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Blog Entries from May 2007
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Finland: Breaking DVD DRM Legal
Finland, which I already considered a cool country, just became an even cooler country. News came out earlier this week that a Finnish court ruled that DVD DRM was ineffective (external link). Under Finnish law, only DRM that is "effective" is protected by law. This court ruling technically allows Finnish residents legally to break DVD DRM because it is not effective.
As for the rest of us, it is still illegal.
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Last.fm Acquired by CBS
Today, the CBS Corporation (a US company) purchased Last.fm (external link) (a British Web 2.0 company) for $280 million. For those who do not know, Last.fm is a music community that tracks what music you play and organises it into pretty graphs and charts. Then it suggests new music to you, introduces you to people with similar musical taste, and much more.
Last.fm is certainly my favourite Web 2.0 website. At first I was terrified of the idea of CBS having control of it, but after reading the blog entry at Last.fm (external link), I was relieved to read that the current team will remain in control of the business. In the end, it should help them to get more licensing deals and to have good access to monetary funds.
Still, I am always a bit scared of acquisitions...
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Windows or Linux for Web Design?
In a recent thread on SitePoint (external link), the question of whether Windows or Linux was a better platform for web design came up. I thought this question would be interesting to address here.
First, I do believe that Macs are better for web design, simply because the virtualisation technology (Parallels (external link)) available on OSX is much better than on Windows or on Linux. The ability to run Windows and Linux right within OSX makes it extremely easy to browser test in the browsers not available on OSX.
However, since the question did not include Macs, I do think that Windows overall is better for web design. While I personally prefer Linux over Windows, there are some points that make Linux bad for web design:
- Virtualisation technology is not as good.
- Photoshop is not available.
- Everything is harder to set up.
Now, there are virtualisation programmes on Linux that would allow you to run Photoshop and Internet Explorer, but setting all of that up is not easy for most people. Plus setting up the needed drivers and dealing with other hardware compatibility issues proves to be difficult for anyone new to Linux; although distros are improving. It is just easier and more practical to use Windows where the setup of your computer is not a huge chore.
If you really like Linux, then it is possible to run Photoshop and Internet Explorer with some work. You will also have access to better development tools and much more control over your computer. If you want to try out Linux, then I do suggest Ubuntu (external link).
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Tons of Free Vector Graphics
I just came across Vecteezy (external link), a website with tons of free vector graphics. The really nice thing is that the vectors are actually very well done and of good quality. If you are designing a website or an interface you may want to take a quick look at what they have to offer.
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