At midnight tonight, a WordPress plugin will kick in which “blacks out” this blog (and my travel blog). I know I only get a few hits a day (around 50-100, usually), but it’s my small way to take part in the STOP SOPA Wednesday.

For those who don’t know, SOPA (and also PIPA) are motions to be put through the US legal system in a bid to allow large copyright holders power to close down websites simply because they don’t like them. OK, it’s a little more complex than that but that’s what it boils down to. SOPA has, in fact, already been shelved as a result of public outcry but PIPA is still alive and threatening horrific levels of censorship.

Essentially what these laws will do is allow a copyright holder (read “rich media company”) to force any website to be taken offline if it claims said site infringes on its copyright. Forget about any discussion over “fair use”, similar content which isn’t actually copied, mistakes and the like – it’s “guilty until proven innocent, which you won’t be because the people putting in the complaint have more money than you”.

Notice, that I said “site”. Remember the case a couple of years back with a baby dancing to a Michael Jackson track on YouTube? Jackson’s record company attempted to sue the baby’s parents for breach of copyright as they dared to put a dodgy recording of part of a song by dead weirdo onto a publicly accessible website. Obviously, this would cost them a fortune in lost revenue. Tossers.

Under SOPA, the media company could force YouTube offline. An extreme and unlikely example, but under the wording of the legislation completely possible. The host is liable for the content uploaded by its members. Even if those members number potentially in their billions.

The methods used to remove sites from the internet is also flawed and involves messing about with the internet’s central servers – something which has had industry experts who actually know what they the hell they’re on about (therefore obviously not politicians, lawyers or record company execs) up in arms.

I’m glad SOPA has been shelved, but I fear it will return. Right now we have to ensure that PIPA is also put down. Although obviously focussed on the US, this will affect anyone using the internet if it goes through. It could also lead to similar legislation being put in place in other countries.

Many sites, far bigger than this little bunch of rants and reviews, are also blacking out for 24 hours. Reddit, WordPress.org, TwitPic and Wikipedia are amongst them. Imagine an internet without them – and many other sites who are not participating. Twitter. Facebook. YouTube. Blogger.

Frankly it beggars belief. Yet the ignorance and stupidity of the media companies trying to push this madness through does not.

Related articles

• What is SOPA/PIPA and Why the Web is Going Dark on January 18, 2012 (aisjournal.com)
• SOPA/PIPA Internet Protest: Web Sites go Black (magsx2.wordpress.com)
• ANTI-SOPA/PIPA Blackout (pumabydesign001.com)
• Websites Protesting SOPA, PIPA (disclose.tv)

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Stop SOPA

Raspberry Pi - almost actual size. Image via Wikipedia

For those not aware, Raspberry Pi is an initiative to supply incredibly low-cost, tiny little computers for school children to use. They retail at $25 for a standalone model and $35 for one with a network port soldered on. They’re also being distributed by a non-profit charity. A wonderful idea and I’ll be buying one once they go into full production.

Even better – from a pride point of view – is that it’s a British company doing this. The aim was to make it as British as possible including the manufacture. Sadly, this hasn’t been possible.

To keep the price point low, the actual building of the board has had to be done in the Far East. Partly this is down to manufacturing costs and availability of plants wherein the work could be done. What really stinks, though, is that even the closest British plants in price ended up being non-viable due to a ridiculous policy on import duty.

You see, if you have something like this manufactured abroad and imported in then the finished product incurs zero tax. However, if you import in the individual components these themselves do attract duty. Hence importing the bits to have the system built in the UK is more expensive than paying a factory in China (or wherever) to build them and then just shipping in the finished products.

And we wonder why we have no sizeable electronics industry in this country any more.

Full marks to the Raspberry Pi people for their openness and honesty. Minus several million to the idiots at the Inland Revenue for a somewhat inexplicable policy.

[BBC article which prompted this post]

UPDATE: Someone’s started a government-targeted e-petition regarding the issue.

