iPhone Unlocked + Apple's iPhone update 1.1.1 = APPLE is a MORON

iPhone Unlocked + Apple's iPhone update 1.1.1 = iDoorstop or the iBrick (there has to be more) and a damned illegal thing for Apple to have done to its iPhone users! Yes, it is actually illegal (it's punitive).

DO NOT UPDATE YOUR iPHONE with 1.1.1 if you have "unlocked" your iPhone* and installed any 3rd party apps on it, which is, by the way, legal for OWNERS of iPhones to do - the Supreme Court said 3rd party apps installed on devices is exempt.

UN-INSTALL all 3rd party apps

RE-LOCK your iPhone to "day one" status (if you unlocked it properly, you WILL be able to do this!)

THEN update with iPhone update v1.1.1

THEN RE-UN-LOCK your iPhone.

THEN Re-Install your favorite 3rd party apps.

WARNING = this is LIKELY to work and still leave your iPhone usable and with your added 3rd party apps re-installable.

The method above will HAVE to be re-done for EVERY future iPhone update.
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You WILL have to update it anyway, just do it right. If you do it wrong, or if you do not update, then parts of your iPhone will stop working before your very eyes.

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Ah, and Speaking of French Apple Pie Waste:
(were we?)

It seems the French company Vivendi is complaining of Apple's iStore charging too much for songs.....give it up, Frenchie, you know you can - you are experts in surrendering. So, surrender to your Bitch-master, Vivendi, and wine no more.

I am not french.

iTunes be strokin' it!

Yep. first time! iTunes is now in the Big Leagues with the Big Boys - their latest update (7.1.1.5 - the ".5" is another in a long line of AAC-crack buster algos) - iTunes is now installing a KEY LOGGER.

I use ZA Pro, so I just DENIED iTunes from ever being able to LOG KEY STROKES.

What Bullshit, Apple?

Just say no to iTunes needing to record your keystrokes, as it would never have to.

Ana Rincon is an idiot.

Her info on how to handle copyright violators is laughable if it weren't so scary and if it weren't for the fact that every body does this when confronted with SOME ONE ELSE'S Copyrights being violated!

Stupid. You do not - and according to the Act CAN NOT - take ALLEGED Copyright violators to court UNTIL you have at least followed the grievance procedures set out BY THE ACT. The Act supersedes any and all other sanctions IMAGINED yet still printed, publicised, adhered to by Colleges, High Schools, Libraries, companies, etc, all blindly thinking they know Copyright Law. The Copyright Act is not huge and nor hard to read. The DMCA bullshit, however, is complicated and is hard to read, but what of it?

The ONLY course of action for you to take when you feel violated is to report the violation to the PEOPLE THAT CAN AND WILL DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT LEGALLY! That would be the US Copyright Office for ALLEGED Copyright infringement. Your College has NO BUSINESS accusing anyone nor imagining anyone of violating copyright law - how can they? No college employee nor student anywhere in the US can legally enforce ANY violation of the Act. Enforcement of the Act is the sole territory of the US Treasury Department. A college employee certainly can not enforce any ALLEGATIONS of same. And yet most schools print in their Policy Manuals words to that detrimental effect. I can not wait to get into the court system over Person A accusing Person B (me, in this case) of violating Person C's copyright, I live for this shit.

If you see a customer copying something at Kinko's, say of a picture taken by a photographer that you know Personally, and you some how, some way, find out that this customer does NOT have the Copyright Holder's permission to copy that picture, is there anything that you can do on behalf of your photographer friend?

Well, yes, there is something we can do to help the friend - one thing, and one thing only: You can call him on the phone and ask him to get his ass down quick to the Local Kinko's, because , "Dude, someone is copying one of your photographs from one of your published books! You better get down here and kick this guy's ass! I talked with a Kinko's employee about it and they said they only refuse to copy the works themselves, unless THE CUSTOMER gives a copy of signed permission form FROM the original Copyright Holder".

And that, my friends, is all that anyone can and is allowed to do under the Copyright Act. In this case, since I am not the copyright holder, I can not accuse nor report this Kinko's customer to anyone except the original copyright holder - period. I cannot complain to the Office of Copyright, the cops, the Kinko's store managers, no one except the original copyright holder. And if the original copyright holder does not care (about this one-time infringement) then I still can not do anything more. That is all.

Look it up: In your State, there are a list of crimes that can be reported and to whom they can be reported. Unfortunately there is no list of alleged crimes that CAN NOT be reported.

