Morph3ous’s Weblog

I’m not going to spend too much time on this post. Maybe in the near future. I just spent a lot of time trying to analyze the National Surveillance Act of 2006.

I am impressed so far. After switching MythTV over to using OpenGL I am greeted with a nice fade-in and fade-out on the menus.

The integrated upnp server has been working perfectly (except for fast-forward, but I’ve had that problem with another upnp server too). It is nicer than my previous solution of using uShare and a renaming script to produce prettily-named symlinks to the video files. The integrated upnp server allows you to search by date recorded, title of the show, channel it was recorded from, … My old solution could only sort by title of show.

Good job Myth Team!

This release has one feature that I have been longing for, an internal UPnP server. I have been using uShare, the MythRename.pl script, and a a few cron jobs to pipe the PVR content to my D-Link DSM-320.

Thread on the progress of the MythTV 0.20 Ebuild
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This is old news. The only reason that I am posting it is because it has to do with the contractor who is handling the improperly programmed People First Employment Portal.

Offshore outsourcing cited in Florida data leak
Employees who worked for the state during the 18-month period between Jan. 1, 2003, and June 30, 2004, may be affected, according to an e-mail message sent to all state employees on March 16. The state’s Department of Management Services (DMS), which oversees the People First system, estimates that 108,000 current and former state employees may be affected by the data breach, although that estimate could change as the department’s investigation into the matter continues.

The e-mail was sent after a subcontractor of outsourcing service provider Convergys Corp. improperly allowed subcontractors in India to index state personnel files, said DMS spokeswoman Tiffany Koenigkramer. The offshoring was done as part of Convergys’s nine-year, $350 million contract to manage the state’s personnel work.

This looks not to be Convergys Corp’s fault. The simple to remedy problem with the People First Portal; however, is their fault. I emailed them to no avail.

I had come to the conclusion that pirating software was not at all in my best interests quite some time ago. I just found Vixenk.net’s post
Why Should I Use Free Software as Opposed to Pirating Non-free Software. The author lays down the argument against pirating software far more eloquently than I could have. She also provides a list to some free programs that are very useful.

I followed the the advice of a user of digg, Sillywampa, on Digg’s entry about my earlier post on Florida’s People First Job Portal and emailled PeopleFirst@dms.myflorida.com about this issue. Here is what I wrote:
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Hans Verkuil, the developer behind ivtv, thinks that he may have found the source of the DMA problems that some have been experiencing. From the mailing list:
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Update: I wrote a post about an email I sent to the State of Florida and the response I received. This was suggested by Sillywampa on Digg. Thanks Sillywampa for the email address.

The State of Florida’s People First job portal is still running an outdated script that locks out users of alternative browsers from applying to state jobs. The only supported browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
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The GPLv3 license is in the works. One of the provisions is to restrict software from using DRM. This, argues Linus Torvalds, is not the job of a license. He is against these new provisions. The article below goes on to defend the license.

I have been deeply against DRM for some time. Linus Torvald’s objection to the license really makes me think. He is the one who got the linux operating system going. I respect his point of view, and am not sure on which side of the fence I stand about the license itself. I am still against DRM.
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Many graphics drivers in linux are currently reverse-engineered. A lot of them only support 2d. Intel has open-sourced their graphics drivers for the 965 Express chipset family. Bravo, Intel. This will allow for computers with those graphics cards to take full advantage of the hardware.

Slashdot | Intel Open Sources Graphics Drivers:

“Intel’s Keith Packard announced earlier today that Intel was open sourcing graphics drivers for their new 965 Express Chipset family graphics controllers.

The state of healthcare in our nation has been in bad shape for quite a while. I will elaborate more on that in a future post. Free Software Magazine brought a new issue to my attention.

The debate between proprietary vs non-proprietary software has been raging on for as long as I can remember. In this article the debate enters the healthcare arena.

Your data or your life | Free Software Magazine:

Intracare is the publisher of a popular practice management system called Dr. Notes. When some doctors balked at a drastic increase in their annual software lease, they were cut off from accessing their own patients’ information.

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