Hacking for Christ

DRM-Free Music - But Not On Linux Yet

Amazon have just launched Amazonmp3 - DRM-free music in 256kbps MP3 format. (Hopefully they'll do a patent-free format too soon; there's no reason why they can't.) However:

We recommend installing the Amazon MP3 Downloader before your first purchase. It is required for album purchases, and makes downloading songs fast and easy.

Never mind, I can download the individual tracks instead. But what's this? OK Computer - "Album Only". So, no OK Computer for me yet. :-(

I wonder how long it'll be before someone figures out what the Amazon MP3 Downloader does and implements the function for Linux? It can't be all that complicated; it's probably just an unzipper.

Zimki Shuts Down

At several conferences this year and last, there was a lot of noise from Zimki, a web application platform using server-side JavaScript. They were even a diamond sponsor for OSCON 2007. For a while I wore a t-shirt of theirs with the slogan "pre-shaved yaks", which was always a conversation starter. The idea was that they did all the hard and repetitive work, and you just contributed the bits that made your web application unique.

They used a lot of open source software in their platform, and were clear that the model was to provide the hosting - the platform would be open source, allowing you to move between competing providers. A rising tide floats all boats.

I considered writing an application on their framework, and even set up an account, but never found the time. Now, however, I'm glad I didn't. I got an email today:

We regret to inform you that the Zimki service is to be withdrawn and therefore will no longer be available from 24 December 2007. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause.

...

As of 24 December 2007 all applications and data remaining on the Zimki service will be deleted and the servers decommissioned. Users are advised to move their applications along with any associated data before the closure date. There are no plans to opensource Zimki.

We hope that Zimki has helped to increase your knowledge and understanding of the possibilities that utility computing and an online application framework can bring. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest and support with beta testing the Zimki service.

The Fotango Team

If I'd been one of their customers, I'd be completely stuffed. It seems the COO resigned over the decision not to open the source. Well done, Simon.

If Tim O'Reilly thinks that soon, using someone's platform will mean being hosted on their infrastructure, and he's seemingly quite happy for that platform to be proprietary, then he needs to explain what Zimki's customers are supposed to do now. If this is "the possibility that utility computing brings", to quote the announcement, then I'm going to be hosting my apps on my own infrastructure.

Retractable Ethernet Cable

At more than one conference, there have been giveaways in the form of retractable Ethernet cables, which wind themselves into a small reel. Now having a need for one, I find that I discarded mine during a recent move.

Before I go out and pay a fiver for another one, is there a (probably British) conference attendee who has had the same experience, has a spare one to hand, and would be willing to put it in the post to me? Thanks :-)

Weekly Status 2007-09-14

In future, my status reports will be fortnightly.

Last Week

• Moved house
• Updated the trademark policy to pull out the list of our trademarks
• An article on the Summer of Code at Mozilla was published on the excellent LWN which used an interview I gave as a source

This Week

• Another pass through the CA applications
• Further work on "security committee" document for CAB Forum
• Got the green light to triage outstanding l10n team requests

Next Two Weeks

• Triage outstanding l10n team requests
• Get the Bugzilla component reorganisation going (needs code written)
• Prepare handover for Frank of CA work; he's going to be doing it for a while

Facebook Image-to-Email

Does it annoy anyone else that on Facebook profiles, the email address is an image? This can't be an anti-spam measure; only your friends can see it. It has to be to put a barrier up to stop you from using real email rather than Facebook's poor excuse for it.

However, I think it would be a Simple Matter of Programming to write a Firefox extension which fixed the problem. The font they use is standard, and the images are PNG. The extension would:

• Find each email address image
• Use canvas.drawImage() to draw it to a <canvas>
• Use canvas.getImageData() to read vertical strips of pixels
• Compare the pixel values to an internal table of the possible characters
• Remove the image from the DOM and replace it with a clickable mailto: link

It's a proportional font, so you'd need a loop to keep reading single pixel strips until it was clear what letter it was, and then advancing the correct remaining number of strips to move to the next letter. But that's a trivial detail.

Anyone up for writing this?

Facebook Makes Its Move On Email

A bit more of this...

Now you can send messages to email addresses.

No more switching back and forth between email and Facebook. When you are writing a message, simply enter any email addresses into the “To:” field.

OCSP Stapling in OpenSSL and Apache

Frank noted in his status report that the Mozilla Foundation is funding a project to implement "OCSP stapling" in Apache and OpenSSL. In the future, Firefox will be enhanced to check the validity of SSL certificates using Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) responses served up by the webserver itself (colloquially known as "OCSP stapling"), as opposed to directly from the CA's OCSP server. But the webserver needs to know how to obtain and serve them, which is what this work is about.

OCSP stapling massively reduces the load on a CA's OCSP servers, and makes OCSP feasible for deployment for large volume SSL sites like Paypal or Amazon. Once a majority of clients support it, we'll see much wider OCSP use, with a corresponding improvement in the ability of CAs to meaningfully revoke certificates. Working OCSP is compulsory for EV certificates from 2010 onwards.

I've been working on this grant for some months now, and it's great to see it go ahead.