Comment Re:Lookig up postal codes is free (Score 1) 168
Having a list of valid addresses, even street names, from the postal code is kind of a big deal for any online retailer.
Comment Re:CP is Price-Gauging (Score 2) 168
For the "redistributable license", meaning you use the data for something other than mailing junk mail, the price went from 4K to around 45K per year. FYI, USPS licensed data of the same kind is around 2K. The same phenomenon happened in Australia (it was about 80K IIRC), again asserting bogus copyright claims over public information.
Comment CP is Price-Gauging (Score 2) 168
From personal experience, Canada Post increased ten-fold their database licensing costs. My company tried to negotiate, and the best CP proposed is some rebates for the first two years, so of course we had to drop them. So, Geocoder, good luck!
Comment Re:Canada? (Score 1) 179
I'm in Canada, and there's a "Call phone" item under the Chat section in Gmail. Installed the plugin, and it works for free for Canadian and US phone numbers. Of course, I don't have a full Google Voice account, but hey free calls are good enough.
Comment Re:I can access this from Canada (Score 1) 179
They're progressively rolling out that feature to all users. I'm in Canada and I've made a few phone calls to my landline in Canada and it works. All calls were free.
Bookmark SPAM: Banned by Apple: 9 iPhone App Rejects | iPhone News Updated
Journal Journal: Nokia 810 -- the cheaper it gets, the more tempting
One of my favorite things from this year's CES is a low-end handheld device aimed basically at teenagers (but I'm mostly a teenager in my overall lifestyle, by some measures) called the Movit, from a company called Giinii.
Submission + - Worst working conditions you had to write code in?
sausaw writes: "I recently had to write code in a hot dusty room for 20 days with temperatures near 107F (~41C); having nothing to sit on; a 64 Kbps inconsistent internet connection; warm water for drinking and a lot of distractions and interruptions. I am sure many people have been in similar situations and would like to know your experiences."
Comment Re:Ahh, the stupidity (Score 5, Funny) 1056
You mean naïveté? Your UTF-8 sucks...
Ubuntu Wipes Windows 7 In Benchmarks 781
twitter writes "Recent and controversial benchmarks for Windows 7 leave an important question unanswered: 'Is it faster than GNU/Linux?' Here, at last, is a benchmark that pits Ubuntu, Vista and Windows 7 against each other on the same modern hardware. From install time to GUI efficiency, Ubuntu beats Windows and is often twice as fast. Where Windows 7 is competitive, the difference is something the average user would not notice. The average GNU/Linux user is now getting better absolute performance from their computer as well as better value than the average Windows user."
Comment Re:Personally... (Score 1) 895
Maybe, just maybe, lots of DRM validation is actually done by Java code itself. The JVM chips in most Blu-ray players are made for "multimedia experience", not massive data crunching to validate the encryption keys. So DRM is still to blame.
Submission + - Nokia and Linux: How They Can Live Together (technocrat.net)
Bruce Perens writes: "Ari Jaaski of Nokia is concerned that the Linux developers need to learn to live with DRM, SIM-locking, and "IPR". But they won't. Fortunately, Nokia can do all that it wants with Linux, while being GPL2 and even GPL3-compatible.
The key is knowing how to draw bright lines between different parts of the system. That's a legal term, and in this case it means a line between the Free Software and the rest of the system, that is "bright" in that the two pieces are very well separated, and there is no dispute that one could be a derivative work of the other, or infringes on the other in any way. All of the Free Software goes on one side of that line, and all of the lock-down stuff on the other side."
The key is knowing how to draw bright lines between different parts of the system. That's a legal term, and in this case it means a line between the Free Software and the rest of the system, that is "bright" in that the two pieces are very well separated, and there is no dispute that one could be a derivative work of the other, or infringes on the other in any way. All of the Free Software goes on one side of that line, and all of the lock-down stuff on the other side."
Submission + - UK researchers arrested for researching al-Qaida (guardian.co.uk)
D Afifi writes: Two UK political researchers at the University of Nottingham have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for downloading Al-Qaida material from a US .gov website. The material was to be used for research in "Terrorist tactics". There has been a huge public outcry with university staff planning a march to demonstrate against the attack on Academic freedom. Yet, one of the students, an Algerian, is still held in custody under immigration charges and is being speed tracked for deportation.
Submission + - Who do I donate to? 1
jasonmanley writes: "I use an OS called DesktopBSD. The other day I gave some thought to donating some money to the project, but then I got to thinking — who would I donate to?
DesktopBSD benefit from FreeBSD and KDE among others. Should I donate to FreeBSD, or what about openSSH if they use that? In fact there are heaps of other project's software embedded in FOSS packages and I would like to know who the community thinks should get the donations."
Feed Wired: Review: 'Penny Arcade Adventures' Works It Out (wired.com)
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What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth. -- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics
