Rabidgremlin's
Soapbox

I’m about to try transfer my domain between registrars (again). So there is likely to be some disruption to my blog.

Last time round was not very successful so we we will see how we go :)

As I type this, there are 19 days left until section 92 of the copyright law comes into effect. Last week Wednesday the Telecommunications Carriers’ Forum (TCF) published the draft copyright code of practice for Internet service providers. This code will be what the bulk of ISPs will be following when dealing with section 92.

I thought I’d take a quick look to see how this is all going to work (or not work as the case may well be).

First off the code of practice is just over 30 pages long, considering that section 92 is just shy of 850 words you kind of get the feeling an awful lot of detail was left out of the law, which is of course what everyone has been complaining about.

From a end-user’s point of view, the nub of the process is as follows:

1. A copyright holder sends a notice to your ISP claiming you have infringed on their copyright i.e. illegally downloaded some music or a movie or perhaps used one of their songs in your kids birthday video etc…
2. If the ISP feels the copyright holder has supplied enough evidence, your ISP sends you a Education notice (how very soviet)
3. At the end of every month, your ISP will send you an email detailing how many notices you have.
4. Once you have accumulated 3 undisputed notices, each in different calender months and they haven’t expired then you get a Final Warning (notices expire in 18 months).
5. If a copyright holder then sends another claim to your ISP, you are notified and your Internet account is terminated in 48 hours.

Seems pretty straight forward and even reasonable but as with all things there are some interesting twists.

Perhaps the most interesting is that there are two types of groups that can receive a Education Notice. The first is called a User by the code, which is basically you and me.

The second group is called Downstream ISPs by the code. This group obviously covers resellers of bandwidth but more importantly: “may be a business or other organisation that supplies telecommunication services, membership or subscription services or otherwise directly provides Internet Accounts to Users. In turn, Users who are individuals may be students, employees, contractors or customers for example”

Yep that’s right any business that gives their staff Internet access or schools, libraries, hotels with Internet access, even coffee shops with wi-fi hotspots are all Downstream ISPs. Furthermore the code states that when an ISP passes on a notice to a Downstream ISP it does so relying on the fact that as an “ISP” the Downstream ISP has implemented a termination policy that complies with section 92A !

Wow, I wonder if businesses out there know what they are in for and how much is it going to cost them to come up with policies and procedures to deal with this? Of course if they don’t then they are breach of the law. Did I mention this law comes into effect in 19 days time :)

Of course the code has a mechanism for you to dispute a notice and disputed notices don’t count towards termination until they are resolved. The code makes it fairly clear that to dispute a notice you have to have strong evidence to prove your innocence so you won’t just be able to disputed every notice sent your way.

This is where another wrinkle turns up.

As written the code uses the ISP as a middle man for the dispute process when it is a User countering the claim but tacked onto the back of the draft code is a “reworded strawman counter-notice procedure” which has been drawn up to “address concerns expressed by certain Copyright Holders” . In this reworded procedure a Copyright holder is passed the contact details of a User who is disputing the claim!

This of course opens up some interesting issues. If you don’t dispute a notice then you remain anonymous but if you try to fight “they” find out who you are. I suppose this means that they could file legal proceedings against you and it of course would allow the copyright holders to build up a database of trouble makers. It all seems a bit fishy that the copyright holders would be pushing for this change.

[Update]: Actually as the Creative Freedom guys point out the reword is actually far more insidious. It would in effect make the Copyright holders not only the accusers but also the judges on any counter claims and disputes ! This is just nuts, it would make the entire code of practice a farce.

I’d suggest you have a read of the code to see for yourself what we are in for. The draft is now open for public submissions which close on Friday the 6th March 2009, but since the law goes into effect on the 29 February 2009 you have to wonder what processes will be followed before the code is ratified.

Perhaps another sign that this law just hasn’t been thought out.

I love the web and its ability to feed my brain (whilst sucking up my free time). The problem of course is that there is so much cool stuff out there that you just don’t know about.

For instance, on Digg I came across a nice visualization showing the edits to the “Evolution” article on Wikipedia.

I was curious to see what the source of the visualization was but there was no credit on the image. Looking in the comments for the post I didn’t find anything about the source but I did find this link which shows the public acceptance of evolution in various countries around the world. It is interesting to see where the USA sits on the chart.

