ICANN opens up domain registration

I have mixed feelings over the recent announcement from the Paris meeting of ICANN, that domain names are to be opened up. I applaud the move away from a purely latin character (read ASCII code) naming system to one that supports others, such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese and so on. However, the move to permit many more top level domains I fear will lead to intense arguments and possibly an erosion of confidence in the internet as a whole. Who will rule on the legitimacy of control of, for example, ".smith" or ".computer"? Will a domain of ".catholic" be truly representing the Catholic Church any more than ".britain" be representing the British government? It will make it harder for users to sort out the ownership of the site they are visiting, and sadly I think give much more to those who seek to perpetrate scams and other fraud.

I would like to see clear rules and an international body (such as an agency of the UN) be responsible for controlling this. As it is, I think it is little more than a money making ploy on the part of the current controllers.

linux group support

Well, I finally have my digital camera working with my Linux laptop. A suggestion from one of the members in my local Linux User Group pointed me to a program called gphoto2, and on trying to install it I found that the library it uses was quite out of date and was not able to support the camera. Upgrading libgphoto2 to a more recent version and now I find that not only does gphoto2 work, but so does digiKam. I was able to copy all the pictures in little more than 1 minute.

digital camera woe

I recently bought a digital camera from a local photographic shop. Looks great, with a good sized screen, 3x optical zoom and 8Mpixel resolution. However, now that I have taken several dozen pictures with it, I find that I cannot transfer them to my Linux computer. I contacted the manufacturer, only to have a plain "We do not support Linux" reply.

I am not at all happy, as I have no plans to ditch Linux which I have been using for over 15 years. Sadly, the pictures will have to wait until I find some other way of transferring them from the M883 camera.

ethics and computing

I was reading a magazine the other day and came across an interesting article that was discussing the ethics of using computers in warfare and whether it was morally wrong to kill someone when you were not there in person - such as using remotely guided tanks and other weaponry.

I'm sorry, but I believe that it is morally wrong to kill anyone. Full Stop. I feel that technology in all its aspects (including computing) should be used for the benefit of the whole of mankind and not just one (self-selected) part of it to the detriment of the rest.

It is a pity that computer people are not all committed to the ideals of peace and unity.

Abdu'l-Baha, in one memorable passage of the Baha'i Writings says that we have had warfare for over 2000 years and it is now time to work for peace.

"Peace, let it begin with me. We need peace."

We cannot fight terrorism, we must instead bring PEACE

remote access (2)

Well, her I am sitting at home again, with the same company laptop computer. Only this time I have been told to run a specific remote access program. Right, I do that and it asks me which machine I want to connect to. "Progress" I thought to myself. But alas no, as it just reported that there was no computer of that name on my network. No, it is on the network back at the office. So how to get a connection to the office LAN? I was told that it would "just work" and ask me for my identity number.
I'll have to phone them whilst I am at home and go through the steps. The laptop is clearly not configured for remote working, or else there is some other instruction that the support staff have forgotten to tell me. What we need is some clear documentation.

Why do I end up being the one experiencing problems and ending up writing the documentation myself? I wonder ....