Month: April 2010

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Congress bans Caller ID spoofing, including VoIP

Under the bill, it becomes illegal “to cause any caller ID service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information, with the intent to defraud and deceive.” The bill maintains an exemption for blocking one’s own outgoing caller ID information, and law enforcement isn’t affected.The change will affect “any real time voice communications service, regardless of the technology or network utilized,” so VoIP calls are included. In fact, the Congressional Research Service summary of the initial text makes clear that VoIP was a key target here.

via Ars Technica::Congress outlaws all Caller ID spoofing VoIP too.

You can find the Senate and House bills on thomas.loc.gov at:

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Google adds collaboration tweaks to Docs

Google Docs has always had easier-to-use collaboration features than much of what Microsoft has to offer. Docs has been particularly useful for individuals and small businesses who need to throw together a document quickly with geographically scattered users, but the newest additions allow users to see each others’ edits on a per-character basis. This means you can watch what your coworker is typing into a document in almost realtime, and up to 50 users can be connected to a document at a time.

Ars Technica::Google turns up the heat on Office with collaboration tweaks.

Near real time collaborative editing is an excellent feature. The article points out that not all the new s is good. With the demise of Google Gears, Docs offline mode is coming to an end.

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6 Tools to Easily Create Your Own Custom Linux Distro

While it’s hard to make the claim that there aren’t enough Linux distros out there, it’s also hard to escape the fact that no distribution is all things to all people. There are all kinds of reasons to consider rolling your own, but many people never make the attempt because it seems like such a huge undertaking. Fortunately, with modern software we can create new distros, remixes, and custom configurations in a matter of minutes instead of months.

6 Tools to Easily Create Your Own Custom Linux Distro – Make Tech Easier.

Good set of tools that let you essentially clone your Linux setup. Appears to be aimed at desktop setups, but may be useful starting place for building custom distros for servers.

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Unboxing the iPad

Here are some pics I took while unboxing the shiny and new iPad.

Brand new, still shrink wrapped

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This is the iPad, NIB, along with the official Apple iPad Holder and the always necessary AppleCare extended service warranty.

Box open, first view

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Once opened, the iPad was just sitting right on top of the box.

The new iPad, back view

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Lifting out the iPad, the first impression is the weight of it. It has some heft to it. Here we see the back, still swaddled in it’s plastic protector.

Free of packaging and plugged in

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With all of the plastic and box out of the way, I plugged the iPad into the MacBook Pro. That launched iTunes and the game was afoot.

The officai Apple holder for the iPad

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Once I made sure it was alive, I disconnected the iPad and slid it into the holder. A snug fit, but fashionably black.

Booting up!

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This is the first sync. I thought it went well, but it turned out that iTunes on the MBP decided it was a 2gb iPod, not a 32gb iPad. Irritating, but not fatal. Just started over.

And away we go…

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So, this is the very first screen of the iPad. App icons are added to subsequent screens.