You Can't Take the Hacking out of a Hacker!

After reading PC World's article on Digital Vigilantes, the one on Brad Willman, to be specific, I had to wonder about whether this type of hacking, where only good things are accomplished because of the hacker's actions, should be punished by law.

Before I begin, I would like to say that at the time that I am writing this, all kinds of hacking are illegal and punishable by law, and I am not pushing you to hack! I cannot be blamed for any of your actions!

Now, with that said, I would like you to realize that there are three types of hacking. Black-hat hacking has a malicious purpose, while white-hat hackers are against abusing a computer system (so they're like the enemies of black-hats). In the middle, there are gray-hat hackers, which act like black-hats or white-hats depending on their mood. One day, they would hack your computer, while the next day, they'll be warning you about a virus. If I had to choose a side, I would choose white-hats, because of all good-intents, but many hackers shun white-hats, even though the way I look at it is you have to know your enemies to know yourself, so at any moment, a white-hat hacker could turn black.

White-hat hackers are more likely to be your tech-support guys and security-consultants, who you think are never going to install viruses on your computer when you are not looking, but recently, businesses have been concerned that because these people have so much knowledge of the computer system, the security of their business is at risk.

I believe that Brad Willman should not have been sworn to never hack again. Hacking isn't just a computer-thing, like many people think it is. Derren Brown is a hacker, yet he doesn't go putting viruses on your computer. Hacking is a way of living life, looking at it differently than someone else does. That's why when you see a hacker in a movie, they often look at the problem differently, and might wind up the protagonist, if they don't end up dieing, like Max did in Cube 2:Hypercube. Gee, I love that movie. Anyway, you can't take the hacking out of a hacker's life. They always do things differently. It's like if a normal person and a hacker both locked gym clothes in their gym locker and forget their combinations. The normal person would just cut the lock off, but the hacker would sit there for hours, trying to crack the lock until they got it open. If you make someone swear not to hack, that's just like making them swear not to live.

Willman was not arrested, so I am glad, but I am still not happy with what the police did. I think that the punishment for hacking should be based upon what you have done. For example, Willman should have only had to pay some sort of fine (very small), because in a way, he was helping the community to keep the children safe. However, if some hacker had broken into your computer and stole money from your bank account, he should be thrown in jail for sure. It all depends on your actions and intent! People need to learn that not every hacker is bad.

So always remember that not every hacker is bad; only the ones trying to steal your credit card number are. Many hackers are just trying to prove that they can do bad things in order to improve security for you! So in a way, hackers can help, or hackers can steal.

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YouTube Christmas Videos You'll Never Forget

This is a merry season indeed on YouTube. HappySlip takes YouTube creativity to new heights with her immensely creative and amusing Christmas jingle.

Meanwhile, Whitney and Narciso's cross country ukulele duet has got to be seen to be believed.

Yes, they're singing in perfect harmony. Yes, they're not geographically in the same place when that video was shot. I've got to get the story on the creation of that video. Who came up with the idea? How was it made?

YouTube should create a category of videos called "cross country duets." That could end up being the most popular kind of web video. Whitney and Narciso pioneered the form. (Are there other cross country duets on YouTube I should mention in a future blog posting? Perhaps I might have missed seeing some other pioneers.)

If you're like me and can't get enough of ukulele web videos, check out Uklele Hunt, where you'll find some of the best.

Phil Shapiro

The blogger has been working to bridge the digital divide for 20 years in the Washington DC-area. He loves Macs, adores Linux and likes Windows. Reader responses welcome in the comments below or at philshapiroblogger@gmail.com

Can Software Go Green? How About You?

With all this talk about hardware going green, one has to wonder: can software go green? Well, the answer I've thought of is yes ? but only in very small ways. But when you think about it, all it takes to save the world from global warming is changing what you do in small ways!

So how can you do this? Well, let's start with color. I'll quote an article I've found on the internet:

"Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen."
~(http://enduse.lbl.gov/Info/LBNL-48581.pdf)

And so I don't get people hating me, I will say that I've found that quote on Blackle, which I will explain later in this article. Anyway, the quote mentions that the color black in computer software saves energy, as the monitors need more power in order to produce a white pixel instead of a black one. So, to save energy, a software programmer or designer could make all of their software have black backgrounds, saving just a little bit of energy.

