Christmas Wishes

First a disclaimer - this post will have nothing to do with technology or geekdom.
In the spirit of the season I want to extend a special thanks to some people who helped make 2004 such a great year for me.
First on the geek side thanks to Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome.com, the guys at TheRegular.org, uphillbattle.org , and Wayne Perkey at RadioTechTalk.com in Louisville Kentucky for the regular work.
My deepest appreciation also goes to Jacqui and Rick of HoneymoonSuite.com. Speaking of Honeymoon Suite, thanks also go to Derry and Johnnie for being so kind and taking some time with me when ever there schedule permits. I really admired these guys when I was a kid and it's been an honor knowing them.
Special thanks to Andy Walker of Cyberwalker.com and Call For Help on Tech TV Canada and Emily Steinoff for their words of encouragement.
Thanks to Leo Laporte, also of Tech TV Canada for being the best technology teacher a student could ever have.
Brian Vollmer of Helix also gets a special thanks for allowing me the opportunity to get to know him and become involved with a band I loved when I was a kid. You can buy Helix's new DVD here.
And thanks to everyone who visits Closetgeek.net or JamesMason.ca on a regular basis and takes the time to send me an e-mail or post their views in my comments sections. You have made this site a joy to do.
Best holiday wishes to everyone, and hopefully 2005 is even better than 2004. Peace.

Canada Still Safe Haven For Pirates In 2004

This time of year a lot of publications, media outlets and tech websites love to roll out what they think the biggest stories of the year were in the world of technology.
In Canada, the biggest story of the year had to be a Federal court ruling on March 31, when the highest ranking court in the Great White North deemed that Peer to Peer (P2P) file-sharing was in fact legal and that groups like the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CIRA), could not sue file swappers.
The ruling meant that users of P2P networks like Kazaa and Limewire could continue to download and distribute music and media files to their hearts content, and not fear being sued in court.
The court's main reason for ruling in favor of file swappers was because of the Canadian Copyright Act (CCA).
In the mid 1990's, record companies lobbied the Canadian government to levy an extra tax on the sale of blank CD's and DVD's in an effort to ensure that artists received some sort of compensation for their work.
The Canadian government agreed, and amended the CCA in 1997 to include the new levy, however there were also some other amendments made to the act at the time.
The main amendment was made in the area of fair use.
Essentially the CCA states that if you buy a CD or other media you do have the right to "back-up" the media to your computer and burn as many copies of the media as you want. You may also share the media with other users across a network as long as you or the individual who obtains a copy of the media do not profit from the transaction in any way.
"The Federal Court decision certainly wasn't good news," said CIRA President Graham Henderson at the time of the ruling.
And to further boost the government's position on fair use, in June the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that ISPs could not be held responsible for any customers who may violate international or domestic copyright laws, and could not be forced by groups like CIRA to reveal file swappers identities.
These ruling are in stark contrast to what is going on in the U.S. where at least 1,000 file swappers have been sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement.

The Learning Curve - Unix Style

Students of the Computer Science program at the University of Illinois at Chicago were recently presented a unique challenge.
Each student was instructed to find 10 flaws in latest Unix kernel, the core component of operating systems like Mac O.S. 10 and Linux.
The class taught by Daniel Bernstein found 44 flaws in total.
And although most were found in rarely used applications, at least a dozen were thought to be serious security vulnerabilities.
To make matters worse, the flaws come on the heels of an announcement by an independent software testing company who stated they had discovered 950 flaws in the latest Unix kernel.
Now although 44 may seem like a significant number, it is in stark contrast to Windows XP, which to date has had in excess of 5,000 flaws.

Yahoo To Launch Desktop Search In Early 05

Yahoo will follow Google's lead and dive head first into desktop search in early 2005.
Desktop search seems to be the next frontier in the battle for internet supremecy as both Yahoo and Microsoft seem to be a few months behind what Google is doing in Mountainview, California.
Earlier this year Google began Beta-Testing Gmail, a web-based e-mail client whose main selling point was an incredible 1 gigabyte of storage space. Yahoo Mail quickly followed suit and increased their storage space to 100 MB from 6 MB, and Microsoft's Hotmail is currently in the process of upgrading customers to 250 MB from 2 MB.
And now the race is on for the top spot in the realm of desktop search.
Desktop search allows a user to run a search string in a search engine and gather results from the internet as well as their computer's harddrive.
For instance if you ran a search string for the Boston Red Sox on Google Desktop Search, Google would automatically search the contents of your hardrive and if you had an AIM or MSN Messenger conversations about the BoSox those conversations would show up in your search results.
At the heart of Yahoo's new search tool is X1 Technology, which was developed by Bill Gross.
Gross was the brain child behind search marketing company GoTo.com, which eventually became Overture and was bought by Yahoo for over $1.6 billion in 2003.

Can You Keep A Secret?

Now I know that I may walking a fine line here, but the United States Congress is set to publicly release a new report called "Cybersecurity For The Homeland" on Monday.
The report examines what the US government needs to do to improve it's overall tech infastructure in an effort to prevent tech terror attacks.
Well why wait until Monday, I managed to get my hands on a copy of the report and you can download it here and make your own decisions about the US Government's plans for IT security.
Oh and by the way if anyone from the FBI is reading this entry, I would like to point out that I am not a US citizen and therefore the only way I can be charged with leaking this report before publication would be to apply to the Canadian government for an extradition order.

Microsoft Finally Joins Blogosphere

Microsoft finally entered the world of Blogs on Wednesday as they went live with MSN Space.
MSN Space is currently in Beta, and contains many advanced features that users will probably love.
RSS Syndicaton, Integration with MSN Messenger, Photo Blogging (you can even upload via e-mail) and an easy template and design system are some of the best selling points of this free Blogging system.
If your unsure if MSN Spaces is for you, you can check out a free video from Microsoft here.