Reasoning like the below is why Ubuntu is ultimately doomed. “Sometimes we must make sacrifices in order to keep our product looking good, and we really don’t care that you, the user, object to the notion of sacrificing usefulness for looks.” This is the gist of what’s explained below to the dissatisfied majority who are quickly switching to other distributions. http://www.jonobacon.org/2011/09/06/menu-discoverability-in-ubuntu-11-10/

Forget that the vast majority of app developers make pennies for their sweat and almost never make an equitable amount of money in the brave new Apple world of job creation. Sounds a lot like they want to pay Americans beans the same as they do for the Chinese slaves they have thugs hire to build their phones. From the page: “The app revolution has added more than 210,000 iOS jobs to the U.

The personal computer is still the only tool that can be used to truly create, and is the only computing environment in which the user’s imagination is the only limitation in play. Newcomer devices such as tablets and those smartphones which emulate the iPhone (almost all of them at this point) are designed not for creation but consumption - devices built with inherent limitations and sold at a 50% mark-up. Devices whose limitations can’t be surpassed without continuously purchasing new apps, which themselves are only useful for consumption of other content which generates revenue for them, but does not inspire or empower creativity in you.

“Any technology whose exclusive goal is to stop users from being able to make use of the content they have purchased is, in my opinion, unethical. DRM takes away users’ rights. For example, if I buy a TV show and want to criticise a scene from the show it on my blog, but the TV show is DRMed, how do I extract the scene, as I’m supposed to be able to per my Fair Use rights?

Pretty reasoned analysis by the developers at Panic of Apple’s new GateKeeper feature. Like many of the commenters I’m not convinced. It’s clear to me that Apple will revoke the ability to install non app-store apps as soon as it makes financial sense for them. No other considerations need apply. From the post: “Although security is a vital feature for Apple, developers, and users alike, being unable to run unsigned code cuts a lot of really great things off at the knees.

It is not surprising to me that Google, Facebook and others have been tracking users even when they’ve configured the Do Not Track feature of their browsers. I’ve long considered sites such as Facebook and Google to be malware sites. The best course of action when dealing with these sites is to use them in a separate browser, and to disable cookies in the browser that you use for everything else.

In order to justify the crippling of its Unlimited data plans, AT&T executive John Donovan has taken to denigrating advanced users for making use of the bandwidth their contract provides them, calling them a burden on their beleaguered and weary network. This blatantly contradicts the massive surplus of network availability across the United States and much of the rest of the world. This action is taken to increase profit margins that are already in excess of 100,000% in some cases and to evoke sympathy from a non-technical public by painting a picture of a company striving to invest in an infrastructure that can barely keep up.

Free software will always prove more trustworthy than that handed out by proprietary vendors simply by virtue of the democratic nature of its development. The more I make use of smartphones the less I trust them overall. http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/02/15/0036242/unauthorized-ios-apps-leak-private-data-less-than-approved-ones

“Internal e-mails from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police show they could find “no good examples” to support their demand for greater access to private Internet communications.” http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/02/14/vic-toews-draws-line-on-lawful-access-youre-with-us-or-the-child-pornographers/

From the article: ‘Entitled “an Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and others Acts,” the law would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to install equipment that would allow them to monitor and preserve the Internet surfing activities of their customers.’ http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/politics/Ottawa+Bill+allows+police+more+easily+view+your+surfing+What+think/6139149/story.html