#FF00AA

@music@

The iPod Book. Cool idea, although the implementation lacks polish.

 

@apple@

The Mac Hater. Someone wants to be the new Ellen Feiss.

 

@web@

The <plaintext> virus! Who knew? It’s never too late to learn of a new antique HTML tag.

 

@misc@

Astro quotes Le Monde, explaining why the DADVSI will be useless will be of no consequence (of the good kind (for music publishers (besides the fact that a fine, rather than a tax, won’t go into their wallets anyway))):

Someone who downloads copyrighted works for personal use will risk a 38-euro fine. But, technically, it’s impossible to detect such downloading unless you require ISPs to perform systematical eavesdropping on their subscribers’ activity. And that is “excluded by the 2000 European directive regarding electronic commerce”.

And Le Monde proceeds to name a couple programs specialized in RIAA-proof filesharing — and after I had a look at them I still don’t understand why Waste, which seems to me like the best-designed alternative, is pretty much in stasis. Did Nullsoft / AOL / Time-Warner manage to scare developers with their illegal retractation of the open source license? (No links here; I’d have to remove them from the archives when/if DADVSI becomes operational.)

 

@apple@

The “OS X is ridden with vulnerabilities” month isn’t over, and here comes a new one (that link is safe, the page linked from there isn’t): an image that crashes Safari, the Finder, and any other program that uses OS X’s image processing routines. Found by Drunkenbatman:

It’s not as though Apple is the only one to ever have problems properly dealing with images without creating security holes and other general wonkiness. Belay the hysterics, but do take it seriously. I wouldn’t be the least bit offended if you wet yourself after realizing what someone seriously capable could be poking around in if I’m able to blindly stumble into this stuff again and again.