NO: SOPA/PROTECT IP

I am a content creator.

I do care about my copyrights.

I also care about freedom and Due Process.

My Domains Transferred Away From GoDaddy

Despite GoDaddy’s early dismissive attitude about the backlash and naysayers of said backlash, the situation fire-balled into a controversy that GoDaddy just could not ignore. Over a week ago, GoDaddy announced that it is no longer supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act. Even the initial support was enough for people like myself to transfer away from GoDaddy.

Other hosting and domain name companies came forward with special offers to entice people away from GoDaddy, while pointing out that they did not support SOPA.

Even though the official boycott day was the 29th of December, I moved my domains and hosting away from GoDaddy during Christmas weekend. Both my hosting and my domains are with other companies now. There was some downtime for Gophanet and my HTML5 test page but, everything is up and running. While others have experienced delays while having their domains transferred, I could not tell if my transfers were delayed because of the Christmas holiday.

Apparently many domains have been transferred from GoDaddy however, it should be pointed out that they are the top domain name service. They have daily transfers in, numbering in the thousands. It could be some weeks before we can get a picture of just how much business GoDaddy lost and there has been some confusion over just what counts as a transfer out (read the comments as well).

Now… what to do about the NFL?

More reading

A Step-by-Step Guide to Transfer Domains Out Of GoDaddy

“Always Online” DRM… When Men Cry Like Babies

A little over a week ago, several executives with GSC Game World – including Sergei Grigorovich mentioned that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will have the “always online” DRM scheme. All hell broke loose. GSC Game World then tweeted that the scheme was only mentioned as a “possibility”. With the scare of this DRM scheme gone, we all can look forward to purchasing and enjoying the next chapter in the Zone.

Using Technology To Protect Your Rights

We are in the six month of 2011. Within the last year, we have seen social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook being used to help organize and inform others of mass protests against regimes in the Middle East. Dubbed the “Arab Spring”, these protests have taken down several regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. These movements have also turned violent as other Middle Eastern autocrats refuse to let go of power and have turned their armies and internal security forces on their own people. There is internationally backed (disputed) armed rebellion [civil war] in Libya. Meanwhile in Syria, citizens are being slaughtered and tortured for protesting and gathering in public (i.e. funerals). It’s citizens are being chased into Turkey and Lebanon. In Bahrain (home to the United States’ 5th Fleet), mass protests have sprung up several times resulting in violent crackdowns, mass arrests of participants and the hospital workers treating the victims and show trials.

Also in use during the turbulent times around the globe, mobile phones. Not only are mobile phones good for sending mass text messages, informing people of protests, they have also become the electronic eye – showing the rest of us what people are witnessing and experiencing themselves. Video recorded via mobile phone has become the proof that we all need to see in order for us to wake up and say to ourselves, “What the hell is going on in this world?” (You can see Al Jazeera’s collection of video from Syria here)

Sony’s Welcome Back Program

Sony dropped word detailing what those of us who are PSN members are receiving as our “Welcome Back” package. You can read the Playstation EU blog for more details.

While a free 30-day membership in  the Playstation Plus program is nice, Sony is offering 2 free games available for download via the Playstation Store. In Europe (where the Playstation Store is available), The five games you can choose from are:

• inFamous
• Little Big Planet
• Ratchet and Clank: Quest For Booty
• Dead Nation
• Wipeout HD/Fury

There free games for PSP users, additional free time for existing Playstation Plus and Music Unlimited subscribers. For North American users, you are being offered Super Stardust HD instead of Ratchet and Clank: Quest For Booty.

I think I’ll be download inFamous and I’m torn between Dead nation and Ratchet and Clank…

Playstation Network Troubles

Over the last week, Sony Playstation Network has been down. According to Sony, PSN was the victim of a security breach which compromised user accounts on PSN and Qriocity. Yesterday, it was announced that personal information including credit card information (for those who have shopped on PSN) might have also been compromised. Taking PR black eyes for a perceived lack of updates and notifications, Sony today issued a statement on the Playstation blog, saying that it had only learned of the scope of the breach on the 26th of April – a week after the intrusion. Sony brought in outside help to sift through the data which took a few days.

Nokia Is… -insert cliché, catchphrase, colorful metaphor here-

Earlier this week, new Nokia CEO Steven Elop dropped a bombshell by announcing that Nokia is going to make Windows Phone 7 it’s primary smartphone OS. This announcement was preceded by an email to the entire company in which he used numerous clichés describing the state of Nokia as a company.

In the email, he stated that Nokia was being left in the dust by it’s main cellphone rivals at both the hardware and software level. Competitor smartphones have buried all high-end Nokia devices and cheap Chinese phones have been eating away at Nokia’s low-end dominance. Nokia’s software R&D was painfully slow and Nokia’s ecosystem was just a few plants in a greenhouse with a parrot in a birdcage and too many caretakers.

The Markup Formerly Known As HTML5

Apparently, a week or so ago, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium – the group that standardizes tech to use on the web) started a web campaign for HTML5. People have been talking about HTML5 and the cool stuff it does so, why not make T-shirts and stickers? My only question is where are the coffee mugs?? With this new campaign, the W3C also posted some code that allows you to put a “my web site supports HTML5 fo’ shiz'” graphic on your site. While hyping up HTML5 and all of the cool things it does is great, the problem is that IT’S NOT READY YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Taking a deep breath…

Some days later, the splinter other group who is also working on HTML5, the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) announced through the person responsible for writing the HTML5 specification, Ian Hickson, that the 5 will be dropped and the whole shebang will simply be known as HTML. Wow, nice timing…

I don’t know if this was done on purpose or if WHATWG just has really bad timing. But, if they had decided on changing the name over a year ago then someone should have let the people at the W3C know. Or, maybe they did know and they tried to force the WHATWG’s hand by starting this marketing campaign.

Either way, I do know one thing and that this DOES NOT HELP the advancement of HTML5/HTML/The Markup Formerly Known As HTML5. Stop jacking around and get your asses in gear. You’ve only got a large video codec war brewing – for starters.

Google Street View Cars In The Crosshairs… Again

File under: Check to make sure you actually didn’t do it, before saying that you didn’t do it.

While, in my opinion, the bitching and moaning about Google and it’s Street View project has been tiresome, it’s hard to overlook some things. In this case, questions were raised by the German government concerning Google ‘s WiFi data collecting while it’s Street View cars are driving around, taking pictures of everything. Apparently, at one point in Germany, Google collected information about WiFi networks they were not supposed to collect.

Google, red faced, blamed this on some code an engineer wrote for a WiFi experiment. If that’s true, so be it. Delete the collected information and the code and move along. But make sure that the data collection DID NOT happen before you write blog postings saying that you don’t engage in those kinds of practices. It’s annoying having to sift through all of the tinfoil hat comments…

Hide Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Uzbekistan!

How do you create negativity and show that your country is backward? You arrest a photojournalist for taking pictures of your culture and then attempt to rationalize it.

Authorities in Uzbekistan charged Umida Ahkmedova in December for “insulting and slandering the Uzbek nation”. She published a series of photographs for gender and human rights related projects. The sentence carries a punishment of at least 6 months in prison or 2-3 years hard labor.

The BBC has some of the pictures up on their site here.

In my opinion, I’m glad people like her take photographs like that so I can see how other people live in other parts of the world. I see no shame and I don’t think any less of the Uzbek people after seeing these photos. But I do think less of their government now.