By John Gruber
WorkOS launches auth.md — an open protocol for agent registration.
Linked List: January 2, 2008
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
- The Iowa Scam ★
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Christopher Hitchens on the Iowa caucuses:
It’s only when you read an honest reporter like Dan Balz that you appreciate the depth and extent of the fraud that is being practiced on us all. “In a primary,” as he put it, “voters quietly fill out their ballots and leave. In the caucuses, they are required to come and stay for several hours, and there are no secret ballots. In the presence of friends, neighbors and occasionally strangers, Iowa Democrats vote with their feet, by raising their hands and moving to different parts of the room to signify their support for one candidate or another. … [F]or Democrats, it is not a one-person, one-vote system. … Inducements are allowed; bribes are not.” One has to love that last sentence.
- Setting Up Local Virtual Hosts on Leopard ★
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Nice write-up from Jeremy Keith on setting up local virtual host web sites on Leopard — it’s a bit different on Leopard because Mac OS X now includes Apache 2.
- GrabFS: The Screenshot File System ★
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Amit Singh:
In a pinch, GrabFS is a file system that shows you a live view of the window contents of currently running applications. In a GrabFS volume, folders represent running applications and image files represent instant screenshots (”grabs”) of the applications’ windows. You simply copy a file or just open it in place, and you have a screenshot. Open it again, and you have a new screenshot!
I’m not sure I’d ever find this useful, but I love it anyway.
- Sears Installs Spyware ★
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Jacqui Cheng on security researcher Benjamin Googins’s discovery that a supposed “community” service on Sears.com and Kmart.com (Kmart is a Sears subsidiary) is actually an atrocious spyware system.
Raymond Babbitt said it well in Rain Man: “Kmart sucks.”
- Macworld: Add More Power to 10.5’S Screen Sharing ★
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Rob Griffiths reveals hidden features in Leopard’s Screen Sharing app.
- Regarding the RIAA’s Lawsuit Against Jeffrey Howell ★
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A few days ago I linked to a Washington Post story regarding Atlantic v. Howell, a lawsuit the RIAA filed against Jeffrey Howell. The Post, and many other media outlets, reported that the RIAA’s attorneys have argued in their brief that merely ripping music to MP3 files from the CDs you legally own constitutes copyright infringement.
Ends up this isn’t what the RIAA’s legal brief states. What the RIAA claims, and which led them to file suit against Howell, is that he both ripped 2,000 songs to MP3 and shared them publicly via Kazaa. Big difference.
- Fortune Ranks Steve Jobs Most Powerful Businessperson in World ★
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Followed by Rupert Murdoch, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Google’s Schmidt/Page/Brin triumvirate.
- Regarding Apple’s Hard Drive Repair Policy ★
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Matt Deatherage, on Dave Winer’s argument that Apple’s “we keep your old hard drive if it needs to be replaced during servicing” policy is a security issue:
The “problem” isn’t that Apple kept his hard drive. The problem is that Dave handed his sensitive data to a third-party in the first place. You don’t leave your router open out of an “expectation” that bad guys won’t touch your network, and you don’t hand your hard drive to third parties with the expectation that they’ll decide not to look at it.
Update: Matt has extensively updated his piece to address the question of what to do if the drive is so severely damaged that you can’t even erase it. That seems to be an actual problem with Apple’s policy.
- iCab 4.0 ★
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Talk about a blast from the past — Alexander Clauss has released a major new version of iCab:
iCab 4.0 is completely rewritten and is now based on Cocoa instead of Carbon. It is much faster than iCab 3 has a polished user interface and also some new features.
I’m pretty sure iCab is now using WebKit as its rendering engine. Previously, iCab used its own rendering engine, which, way back in the day — as in prior-to-IE-5-for-Mac back in the day — was my favorite rendering engine for the Mac. Check out the readme file for full details regarding some of iCab’s nifty new features.
- Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ on Sale at iTunes Store ★
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The songs are all available as singles, too. You can buy it from Amazon instead and save two bucks.