We need a real alternative, not Apple products - not Adobe or any of the companies who are monopolizing the right to distribute software. You believe it’s ok ? Think of it, softwares are ideas, software is just brain cells packaged on a CD or downloadable off the internet. Since when we don’t have the right to use and copy ideas ? Would you imagine a world where I have to pay someone whenever I use the word “table” ? So why is it possible for software ? Because someone like Bill Gates and it’s empire made sure we can’t think otherwise.

There will be plenty of people who wants to defend the legacy of Bill Gates, here’s what Stallman sees the legacy :

- The microsoft tax on computer, you buy a computer YOU must buy it with windows AND you pay for it ;
- Digital Restrictions Management, where the file on your computer are not exactly “your” files you can’t do whatever you want with it ;
- Gratuitous incompatibilities, between their own software version so you are sure to need to upgrade to the next one.
- Standard corruption, Microsoft like to own the standards so they can be the only one to create the software that goes with it, last year they took ISO and force everyone by packing assemblies so ISO accept its office format as an official standard.
- Even its foundation - created to help - has its dark sides.
- If you need more ranting about Microsoft.

Stallman continue on proprietary software :

Microsoft’s software is distributed under licenses that keep users divided and helpless. The users are divided because they are forbidden to share copies with anyone else. The users are helpless because they don’t have the source code that programmers can read and change.

If you’re a programmer and you want to change the software, for yourself or for someone else, you can’t.

If you’re a business and you want to pay a programmer to make the software suit your needs better, you can’t. If you copy it to share with your friend, which is simple good-neighbourliness, they call you a “pirate”.

The alternative is Free software, software we can use, copy, modify and redistribute, without any limitation of any sort. Free and Open Source Software is liberating the ideas behind the softwares you use every day

In a rather long report Oxfam International explain that the current rise in production and use of biofuels are pushing people into poverty by “burning food” while contributing to global warming, sometimes more than simply burning normal fuel.

Because now the farmers must at the same time produce more corn/wheat/beets for the growing demand in biofuel they also need to produce more food (meat) for the emerging countries. Total of the grocery cost : more land being deforested that means less carbon fixing surface for the world. Even the Brazilian ethanol that has the best benefit in term of Green House Gaz emission, is offset by the impact of more land being used for the production.

Millions of dollars are pumped into the biofuel industry in the form of subsidies, that has the impact of creating a false demand for products that do not deliver the promise of getting rid of oil dependency and harmful CO2 emissions. Worst those support are “taxing food” and push more people into poverty by diverting important food production into biofuel.

Oxfam recommend the following to the rich countries :

• introduce a freeze on the implementation of further biofuel mandates, and carry out an urgent revision of existing targets that deepen poverty and accelerate climate change;
• dismantle subsidies and tax exemptions for biofuels and reduce import tariffs;
• tackle climate change and fuel security through safe and cost-effective measures, prioritising regulation to enforce ambitious vehicle-efficiency improvements.

Read the complete report here :http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/another-inconvenient-truth

The project is fairly mature, it started in 1993 and just reach 1.0 today!!!

Not all applications can be run perfectly or even at all check the database to know

For the rest read on : http://www.winehq.org

Start downloading  10:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Tuesday, June 17th. Vietnam midnight 17th to 18th of june.

other time :

The bill goes against piracy, fair enough and good try. Now try to transform it, because digital sharing of electronic art, otherwise known as “piracy” has been around and will be for many years. Still DRM (digital right management) is a bad idea because it makes you dependent of one company selling you “content” that’s the worst side effect of DRM : vendor lock-in

Where I’m stuck is it will render a host of tools and method, often Open Source I’d say, illegals : Especially de-encryption tools and reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is important because it’s often the only way to brake the chains some software create around you.

Fine print analysis of the http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3025/125/

want to do something about it start there : http://www.KillbillC61.ca

There’s one thing that is forgotten in the video is that you may simply use RSS feeds like if they were bookmarks if you are using the web browser Firefox. The feature is called “live bookmarks” and here is an explanation on how to use them : http://johnbokma.com/firefox/rss-and-live-bookmarks.html. If you need “written” information on RSS over a video presentation I really like the BBC page about RSS.

I also know now why they are so annoying, because talking and showing about the same thing put too much stress on the brain even if it the content is similar.

To critics, PowerPoint serves largely the same role in the classroom as pre-processed snack food does in the lunchroom: a conveniently packaged morsel that looks good but doesn’t match the intellectual or corporeal nourishment of, say, a critical essay or a plate of steamed spinach. Of PowerPoint and Pointlessness

I guess by now you should have understood that one should learn how to make good, dynamic, non boring presentation isn’t ? You wonder how to do it ? Here’s a presentation to help you get to it!!!

| View | Upload your own

The cause of the food crisis is the continuous consumption of energy (in whatever form) by rich countries and the growth of emerging countries who eat more, more meat and transport more of that food. Since they are getting richer they can afford to pay more for the food while other on the planet are telling us they can’t follow. The world need more food then we have to TRANSPORT it. So some bright people come up with the idea of using FOOD to create fuel, which in return increase the price of the food by reducing the amount of available food for PEOPLE.

Some are saying the crisis will solve itself by augmenting the production of food (and biofuels as well). On the short term, yes, but on the long term if we think this way we will have to deforest more, use more land in order to raise cattle and burn more biofuel to transport the food. What kind of solution for what kind of problem are we coming up with ?

Really worlds leader are missing an opportunity to avoid a major crisis, maybe next year when there will be more of those food riots, the big guys on the block will adress the real problems : dependency on energy and the consumerist race of the rich and emerging nations.

The United Nations’ outspoken independent expert on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, told a conference in Bern that biofuels, as they are produced at present, constitute “a crime against a large part of humanity.”

That is the solution is not more GMO corn but less energy consumption!!!

http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/03/26/wiki-collaboration-leads-to-happiness/

One picture says all.

However if you try to explain that to the casual user they will often reply with anger, somehow it was like if I attacked their only way to use a computer, rendering their skills obsolete.  Is it addiction or is it something else ?

Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 3:35 PM
To: *************

Subject: Green Transport Day

We at Action for the City are launching a Green Transport Day on May
16th and invite you to join us to make Hanoi a quieter, cleaner and
greener city. On this day, we ask that you walk, cycle, or use public
transport instead of private cars or motorbikes. In so doing, you join
students, teachers, professionals, and communities across Hanoi in
raising our voices to say that together we can make an impact.

We ask that you get your entire organisation or business involved and
in turn get your name put on our website. Please visit
http://www.giaothongxanh.org/en for more information and resources for
you and your organisation.

Working together for a greener Hanoi,
Action for the City Green Transport team