Thanks to +Kate Blass for introducing me to another danger to our freedoms know as ACTA! My interest was peaked to learn more about ACTA.
This is what I found after doing a little digging on the interweb.
Quick Note: ACTA is related to SOPA/PIPA and while SOPA has been stalled, ACTA has been in force since October 2011 and PIPA is still in progress!
Article and video that refer to ACTA on the heels of SOPA delay
What is ACTA?
ACTA is the abbreviation of the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement".
The governments of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, and Mexico have been negotiating this trade agreement in secret for years. There has been NO public admission or press access allowed.
Despite the name, the agreement addresses not only counterfeiting, but a wide range of intellectual property enforcement issues.
For passive learners, some videos explaining ACTA in plain language:
Yeah, like I'm gonna signup for a whitehouse.gov account just to sign this petition. IF anyone knows of a US based anti-ACTA petition of the US government, other than the one on whitehouse.gov, please let us know in the comments below!
Hello, I’m a Commodore, turned Amiga, turned Macintosh, turned Windows\Android\Linux guy and although I enjoy giving grief to Apple lemmings….this week my heart broke with news of the passing of Steve Jobs. Not because I use to be an Apple guy. But of what he created and how it affected my life. Steve knew how to inspire beautiful products. He deserves so much credit for realizing what Wozniak had created and for pursuing how it could make life better. Even if you haven’t used an Apple product, you have probably used technology that was created to to compete with an apple product. Steve was always pushing the envelope with innovative, technological competition which benefited us ALL. Inspiring competition is where I give Steve due credit.
Reflecting on one’s life after someone passes on is inevitable. It reminds us we are mortal and to take stock of our legacy. Of course there is the mourning process and after sadness for his loss, came great memories of exciting times when computers were just becoming available for everyone. I was inspired and excited by what they could accomplish! Looking back, I’m amazed at the innovation Steve inspired in technology and how that has affected my life, my career and how I use technology everyday. Thanksgiving being so close to this event also encouraged my nostalgia to be thankful for everything good in my life. That includes innovators who inspired my life to be what it is and how they made it better.
Thanks to LEO, this video below is an awesome look at the Apple 1! I think the Apple 1 looks like steampunk computers do today, which just adds to it’s coolness! I still have the same excitement today watching this video as I did daydreaming of someday building my own Heathkit H89 back in the early 80′s.
The first computer I ever got to use for more than a few minutes was a friends TI-99/4. They loaned it to us so I could help my dad create a member database. That brief time using a computer to help my dad transfused my blood into 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101.
I enjoy teaching others how to use technology to better their lives as well as I enjoy hacking electronics/software together to solve a problem. I wish for you the same enjoyment and excitement I get using my skills and talents to help others. Looking back, the excitement and passion that activity creates in me, is actually an encouraging force that drives me to create and succeed everyday.
It may have been when my High School opened an Apple II computer lab and I started taking BASIC computer programming that my dad started thinking we should get our own computer. Whatever it was that inspired him to get one still makes me grateful! I like to think it was just his natural way of inspiring me to grow and learn. At that time there were three mainstream options the TI-99/4, the Apple II and the Commodore 64. While the TI-99/4 was nice it didn’t offer as much as the other two. We weren’t poor then, but we weren’t rich either. Being thrifty, the $1,000 difference for the Apple with same features as the Commodore 64 helped us choose the Commodore 64. That purchase helped launched my life further into the high-level programming language BASIC and my love of technology really took off.
Since then it’s been anything but BASIC, pun intended. It was a progression from coding an invoicing/inventory control system for fun to computer graphics, MIDI music, 24 Track Music Production, Live Sound Reinforcement, Video Production, Digital Audio/Video production, Nonlinear Editing, CGI and Multimedia Interactive CD Production to Web Design and Hosting. Simultaneously, I was also developing my networking, IT and troubleshooting skills.
I had a brief love of Apple products when I first got into nonlinear digital video editing and multimedia production. After all the Apple platform had a solution for the big problem of syncing audio with video, so when people’s talked their lips matched their speech. Laugh all you want, but that was a big problem even for systems that cost ten’s of thousands of dollars. What I loved about Apple products is they usually just worked. Whereas the DOS/Windows PCs I worked with I always left the covers off of them so I could tweak them daily. The only problem with a Mac was if you couldn’t resolve it by removing a startup extension then it usually meant you had to take it up with a specialist who could code a fix. Interesting gap in topics, that’s actually how I got my first email address; I needed help to fix a problem with a 3rd party Apple software program and had to contact the manufacturer via email. Little did I know that the nostalgia of the screen name I hurriedly chose that day, would from then on influence every one of my screen name choices.
Our family’s first Apple was a Macintosh, then Grandma wanted one. I think the last Apple product I owned was an Apple Macintosh Performa 6330CD. It was ok, but sadly like every Apple product, it got too slow, too soon and the only solution was to replace it since upgrading was out of the question. I also tired of paying three times as much for the same features on other systems. Even though I don’t use Apple products now, I still appreciate how they have affected and improved my life as I developed my tech skills.
Today my tech journey allows me to work from home. I love it! It allows me to laugh at Curious George with my youngest, while I post this bit of nostalgia while wearing my “There’s no place like 127.0.0.1″ shirt. There’s even time for LEGOS before nap time for my little one! Then it’s off to the digital mines of the interweb with my keyboard and mouse to make life better, just like Steve. Even if it is on a much smaller yet more personal scale.
Steve Jobs’ vision, innovation, determination and his stamina to NEVER, EVER compromise created competition that has helped mold me and the skills that I have. For that I am truly thankful.
