Patrick’s Rants

I tried to send the following feedback on the Coconino County GIS web site:

I recently attempted to use the beta version of GIS maps and discovered that despite the fact that Firefox is nearing a 20% market share this government site is not ready to serve me or the other users of web browsers other than Internet Explorer. I have used the existing site with Firefox with no problems. I, as many Firefox users, feel that Internet Explorer is an inferior browser that leaves users exposed to malicious programmers whereas Firefox allows users to install extensions and add-ons (such as NoScript) to protect themselves from mass attacks that turn ordinary web sites into malicious hosts.

I was further frustrated to find that although there is a request for feedback on the beta, there is no direct link from the map page to the feedback form. Instead I had to directly enter the coconino.az.gov/gis.aspx address into my browser in order to find the feedback form; there does not appear to be a direct link back to the department web pages from within the map-gis.coconino.az.gov (I tend to directly enter this address in my browser)

I would appreciate the courtesy of a reply to my email address included above.

Of course I probably won’t get a reply, instead it doesn’t appear that the email even got sent. It’s some bogus javascript that didn’t seem to perform the actions in the function when I clicked the Send button.
It’s frustrating when the agencies that are tasked with providing services to citizens choose to support a convicted monopolist. Microsoft is struggling to maintain its market position by forcing through an ISO vote attempting to create a new document standard being called OOXML (Office Open XML) (which is becoming increasingly contested by the member nations) a 6000 page specification that does nothing to make Microsoft Office any more open.

It’s time for our local government to focus on platform neutral implementations of existing standards instead of relying on proprietary extensions and broken features in support of a company whose only goal is to try to maintain its grip on its failing monopoly. If Microsoft is still considered a monopoly then part of its punishment should be that the government does not support its ongoing business model. If Microsoft is not to be considered a monopoly then the government should rightly support the growing number of users who use something other than Microsoft and Internet Explorer.

K12LTSP 64 bit dvd

If you’ve been following what the recording industry cartel has been doing to people (running roughshod over the legal system, extorting funds from paralyzed individuals, dead people, grandmothers and little children) you will - no doubt - enjoy this sliver of hope and sanity offered by a judge in Florida.
Recording Industry vs. The People

(Updated 5/6/08)
Our “coupons” for DTV convertor boxes arrived on Saturday. My wife immediately went out and bought one at the local Radio Shack. It was the base model of course, but what more did we need? What more indeed.

Here’s the thing. Since we live in Flagstaff we are on a “translator” or a type of repeater antenna for stations that are in the valley - Phoenix. Translators are not required to switch over in the same time frame as the station itself, so while the station may be broadcasting in DTV format, they are under no apparent requirement to convert for those of us in outlying areas.

We get several stations off air here:

• 2: the local NBC affiliate
• 13: a Spanish language station, also local
• 14: translated from PBS 8
• 28: translated from “My 45″ the wholly-owned Fox baby station where they air the stuff that’s too racy for Fox itself
• 30: rinky dink local station that’s kinda fun once in a while
• 39 & 48: translated from 10, Phoenix based Fox 10 affiliate
• 50: translated from 5, Phoenix based CBS affiliate
• 52: translated from 15, Phoenix based ABC affiliate
• 54: translated from 3, Phoenix based independent

And there’s a religious channel in there as well, but I always deprogram it so I can’t say which channel it is.

After plugging in the DTV converter box we got two channels; local 2 and the spanish language station. I decided to hop onto the web sites of the TV stations to find out when I could see the new digital stations. Here are the results of poking around on each station’s web site. (more…)

In a surprising move against the music industry a judge has ruled against the RIAA.

The entire ruling is available in PDF format.
Just having files on your computer is not considered infringement if we follow this ruling. Making copies of your CDs to play on your computer and your MP3 player will not be considered infringement. And it shouldn’t be. There is a concept of fair use that consumers have been able to fall back on. If I buy a CD I can listen to it in my car, on my MP3 player and I can make copies for backup purposes. Note that I wrote, “if I buy a CD”. I don’t personally (nor by extension do any of my family members) download music that I haven’t paid for unless the creators have made it available. Nor do we trade CDs or any of the other stuff that is explicitly illegal. The fair use stuff I’m going to keep doing.

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K12LTSP_v5EL-dvd
Grab it, burn it seed it.

This is why some people call it Digital Restrictions Management:
Don’t bother to try listening to your music on another computer. You don’t own it, you don’t have the right to play it, Bill Gates gets to decide when, where and how you listen to music you bought rented from him.
And in case you didn’t follow the links in the story, Major League Baseball isn’t without its own faults.
I want my music, my movies, my entertainment unlocked and available for me to play when where and how I want. I will not buy restricted or encumbered music.

The wireless bridge was still out when I got to work yesterday morning. That meant that the outside world, in the form of email and internet, still did not exist. To top it off, road construction crews ripped out a huge bundle of wires cutting off phone service to something like a few square miles. So there were no phones either. Well, at least things would be quiet.

Qwest fixed our phones sometime around 3:00 pm and tech services walked in about 4:15 or so with our half of the new bridge. After banging on it for a few minutes - perhaps half an hour - he walked back out with the device in hand. Well, it’ll be another day before it’s all sorted out. Around 6:15 I was surprised to see the head of our tech services department walk in with the transceiver unit and plug it in. Surprised because I figured we wouldn’t see anything until the following day, their schedules over there are pretty much 8-4 or something along those lines. But here he was plugging in the unit, logging in and making configuration changes. He chatted on the phone with the tech from earlier who was working on the other end of the bridge. After about 20 minutes or so it seemed we were back online. They had decided to leave our machines on the static IPs assigned on Thursday. I also learned that our machine wasn’t a backup domain controller or whatever it’s called due to the wireless bridge. I guess it was decided that would be too much data to periodically transfer to have our machine as a backup. The offices are supposed to move to a different building so we’ll get a primary controller at that point along with a rumored T1.

I walked into work last Thursday and was told that the network was down. There was no internet access, nothing. We have a “departmental server” which holds such things as departmental data, but it does little else. When the network is down there are some interesting things that happen. The work is only about half done on the configuration over there. All of our login and authentication is done by the PDC (perhaps AD?) on a server in another building on the other end of a Cisco wireless bridge. It was the bridge that was down; the other end had effectively melted down. Slowly but surely our machines in the office have their dynamic IP addresses expire (7 day lease time according to one of the tech guys who showed up later) so no one notices right away when their logon to the server goes down. The internet though is noticed right away. So too are the remote logins to the district software: accounting and student database. And the network printer stops working as well.

After the tech guys - nearly the entire department - arrived to work on our stuff I learned a number of things:

1. Our server is not a BDC, doesn’t authenticate users, offer dynamic IP addressess, or even have the same user names as the PDC - it probably should be a Backup Domain Controller
2. The network printer stops functioning because of a “legacy IP address” - it was assigned a public IP address when every device had a public IP address at a time when everything flowed through NAU
3. The printer IP address, and of many other printers, has not been switched over to the private network within the district because it would require reconfiguration of the finance software in the district
4. Currently, the public IP address is magically routed at a switch in the district office back to the right printer - print jobs head out through the wireless link, bounce through the tech services building, through the administration building where the switch directs it back through tech services back over the wireless link and finally to our printer
5. Our tech services department is understaffed - they could use some help building out some of this redundancy, but they have to work on an “if it aint broke” schedule

This is such a beautifully written and humorous letter in response to a Cease and Desist letter written to a little cable maker company.
Blue Jeans Cable Strikes Back - Response to Monster Cable — Audioholics Home Theater Reviews and News