Circumspect.net

Windows Mobile-based devices, both Pocket PCs and Smartphones, can be powerful tools for working with e-mail. If you’re anything like me, you get a lot of e-mail every day, and managing the flow of e-mail when you’re away from your desk is a critical task best accomplished with a Windows Mobile-based device. There are several options for working with your e-mail, including POP, IMAP, and Exchange ActiveSync. Each has specific advantages and disadvantages.

Jason Dunn over at Pocket PC Thoughts has written a well thought out and informative article about the pros and cons of the various email emails protocols. Though article specifically targets Windows Mobile users, the information is useful for anyone who lives (or plays) by their email.

Hosted Exchange Solutions are a relatively new concept to most people. Jason provides an excellent introduction for those looking to untether their mobile devices from their PCs and take advantage of Microsofts re-implementation of “Push Email”.

EFF’s Guide to Music Service DRM

There is an increasing variety of options for purchasing music online, but also a growing thicket of confusing usage restrictions. You may be getting much less than the services promise.

Many digital music services employ digital rights management (DRM) — also known as “copy protection” — that prevents you from doing things like using the portable player of your choice or creating remixes. Forget about breaking the DRM to make traditional uses like CD burning and so forth. Breaking the DRM or distributing the tools to break DRM may expose you to liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) even if you’re not making any illegal uses.

One of the things that annoys me about Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the consumers inability to truly own what they have rightly purchased. Sure, you may think that iTunes … er… your music service is generous now, but what about tomorrow. It changes with the wind. Depending on the service you choose, you may find your self literally locked into a silo of services and devices. Of course this works the other way too.

I’m glad that organizations like the EFF are there to help educate consumers about the deeper issues of technology and its social evolution. Yeah I know that sounds really deep, but true.

Source: Digital Media Thoughts

Update: EFF has also been kind enough to include links to music services that do not use DRM. Check out the article. Its a good read and very informative.

Relief supplies at long last arrive in New Orleans according to this article by the Washington Post (registration required)
Convoys Roll Into New Orleans With Relief Supplies

I can only say that those displaced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have gone through and are going through something that I couldn’t even begin to completely understand. It took over 5 days for the calvary to arrive, but finally there is a hint of hope for them.

A co-worker of mine made the statement that he felt many peoples outrage over the lack of response was an over reaction due to the large number of people that were able to evacuate before hand. It is unclear to me what the numbers were of those who did make it out, but in my opinion its irrelevant.

My stand is that you cannot judge everything in life by the numbers alone and expect to maintain a sense of humanity.

Thousands of people spent the better part of a week stranded without food, water, electricity or sewage facilities. We’re talking about men, women and children suffering and yes dying everywhere.

Thank God that the wheels are finally moving.

TAS is more far reaching than I thought. Jon Westfall ran my story over at PocketPCThoughts and has now decided to pick up the banner and run a personal experiment. Check out his discussion here.

He’s going to do it for 3 months instead of 1 and he’s got a few ground rules different from mine, but its all about self denial.

Good luck Jon!

Check out my posts on my experience:
No Tech-ing in June
June… the Dry Season
TAS … Halfway Home…
TAS … I made it through!

Digital Media Thoughts is running an article about a new kind of Digital Rights Management (DRM) floating around out there called the MediaMax CD3 Copy-Prevention System

This schema while playing fine in standard CD players, installs a “driver” onto PCs when inserted. From all indications the entire process is very elusive to average users, but easy to bypass if you know what you’re doing.

There is an interesting article coming out of the Princeton University Department of Computer Science.

As with so many other trends by the media associations, this is a disturbing attempt subvert a users Fair Use rights over content lawfully purchased.

Will this result in a consumer backlash? Time will tell. Of course the RIAA will probably spin any further loss of sales as the fault of file swappers.

Some of the CDs include:
Velvet Revolver’s new release Contraband
the new Backstreet Boys album, Never Gone