earth mapping software du jour (currently Google Maps and MSN Earth). Decide for yourself who’s going to win the upcoming battle. I’d normally say Flash, but it’s had more than a few years headstart and hasn’t receieved nearly the attention from “serious” coders that AJAX has displayed of late. Possibly it’s only hype, or maybe it’s because there exists no Linux version of the Flash builder…or, possibly, ActionScript sucks a little too much. I still wistfully remember wasting 3 hours in a row debugging array code because the ActionScript interpreter wouldn’t display an error message. It stumped 3 labbies.
I’ve realized that some web designers prefer writing their own CMS systems wrapped in custom CSS, and also that this site design is getting a little stale. So I’m going to switch to a newWordPress theme with a few new features.
Props to WP for abstracting functionality enough so theme development becomes easier.