Technology

How to run a campaign from an electronic media perspective

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I have decided to do a write up on running a political campaign from an electronic media perspective. Many local politicians have a fire and drive for running for office but they neglect a few easy steps for creating an online presence for undecided voters. I have been hired by local politicians in the past to help improve their presence on the Internet and I would like to share that experience with others. The things I will recommend are pretty easy for someone that is technically competent and should not take a large amount of valuable time. If you lack technical expertise and/or time I recommend that you find someone you can trust willing to help with your campaign in this area. As potential voters look more and more to the Internet for information, you need a presence for them to find. The first article will be on branding.

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CyanogenMod 10 On My Nook Color

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 I felt it was time for an update on what I have been doing with my Nook Color. My last post was when I had CyanogenMod 7 on it. Since that time my Nook went around the world and visited Kuwait, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.  In those locations it braved sand, heat, snow and cold. I’ve read over 20 books on the device and watched my son grow from an infant to a toddler. Using Google Voice I was also able to text and keep in touch with my wife as I was far from her. The SD card also helped to hold hours of music and videos for when I was traveling or just left with some down time.

Some where along that journey I found the time to install CM9 and later CM10 on the device. I went from running unofficial betas built by the community as a labor of love to receiving full CyanogenMod official status again. I have to say the developers in this community have done an awesome job keeping this ereader gone tablet going. It’s quite amazing to see what this hardware can do despite the original limitations of design.

As far as general usability I still have to give CM7 some what of an edge. CM10 lags a little and has a slightly lower battery performance. Despite the minor performance drops, I would still recommend CM10 to someone that has already placed a rom on their Nook. It’s fun to have the latest and greatest Android can offer. I can see myself still using this tablet into the future. It fits my needs well.

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Richard Stallman: Intellectually Dishonest?

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In a recent blog post Richard Stallman referred to the Ubuntu Linux Distribution as spyware. Mr. Stallman’s post stemmed primarily from the recent introduction  of the shopping lens into Ubuntu 12.10. This lens is on by default and when a user enters a search into the Unity Dash a user will get back results related to their personal files and search results for Amazon.com. This search is passed through Canonical’s servers and they act as a layer of anonymity between Amazon. If a user makes a purchase from Amazon, Canonical then receives the referral bonus for the purchase. Users are informed of the shopping lens when they read the privacy policy linked to in Unity’s dash. If a user objects to this policy they may disable the shopping lens in their privacy settings or remove it altogether using the Ubuntu Software Center. While many share Mr. Stallman’s privacy concern for Canonical’s implementation of the shopping lens, I would have to characterize his assessment of Ubuntu being spyware as intellectually dishonest.

First let’s look at the definition of spyware. Wikipedia defines spyware as a type of malware (malicious software) installed on computers that collects information about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user and can be difficult to detect. Some spyware, such as keyloggers, may be installed by the owner of a shared, corporate, or public computer intentionally in order to monitor users.

Ubuntu’s shopping lens does not meet this definition. The shopping lens is easily seen by design and a user can be informed about the privacy policy in Unity’s dash. In addition a user can easily disable or remove the shopping lens with a few clicks.

While I think the shopping lens is badly implemented, I could not honestly call it spyware. It seems most detractors are content to sling about incorrect terminology as opposed to just saying it’s implemented badly or offering a way it could be implemented better.

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Why I hate Blizzard and Diablo 3.

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I have never been a fan of WoW but I enjoyed playing Diablo II and Starcraft. I once enjoyed playing Diablo 3 but Blizzard doesn’t want to allow me to do that anymore. Sure I paid for the game and I only play the game single player but I don’t own the game and Blizzard has made that painfully apparent.

You see like many Blizzard customers I have had my account compromised  At the time I had an 11 character password and I’m not sure how it was cracked but it was. It seems like it is a common issue for Blizzard Entertainment customers. So I took the steps on their website to recover my account and even had progress automatically rolled back on my account. After I took all their steps I also added an authenticator on my cell phone to act as a second defense for my account. I now had a 16 character random name, number, symbol password (boy I hope that is long enough). After I did all that was my actual Diablo 3 game unlocked? Not at all. I have still been denied access to the game I paid for. The game I only want to play on my own and not online.

I have submitted another help ticket but my response from “Game Master Ryavale” was to perform again the exact same steps that did not help me in the first place. Those steps would include rolling back the progress on my game again, an action you can only perform three times.

At this point I am surrendering my account to Blizzard. I’ll play something that I don’t have to worry about how their server security works to play on my own. I guess that means more money for the Humble Bundle guys along with the charities and developers involved there.

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