The Kinko's case is brought in here because Kinko's the company was once involved in a Copyright infringement case, that ultimately put ALL copy stores and libraries with copy machines "On Notice". The settlement specific to Kinko's was that they must FOREVER and ALWAYS (this now includes FedEx's ownership interest in Kinko's) must refuse all customer requests to make copies of customer's work unless the Kinko's Mange or employee attempting to do the work is ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the CUSTOMER owns or holds ALL copyright to all the work that the customer wishes the Kinko's employee to copy.

ANY and ALL COPYRIGHT infringement can only be PROVED, DISPROVED and SETTLED first with the Office of Copyright, and if not there, then appealed to a COURT of actual LAW. Why do we not know this in America?

How hard is that, really?

Where the hell did that tuition go?

Well, now Carder apparently did it this time, according to the blog, Bad Cop News
the girl in McHenry was 12 years old when the two first "fell in love".

Obviously, the CLC Radio Really Local News Bed Team is at a real loss for words here.
(This story has been expanded upon at that blog)

In light of the old story where she was "15" when the young lovers were "introduced", Campus Safety Director Kevin Lowry has taken his cause (in the long, slow wake of Allen's comments to the Faculty Senate last year) recently to the Student Government Association Senate in asking their endorsment in renaming and outfitting the Campus Safety Department as a Campus Police Department.

We say the timing couldn't be better to request such a thing what with reputations the way they are.

Yeah.

And we're not being sarcastic, either! Pehaps Mr. Lowry's best "Direction" is teaching, after all.

We sure aren't leaving. Wild horses couldn't drag us away.

HOW DARE YOU?

Should I pick Modeling, Campus Safety, or User Support Tech for my new career?

Should I pick Modeling, Campus Safety, or User Support Tech for my new career?

OK, putting a computer in my hands is like putting a loaded gun in Barney Fife's hand, I know how to walk a runway, and I don't go for ladies much under 25 years old.

So I guess I will pick User Support Technician. I don't know why - it just seems like a good direction. (On the plus side, I can be my own boss. "Be your own boss?", you say, "Yes. Be my own boss", I say back to you - although being your own boss is kind of like being your own uncle - I can be my own boss, because no one is going to tell me I have to "ghost" someones hard drive when I know all I need do is put in a bootable linux device and change one or two registry settings in Windows, Macs are even easier to fix, and then reboot; thereby saving an administrator's hard work saved for years)

Illinois State Agency Web Standards do not work

There is absolutely zero excuse for the following website to be down:

http://www100.state.il.us/iwas/


The page we get:

Server Error

The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.

JRun closed connection.

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HA! Unbelievabull. Who is their ISP? Idiots anyway - FIX THE LICENSING ISSUES MORONS! GET THE CORRECT VERSION AND YOU WOULDN'T HAVE THIS ERROR.

The page is supposed to inform us of Illinois Web Accessibility Standards (talk about your handicapped websites)

First of all, IMHO, CLC should have an injunction against Illinois as to our "agency" status, until our "agency" status can be proved or disproved or NOT approved.

NO college should ever be considered a "State Agency". Gavoyabitch, you IDIOT!
(I would be more vocal, but I am not registered again, but will be soon all because Ron Lackey is running for CLC Board of Directors - Lackey and Lumber or Lackey and Barb O,, just say no to Lumber AND Barb O).

If CLC is considered a state agency, then web standards of the state for everybody, but NOT UNTIL THE DAMNED WEBSITE WORKS THAT IS SUPPOSED TO EXPLAIN WHAT THOSE STANDARDS ARE! Sweet, sweet irony, folks!

An Interest of Conflict

After reading this, some of my colleagues will think me a hypocrite (especially the ones who wouldn't know the definition of hypocrite if it hit them in their Achilles), some will be astonished I would "read" in to CLC Governance something so trivial, and some others will think, "How DARE you" think you can lump yourself into "colleague" status - the latter being quite ridiculous. Read on brave, thundering souls!

After reading the well defined CLC Governance Handbook, I recalled a Committee Charter and one of its sections; and how it was worded. Something wasn't accurate. Something about comparing the two "versions" bothered me a bit. It all started with the Charter of an ITC subcommittee - the one that deals with Internet and Intranet things (and how damned appropriate, as you read this on the Internet!)

While searching for an acceptable form in forming a democratic entity from the ground up to be ready for inclusion into parts of the Operations of a college radio station, I came across a variety - too much so - of in-place, real-world constitution and charter examples, either outdated or similar to each other where there should be clear delineations or dissimilar where there should be almost verbatim identicism.