Related articles

• Anonymous Bidder Pays £989 For Raspberry Pi Board, Donates To Museum (cosmicbackdrop.wordpress.com)
• The Raspberry Pi Will Bring Fun To Computers Again (dreamintech.net)
• Introducing: The Raspberry Pi (VIDEO) (chats-blog.com)
• Raspberry Pi bids for classroom success (bbc.co.uk)

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Asian Raspberry Pi

Don't use one of these...

Hint for anyone planning on moving to BT‘s fibre optic broadband – forget the packaged HomeHub3 and go for a router capable of 300Mbps throughput on the wifi. We’ve gone for a NetGear though there are plenty of alternatives.

Reason being that most areas have 40Mbps (max) broadband speed with a quoted rise to 80Mbps within a few months, peaking at 300Mbps. Some areas already have 300Mbps.

The HomeHub3 is only capable of transmitting a wifi signal of 130Mbps. Therefore, even though it could theoretically be yanking 300Mbps up the “pipe” from the internet, it can only get it to your computer at less than half that speed. In other words, the kit BT are shipping is already out of date.

The WNR2200 we went for is small, white (therefore colour-coordinated to please my other half) and sits perfectly on top of the supplied BT fibre modem. It’s also only about £50 if you pre-purchase via PCWorld’s (*spit*) website and collect it in store – saving you £60! Though there was another option, even cheaper – £25, from a manufacturer I’ve not heard of before.

If you have an existing ADSL modem router… pass it on to someone else. It’s useless with fibre. You need a cable modem, i.e. one with a “WAN” input socket on the back, not an ADSL one. OK, technically you don’t need the “modem” part of it as BT supply that, but that’s what to look for on the boxes.

Confusingly, lots of retailers started labelling all of their ADSL kit as appropriate for “BT Connections”. Obviously, this is no longer the case as it depends on whether you’re using ADSL or fibre now.

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Getting BT fibre-optic broadband

The first game, which we haven't got. Yet.

Harking back to a recent post, I mentioned that there is very little in the way of small-child-friendly software for the Xbox as opposed to the Wii or the PC.

One of the titles we picked up by chance some time ago is called De Blob 2 (I’m assuming it’s a sequel, confirmed by the box cover I found to the right). Our youngest – 3½ – has picked up on it recently after getting a little bored with repeating the opening levels of Lego Star Wars (mainly as he hasn’t figured out the save and load mechanism yet which, in fairness, is rather over-complicated in these games).

He is loving it and it’s a great game for kids of his age – and of mine!

I’ve not read the plot or anything, but essentially you’re the hero blob. You live in a world where a nasty individual has removed all the colour, leaving everything a boring grey. Dotted around are fountains and waterfalls of coloured paint which you soak yourself in, and then use yourself to “paint” buildings, trees, people and parts of the landscape.

It sounds nice and simple, and at the bottom level it is. As the game goes on, though, it gets a little more complicated as you have to destroy some things, go into platform-game style stages between levels, and learn how to mix colours (great for the younger kids) to get just the right ones. There are also side-missions, which don’t need to be completed, and bonuses dotted around all over the place.

If I have a quibble, it’s a small one – the right joystick is used to pan the camera around as it is in many games. However, it seems to work in a reverse fashion to every single other game I’ve played which is quite annoying. There may be a setting somewhere to change it, but I’ve not spotted it as yet.

After having sat with Little Mister for some time as he’s worked his way through the early staged, I think De Blob 2 has just become next on my “to do” list once I finish off Lego Indiana Jones.

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De Blob 2

There’s a really popular game for Android called Alchemy which Gillian’s eldest took quite a shine to on my phone. It’s a really simple game, involving dropping icons of the basic four elements onto each other to create newer items. These can then be used as blocks to make more complex ones and so on.

For example, mixing fire and water gives you alcohol, earth and air gives dust, dust and water gives mud… and so on. This version currently has 370 items to develop and discover. There is a “competing” program going by the name of Alchemy Classic which is the same but different. The programmers of this have also developed a PC version, but it’s a pain in the backside to install. There is also a new version from another developer called Alchemy ~ Genetics which does much the same thing with genetic traits of various creatures (wonderful gift to send to your Creationist friends – assuming Creationists have friends).

