Etherpunk

Here is a list of many Google videos -- a couple hours long total, I think.
I really enjoy this type of learning.. I don't know why.
I think I'm going to start looking for audio learning for my car.

Here is a screen shot of what is going on so far. Primary things left to do: * Printing * Adding/modifing/deleting items -- currently it's all done by hand made sql statements.

If I were Microsoft...
This blog is not meant to be taken literally. It's a what-if type thing, meaning I haven't thought it through and I'm sure it's riddle with logical holes I've missed.

Microsoft has been fumbling around with some bad judgment calls and statements. I don't really have citations to back this up, it's just stuff I have gathered over the past few years. I suspect they are realizing that other gorillas are getting to be 800lbs as well and it's scaring them. They are reacting poorly.

• I would have three different Office profiles -- one where it makes it very easy for those not good with computers, another where it offers more advanced things to allow the newbie to advance, and the last one would be optimal for developers or power users. I would apply this logic to as much software as possible -- to allow people of all experience to benefit the most.
• Any unsupported Windows code should be have the source code viewable. I'm not saying open source it (e.g. GPL/BSD it, and I realize some code would require and NDA -- don't release the NDA stuff), I'm saying allow those still using it to update it or do what they want. Unless there is something illegal in the code somehow, Microsoft has nothing to lose by doing this and more to gain. It's unsupported -- so no one would get help from MS, so MS wouldn't have to worry about tech-support lines getting cluttered.
• The Big Leap(TM). If Vista x64 was a bit more stable / had more shit to run on it, then I would say lock in that on your sights. I want to lose legacy stuff. Serial ports, parallel ports, vga, everything except USB, audio, and dvi. Develop an open standard for new hardware. I have no problem buying a new computer -- so long as there is a good reason and the OS isn't the reason so much as it's time to drop the old shit which causes bugs and just general overhead that isn't needed. The old stuff done by third-parties usually doesn't have drivers that are up to snuff.
• For The Big Leap(TM) above, re-write the OS to remove old cruft. I want everything re-written in the latest .NET. Even notepad. I want the code gone over and looked at for exploits -- thus why I want even things as simple as notepad redone.
• Drop DRM. The free counter-parts, OSS, can do this without it and will eventually pass you unless you realize that's not that people want. Given the choice, which would someone choose? Think pro-actively.
• Don't think you can lock-in the future by locking everyone else out. There will always be someone willing to do it for free in there own time.
• Software patch roll-up's. I would LOVE to be able to download some .msi or something that would patch my computer to the latest. Obviously the only real advantage of this is for those that just got their computer up for the first time, but it would save on so much time.
• Be more like Google in the Do No Evil type attitude. It's working because people like things that benefit them, not shaft them. They will naturally want that and pay more for it. The control had before is slipping away fairly quickly, use the control to do some benefit to the world and who knows, you might make a dime.
• Games. Put some cheesy games in -- something to burn time and give people a chance to go "ooh, I like those type of games!". Games such as FPS, RTS, RPG, etc. They don't need to be great, something simple is preferable. Hell, you could even have a bundles "Microsoft Vista: Fully Loaded" version which has all this stuff plus other things. Might even have Office.
• Put out a FunPack again, but put more in to -- such as Office Templates, some Visual Studio examples, a few games (or would this be where the games should be instead of the previous line?), tweak-ui type program, some side-bar gadgets -- all of which you can download for free from the site, this is just a bundled pack. Get some money from the lazy or those that deem it nice stuff but not worth their time to download. Or you can even split these up on to different discs and sell them on the $5 rack or something.
• Boot manager -- I wonder what it would be like if Microsoft wrote a boot manager to boot OpenBSD, Linux, etc.
• Bring back the tagging file system. I could easily see why you wouldn't run it on your OS partition (what tags would be put for files in 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework' that wouldn't clutter a tag db?), I could easily see how cool it would be being put on to a data drive. Perhaps this job is better left to an outsider app and not built-in to the OS.
• Redo the Zune. Talk to Apple and see if you can work together on something. When people get a music player, they have certain expectations. Zune sometimes doesn't fill these in a manner people expect -- so if I see someone buying a Zune for their kid, I usually tell them to get the iPod unless the kid specifically asked for the Zune. Although, to be fair -- I know very little about the Zune except from what my friends and others around have told me, this is is mostly 3rd person info that I've relaying on this one.

I'll comment more on the mobile front when CingularAT&T updates the 8525 to WM6.

* Anything with a (TM) isn't really trademarked.. it's meant to be a joke.. please laugh.

This page is dedicated to things I want:

• George Foreman grill -- that one that comes apart so you can put it in the dish washer
• Deep frier -- the one I have is pretty old and becoming nasty
• Amazon Gift Cert -- these will easily make me happy... because what I want on it can change in 5 minutes.

LicenseTracker is a simple C#/SQLite program I wrote.
I'll be re-coding some stuff and releasing it under the BSD license shortly as I need to prepend the license to each file.
At the moment all it does is track Code Keys and Serial Numbers and attributes about those (such as when it was purchased or where an ISO or CD-ROM is located). After I get it re-hashed, I'll add some basic printing features once I figure out how to print on multiple pages -- damnit.
I later plan on expanding it to help store user information, computer information, and store license information appropriately.

I'm attempting to get an app which speaks XMLRPC so I can post blogs on my PDA with my own custom interface. Seemingly the .NET 2.0 Compact Framework doesn't offer all the datatypes the full framework offers.

All of this for mBlog (mobileBlog). That is the name, as of now... just now thought of it... sounds great. Let's see if I don't delete this in the morning.

