Year: 2012 - Page 12 - Frank Goossens’ blog

If it looks like a duck; ditching Google Search (again)

February 21, 2012 by futtta

Let’s apply the duck-test to Google;

They’re changing their privacy policy without offering users a true opt-out
They severely limited access for Scroogle, the Google-scraper for privacy-nuts, to the point where it is effectively out of service (although apparently Google isn’t the only one to blame)
They have been caught with their hands in your cookie jar, not only bypassing user’s cookie preferences in Safari but also in Internet Explorer

So if Google looks, swims and quacks like it doesn’t care about user privacy, it must be that it … doesn’t care about user privacy.
I on the other hand do care about my privacy, so I decided to put even less eggs in Google’s basket: I’ve switched my search-engine to startpage.com, which is operated by a Dutch company (i.e. one which has to comply with stricter European privacy laws) and which guarantees privacy while being powered by Google.
Startpage’s only downside: they are blocked by our company internet-filter because they provide proxy-services, so as an alternative I also use the less powerful DuckDuckGo (I changed keyword.url in Firefox’ about:config to “https://duckduckgo.com/?q=”). And a nice bonus; DuckDuckGo also has a nice Android-app, which I have installed to replace Google Search on my Sammy SII as well.

While waiting for Firefox Mobile 11

February 15, 2012 by futtta

I’m on the beta-release channel for both my desktop and mobile Firefox and my desktop has been running version 11 (with SPDY) for over a week now, but there hasn’t been an update for Firefox Mobile Beta in the Android Market yet. Apparently the Mozillians are working hard to finish the complete overhaul of the front-end, which integrates with Android UI (instead of using Mozilla’s own XUL) and services (synchronization in particular).
As I’m an impatient guy, I installed the Aurora version of Firefox Mobile, which is already at version 12 and that runs surprisingly well. Firefox Mobile already had the best HTML5-support and superior JavaScript-performance, but the new version (be it 11 or 12) adds a lower memory footprint and (much) faster start-up-time to that (and it has Flash, which I don’t care for really).
Mozilla is doing a great job in the mobile space, with the browser, but also with WebAPI and B2G. No, I don’t think I’ll switch to Chrome Mobile any time soon.

As found on the web (February 15th)

February 15, 2012 by futtta

	frank posted Myths & Realities of Drupal.
	frank posted Google to Take On iCloud and Dropbox with Drive.
	frank posted the trap of vendor prefixes/webkit, meet ie6.
	frank posted Microsoft: You’ll Never Turn Off Devices Running Windows on ARM.
	frank posted Alan Moore on Anonymous’ rise.
	frank liked Unstable Condition – John Tejada (Kompakt).
	frank published Tomorrow’s anti-ACTA protests and beyond.
	frank shared Murtazin: The Samsung Galaxy S II Will See Ice Cream Sandwich On March 1. Murtazin: The Samsung Galaxy S II Will See Ice Cream Sandwich On March 1
	frank posted Germany delays Acta signing.
	frank posted ACTA is a Bad Way to Develop Internet Policy.
	frank posted Europeans Plan Widespread Protests Against Internet Censorship.
	frank posted Europe takes to streets over Acta.
	frank posted Mozilla Building Metro Version of Firefox for Windows 8.
	frank posted Apple Hopes to Block First Android 4.0 Phone in U.S..
	frank posted Meetings: Where Work Goes to Die.

Tomorrow’s anti-ACTA protests and beyond

February 10, 2012 by futtta

Opposition to ACTA is to take to the European streets tomorrow, with protests planned in over 100 cities. But the mob that are the internet-proles isn’t alone in objecting to ACTA. Here’s a non-exhaustive overview of the point of view of some organisations that will be, in the next few months leading up to the vote in the European Parliament, important parts of the broad anti-ACTA coalition:

Electronic Frontier Foundation: “We Have Every Right to Be Furious About ACTA“
Free Software Foundation: “Acta Threathens Free Software“
Reporters without borders: “Online freedoms threatened by another step towards treaty’s adoption“
Doctors without borders: “The deal claims to be an effort to protect consumers from fake medicines, but it will inhibit the production of legitimate, affordable, and safe medicines by giving companies far reaching powers to block competitors’ products.“
Association Européenne pour la défense des Droits de l’Homme: “L’AEDH s’oppose à cet accord et appelle à se mobiliser à la fois contre des négociations tenues secrètes en dehors de tout débat démocratique et contre le contenu même de cet accord.“
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure: “ACTA’s intrusive character harms health and freedom of expression. ACTA will have a chilling effect on innovation, Internet service providers, mass digitization projects, startup companies and diffusion of green technology“
EuroISPA, GSMA, Cable Europe & ETNO: “We are concerned that ACTA threatens to establish rules that go beyond the EU acquis and undermine the existing balance of the legislative framework, at the risk of undermining Europe’s innovation capacity and competitiveness“
European Greens: “EU governments wave through ACTA deal, ignoring major legal concerns” with links to very in-depth studies about what makes ACTA a threat.
Party of European Socialists: “ACTA is “wrong in both content and process”, says PES in strongly worded declaration“