And, finally, there’s an excellent version for the PC (sorry Mac users). It’s programmed by Marius Bancila and the most recent version (2.0) can be downloaded from his blog (link below). It’s a small install and this new release has been re-jigged so that it works better on netbook screens. The old one kept expanding so that controls dropped off the bottom.

I’m giving this a plug partly as it’s such a good game and also because Marius has proven to be an excellent supporter of his own product. He happily listens to feedback both for bug fixes and new combinations of items. His Alchemy currently sports 444 different creations!

POINT TO NOTE – the game downloads as a single file within a ZIP archive. Just drag the file out of the archive and pop it somewhere to run it. For those who like things near and tidy, you can’t put the game into your Program Files folder where you’d normally store executables. For some reason it won’t then have permission to create and update the separate progress file so you’ll lose all your work each time to leave the game. Store it pretty much anywhere else! This may only be an issue under Windows 7/Vista, though.

A quick list of links for all four versions listed in this post:

• Alchemy (from the Android Market – free version, there is also a premium version)
• Alchemy ~ Genetics (from the Android Market – free version, there is also a premium version)
• Alchemy Classic (from the Android Market)
• Alchemy 2.0 (from Marius’ blog)

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Laptop Alchemy

Image via Wikipedia

Sorry for the awful pun. It had to be done.

For those who don’t know, Scratch is a programming language geared primarily at younger children. We use it with our S2 classes (around 12-13 years old) although I am aware of many primary schools who also introduce it to children at a younger age.

Frankly, after a bit of struggling to begin with, I’ve found it to be a great language. Sure it doesn’t have a solution to every problem and yes, you often have to fiddle around a lot to get it to do precisely what you want but for the level it’s aimed it, it’s a fantastic tool.

The best thing is the layout. It’s bright, clear and gives very fast results. The colour-coding of different data types makes it easy for children to spot how the programs are put together. There’s no typing necessary (other than the occasional number) as the programs are built using jigsaw pieces with code on. The pieces change shape dynamically as code is formed into loops and the like. All very pretty.

Over the holidays I spent an hour or two with Little Miss (aged 10) who was very impressed with the simplicity. She managed to create a couple of short animations on her netbook. I went into full-on geek mode and created the attached Ghostbusters game (no copyright theft intended – it just seemed like a nice name).

Use the mouse to point your gun in the right direction and the space bar to fire. There are seven levels, on each of which you have ten bullets and have to hit the ghost five times. Clear a level using exactly five bullets and you get a bonus.

You can download Scratch from http://scratch.mit.edu/ for free. There are versions for Windows, Mac and more penguin-oriented operating systems.

My ghost-busting title is available as a single file here: Ghostbusters (ZIP file, 2.8Mb)

UPDATE: you can play the game online here!

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Scratch-ing an itch

Image via CrunchBase

I’ve just made an attempt to use Yahoo Pipes to merge my feeds and publish them to facebook. This post is a test to see if this import works, and if so then I should have a new Note sometime in the next couple of hours.

I didn’t have much luck with Pipes in the past, and the trial run within Pipes failed claiming it couldn’t connect to the feeds despite a manual check showing that they worked fine.

Well, I guess I’ll find out in the morning…

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Pipes test

Image via CrunchBase

After yesterday’s post I’ve gone and found another one. I’ll add these details to that post for completeness, but:

Super Google Reader

This plug-in adds an extra drop-down menu to Google Reader which does a few things, but chief amongst these is to automatically download the entire post for blogs which only publish the first paragraph or so to their feed. Some people maybe don’t realise they have their blogging software set to do this, others maybe want you to head to the blog so they get “per appearance” advertising revenue. I’m often too lazy to click through, so having the whole text in my reader is far more convenient.

Super Google Reader will yank it down either as plain text or in the format of the actual blog page (including borders, widgets, etc). Impressive.

Related articles

• What browser plugins/extensions do you use? (moshblog.me.uk)

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And a new Chrome extension

Image by smemon87 via Flickr

I’ve not done a geeky post in a while so I thought I’d rattle one off while I have a little spare time.