Here's another small way that I've thought of this time. If you are a programmer, and you happen to be horrible at writing code, and you often have extra variables and functions that are not needed, cut down on them! How will this help? Without the extra variables, the computer will have more free memory, making the user's experience faster, and therefore getting their job done more quickly, allowing them to turn their computer off earlier. I know, it's a stretch but it should work! If you like, we could all write in assembly language in order to save memory ? your choice!

But how can the average user help to save energy? Well, there's a few ways. How about getting rid of all those extra startup applications, in order to save time, so you can shut off your computer faster? Try it, it works.

Are you someone who uses AIM, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, and maybe even more instant message clients? Well, stop clogging your memory and download Pidgin, or another software like it, that acts as all of the clients built into one! Don't worry ? it won't steal your password; it's safe!

You can also switch your default search client to Blackle, the energy-saving Google-alternative. Notice how it uses a black background to save a small amount of energy, but if every Google user in the world switched to Blackle, we'd save a huge amount, as proven by Mark Ontkush of ecoIron! Blackle gives you exactly the same search results as Google, but unfortunately, there is no image or video search. Maybe we can petition Google to change its color to black!

But it's not just the software that will make a difference. It's also what you do with the computer! Do you leave your computer on, and walk away for 24 hours? That's wasting a ton of energy! Turn it off, or at least put it in standby! Do you always use your printer? If not, turn it off!

These are just some of the ways that you, the user, can help the world to prevent global warming. Go ahead and think of some yourself! Replace your default search engine with Blackle!!! I have! And just remember...pay no attention to Daxflame and his Convinent Truth!

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Free Holiday Gift Ideas

These are just a few low to no cost online holiday gift ideas to add a little extra spice to your holiday season.

Online Photo Album - Share your good times with people far from home with an online photo gallery. There are many options for online photo collection Photobucket, Flickr, Snapfish and Kodak just to name a few. Many of them allow you to order prints and have them sent directly to your home. Gallery and Coppermine are nice advanced php options if you have webspace. Remember to customize your settings from public, private and select people to view albums. Make sure to research what your online photo album offers before you sign up.

Online Video Collection - From keeping in touch with online video messages to creating a family visual scrapbook videos say it loud.

Homepage - Show someone just how much you know them by making there online experience easier with a customized homepage. Many have widgets you can add and organize into tabs. Fill it with their favorite news sites, comics, movie times and more. Some fine selections for custom homepages are: Igoogle, My Yahoo, Netvibes and Pageflakes.

Genealogy - Do some research into the branches of the family tree and compile them online. This one may take longer then we have left of the holiday season but you can keep it in mind for next year.

Fun Holidays Ideas:

* Express your deep and unspoken feelings in an online video. Have your loved one watch it as their gift.

*If you?re a wordsmith write a poem and host it online, or create some digital stationary to print it out on.

For the not-so technically inclined on your list you might want to help them set up email accounts along with writing down there passwords and guiding them through it. Consider setting up POP access or combining them with your customized homepage. Many customized homepage's can display email from any source but its easier to use igoogle with gmail or yahoo mail with my yahoo. You can always promise to write them once a week if it helps them use it more. Another idea for the technically declined is to set up a free security system. Free anti-spy ware, anti-virus, firewall, blockers the works. Who knows with proper care you may save there computer some day.

Don?t forget to customize your themes and images to match what your going for. Infranview is a decent free image editing program to get the job done. Also come up with a good name to describe your online photo album or video site. If you decide to put together your own website to display your creation and require a website authoring system check out Nvu. Even if your running out of time many of these options can be started and part of the gift will be to fill in your online photo or video collection. If you have a holiday season idea feel free to share in a comment or on the PCWorld forums.

Would you like to be a Community Voices blogger? If so, please send a letter of interest and a sample blog entry (what you would post here if you were already a blogger for us) to forums@pcworld.com. We'd love to hear your perspective.

First Impressions of the Eee PC Laptop from a Public Library Point of View

Here are my impressions of the Eee PC after two weeks of using one. I have shown this laptop to hundreds of people who have visited the public library where I work. People universally comment that this laptop is very small and very cute. People who have tried out the laptop say that the keyboard is not too small, but I find that even with my small hands, the keyboard feels cramped.

I have to say that I adore this laptop. It is so light and rugged and well designed. My one complaint is the placement of the right shift key which mysteriously is placed on the right side of the four navigational arrows on the bottom right corner of the keyboard. My right-hand pinky is collecting frequent flyer points traveling over to visit that key.