Mmm, looking at the URL for the original visualization I could see that the image was hosted on Amazon’s S3 service and contained a reference to twittypic. A quick Google search turned up this site twittypic.com which monitors Twitter looking for images and video that are referenced by tweets, in the assumption that things that are referenced to by lots of people would be of interest to others. Nice idea.

Sure enough on Twittypic I found this post which referenced the original picture which was hosted at _http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/images/discover_mag.jpg_ shortening the URL turned up the Visual Communication Lab at IBM. Clicking on their projects link turned up (amongst other interesting things) history flow which was the tool used to create the visualization.

Wow, so from a Digg post I :

• Gained insight into the Evolution vs Creation “debate”
• Found out how widely Evolution is accepted
• Found a new site (twittypic) that I’ll be adding to me RSS feeds
• Found some cool tools for visualizations from IBM (check out Many Eyes)
• and added some more stuff to the web by writing this post

Love it…

So one of my colleagues (thanks Matthew) just sent me this link which is so geeky I just had to blog about it.

Apparently on Friday, February 13th 2009, 23:31:30 GMT the Epoch time count will read “1234567890” for the first (and last time).

For those of you who don’t know what Epoch time is (shame on you) it is basically a count of the number of seconds since 00:00:00 GMT on January 1, 1970. Computer systems use this mechanism for storing time because they handle nice big integer numbers very efficiently.

Of course when 2038 rolls around we are all going to be in trouble because the count of milliseconds will be too big to store in the space that most computer systems allocate for storing this time count!

By then of course we should all be using at least 64bit systems so it shouldn’t be a problem and we won’t Y2K48 problem (he says smirking).

If you are planning a “1234567890” party (you are planning a party right?) then this “countdown” would be ideal to project up onto a wall or show on a big screen :)

Just received an update email from sourceforge which contained the list of the top 25 projects hosted with them for January 09. Some really nice bits of software here:

1. ADempiere ERP Business Suite

ADempiere Business Suite ERP/CRM/MFG/SCM/POS done the Bazaar way in an open and unabated fashion. Focus is on the Community that includes Subject Matter Specialists, Implementors and End-Users. We are a community fork of Compiere.

2. MediaInfo

Get technical information and tags of a lot of multimedia files. Supported formats : – Video : AVI/OGM/MKV/MPG/VOB/MP4/3GP/… – Audio :MP3/OGG/MKA/MP4/AAC/…

3. Notepad++

Notepad++ is a generic source code editor (it tries to be anyway) and Notepad replacement written in c++ with win32 API. The aim of Notepad++ is to offer a slim and efficient binary with a totally customizable GUI.

4. Zenoss Core – Enterprise IT Monitoring

Zenoss Core is an enterprise network and systems management application written in Python/Zope. Zenoss provides an integrated product for monitoring availability, performance, events and configuration across

layers and across platforms.

5. Audacity

A fast multi-track audio editor and recorder for Linux, BSD, Mac OS, and Windows.Supports WAV, AIFF, Ogg, and MP3 formats.Features include envelope editing, mixing, built-in effects and plug-ins, all with unlimited undo.

6. MindTouch Deki (wiki): Collaboration

MindTouch Deki is an enterprise collaboration, wiki and mashup platform. Easily connect people, enterprise systems, web services, and Web 2.0 applications for business automation and superlative wiki collaboration.

7. Azureus

Azureus: Vuze is a powerful, full-featured, cross-platform bittorrent client and open content platform.

8. PostBooks ERP, accounting, CRM by xTuple

Free open source ERP, accounting, CRM package for small to midsized businesses. ERP client runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows (built with open source Qt framework). Business logic resides in PostgreSQL database.

International ERP, accounting, and CRM tools.

9. Openbravo ERP

Openbravo ERP is a Web based ERP for SME, built on proven MVC & MDD framework that facilitate its customization. Already in production, Openbravo ERP encompasses a broad range of functionalities such as finance, supply chain, manufacturing & much more

10. phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. Currently it can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL

statement, manage keys on fields.

11. FreeCol

FreeCol is an open version of Colonization. It is a Civilization-like game in which the player has to conquer the new world.

12. MinGW – Minimalist GNU for Windows

MinGW: A native Windows port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), with freely distributable import libraries and header files for building native Windows applications; includes extensions to the MSVC runtime to support C99 functionality.