My current browser of choice is Google Chrome, although I confess it’s not 100% compatible with every site at present. Zemanta‘s WordPress plug-in, for starters, has some issues. But overall I’m finding it fast and stable across all the platforms on which I have it installed. This does not include MacOS, though, as the council won’t update the OS on the computers at work to one which will handle Chrome. Hell, we’re still on Firefox 1.x on the machines there!

One of the things that all the major browsers now allow you to do is to add extensions, or plug-ins. These can add functionality, repair interface problems, alter behaviour and so on. Basically, they let you tweak the browser so that it does that little bit more in the way you want it.

There are literally thousands of these little add-ons. One of the things I love about Chrome is that it is capable of syncing your extensions across various computers via your Google account. This means if I find an extension I like while using my netbook, it will be installed and configured on my laptop or desktop the next time I book up and go online. I don’t even have to remember.

I recently dug my old desktop out of storage after 6 years. I installed Chrome for the first time and within minutes, with no effort from myself other than putting in a username, it was configured with most of the extensions I use elsewhere.

“Most”? Ah, yes. One rule is that Chrome will only sync extensions that are in the official Google Chrome repository. For various reasons, some aren’t in there and these include some that I do use. Just like Apple apps, Android apps and so on there are third party repositories with apps that haven’t been submitted to the “official” stores, or which have been rejected.

If these don’t check themselves automatically then you do still have to manually ensure they’re upgraded and so forth. A shame, but understandable.

So anyway, without further ado – here are the extensions I have installed (and usually use regularly). Which ones do you use that may be useful?

Adblock Plus

Apparently the world’s most popular extension and available on most major browsers, Adblock Plus uses frequently updated filters to remove adverts from common websites, as well as preventing annoying pop-ups and pop-unders. Zero maintenance and one I installed as soon as I could get it for Chrome after using it for ages on FireFox.

bit.ly URL shortener

I share a lot of links on Facebook and Twitter using “j.mp”, part of the bit.ly family. This extension makes it incredibly easy to do so. Just visit the page I want to share and click on the icon on the menu bar. The URL is shortened and I can then edit a message to go with it before posting to Twitter and/or Facebook.

Chrome Page

Not the most exciting one, this. All it does is provide a drop-down list for all the system pages within Chrome. It just saves a bit of menu digging, or memorising shortcut keys.

Chrome Reader

Originally installed when I realised that Chrome didn’t have an easy way of subscribing to an RSS feed as FireFox did. With this installed, any site with an RSS feed generates a small icon in the address bar. Clicking on this adds the feed to Google Reader (which I use anyway), and also allows it to be categorised, ready to be read the next time I’m checking my news feeds.

Chromey Calculator and Chromey Calculator Enhancer

I use the calculator a lot when I’m working for various things, and I love the way that Google can do a lot of lookups relating to conversions, units of measurement, currency and the like. Chromey Calculator brings this into an icon-activated popup and the Enhancer adds localisation and a shortcut key. Google isn’t the only site used for reference (Wolfram Alpha is another, to start with) and it makes for a very useful little add-on.

Easy YouTube Video Downloader (via ChromeExtensions.org)

This is one of the extensions that isn’t in the official Google repository, most likely as it allows you to rip videos from YouTube which Google also owns. There are many ways to rip YouTube videos, but I find this one to be the neatest and easiest. The download option sits nicely on the usual webpage and looks like it’s always been there – though it doesn’t work on channel pages, just individual video pages.

Also note that on occasion it will “break” as YouTube changes its layout, but the developers usually update pretty quickly. You’ll have to check manually for these updates when you notice it’s not working though.

Facebook Comment Fixer

I think I mentioned this on a previous post, but it fixes a very small problem on a very specific website. In this case, Facebook recently decided to get rid of the “Comment” button and instead made the return key publish what you’d typed. In one fell swoop they removed the use of paragraphs and made the site even more prone to horrendous grammar and layout than before. Anyway, this tiny extension reverses this “update” and makes things nice and sensible again.

