fake user "posts" on public forums and newsgroups. Yesterday I met a couple of guys from a local web-marketing company that showed me their proposal for our website. Among other interesting suggestions (user forum, mailing lists, and so on) they "suggested" some form of Internet marketing. And one of those really made me sad and thinking: the possibility to posts "user comments" on public forums and newsgroups about our product. Here I would like to discuss what will be my decisions, and what are my thoughts about such an ethical dilemma. [kuro5hin.org]

I was working at a company once, and once of my not bosses (the same level as my boss, but I that I did not report to) had gone to a site and posted a review of one of our products, masquerading as a satisfied customer. Their logic was that they could never be caught, because they had posted from a cybercafe using an identity that was borrowed from a friend. Ethics were not an issue, and I am glad that I am no longer dependent upon them for my wages.

11:57:40 PM    

ISO Could Withdraw JPEG Standard [Slashdot]

The International Standards Organization is threatening to withdraw the JPEG image format if Forgent keeps pushing to collect on royalties based off their patent.

"Under ISO terms, formally you can only have a standard you can implement on free or RAND terms. "Reasonable and non discriminatory (RAND) terms are typically published, and the same for everyone. It's clear that Forgent's claims are not RAND. $15 million doesn't sound like free to me, and Forgent is not publishing the terms of their licensing.

There is a great Q&A with Forgent's PR manager about halfway down the page here.

3:20:04 PM    

FBI Arrests 4 College Interns For Stealing Lunar Materials [Slashdot]

These four stole rock samples from the Apollo missions that were taken from the moon, and tried to sell them online.

Digression: The rocks were valued at $300,000. I think that price is a little low, given how much it would cost to replace them, which involves going back up the the moon and gathering samples.  

7:30:06 AM    

Making Your Bad Tunes Sound Good. The amazing technical capabilities of music software like Reason, Acid and Pro Tools brings professional music tools within the reach of even the most marginal of musical talents. By Mark McClusky. [Wired News]

The bar is lowered both in terms of price and power to said price on home audio editing. I remember playing with reel to reel recorders as a kid that my brother and I scrounged from the annual junk day. today kids can completely remix the tracks of their favorite songs, espcially since sompanies like Sonic Foundry have remix contests where they provide the loops for free.

6:43:10 AM    

Help me test a Flash Communication Server App.

I am going to be testing a simple Flash Communication Server app on Wednesday (July 24) at 1pm est, and need some (a lot) of people to join to see how it handles the bandwidth. The app basically allows me to broadcast to everyone who is connected.

I will post the link here on Wednesday, so if you pass a link around, pass the link to this article.

In the meantime, I have put up a large version of my Flash Communication Server app. You can check it out here.

 

[mesh on MX]

6:30:20 AM