Assumptions: That the CLC Governance Handbook, last updated Oct 2006 (pretty good, considering past update history!), is the sole guide to be used.

Points I found:

There is, in every non-student Senate constitution, a section utilizing the CGH directions, but adding a 3rd party assumption of duty that is non-binding by its nature - this section needs to be dropped and its dropping would not be substantial - on the contrary, its very inclusion causes substantial nonsense in the governmental process as outlined in the CGH.

Although membership in each commission and any ITC standing subcommittees (there are 4 such via the ITC, several in the Faculty Senate, 2 in the classified) delineates the need for student representation - each requesting/requiring 2 student reps per Commission and 1 per subcommittee in fact - there is less. Each Commission has 1 of the requested and each ITC subcommittee has zero.

The Student Senate appoints students to fulfill these requested obligations. There is no distinction as to if a student appointed must, must not, or should be only an SGA voted or appointed senator, only that those 2 chosen be students (presumably of CLC, although also not spelled out).

Although there is no mention in any of the non-student Senate Constitutions as to membership requiring student representation of any kind, the Faculty Senate has verbally requested for many years, some student representation at their meetings (presumably already an appointed or elected SGA Senator, and for this latter concern seems an appropriate distinction, although personally I would prefer 1 student be an SGA member and the other student not be an SGA member - on purpose)

I think there should be not only student repping such as have been allowed/requested in the Fac Sen, but the other Senates should require this in their membership sections (in their respective constitutions). Why Specialist and certainly why in Classified would having student reps be important?
Checks & Balances, more open communication, real-world access to what is really going on "behind the scenes".

Student Media needs to play a much more significant observational role in reporting Employee and student Senate meetings. I attended CLC for a number of years and have personally witnessed Chronicle Staff being present at Student Gov meetings, and then reporting (I should say, trying to report) their observations post-meeting. As, according to the CGH, ALL initial regularly scheduled meetings of Senate and Commission groups are to follow first the Illinois Open Meetings Act, having a News Reported present is no different than having one present at any Board meeting.

The case of Senate or Commission intra-representation has always been a concern of mine. As of January 2007, the Specialist Senate has specialists in the field representing their cause in various committees and commissions, however, the problem is that a Specialist hired and working with ITS should NOT be also a voting member of the Specialist Senate nor any of its subcommittees, as IS now the case. This is a potentially bad practice to continue as the ITC, its subcommittees and all its membership are ADVISORY commissioners with only ADVISORY capacity. Those same advisors should not be allowed to vote on their very recommendations via another conduit - voting should be left up to the non-ITS Specialists within the Specialist Senate

Senates vote and Commissions advise and recommend.

Either group or individuals can bring concerns for discussion to, for example, the ITC Internet/Intranet Subcommittee, but if they realistically feel that the concern is best handled by a redirect from the GCC or by an operating department in place, then that is what should occur as not every idea that comes up in a group needs to be discussed in that group (how long do meetings really need to last?).

Regarding needs: The I/I subcommittee of the ITC have "come up" with a few ideas that they clearly talk about in their meeting minutes (available in the Public Folders, but curiously not on the Intranet page):

1. Web standards (to be used in faculty, staff, student web pages/spaces, presumably covering everything from disclaimers to bandwidth usage to storage capacity to database use to content update frequency allowances to publication authority an control)

2. Public Folder Access concerns, mainly, Public Folders should be used for more private communications and the Intranet should be used primarily for Agenda and Meeting Minute publications.

3. change the name of the Governance page on the Intranet to Commissions and Committees.

The first is rife with the members of the "nothing bad has happened in the past, but just in case it does" camp, and those campfire embers are always warm! If your IT department can determine that you have the infrastructure and are supported in the same to provide faculty, staff, and student club & organization web space/pages, then the premise should be one o OFFERING the space. Demanding it, in the example of Student Organization Space, is beyond ludicrous in some respects and Grade-Schoolish in all others. First of all, the notion that student club or org spaces need any type of control or coddling in some half-arsed future preventative effort to "protect" the college's interests or image:

1. is a fantastic waste of in-house resources
2. will be fine with proper or agreed upon (rarely the same) disclaimers holding the college harmless
3. a declaration that the club page is indeed sanctioned but not necessarily endorsed by the college's staff, faculty, or administration
4. club budgets can be temporally frozen during due process initiated from an incident
5. sanctions can be spelled out for each club member contributing to all page content that has been deemed unsuitable for anyone's image, let alone the college's (hence the disclaimers)
6. advisors can be charged with the responsibility of publication controls if needed, and then only on on a per case basis (much as in how some bulletin boards, blogs' comments, and on-line forums are moderated before comments can be posted to a site)
6a. this latter process can be easily automated and already is so on places such as Live Journal and Google Groups, Google Pages, and MSN Live (see Server2003 infrastructure used for remote control capabilities through signatory agreements between CLC ITS and MSN)