Now, if only someone would release an extension to repair all the bolloxed privacy settings on facebook…

Greplin

A recent addition to my arsenal and one that would have the privacy freaks up in arms, but I think it’s worth it. Essentially, Greplin (love the name, by the way – a sneaky geek/UNIX reference) creates an index of sites that you link it to and uses these to make your searches quicker and easier. Amongst these are Google Mail, Calendar, Documents and Reader as well as Facebook, Twitter and a pile of other sites. There are some “premium/paid” only sites as well, including Google Apps sites.

Yes, it means a third party app has its claws in your data so that it can index it. Whether this is worth it is up to you. I find that with Greplin enabled, my GMail searching is better and it’s lovely having the little search button on my menu bar that trawls through all  my linked sites very quickly to return hits based on keywords.

IE Tab

There are several versions of this Windows-only extension, but I’ve settled on this one, partly as it’s in the official Google repository (at last). As I mentioned in the introduction, Chrome doesn’t work 100% with some websites. IE Tab allows you to open these sites using the Internet Explorer engine… without leaving Chrome. You can set up a list of pages/sites which will automatically be opened using IE Tab so that you don’t have to load it, click the icon and reload in IE.

InvisibleHand

A very useful little tool for checking the lowest price of goods you’re looking at. Checking out a DVD on Amazon? InvisibleHand will display a yellow bar at the top of the screen and let you know if you could be getting it cheaper from HMV or Play. It isn’t perfect, of course. It can’t check every website on the planet for every product, and it doesn’t take postage into account. However, it’s a great ready-reckoner and has already saved me around £20-£30 across a couple of purchases.

KB SSL Enforcer

A nice security extension this one. Where possible, you should be using secure internet connections. Some websites, such as GMail, have a menu option which will ensure that when you connect you use HTTPS instead of usual HTTP. This encrypts your data as it goes back and forth and makes it far more difficult for someone to “sniff” your data in transit and pinch your logon details or correspondence. Facebook also offers this, but it’s turned off by default which is ludicrous.

KB SSL Enforcer forces a secure connection to any and every website that you go to. Now, this won’t always work. If the site doesn’t support HTTPS then fine, you’ll just connect with HTTP. Nothing lost, nothing gained. There are some sites, though, with partially functional HTTPS and these will often connect and seem OK until you try to perform some action when it won’t work. I’ve had this with logons, queries and even finding some information on the screen which is simply not there if you connect via HTTPS.

In this case, simply blacklist the site in the extension’s options and it will allow it to connect via HTTP instead. Not so much a worry at home, but a great extension for those who use their laptops and netbooks all over the place.

LastPass (and a link to the associated web site)

The main website does a great job of describing this superb extension including videos and so forth. Basically, it’s a secure password vault that stores your logon details for any website. They’re encrypted, hashed, you name it. It includes an option to generate a random password for each website. One-time passwords can be created and used to log onto LastPass.com if you’re in a cyber café on a dodgy computer – if someone logs the keypresses, it makes no difference as the password is discarded as soon as you’ve used it to log in once.

The paid version includes further security as well as a mobile app.  LastPass gets round one major problem with websites – using the same damn login and password for far too many. This means that if your password is compromised, someone can access all of your data. Use LastPass, keep that one password ridiculously secure and you’re taking a large step towards protecting your online identity.

Speed Dial

This isn’t anything too fancy, just a new “new tab” page for Chrome that takes the “dial” layout that was originally – I think – used by Opera. It’s simple, customisable and opens quickly. I don’t make a massive amount of use of it, but it’s nice enough.

Stop Autoplay for YouTube

Ever visited a web page where there are a handful of YouTube videos, all of which set to play automatically? Or even gone to one site and realised (once the noise has woken the child next to you or alerted your colleagues to the fact that you’re viewing Greatest Movie Deaths instead of working) that there is a video embedded partway down? This extension prevents that by forcing all YouTube videos on a page to pause until you decide you want the damn thing to play. Better than other similar extensions, this one allows the videos to download (“buffer”) while paused. Simple and effective.

