If you work in IT at a publicly held company, your life was changed dramatically late last year and early this year. You know what I'm talking about…SOX. You also know how "symbolism over substance" what companies are doing is. You know it doesn't really do anything but make your life harder. It makes it harder to do your job. It makes it harder to server your customers. Everything is called SOX. Everything falls under SOX.

Cyndi found this article in the Washington Post for me about it. Their site requires a free login to access it. The URL is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/18/AR2005051802255.html. Here are a few exerpts:

Leave the desk for 10 minutes and the computer screen goes dead. Why must I sign in all over again? "Sarbanes-Oxley," says the poor soul in the tech department.

This all-powerful Sarbanes-Oxley turns out to be a law Congress passed in 2002 after the Enron collapse to protect investors by forcing publicly held businesses to more accurately report information about themselves.

Nothing in the law specifically requires companies to turn cubicle life into a journey through the stages of hell. But that's how the law is being interpreted across the land. Sen. Paul Sarbanes, the Maryland Democrat who is retiring next year, has had to watch what he thought of as a guardian of ordinary investors' assets being transformed into a scapegoat for all things annoying at the office.

"You have some way-out requirements, and the company says that's what Sarbanes-Oxley says we have to do, but these changes are neither in the act nor in the regulations implementing the act," Sarbanes tells me. "I don't know where some of these things came from."

"It's absurd how the law is being used to justify these silly timeouts and constant demands for you to type in your password. The law is just being used as an excuse for placing restrictions on workers."

Sarbanes sighs at how his name is being taken in vain as a nation of office workers grouses about new incursions on their time and sanity. "Some people in the business world think it's unnecessary regulation," he says, "but look at the price we paid with Enron and those scandals in losses of jobs and confidence in our capital markets. We didn't set out to create onerous requirements. We were confronted with these gross abuses, and we set out to protect the American investor."

Now, Sen. Sarbanes says it isn't what he meant. It isn't what the law meant. Well, we can learn two things from this

1. The law needs to say what is meant.
2. Business will take symbolism over substance to try and comply with what the law says.

So, we need smaller government and business that thinks.

When we moved to Richmond, we got Comcast broadband. Here is how its speed looks:

Have you ever wanted to capture a video of something on your computer screen? A buddy of mine (Alan) recently wanted to do just that. He went looking and found an app called CamStudio. If you ever need to do something like this, CamStudio is easy to use and works.

Several months ago, I looked into using VoIP. I was serious into Vonage, and even looked at selling LightYear's service. I did some very brief research and decided NOT to use VoIP because the voice data was unencrypted once it went out on the wire. It was tough to stick to my decision, and people tried to convince me otherwise; however, I'm glad I did. Want to know how easy it is? Here is a link to an article on dslreports.com describing how easy it is to "tap" a VoIP call. Enjoy!

I have a free subscripton to Software Development magazine. In May's issue, they have an article talking about hardware "must-haves." One of the things they mention is the OQO. This is a real computer but is the size of a PDA. I tried to link to the article on the Software Development website but it requires a subscription and is TERRIBLY slow. So, I scanned the portion of the article talking about the OQO. To read it, click the thumbnail below.

For those of you still stuck on Internet Explorer as a web browser, Firefox is a great alternatative. One of the really cool things about it is tabbed browsing. It is awesome!

Firefox also allows for plugins. Essentially, they are applications that "live" within Firefox. My friend Bill has a list of the plugins he uses most on his blog.

Does anyone remember the ¢ sign? Don't see it too much anymore, do you? Ever want to type one on your computer? Well, it is fairly easy. On a Windows computer, simply hold down the ALT key and type 0162 on your numeric keypad. When you are done typing, let go of the ALT key and you will see the character appear. Enjoy!

¢

Ever wish you knew if there were any security issues with any of the applications you use? Well, CERT can help. They have e-mail alerts, etc… For more information, visit their website here.

Established in September 2003, US-CERT is a public-private partnership charged with improving computer security preparedness and response to cyber attacks in the United States. US-CERT is responsible for

• analyzing and reducing cyber threats and vulnerabilities
• disseminating cyber threat warning information
• coordinating incident response activities

 

For those of you who don’t know what is going on, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in MGM Studios v. Grokster today. This case is the modern high-tech equivalent of the 1983 Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios betamax case.

The question the court is really being asked to decide is “Who is responsible for the actions of an individual”. This question is really the same question the court had to decide in 1983. Was Sony responsible for how people used their betamax VCRs or was the person? Is Grokster responsible for the files people share using its application? Are firearms manufactures responsible when criminals use guns to commit crime and murder people? Is microsoft responsible when people copy CDs using a computer running windows?

In their zeal to limit illegal copying and distribution of media these companies are treading on dangerous ground. The corporations who make this technology are not responsible for what their end users do with the technology. Just like firearms can be used legaly (hunting, self-defense, etc…) or illegally (to commit crimes and murder people), Grokster can be used to legally transfer files. Not everyone restricts the use of their copyrighted material to the degree that traditional media companies have. Just think about all the open source software that could be transferred via these file sharing tools. How about all the classic literature that is in the public domain and in a digial format thanks to Project Gutenberg.

Then, what ramifications will this have on the concept of Fair Use? Regardless of what they may say, it is perfectly leagal for me to copy a CD I purchased onto a cassette so I can listen to it in my car. It is perfectly legal for me to rip a CD I purchased to mp3s so I can listen to them on my ipod.

Fair Use is fairly important because it allows for things like quoting articles, making parodies, etc…. It ensures that we can use “stuff” we have leagally acquired in certain ways that are “fair”. Imagine if you had to get permission from someone to quote two or three sentences from their book and write a scathing review of it. It would be hard to show examples of why you didn’t like something, wouldn’t it?

What is illegal is me making copies and distributing them. I know, I know, you are saying but I don’t charge anything…it’s legal as long as I give it away. Plain and simple, IT IS ILLEGAL. The copyright holder has all the rights regarding distibution, etc…. So, unless they have told you otherwise (either by licensing the content under something like the GPL or Creative Commons or by them telling you it’s ok) you cannot distribute their “stuff”.

Anyway, I have digressed. I agree that we need to curb intelectual property theft. People need to understand–clearly understand–what can and cannot be done with material. People need to understand that copying other’s “stuff” is illegal unless they tell you that you can. These media companies need to understand that we the consumer need the ability to use what we have purchased. Everyone needs to understand that just because people use something illegally doesn’t mean that thing is illegal…it simply means that that person is doing something illegal.

[Update 2012-12-26 15:43:09] The link for the sony vs universal case at http://www.virtualrecordings.com/betamax.htm didn’t work.  I replaced it with a wikipedia link.

Have you ever asked your computer geek about problems you are having with your computer? Has his answer ever been "when was the last time you defragged your hard drive?" What kind of answer is that? That doesn't help any. Now, you have to sit in front of your computer for 3, 4, 5, or 10 hours while this application ran. And to top that off, you didn't know what you were even looking at! Well, I have found the answer. Kelly's Korner has an article talking about scheduling the defragger that comes with Windows. The article can be found here. You want to scroll down to the Add a Scheduled Task section.

But, to keep you from looking it up, here are the basics:

1. — open up notepad

2. — cut and paste the following code into the text window (this is from Kelly's Korner):

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Dim fso, d, dc
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set dc = fso.Drives
For Each d in dc
If d.DriveType = 2 Then
Return = WshShell.Run("defrag " & d, 1, TRUE)
End If
Next
Set WshShell = Nothing

3. — Save the file. Make sure when you do you select all files in the Save as Type dialog box. If you don't notepad will autoappend .txt to the end of your filename. This is not what you want. You can save it where ever you want, just make sure you remember where you save it.

4. — Now, add a scheduled task to run the file. The ways to do this vary, but the control panel has a scheduled task wizard you can use to set one up.

I have mine scheduled to defrag every Saturday evening.