13. Mumble

Low-latency, high-quality voice communication for gamers. Includes game linking, so voice from other players comes from the direction of their characters, and has echo cancellation so the sound from your loudspeakers won’t be audible to other players.

14. 7-Zip

7-Zip is a file archiver with the high compression ratio. The program supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, LZH, CHM, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, ISO,MSI, WIM, NSIS, RPM and DEB formats.

15. ZK – Simply Ajax and Mobile

ZK is Ajax Java framework without JavaScript. With direct RIA, 200+ Ajax components and markup languages, developing Ajax/RIA as simple as desktop apps and HTML/XUL pages. Support JSF/JSP/JavaEE/Hibernate/.., and Ajax script in Java/Ruby/Groovy/Python/..

16. Ares Galaxy

Filesharing-Bittorrent p2p client connected to TCP supernode/leaf network and UDP DHT network. Ares features a built-in directshow media player, a powerful library manager, shoutcast radio support and can be used to host p2p Chatrooms.

17. webERP web-based ERP Accounting

Integrated accounting ERP system. Multi-language/currency/inventory locations. Full double entry. SO/AR/PO/AP/GL/Bank/Sales Analysis. BOMs/assemblies/kit-sets. Flexible pricing. Emailable pdf reports. Fast PHP created html for any browser.

18. Hyperic HQ Enterprise Monitoring

Enterprise monitoring and management for web apps on Linux, Mac, Unix & Windows. Auto-discovers 70+ technologies incl. hardware, networks, virtualization, and apps. Includes: monitoring, alerts, remote diagnostics, and control actions from web console.

19. ffdshow tryouts

ffdshow is a DirectShow filter and VFW codec for many audio and video formats, such as DivX, Xvid and H.264. Over 70 bugs have been fixed, codecs have been updated, and support for a few new formats has been added in the tryouts. Vista is now supported.

20. KeePass Password Safe

KeePass Password Safe is a free, open source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager for Windows. You can store your passwords in a highly-encrypted database, which is locked with one master password or key file.

21. OrangeHRM – Human Resource Management

OrangeHRM is an Open Source Human Resource Management System that covers Personnel Information Management, Employee Self Service, Leave, Time & Attendance, Benefits, and Recruitment. Tags: HRM, HRMS, HCM, HRIS, EHRMS, Human Capital Management

22. Firebird

Firebird RDBMS offers many ANSI SQL features & runs on Linux, Windows & several Unix platforms. Features excellent concurrency & performance & powerful stored procedure & trigger language.

23. Webmin

A web-based system administration tool for Unix servers and services.

24. PortableApps.com: Portable Software/USB

PortableApps.com allows you to carry your favorite computer programs and all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you on a portable device (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, CD, etc) and use them on any Windows computer.

25. Tcl

Tool Command Language (Tcl) is an interpreted language and very portable interpreter for that language. Tcl is embeddable and extensible, and has been widely used since its creation in 1988 by John Ousterhout. See

http://www.tcl.tk/ for more info.

A thought provoking video of a TED talk by Larry Lessig during which, he discusses how modern culture and law are clashing and how nonsensical laws are killing creativity.

Its from 2007 but is still very relevant especially when you consider laws such as Section 92a. His closing comments about how everyone is effectively breaking the law everyday and doing so knowingly and the corrupting influence that has their values and culture in general was particularly interesting to me.

Over the last 15 odd years I have been involved with dozens of IT projects of all shapes, sizes. Recently I have been reflecting on why some of these projects were a dream and delivered successfully, whilst others were a complete nightmare and went horribly wrong.

An obvious factor is the size of the project but that does not ring true. I have been involved with huge projects that went like clockwork and small projects that just couldn’t seem to get off the ground. The same is true for projects with complex or simple domains; projects with untried technologies or projects with proven technologies.

So what was the differentiator?

After much pondering I have come to the conclusion that those projects that were most successful had a good deal of clarity. Clarity in what needed to be done, why it needed to be done and how it was going to be done.

So I’ve come up with a new catchphrase (which I intend to bandy about at every opportunity):

“CLARITY leads to FOCUS, FOCUS leads to DELIVERY”

Actually I really wanted to use VELOCITY in there somewhere and DELIVERY is just so so unsexy so perhaps its still a work in progress but I digress.

