Fluid: a must-have app for Mac users
Fluid is a great app for Mac users who rely heavily on web-based softwares like Google Docs, Basecamp, and Pandora. Fluid.app creates working applications out of these online tools (referred to as site-specific browsers) so that they can be launched from the Mac OSX dock, be kept in their own windows, and controled with Preferences similarly to how other regular applications can be.
You can download Fluid for free at http://fluidapp.com. Once you do, you’ll probably want to find some cool icons so that your new apps look good in your dock. You can find dock icons for over 100 popular web-based softwares in the Fluid group pool on Flickr. To get you started using the app, Scraster Professional Screencasting created a great demonstration video that you can view by clicking here or on the linked image below. If you come to enjoy Fluid, please forward the link to this video to your friends via the “share” tool on the player or tweet this URL: http://scraster.com/fluid . Thanks a lot and enjoy!
4 Convicted in Pirate Bay Case
Defendants Order To Pay $3.6 Million
LOUISE NORDSTROM, Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM — The entertainment industry won round one Friday in a legal battle against file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, with guilty verdicts and one-year prison sentences handed down to four men accused of running and financing the popular site.
The defendants vowed to appeal, setting the stage for a lengthy copyright dispute between music and movie corporations and an online swap shop they say has deprived them of billions of dollars in lost revenue.
In its landmark ruling, the Stockholm district court convicted Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom of helping millions of users illegally download music, movies and computer games.
All four received one-year terms and were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures.
“We can’t pay and we won’t pay,” Sunde said in a defiant video clip posted on the Internet. Mockingly, he held up a hand-scribbled “I owe U” note to the camera. “This is as close as you will get to having money from us,” Sunde said.
With an estimated 22 million users, The Pirate Bay has become the entertainment industry’s enemy No. 1 after successful court actions against file-swapping sites such as Grokster and Kazaa.
Lundstrom helped finance the site while the three other defendants administered it.
Defense lawyers had argued the quartet should be acquitted because The Pirate Bay doesn’t host any copyright-protected material. Instead, it provides a forum for its users to download content through so-called torrent files. The technology allows users to transfer parts of a large file from several different users, increasing download speeds.
The court found the defendants guilty of helping users commit copyright violations by providing a Web site with “sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the Web site.”
The case focused on dozens of works that the prosecutor said were downloaded illegally. They included songs by the Beatles, Robbie Williams and Coldplay, movies such as “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and computer games including “World of Warcraft — Invasion.”
Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the site was “commercially driven,” which the defendants have denied.
John Kennedy, the head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, called the verdict good news for anyone “who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will be protected by law.”
The Pirate Bay had assured users the trial wouldn’t affect the site, and it remained operational after the verdict. Authorities temporarily shut it down in May 2006 after seizing servers and computer equipment during raids in several locations in Sweden. But it soon reappeared, running on servers elsewhere.
Andre Rickardsson, a computer expert and former investigator for the Swedish security police, said the ruling could encourage the entertainment industry to threaten Internet operators with lawsuits unless they block access to the site.
File-sharing wouldn’t go away, he added, but users would likely turn to more advanced technological tools to hide their activities.
“It’s not as if people will turn around and say ‘oops, I’ll have to stop file-sharing now.’ Instead the reaction will be ‘oops, what can I do to protect myself from getting caught’.”
Sunde’s lawyer Peter Althin said he was confident that higher courts would dismiss the case against The Pirate Bay, which he described as a battle between the corporate world and “a generation of young people who want to take part of new technology.”
The verdict comes as Europe debates stricter rules to crack down on those who share content illegally on the Internet.
Last week French legislators rejected a plan to cut off the Internet connections of people who illegally download music and films, but the government plans to resurrect the bill for another vote this month.
Opponents said the legislation would represent a Big Brother intrusion on civil liberties, while the European Parliament last month adopted a nonbinding resolution that defines Internet access as an untouchable “fundamental freedom.”
Earlier this month, Sweden introduced a new law that makes it easier to prosecute file-sharers because it requires Internet Service Providers to disclose the Internet Protocol-addresses of suspected violators to copyright owners.
The country of 9 million has one of Europe’s highest rates of Internet penetration, but has also gained a reputation as a hub for file-sharers.
Statistics from the Netnod Internet Exchange, an organization measuring Internet traffic in Sweden, suggested that daily online activity dropped more than 40 percent after the law took effect on April 1.
Associated Press Writer Karl Ritter contributed to this report.
Recreate the ’70s road trip you never took with Poladroid.
Polaroid film may be going the way of the dinosaur, but for Mac users, its iconic look is here to stay, thanks to a fun new software download called “Poladroid.”
Simply drag an existing photo onto the application, sit back and watch the results appear – slowly – right before your eyes. The process is done when the red mark appears and you’ll find a full-size JPEG, complete with oversized white border, in your “Pictures” folder ready to add to your online or in-print collection. You can save a copy of the photo during any stage in the “developing” process by right-clicking on the film and choosing “I want a sample now”. But there is one catch…you only get to process ten photos per application launch as that was the limitation in the original Polaroid film cartridges.
Poladroid is free, and available for download here.
CC and the arcane BCC
* Let’s help protect the privacy of our email addresses. Share this with others and bookmark this page for the next time you need it *
Intro
Email’s been around a while. Users should know that addressing large groups of people in the To: or CC: fields of an email is inappropriate and disrespectful to all the email’s recipients. Many emailers either don’t understand how to use the BCC: field of their email clients or simply have no regard for it. This post explains how the BCC field works and why it is of such importance when emailing large groups.