Even though Steve’s gone, I’m still excited and wonder where technology will take us all next!
*Goosebumps*
Encrypting messages with OpenGPG
Every now and then, it is necessary to send information via email that should be protected. So how can you protect sensitive information, that should not be sent as plain text, in an email? By using simple encryption software to encrypt the message using a personal public key.
In order to send someone encrypted emails, you must have their public key to encrypt text meant only for them.
Similarly, someone wanting to send you encrypted emails must have your public key to encrypt text meant only for you.
Using encryption software, you and your friends will each create a personal key pair consisting of one Private Key and one Public key. You’ll share your Public Key with anyone that needs to send you encrypted messages. Just like a Keyring, you’ll collect and store each of your friend’s public keys in your encryption software. Each person will keep their Private Key protected with a pass phrase on their keyring.
To encrypt a message, use the public key of the intended recipient.
Use your Private Key and pass phrase to decrypt a message encoded with your public key.
This video will walk you through installing GPG4Win (for Windows), creating a Key Pair and exporting and importing public keys to and from friends. It’s a quick and fairly painless process, so like in the movie Christmas Story grab your decoder ring and “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine”
If you have any tips about GPG encryption please leave them in the comments.
A few thoughts about Facebook’s Open Graph. What is it? Facebook Open Graph is the replacement for the failed, class action-settled out of court Facebook Connect. For more info check out Mashable, PC World or CNET.
Great, so now what you “share” in Facebook can be used by other companies/sites to make it more “personal”. I’m sure it seems like a good idea for Marketers. You know third party marketers, your family members or close personal friends & classmates. Wait! Third party marketers aren’t your family or friends and they’re especially not someone you trust. Hence the name “Third Party”. In the off chance they are your family, you have my sympathy. Facebook lets all those creepy marketing girls* that are watching you from across the street have access to all your private, intimate conversations with your trusted family and friends. So maybe you shouldn’t posts these thoughts & conversations along with all your personal data on a social site. Facebook sells personal information about you, “a consumer”, to marketers.
You can talk as much as you want about corporate responsibility but the bottom line is just that, the company’s bottom line, not you! The fact is that Facebook is one of the most excessive market research/marketing tools ever developed; and you do all the work for them. Using Facebook is a voluntary lack of privacy! Marketing at this level is driven by greed for as much money as Zuck can grab. Which is why I use the word excessive instead of greatest.
Here is an interesting article by a Mr. Jonathan Cavell. Although it doesn’t matter whether Facebook is a privately or publicly held company when it comes to your personal information. Either way they still own your personal profile. Nobody should own it other than yourself! Hence, the term “personal” not “corporate”. Why would you let anybody have that much information about you? Just because Facebook makes it easy to “share”, doesn’t mean you should.
Mr. Cavell makes some important observations but sparked some even better conversation. Some comments I would highlight:
tehninjo0 in reply to MikeC: “the problem is one company aggregating a very comprehensive and sophisticated profile of you and your friends and reusing (and possibly reselling) it across and array of POS that you no longer have insight into or control over”
Rob M: “Fb’s policy on account deletions.. they retain your information and everything you’ve ever posted ( pics, etc ) . Every one of you(r) “friends” links to you will remain, but be attributed to ” Anonymous FB user” .
So, once you’re in their database, you’re in. This will be a huge, juicy target for hacksters and criminals. … a giant data-ball…
…There appears to be no way to undo the sharing … and the vulnerability of being interconnected.”
TOS policies change all the time. A company will never make themselves vulnerable by their own policy. Facebook owns everything you post about yourself. With Open Graph, Facebook plans to share/sell all your info over and over and over. Your ownership is gone when Facebook sells, shares this info or has it stolen! Your private info is forever entombed in the web cache of the world. So….
Protect yourself
Trust a social network just like you would that creepy guy watching you from across the street. He’s a stranger just like Facebook, MySpace & [insert any social service here]. Facebook is strange, creepy girls selling personal private information about you to other strange, creepy Marketing girls! Remember they’re interested in the bottom line not you. In the eyes of the bottom line you are a sheep to be fleeced. Don’t be left standing naked in a social network, trapped in the web of the world.
That’s all for now. I’m gonna go tell Google some private things via emails to my family. Ok, I think I just threw up in my mouth, just a little bit. Or maybe its from using the word “hence” twice, three times.
Be eSafe.
*Use of the word girl in place of guy was inspired by the form handed out by our child’s physician: stating “can ‘she’ do [insert action] by ‘herself’”. Just putting my gender balanced, pc speak exercises to work. Ok, I just threw up again.
It’s rare these days that my eyes widen with excitement at what I’m watching, must be the skepticism droned into me by Hollywood CGI effects.
Watching this was truly an exciting moment for me. Hope it is for you too.
My mind starts to spin just contemplating the many ways for this technology to change the world & how we do things.
I like Facebook in very limited doses. I think it’s a case of TMI most of the time.
Side Rant: At least, visually it’s better than MySpace. *shutters*
Why anyone would think pink text on purple background would in anyway be readable?
“Hey Stefan, do you have a myspace page yet?”
No, cuz I know HOW to make a web page.
Remember don’t put anything on a social network,
that you wouldn’t tell the creepy person staring at you from across the street.
Hey, I'm Stefan. I love helping others find better ways to use technology! I am fortuitously beloved, a father, Computer Tech, Media Producer/junkie, Webcaster, Techno nerd-geek-freak. :D
Hey, I'm Stefan. I love helping others find better ways to use technology! I am fortuitously beloved, a father, Computer Tech, Media Producer/junkie, Webcaster, Techno nerd-geek-freak. :D