So what do I mean by clarity ? Well pretty much exactly what it’s definition says “The state of being clear in thought”.

Of course this isn’t a new concept, which is why we have the waterfall process with its BDUF (big design up front) approach. Unfortunately this process actually has the opposite effect because it tends to silo the project members around particular phases and then uses big fat documents as a means of communication between these silos. At each step of the way clarity around the why, what and how is typically eroded or even (as I have seen in some cases) corrupted, all of which leads to the classic customer reaction ,when they see their software for the first time, of “What the hell is that, thats not what I wanted”.

This of course is where agile processes come into play with their sleek processes that allow a project to deliver efficiently and successfully. Of course without clarity an agile project degenerates into a mess, with quality going out the window in an effort to meet iteration deadlines, constant quick fixes, a stressed out team and a failed project.

So how do you about gaining clarity?

The best approach I have seen is to get as many of the people who are going to be involved with the project into a room to work out the why, what and how. The group should include the stakeholders, end-users, subject matter experts, architects, UI designers, testers, business analysts, developers, project managers, infrastructure bods. Pretty much anyone who can add value to the process.

Don’t panic, even for large systems the effort involved for this is measured in hours and days, not weeks and months. I would however, suggest you find a good facilitator to keep what is typically a fairly large group of people focused.

Here are some techniques that I have used or seen used to nail down the why, what and how:

To capture the why, write a vision statement. It doesn’t have to be book. In fact put a limited on the length of the statement such as “25 words” or “3 sentences” or if you want to be particularly nasty: “7 words”.

To capture the what, you can uses any number of techniques. I find that visual ones work best (and are easily done on a whiteboard) so use-case diagrams, storyboards or UI wireframes and entity or domain models are the order of the day.

In a similar vein, to capture the how, nothing beats a deployment model and some sequence or activity diagrams (all in UML of course).

So to make your IT project a success make sure you have clarity and remember

“CLARITY leads to FOCUS, FOCUS leads to DELIVERY” :)

Check out Scott Ambler’s Agile Modelling site which covers some of the techniques above and has a bunch of other practical and interesting ideas.

Wow some pretty amazing footage here. The first from some CCTV cameras on a pier, the second from cameras operated by the Coast Guard Vessel Traffic service.

mmm, just noticed that the Google ads attached to the clips are for “stress and panic relief meds”, “Internet access at sea”, “Cheap flights from New York” and “Cheap Travel Insurance” :)

The ORCA EITS (Eye in the sea) has been deployed at 880m. They have a bunch of videos of what it has captured so far, as well as a live feed.

The EITS plugs into the Monterey Accelerated Research System (MARS) which consists of a 52-km undersea cable that carries data and power to a “science node” 891 meters (2,923 feet) below the surface of Monterey Bay off the coast of California. More than eight different science experiments can be attached to this main hub and additional experiments can be daisy-chained from the main hub.

Which is a pretty cool idea since they can now run experiments for long periods of time. Previously they could only deploy experiment platforms, such as the EITS, for a maximum of 2 days due to limited battery life. The EITS is planed to be deployed from 3 to to 6 months at a time.

Since there is no light below 200m, the EITS uses a black and white camera and a red-light (which is invisible to most of the deep-sea critters) for extra illumination.

Apparently doing two Google searches produces half the amount of CO2 that boiling a kettle does ! At least that what has been recently claimed by the Telegraph in the UK.

Google has hit back, saying that, actually they are far more efficient then that. They claim:

• a single search uses the same amount of energy as an adult body burns in 10 seconds (a very Matrix comparison)
• a 1000 searches produces the same amount of CO2 as driving an average car 1km (which actually doesn’t sound that good)

Since Google claims to have some of the most energy efficient data centres in the world, one has to wonder what the planetary impact is of other search providers such as Yahoo and Microsoft.

I wonder if there is a marketing angle here for search providers: “We are the most eco-search engine so use us instead of them” :)

Of course at the end of the day using the Internet is far more efficient and eco-friendly the driving to the local library!

_[Update] Turns out the the paper got it all wrong and completely misquoted their “source”. Interestingly the guy they misquoted works for a company called C02Stats which helps you make your website carbon neutral._