I also learned that WIN CE 5.0 is *not* the same as Windows Mobile 5.
The WM5 emulator also doesn't allow configurable storage space -- which SUCKS, meaning I'm going to have to write a metric fuck-ton of code to do it myself. I suppose I'll be getting really friendly with XMLRPC in a short time span.

This page will contain ideas / things I would like to do (that relate to this site). Consider it a notes page and a tasks page. Projects:

• SerialTracker -- software intended to help keep track of serial / code key information in a SQLite database. It's currently *functional* but not pretty
  • Need to add ability to print
  • Need to clean up code
  • Much later: Add multi-db support (such as MySQL and MSSQL Express)
• Bloging program for WM5/6 (aka mBlog)
  • I want something that can speak XMLRPC that is free and doesn't suck.
  • Should be simple, as in all it should want is a subject and a body -- anything else should be handled by the primary interface on the web.
• SQLDiff / SqlSchema Export
• AmxModX - Report Abuse
• Dd-GUI
• MDE
• Quizzer
  • Imports an XML file for questions and related answers.
  • An example question would be:
    • What port does HTTP listen on?
      • 80, 81, 25, 22, 10, 21
  • Each port would have a value to it, with 80, of course, being HTTP. Questions would be generated dynamcially so, for example, 25 would be associated with SMTP. The questions format might be: What port does $PORT_DISPLAY_NAME listen on? and the answers would be chosen from $PORT_VALUE
  • A reverse question might be: What services is port $PORT_VALUE and the answer would be $PORT_DISPLAY_NAME.
  • The qa list would ahve romanian, spanish, networking, and some other things that I'm currently interested in.
  • Be released under BSD license so other people could use it for their studying purposes.
• KBA (Keyboard Assignment)
  • Be capable of importing HL1 keyboard settings and displaying on the screen.
  • I want something that looks close to a keyboard on screen so you can see, at a glance, what keys do what and what are available for new commands.
  • Needs to be able to update them and re-save.
  • Saving should have the option of overwriting the orginal file or using the userdefiend file (preferred, since it doesn't get overwritten on updates).
• CRM.
  • Being the guy who tends to fix neighbors computers, would be nice to have a small crm software to help me keep track of everything. A common thing is people forget to keep serial numbers, so it would need to store computer info under their account. That area might be called triage, where you go and gather information about them in general.
  • Wold be nice to have pictures to, to help with calls and help me remember what I'm dealing with.

Websites:

• OpenBSD-Wiki
  • Update articles to latest version.
  • Develop a better method of aging articles.
  • Update software.
• Etherpunk.com/Wiki
  • Append some info on articles, such as the reset SQL identities
  • Clean up the theme, make it similar to this.
  • Update software.

Source Control:

• Clean up my SVN repo.
  • Testing - Used for testing general idea. For example, the speed tests I did fro Linq vs SubSonic versus datareaders.
  • Development - Used for actual projects.
  • Alpha - Projects that people can use
  • Production -- yeah, like anything will ever end up here ;-)

So, I'm giving Vista another shot. I'm going to learn the .NET 3.0 and 3.5 stuff, since 3.5 should be coming out soon. Here is the list of the software I'm running:

• Adobe Flash Player
• Filezilla
• Firefox (with AdBlock plus, Filterset.G, Gmail notifier, Flashblock)
• Logitech Setpoint
• Metapad
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
• Natural Selection
• Pidgin
• Putty
• Steam
• Virtual Clone Drive
• VLC (aka VideoLAN)
• WinDirStat
• WinSCP
• Yahoo Messenger

I'm going to try Nero again, but last time it said I had an invalid code key -- funny, it works in XP -- and Nero wasn't willing to help, so I may be pirating a copy that works because my legal copy doesn't even though they claim it does... blah.

I'm just putting this here so Google will cache it for searches later. If you run across a strange error, I forgot the error but it happened when you attempted to configure the mouse features by loading up the Setpoint software, you should search for the Visual C Redistributable. After a reboot, I was able to get it up however I couldn't get any tabs to open that would allow me to configure the mouse. Once I installed Visual Studio 2005 I had to reinstall the Setpoint software and all was good.

Theo made a statement (link goes to thread) about licensing which made me think: "Hmm, we need a book on licensing about the spirit of the licenses, interpretations of the licenses, and best uses for what fits your desires".

This book might include licensing for documentation (such as my wiki), software, and blogs as those seem to be the big three that common people write stuff for. I would also like to see a chapter dedicated to the legal side and spend a bit of time educating the person about how to defend yourself, who to go to who may help (doesn't FSF help?), explain a few legal terms, etc. It seems that at the moment many people in the OSS world don't entirely understand the spirit of the licensing -- which is why I think the GPL vs BSD debate is such a heated debate.

My first document was the first version of this, which was later (the current version) re-hacked by someone else and added some more stuff (assistance from nazadus? I wrote at least 1/4 of that). Another one I wrote actually had a license at the bottom. When SGL split in to SourceMage GNU/Linux, Lunar Linux, and Sorcerer Linux (non-GPL) the SourceMage people wanted me to relicense the original guide -- which I merely told them "do what you want, I'm out". That was when I learned I didn't know jack about licensing and I wasn't about to commit to something I didn't understand. The cause of the SGL split was directly cause by a lack of understanding of the GPL --or-- the dude losing control and going bat-shits about it (yes, I was there... he essentially acted like a baby and getting ticked that someone would fork his code), but had he understood the GPL -- this wouldn't have happened.

I can easily see an O'Reilly on this. I would write one, but I lack a real legal understanding of it. Perhaps I can start on it in the wiki and just let it go from there...