If you want to join the anti-ACTA movement (you should), here’s what you can do:

As found on the web (February 8th)

February 8, 2012 by futtta

	frank liked High Highs – Flowers Bloom (Official Video).
	frank posted Creating thumbnails with drag and drop and HTML5 canvas.
	frank posted Firefox 10 Arrives With New Dev Tools and Full-Screen API.
	frank published Is Lana del Rey een Meat Puppet?.
	frank posted Listen to Your Community, But Don’t Let Them Tell You What to Do.
	frank posted Congress vs. Spyware: The Post-Carrier IQ Mobile Device Privacy Act.
	frank posted SPDY Brings Responsive and Scalable Transport to Firefox 11.
	frank published Fiesta: WP YouTube Lyte reaches 1.0.0.
	frank liked Flightless Bird, American Mouth (Wedding Version).
	frank posted Acta protests spread over Europe.
	frank liked Anouk & Sarah Bettens – I Alone [Live and Acoustic].
	frank posted Introducing Chrome for Android.
	frank posted Google to Strip Chrome of SSL Revocation Checking.
	frank published Chrome for Android finally arrives.

Chrome for Android finally arrives

February 7, 2012 by futtta

Just in from Google Mobile Blog: Chrome for Android is out in beta for ICS (Android 4) devices. I won’t bore you with the marketing video, but this “Under the hood” video is a lot more interesting:

Chrome for Android Beta: Under the Hood

Watch this video on YouTube.

Looks like the superb Firefox for Android is (finally) getting some competition. I guess it really is time to upgrade my Galaxy SII to the recently leaked ICS rom!

Fiesta: WP YouTube Lyte reaches 1.0.0

February 4, 2012 by futtta

I just released the one dot ohhhh dot ohhhhhhhhhh version of WP YouTube Lyte!
From the changelog:

new: also works on (manual) excerpts; just add a httpv link to the “excerpt” field on the post/page admin (based on feedback from Ruben@tuttingegneri)
new: if youtube-url contains “start” or “showinfo” parameters, these are used when playing the actual video. This means that you can now jump to a specific time in the YouTube video or stop the title/ author from being displayed (based on feedback from a.o. Miguel and Josh D)
update: javascript now initiates either after full page load or after 1 second (whatever comes first), thus avoiding video not showing due to other requests taking too long
update: bonus feature stops lockerz.com tracking by addtoany (you’ll still want to hide the “earn pointz” tab though)
bugfix: prevent the playing video to be in front of e.g. a dropdown-menu or lightbox (thanks to Matt Whittingham)
bugfix: solve overlap between player and text when option was set not to show links (reported by Josh D)

And an appropriate vid to go with this new release:

Watch this video on YouTube.

Is Lana del Rey een Meat Puppet?

February 2, 2012 by futtta

De Meat Puppets schreven het, maar Nirvana stal er de show mee:

Watch this video on YouTube.

En Lana Del Rey, da’s ook een vleespop, luister maar;

Watch this video on YouTube.

Dat horen van vage gelijkenissen is misschien een kleine afwijking, maar … seriously Lana?

As found on the web (February 1st)

February 1, 2012 by futtta

	frank liked Kiran Ahluwalia at DROM.
	frank published Act up against ACTA.
	frank posted Ubuntu swaps action menus for HUD.
	frank posted Jailbreaking Exemption Law Could Expire Soon.
	frank posted Android tablet market share jumps.
	frank published jailbreaking !== jail.
	frank posted Using the Vibrator API – Part of WebAPI.
	frank posted Call for illegal site demotion.
	frank posted ACTA ‘Is More Dangerous Than SOPA’.
	frank liked Radiohead cover Joy Division/New Order.
	frank posted EU official quits in piracy row.
	frank posted HTML5 Video on the Web Today.
	frank liked Gold Panda – An Iceberg Hurled Northwards Through Clouds.
	frank liked Grace Woodroofe with Ben Harper – "I’ve Handled Myself Wrong".
	frank posted Hidden Gems of HTML5: classList.
	frank liked The Step Kids – La La.

jailbreaking !== jail

January 26, 2012 by futtta

Jailbreaking is not a crime, but we shouldn’t take that for granted, because as Bunnie (XBox hacker) writes;

Three years ago, the [U.S.] Copyright Office agreed to create an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act so that folks could jailbreak their smartphones. But that exemption is about to expire.

Given the fact that the U.S. jailbreaking-scene is an important contributor, I signed the EFF petition which asks the Copyright Office for continued support for jailbreakers;

Being an avid Android-user, jailbreaking permits me to replace heavily customized (and in some ways crippled, think CarrierIQ) vendor-specific versions of Android with clean, crisp, fast and secure after-market “mods” such as CyanogenMod.

You should really sign this as well!