Here is why this laptop is a dream come true for people who work in public libraries. Because it is so portable, this laptop makes it easy for a library staff person to do some quick research on the person's laptop and bookmark some web sites that answer their questions.

A public library staff member can also quickly install some multimedia that provides value to the public. For example, a library staff member could copy over onto this laptop some freely distributable audio books from LibriVox.org. Similarly, libraries can distribute other public domain or Creative Commons media to help someone who is learning English or someone working on their writing skills.

If Asus is good at listening, it'll offer a future model of this laptop without an LCD screen. The whole laptop would consist of a keyboard with a motherboard underneath -- complete with all ports including a VGA-output port. Such a low-cost "laptop" could be connected to any of the thousands of surplus CRT monitors that are being donated these days. If Asus offered such a version of this laptop, then public libraries could provide more LCD terminals for people who brought their own computer. This would expand access for everyone.

With that kind of innovation, public libraries can concentrate on what they do best: providing guided access to the world's information.

This laptop changes the rules of the game. It brings portable computing power within the financial reach of millions more people. This laptop brings hope and expands the world of possibilities.

Innovations like this will change the way architects design public libraries. Thankfully, the tools for making such designs, such as Google SketchUp, are free and within easy reach.

Phil Shapiro

The blogger has been working to bridge the digital divide for 20 years in the Washington DC-area. He loves Macs, adores Linux and likes Windows. Reader responses welcome in the comments below or at philshapiroblogger@gmail.com

Already Better Than the iPhone!

On November 5, 2007, Google unveiled their new mobile phone software platform, called Android. Already this thing is looking hot! The Linux-based operating system is being developed by the community (that means you!) and the Open Handset Alliance, and will be released in 2008 under the Apache V2 open-source license.

And no, Android is not the gPhone. Why? Because the iPhone is an actual phone that you buy that has the Mac operating system on it. Android will be available on phones from all sorts of companies (hopefully) as it is just an operating system. Therefore, there will be no monopolies! Unless Android becomes huge, like I hope it will!

The software development kit can be downloaded for a variety of operating systems from code.google.com/android. Included inside it is a debugger, and a virtual phone application, where you can test your programs that you write! And there are no restrictions on the programs, so that means they don't have to be web-based anymore!

Android supports both touch-pads and phone keyboards. There are several connectivity options, including Bluetooth, EDGE, WiFi, and 3G. MMS and SMS text-messaging are supported, as well as several multimedia formats. There is limited Java support, a web-browser, OpenGL ES support, and a ton of options, like GPS, video and pictures (cameras), and accelerometers. Take that, iPhone!

The OpenGL ES support will allow several, if not all, OpenGL-based games and applications to run on Android when they are converted to support the Android's APIs. There is already support built in for Google Maps.

Android has amazed me beyond belief. If I had the choice to get an iPhone with a multi-touchscreen or a regular keypad cellphone with Android, I think you can guess which I'd choose. Several programs have already been written by the community for Android. This may be the key-factor that allows Android to tower over the iPhone! We'll have to see what happens!

Would you like to be a Community Voices blogger? If so, please send a letter of interest and a sample blog entry (what you would post here if you were already a blogger for us) to forums@pcworld.com. We'd love to hear your perspective.

Perl ? An Awesome Programming Language

I have just finished learning the programming language Perl, and let me tell you, this is one amazing language. It can do almost anything! It's very easy to learn if you have a knowledge of C or C++. If you don't, I suggest learning Python first. I learned that very quickly, in a day or two.

Perl can do so many things, from create web pages to let you pretend to be the Googlebot. There are many extension libraries to Perl that allow the user to easily do new things in their program, like LWP, the library that can connect to TCP/IP ports, and return data! This is very useful for writing instant messaging programs, or web browsers.

In my opinion, the only drawback with Perl is that it usually is not compiled, but interpreted. One disadvantage because of this is that the user cannot just type the name of your program to run it. They have to input something like ?perl [filename.pl] [optional arguments]?, but this problem can easily be solved using a batch file or shell script. Another annoying part is that the user can always see the source code of your program by opening the Perl file with a text editor, but if you're a fan of open source software, like I am, this is no problem.

There are so many different operating systems that support Perl. Many Linux distributions include Perl already installed, but there are Perl interpreters for other platforms, like Windows, Mac, Amiga, BeOS, and more! Even Windows 3.1!

If you're interested in using Perl to program, you can go to Perl.org to download an interpreter for your operating system.

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