Pirate Journalism

Hey everyone! Pay attention here. This is some covert guerilla marketing at its purest, and the deal is simple.

Go out and see The Dark Knight again!

So, here’s what you have to do, and it is all pretty simple.

Go see The Dark Knight!

Some options:

Take a date.

b)  

Find somebody who hasn’t seen it, and get them to go

Take your family.

Make a girls night out of it.

I can’t make it much simpler than that.

This has been a covert action by

ITF,

IKEF ARMY

Beach Ninja Blues – www.beachninjablues.blogspot.com

The Original Blue Ninja – www.myspace.com/theoriginalblueninja.

Hmmm….Writer’s strike ended (successfully, I might add) and I still haven’t posted anything here….Shame on me. I will try to work on that sometime.

In support of the writers out there on the picket line, We at Beach Ninja Blues (okay, so it is just me) will be going on strike in support.

With one note, the studios and producers got out of paying writers their fair share for video sales, claiming that the market was “too experimental” and there was, at the time, no proof that there would be any profit.

They are still claiming that today, and saying the same thing about Internet distribution….yeah, there is no profit in on-line video…like from iTunes. Makes you wonder why NBC wanted to start their own net video store/service if there was no profit?

nuff said.

So, I am recovering from a terrible hard drive crash, I got things up and running again and upgraded to OSX 10.5 Leopard.

And I have to say, there is a lot of great things I am finding…But some of the little surprises–

While my old drive was severely dying, I popped it into an external enclosure to see if I could save any of my docs or photos. So, while TIme machine was backing up, software was updating and spotlight was indexing, I plugged it in.

Now, I knew a lot was going on, so I was only slightly concerned about how slow everything was going….And then I got a little more concerned….

and then suddenly a message pops up.

“We were unable to repair the disk Mac Sapphire. You have limited access to it. We suggest you back up your data immediately.”

Wow! That was cool…I was able to yank off all my pics and all but a couple docs that were corrupted in the crash.

The new activity status in Mail is nice. Also, the streamlining for saving attachments — Clicking save, saves to your folder without opening the directory menu. Same for clicking download from the context menu. Adding RSS feeds to mail is great too.

Of course, spaces and stacks have already become a natural part of my use, and I am even thinking of adding .Mac for the added functionality of remote access to your home computer. Apple may have actually made the serves worth the money finally.

Well, as I discover more little tweeks, I will keep you updated. I am sure every other tech news writer has gone on and on about the big changes, so I will spare you the yadda-yadda.

And as for problems and bugs, I have not had any major problems. I think they need a new flash player plug-in to address some problems (A few myspace pages will crash Safari and the warning points the finger at Flash), but I haven’t had the problem consistently.

Until later.

Well, had a harddrive go bad…but I have survived. Now I just have to re-create everything in my universe.

So, there has been a lot of news about this hacking into a Mac.

First, let me remind everyone that the CanSecWest security conference was holding a contest to win a Macbook if you could hack into a Mac from a remote location. No one could do it, so they had to change the rules, allowing physical access to the Mac. So the winner of the MacBook basically “allowed” this access by physically typing in the address of the web site. So, this was not someone taking over a computer but more like giving up control.
Now, that is not to say that Zovi, the engineer behind the actual hack did not come up with a critical flaw that needs to be fixed. I will admit Macs are not perfect, but that is one hack compared to the thousands in Windows.
Speaking of thousands of hacks, here is the real point that they seem to get wrong in every “Mac isn’t so tough” security story.”

(I will explain after the excerpt)

Security experts not surprised the Mac was hacked
Jim Dalrymple – MacCentral
Thu Apr 26, 3:09 PM ET

“If a hacker turned their attention to the Mac, it would suffer just as much as Windows,” [Ray] Wagner, [Gartner’s managing vice president in the secure business enablement group] said. “Attacking the 95 percent of the market gets them more attention.”

Really, now, read that last line again? When was the last time a Windows hacker got any attention? I can’t remember, can you? But, I can remember the attention those two guys got when they hacked third-party wireless drivers on a Mac (note: They didn’t hack the Mac, just someone else’s software, and there is still some question as to how much was BS and how much was real hacking). And Zovi, here he is getting tons of media attention, like this blog and the MacWorld article I am citing, and thousands of other tech news sources. Not only that, HE WON $10,000 for finding it!!!

When was the last time a Window hacker got that kind of attention? Even the Vista hackers that have already busted the DRM and Authentication routines in Microsoft’s brand-spanking-new cheap rip-off of OSX haven’t gotten as much attention as this one hacker who devoted his time to OSX.

Therefore, Wagner, this security expert contradicts himself by being quoted in one of the many articles that give attention where none should be had.

All right, boys and girls.

If for some reason you read yesterdays post, and came back today, you might find that I have again changed my template.

You might ask why?