I am suggesting an honor approach be applied and reapplied to every club and organization when discussing web publication of anything, including blogs and other forms of public dissemination of club and member info. In other words, forcing clubs & organizations to only use provided internally controllable webspace will merely force clubs to use Live Journal, or Google's Blogger or Blogspot, or MSN Live, or you can see where this would become a "revolution" in a sense. Not so much a revolt, but at least quite revolting to look at! And MySpace is always lurking out there, yuch. All of these mentioned here, these technological alternatives to out-sourced somewhat costly ISP webhosting, are free. But, just because a club spends money to "go outside", the hypocritical nature of this statement blares loudly, "Why should clubs have to spend money?", well, ask anyone in Student Activities: To Learn real-world, hands-on approaches to publication and group interactivity. I said hypocritical due the fact that if clubs are using any of he aforementioned free alternatives, then the issue of spending money is disingenuous and a red herring designed to obfuscate the real concern: one of control from the top.

IT and ITS are to be used as tool boxes for us to get done what we want to do and provide for our stakeholders (and of course I HATE using that word in a sentence). IT should never be in charge of WHAT we say online, only how we can design the font. That's pretty much it, and to also help us become better protectors of our passwords and usernames.

So basically, offer the webspace, but don't force it - not even to faculty in most cases.

Any club or org or advisor that feels forced into only using CLC-controlled webspace will probably already know that CLC would never be able to handle that club's existing bandwidth and current storage requirements with the level of security and efficiency that can be had by even merely godaddy. We must also consider that some webpages cannot be controlled by edict their National or International charter - PTK comes to mind. To be a member of PTK in good standing and as a member you wish your chapter to have a web presence, I believe they require specific guidelines to be followed for this to occur.

Speaking of guidelines, lets say for argument that web space can be accommodated via CLC controlled server technologies matching all of any current club's web requirements for now and the near future; you would still need to allow all of the clubs to have meetings to consider what is fair and appropriate to each of their needs - which vary widely - regarding web standards proposed. These standards would then further need to be refined and then voted on by that ad hoc group. This method is more than just implied in the CLC Governance handbook.

Some clubs would need to be updating content automatically every 60 seconds or less (per DMCA requirements of Internet Streaming Stations such as CLC Radio, not to mention their weekly and daily music charting updates, and lists of new music coming in sometimes twice per day), others would require at least daily content updates, and on down to maybe as little as once or twice per semester for probably the majority of clubs - to start with, as once it becomes piratical and popular to let Mommy (CLC) take "care" of our sites, then you will need at least 1 full time staff in IT just to handle all web concerns, not to mention the help desk nightmares of, "I though you said we could have sub webs, not sub domains?". Not even 3 dedicated IT staff could handle such a load. And yet, such a load is normal for most Microsoft- and Linux-based web sites.

The second point is rife with....well, it just points to some ignorance on the part of the users of public folders, which is ironic in two ways:
1. the ITC committee was first to introduce the functionality of Public Folders and disseminate proper training and usage of same
2. and the subcommittee in question - along with the other 3 of the ITC, have not published one single agenda nor minutes, even though all other governance groups have either attempted at least half-hearted or are extremely timely in their publications


The third point (from far above) regarding the "name change" is quite erroneous since the "Governance" name and its usage are only two years old and, most importantly, broad in scope which is exactly what is necessary in being able to create further delineation in government as in groups like, the Internet/Intranet sub committee!

I finish with what I earlier mentioned; the honor approach to student group, out-sourced web hosting. The honor is: Student Life and Student Activities are to be the sole controllers of web hosting choices here - thus necessitating the involvement of the SGA, if and only if some operational consensus cannot be reached between the directors, the advisor, and the club officers and membership. Due process must not only be followed in letter as a post-emptive strike, but in spirit in a pre-emptive idea. The action would be the action of the membership's trustworthiness and reasonably perceivable conflict arising out of arbitrary publication - especially of unsubstantiated facts (which is presumably why a concern from a non-student group existed in the first place).

In other words: let Student Life worry about the ethical behaviour and the ITC worry about fully, technically supporting an infrastructure truly ready to handle a wide variety of assumptive web hosting behaviour.

This blog alone should be proving this point. This blog post should not scar anyone - as I my intention is to inform, not to intimidate.