[Non-technical readers should read this as it will affect *YOU*. Skim over the technical details in the referenced article, it’s the conclusions and analysis which matter.]

Dispite finding this analysis of Microsoft’s new Vista operating system’s DRM via Slashdot I think it’s a very important read.

Of course, on /. there were many people saying that because it’s critical of Microsoft it’s obviously false and others who haven’t read the article to spout off with the opposite.

Anyway, the gist of the analysis is that basically Vista will hobble your computer with overhead due to internal system encryption, cause hardware to cost more, make writing hardware drivers mostly impossible and generally make your expensive hardware slow down. Then, if you play a protected MP3 file or play a HD-DVD or BlueRay disk lots of your hardware will either be turned off or the quality of the output artificially reduced. Oh, and if Microsoft or the film studios don’t like any of your hardware, drivers or hardware manufactuer, they can disable parts of your computer until you upgrade… unless the anti-piracy checks decide that your computer has changed too much and you have to re-register it.

This seems like Microsoft not shooting itself in the foot, more shooting itself in the head where business sales are concerned.. unless they can keep it quiet enough so that middle management don’t notice until it’s too late. Of course, for many large companies Microsoft have had enough problems persuading them to upgrade to Windows XP with many only just going through the transition. Windows Vista just isn’t on their radar yet.

Oh, and as pointed out in the article, Linux/UNIX/MacOS users aren’t going to get away from the pain due to the restrictions imposed by Microsoft on the hardware manufacturers. Forget manufacturers open sourcing or giving away techical specs for their new Windows Vista capable hardware. It’s quite possible that they won’t even give this information to the likes of Apple or Sun and will have to manufacture non-Windows versions of their hardware for them, as exorbitant prices, if they even bother.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Christmas Day started before 9am with the ritual opening of presents. I then helped my Dad set up the iPod I’d bought him and discovered that I’m going to have to get him a high-speed USB card otherwise iPod updating will get rather tedious.

Other than that, the usual turkey dinner insued along with the pulling of crackers and the lazy afternoon followed by cold turkey for tea. I spent most of the afternoon playing minesweeper on my Treo while my Dad played “Parachute” on his iPod. 🙂

This evening we managed to find a few things to watch on the telly, namely Dr.Who (mixed) and the film of “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” on Sky Movies (not too bad, dispite the two historical howlers at the beginning. i.e. using bright torches during the blitz and the train taking the refugees being in mid-50s British Railways livery (with the logo plainly visible) when BR wasn’t even created until 1948).

I’ve no idea what we’ll get up to tomorrow, probably not a great deal.

It’s Christmas Eve… and it’s cold, grey, windy and now wet as well outside.. so I didn’t go outside. Problem solved.

What I did do was play Oolite, the Elite re-implementation. I’m still at the stage of building up funds and the equipment on the ship so as to be able to roam further than between Leesti and Diso, the two safe systems close to Lave.

This evening I, along with my Dad, watched “Commander in Chief” and “The West Wing” on More4 followed by the “Myth Busters” movie special and finally the film “Calendar Girls” to round off the evening. There was nothing else to watch all evening. I wasn’t worried about missing “Torchwood” as my HDD recorder should have watched that for me at home.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you all.

Nothing to see here (other than a dull, grey sky and a cold easterly wind). Move along… Move along.

According to my diary it was 1 year ago that we last visited Penzance. As luck would have it I discovered this was we were driving to… Penzance. How random is that?

Anyway, the only exciting events of the day were buying and watching Cars, eating pasties and getting the highest score on Bejewelled on my Treo.

A nice, quiet start to the holiday. Got up late, we went into Helston’s Tesco and bought some food for Christmas and then did very little during the afternoon other than playing Oolite for a bit.

This evening, after a nice dinner, I discovered “The Fantastic Four” playing on Sky Movies 10 so watched that. I’m glad that I didn’t spend any money (other than the Sky Movies subscription) to watch the film. It was OK as a distraction but nothing to make an effort to see. It was definitely made using an action movie by numbers kit. I understand that there’s a sequel in the works. Hopefully it’s better than the original.

That’s about it, really.

It was a very cold, frosty and foggy morning which greeted me when I opened the blinks this morning, just the sort of weather you want when you’re planning to drive 270 miles. Still, by the time I left at 10:55am it was at least light and you could see a couple of hundred yards, though it took a good ten minutes to thaw the car windows enough to be able to drive off.

The drive down the country was mixed. Along the Oxford to Swindon road there were tantalizing gaps in the fog, giving beautiful views of a crisp, frosty morning with all the trees and bushes encrusted with bright frosting shining in the sunshine and contrasted by a deep blue sky behind. Unfortunately, these gaps in the fog were all too brief. The fog finally broke at Exeter, where the air temperature suddenly jumped from -1C to a balmy 6-7C.

Otherwise the five and a half hour journey down was uneventful. So, now I’m ensconced down here in Cornwall for almost two weeks, the longest break down here since last Christmas. I really do need the rest.

Well, it had to happen eventually. I’ve done the full switch over of all my A/V equipment at home to digital formats.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been racking my brain over how long it’s been since I last used my SVHS video recorder for anything other than timeshifting programmes and worked out that it’s probably been about three years. Although the machine works perfectly, for time shifting it can be a bit of a pain if you’ve recorded a couple of programmes, looked at one or two at the beginning of the tape and then need to record another one at the end. I’ve been thinking, therefore, about getting a PVR for a while but I don’t want to be tied into Sky with Sky+, the DVD recorders weren’t flexible enough and degraded the quality to fit a number of hours into 4.7GB and the HDD recorders didn’t have a means to write the programmes off onto longer term storage.

However, last Sunday morning, as I was buying a Christmas present in Comet I noticed a new breed of PVR, a HDD based machine with a built in DVD recorder.. or is it the other way around?
Wibbling about DVRs

On this day in 1986 a momentous happening occured:

The SEND command was removed from use on the original EUCLID system by
University College Computer Centre.

The SEND command was used greatly by the undergraduate community via the
MISC.YAP and POOL.GOODYAP talking programs and it was a hard blow to us
hacker types.

So, independently, Alec and I wrote within the day basic replacements for
the talking programs which no-longer worked. I produced POOL.CONVERSE and
Alec POOL.CONFLAB. Subsiquent to this first day, we got together, along with
Robert Newson and made our programs work together. The final upshot of this
was the development of Bullet about 18 months afterward (after much talking
in the Pi office.).

So celebrate and make merry!

This was previously posted in the notices folder on Bullet earlier this afternoon.

Just testing out the web browser. It seems to work OK