Why? Because Blogspot is out of beta and has added some new stuff to the behind the scenes workings. As you see, there is now a Google search box and Google ads on the page (feel free to click, they are sponsors, after all), some news and video feeds and other new prettiness ot the page.

Needless to say, I have spent a few minutes playing with some of the new options available to me.

Expect new looks as I dig deeper into what I can do.

yeah…as you can see, i keep up with this a lot.

Well, you can always check out my blog at beachninjablues.blogspot.com

or my movie reviews at www.myrtlebeachherald.com (click on Movies to See).

If I were to go to a Ford Motor parts dealer and order a fuel injector, should I expect to be able to install it in my Porsche? No.
If I sign up for XBox Live, should I expect to be able to play my PS3 or Wii games on it? No.
If I buy software for Windows, should I expect to be able to install it on my Mac? (Trick question…ignore that one).
How about if I buy software for OSX, should I be able to install it on a XP machince? No.
If I subscribe to HBO, should I expect my Cable Box to be able to decode Dexter from Showtime? No.
If I log on to Star Wars Galaxies, should I expect to be able to use my Blood Elf from World of WarCraft? No. (although that would be really cool if I could!)
Then why the hell should anyone expect to sign up for iTunes and use it on a non-compatible machine?

Consider this guy from the EU….
(excerpt from this story — http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/25/business/EU-FIN-Netherlands-Apple-iTunes.php — from the International Herald Tribune ( www.iht.com)

Consumentenbond spokesman Ewald van Kouwen said his group had filed a formal complaint with the Dutch antitrust watchdog NMa asking it to investigate what he called “illegal practices” by Apple’s iTunes Store.
“What we want from Apple is that they remove the limitations that prevent you from playing a song you download from iTunes on any player other than an iPod,” he said.
“When you buy a music CD it doesn’t play only on players made by Panasonic. People who download a song from iTunes shouldn’t be bound to an iPod for the rest of their lives.”
(Ninja comment – Does that mean that those of us who bought “Long Tall Glasses” on 8-Track shouldn’t be bound to an 8 Track player for the rest of your life?)
Currently, songs bought on iTunes can be played only on iPods, and an iPod can’t play downloads from other stores with similar premium content from major artists — like Napster Inc.’s service or Sony Corp.’s Connect.

Look, it is simple, if you want to download from the iTunes music store and take it with you, you got to have an iPod. That is the way the world works. If I wan’t to play Rainbow Six on Xbox live, I got to have an Xbox and an Xbox version of the game. I can’t use a PS 2, PS 1, Nintendo GameBoy, or PSP version…It has all got to be Xbox.
Apple didn’t make iTunes to be a Wal Mart of the Internet music world. They built it as a service to their customers who bought iPods. Just like Xbox Live and most other product-specific accessories and services. I can’t buy a Yu-Gi-Oh booster pack to use with my Magic The Gathering deck. I can’t stick my (PS1) Final Fantasy 7 disc in my Xbox and have it work. And you can’t take your iTunes download of the Backstreet Boys do Boys TO Men Video and load it in you Zune (or maybe you can, there has to be something that thing can do.)
If you have an iPod, you don’t have to use ITunes music store to download music. Any mp3, and the dozens of variations and similar formats, will load into an iPod. There are plenty of legal download sites were you can get your music in a format that can be imported into iTunes and dumped to your iPod.
You can also rip CDs. I have yet to download a single song from iTunes store, and I have 9 days of audio content on my iPod. (not that much music, but a lot of audio books). Now, I have used iTunes to download podcasts and TV shows, just to be completely honest.
I don’t hear this guy saying that Sony or Napster has to make their service compatiable with iPods–which would make more since, considering that the iPod is the #1 media player sold. And that doesn’t mean it is the best or the greatest, even though I think it is, it just means more people want iPods than Zunes, Zens or Walkmen.
Of course, what this really boils down to is politics. These socialist political agents and their governments are always out to wipe out any individual or individual corporations that is doning something well and making money off of it.
I have never heard one consumer—a regular guy girl—complain about not being able to use iTunes because they bought a Zune, Zen or what ever failed “iPod Killer” Sony is pimping this week. They know that they should have bought an iPod for that.
Personally, I think someone high up in the EU bought the wrong MP3 player for his kid, and is too arrogant to admit it was his mistake, so he is orchestrating the entire thing so he doesn’t have to shell out some Euros for an new iPod.

I just wanted to note that the html coding for the link to my Movies to See column at the Myrtle Beach Herald is amazingly weird an always changing. So, since I am very bad at keeping up with this Blog, I would just like to point out that the easiest way for my readers (All 2 of them) to find it is to go to www.myrtlebeachherald.com and click on the Movies to See link in the left column.

You can also check out my Places to Be, but I don’t think it would mean much unless you live on the Grand Strand or are planning a visit.