Super Google Reader

This plug-in adds an extra drop-down menu to Google Reader which does a few things, but chief amongst these is to automatically download the entire post for blogs which only publish the first paragraph or so to their feed. Some people maybe don’t realise they have their blogging software set to do this, others maybe want you to head to the blog so they get “per appearance” advertising revenue. I’m often too lazy to click through, so having the whole text in my reader is far more convenient.

Super Google Reader will yank it down either as plain text or in the format of the actual blog page (including borders, widgets, etc). Impressive.

TweetFilter (not in the repository)

Another superb extension that for some reason isn’t in the official repositories. TweetFilter does a lot with the “new” Twitter interface. You do need to keep an eye out for it breaking, though, as Twitter do recode their site regularly. The developers of TweetFilter do a good job of keeping up to date.

Foremost, it allows you to filter out (or only filter for) certain terms in your Twitter feed. Great for getting rid of all the bloody Britain’s Got Talent cobblers and the like that infest my feed every weekend. It will also get rid of adverts, those irritating “Twitter recommends you follow these people for no reason at all” mentions and a ton of other stuff. It’s very customisable.

View Thru

Kind of the opposite of the aforementioned bit.ly extension, this one “decodes” shortened URLs on web pages and gives you the actual link behind them. Very useful to ensure that the link is genuine and doesn’t take you to some porn site. Or worse, the Daily Mail.

Xmarks Bookmark Sync

While Chrome will allow you to sync bookmarks, I’m not keen on Google’s way of handling them once you have them online. It’s a mess, frankly. Xmarks was recently bought out by LastPass and it’s handled every bit as professionally. It’s also cross-browser (useful at work where I can’t install Chrome) and browser-independent if you visit the site directly. The Chrome version is feature-light compared to the FireFox one, which allows comments and tagging of newly-added bookmarks. Hopefully this will come with time, but isn’t a major issue. At the end of the day it performs the most important task of keeping bookmarks synchronised and organised across multiple platforms.

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What browser plugins/extensions do you use?

BT Home Hub 3

We just “upgraded” to a BT Home Hub 3.0 after having some problems with the old version 2 which kept losing settings (including the password). It looks nice, but don’t believe the press that it’s the “most sought after router on the market” or however they worded the hyperbole. If I was shopping for a router off my own back, this is not one I’d buy.

Don’t get me wrong. Setup is simple, but it’s still rather tied down as far as configuration goes despite the extra features available with the new firmware. A few points to ask include:

Why is there only one Gigabit Ethernet socket and three 100Mb/s ones?

Why do you claim it doesn’t get as hot as the v2 when the one we have would comfortably warm the tortoise’s run?

Why is there still no wireless bridging functionality?

Why is it still branded as a hub when it’s actually a router (OK, it just niggles)?

My main issue at present, though, is down to a series of dropped connections that we traced to a missing microfilter. Not, therefore, a connectivity problem related to the router but to an upshot of it – the redirection of failed connections to a “holding page” on the router which causes a ton of problems and solves none.

If the broadband connection drops and you try to access a web page, the browser redirects to “bthome.home”, an animated graphic of the front of the router which flashes to say that there’s no connection at present. All well and good – but what’s happened to the URL I was trying to get to?

The answer is that it’s now malformed, filled fill of “%” space-fillers, pre-pended by the aforementioned “.home” domain and with a SQL-style query suffix on the end.

In other words, if I was in the middle of some transaction when the connection dropped I’d not be able to get back to my intended target once it came back up. Prior to the v3, I’d simply wait and hit “refresh” a lot. Now hitting refresh just reloads the “your connection is down” page – even once the connection is once again live.

After all the lyrical waxing regarding automatic wireless channel-hopping and smaller footprint, it would have been nice if someone has actually got some users to check the flipping thing before they shipped it. Don’t get me wrong, it works well when the broadband’s ticking over, but when your connection goes down that’s a bad time to be further aggravated by poor software design.

Related articles

• BT Home Hub 3 ADSL Wi-Fi router (go.theregister.com)
• BT Home Hub 3 offers reliability other routers can’t match (telegraph.co.uk)

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BT Home Hub 3.0 – one major annoyance