Siu Lun

Ok folks. I know each of us probably have a million or two mp3 files on our hard disk of our favourite music. We can say we’ve almost taken the mp3 format for granted all these years. A little known fact to those not in the business though is that mp3 is a proprietary format and they are actually charging a hefty sum for royalty payment!

Little do we know that when we do podcasting with mp3 files. While the sound that comes out of the file is copyrighted by us. The fact that you’re using a mp3 format to stream your podcast is enough for you to pay for a license before you use it!

Those in the business knows all about this. They also know about an open-source alternative codec that is truely free to use and distribute and free from royalty called ‘Ogg Vorbis’. But for one reason or another, major manufacturers of mp3 players (Apple) are not incoporating support for ogg files on their players!

Many smaller manufactuers of mp3 players such as iRiver have been incorporating such features for a while now! Guys, I believe it is time to re-encode all our files into ogg.

Come on, make some noise for ogg! (Flac is a lossless alternative format)

http://www.vorbis.com/

I’m officially switching alliegance to the ogg format. Though my iPod nano has no chance in playing ogg. I’ll have to just endure a slight delay when I use iTunes to re-encode ogg into aac for the iPod. No biggie, and at least I know that I’m not paying some tossers who’ve come up with the mp3 file format just to have some sort of patent on it and collecting royalties for something that should never have been.

I would like to pledge those who’re in the music ’scene’ to start releasing files in ogg format!

Later
/rant over

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm

If we don’t stop them, every web page we go on will be monitored by this advertising agency! We’ll get much more spam! AND the potential of eventually ISP and government agencies can spy on what sites we go on!

Keep the net free and anonomous! Sign the petition!

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/

Introduction

I was tweaking with the development process today at work by incorporating SVN and trac. SVN allows me to version control the web development while trac allows me to set goals and specification to the project as well as provide a user guide wiki to end users.

As I was doing so, I remember back in my old post I wrote something about building a program to syncronise documents such as bookmarks across different OSes and computers which would work on a memory stick, then I also remember seeing a post somewhere, where someone used CVS to keep their documents, which’ll allow for version control as well as universal access via CVS (so basically any computer that has access to the internet) while using PGP to encrypt those files in order to keep any sensitive data secure.

Obviously it’s not anything new, but it’s not very well known either – amougst those who’re not as up-to-date as your best news source. So I’ll write something about it here in the hopes that people would find it a useful way to keep track and keep control of their eletronic documents while having the most portability and security.

prerequisite

You’ll need
A PGP file encryption software – such as GNUPG
A Subversion(SVN)/CVS server – SVN is recommended as it is built above CVS

What To Do

Follow the instructions of your chosen software.
Once installed
familiarize yourself with how to encrypt & decrypt a file
familiarize yourself with how to make a repository to upload/download from your CVS/SVN server

Once you know how to do the above, the rest is really self-explantory, you encrypt a file you’d like to make accessible and secure, then commit the file to your CVS/SVN server. Whenever you need access to that file, just log into your repository (hopefully you’ve made it accessible by username & password on the web!) download it to your current location, and decrypt the file using your PGP key, and viola.

Tips

• Keep your PGP key on your USB drive keyring or “E-Key” – eletronic key to unlock your life
• Keep your repository data(not the files in your repository but the config files) on your USB drive keyring – so that you can access your repository using a CVS/SVN software instead of logging on the web if it isn’t avaliable.
• Password protect your CVS/SVN repository – while your files would be encrypted, it’s still better to password protect the repository so that even if someone got hold of your “E-Key” or manage to steal your PGP key, they can’t decrypt anything without knowing your username and password for your repository

Problems you may encounter

Q: Everything in your link seems to be in Linux/Unix? – Does it work on Windows?
A: GNUPG has a windows implementation while there is a tool called CVSNT that allows CVS on Windows, Subversion has their own pre-compiled binaries for Windows avaliable at their site.

Q: How do I get a Subversion/CVS server?
A: You can either setup a computer – like a HTPC that is connected to the net all the time as a server by finding tutorials on the net on how to setup SVN/CVS on your computer, or you can find a web host that would allow you to setup a SVN/CVS server. For normal users – those who don’t deal with web design and don’t need a web host – I would suggest you to use a low power computer – such as an HTPC as a server. note# you ought to have broadband