Background
CC and BCC are abbreviations for two obsolete devices known as “carbon copy” and “blind carbon copy”. In the days before email and photocopying, typists or letter writers used what was called “carbon paper” to duplicate their letters. 
As a letter was created, the pressure from the pen or typeface deposited ink from an inky “carbon paper” onto a blank sheet behind it, thus creating a “carbon copy” of the original document. Blind carbon copies were used to ensure that multiple recipients of a document didn’t see the names of other recipients. CC and BCC would follow the writer’s salutation and signature at the bottom of the document, as illustrated on the right.
Why the BCC is important
If I send you a must-read joke about the leprechaun, genie, and nun in Burger King, and I leave 100 other undisclosed email addresses either in the To: field or the Cc: field, those email addresses will be visible if those 100 recipients forward the email. If each of those people forward my hilarious joke in the same wreckeless way as I did, your email address is already in the inboxes of 10,000 people you probably don’t know. If they do the same (entirely unlikely and I don’t doubt your understanding of exponential growth, but humor me), your email is in one million inboxes. To have your email address in the hands of so many strangers — or any strangers at all — is less than ideal, and the easiest invitation there is for more spam.
In some cases, such as event planning and local activism, it makes sense to create a dialog between a group of people by using the CC. What’s dangerous is that if someone is peripherally involved in the conversation, they will still be receiving every email that’s sent with the inconsiderate “Reply All”. For instance, an old acquaintance I met at a wedding two years ago (haven’t spoke since) recently sent an email with 200 of his closest friends in the CC (four of whom I knew). What I was afraid would happen happened. For the next hours and days, I was inundated with back and forth “reply all” emails regarding where we should all do New Years. “How about Madagascar!” “I think we should stay right here in Philly!”, etc… Then, inevitably, there was the backlash of emails from strangers that said things like “TAKE ME OFF THIS DAMN THREAD” and “Unsubscribe”. All this can be avoided with the BCC.
Belaboring the Point
I’ve had the same personal email address for ten years. It’s a cool address at a cool domain and I actually pay $30/year to own it. I’m very protective of my email address and would hate for it to suffer the fate of so many other people’s email accounts that get bombed out to the point of uselessness with spam about penis pills, watches, hot stock picks, Russian mail order brides, Nigerian princes that want to share their wealth with me, etc… I take every measure to maintain the privacy of my email address because it is as valuable to me as the privacy of my phone number. This is why I get upset — and I am not alone — when my address is among a slew of other addresses in an email I know is bound to be forwarded on by other people ignorant of the basic rules of netiquette. Don’t send forwards. It’s lame. If you do, strip them of the email addresses that precede the content and use the BCC!
In all desktop email clients (like Outlook, Outlook Express, Entourage, Mac Mail, or Thunderbird) as well as all web-based email services (like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL), you should have the following fields available when you create an email: To, Cc:, Bcc:, and Subject. If you don’t see the BCC: field in your Compose view, click on the name of your client above to find out how to access it.
By addressing the email to yourself and inserting your recipient’s email addresses or your mailing list name into the BCC: field, your email will be sent to each of your recipients without them being able to see the other recipients. In some cases, they may see that the email was sent to a list of “undisclosed recipients”, but most of the time, it appears that the email has been sent from you — to you.
Minimizing unwanted email
Please do your part to protect the privacy of the email addresses of your friends, family, and co-workers. Understand that many chain letters, warnings about computer viruses, threats about the do-not-call list and other popular forwards are the mythical work of spammers trying to snowball email addresses. You can debunk many of the questionable email forwards you get by a simple Google search of the email’s subject line, and sites like Snopes are at your disposal to dispel what smells too fishy to be true.
If your friend, family member or co-worker continually sends you email where your address is disclosed and you’re uncomfortable with it, link them here by using the ShareThis button below. Alternatively, figure out a polite way of telling them to either use the BCC or to remove you from their address book. If handled respectfully, the offending sender will be appreciative that you’ve taught them something new. For your convenience, a few different sample emails are available here for you to copy and paste into your email.
Thanks for reading this post about email etiquette. Keep this reference guide handy by bookmarking the page so that you can refer others here when necessary. If you think this post can be improved, feel free to leave your comments below.
More resources:
Break the Chain
13 Things Every Net User Should Know
Snopes, the Urban Myth Buster
Thanks to the following resources, which were useful in the creation of the above:
Wikipedia
University of Idaho Information Technology Services
Writing for Design Professionals by Stephen A. Kliment
SizzlingKeys: Global iTunes controller for Mac
Sizzling Keys for Mac is by far the most used and most valuable application in my arsenal. It is one of my Startup Items, which means I don’t have to manually open it – it opens on start up.
With global keyboard shortcuts that you can assign, Sizzling Keys works as a universal controller of your iTunes. While you’re working in any other app, a combination of keys can pause, skip track, or change the volume of your iTunes music, saving you the trouble of popping up your iTunes window with Apple+tab or the mouse. As you know, any way to avoid touching your mouse is increasing your efficiency. If you listen to iTunes a lot, SizzlingKeys is huge.
Sizzling Keys’ functions are not limited to pausing, searching or volume control. You can assign it to do a lot more. Best of all, it’s a free download. The Pro edition, which doesn’t cost (or offer) much more, is available for $5. Click here to download Sizzling Keys. And visit YellowMug.com when you get a chance to check out a lot of other cool, cheap, and hella useful solutions.
Get Behind This:
