This is a script written in Python that combines two images into a single dual screen wallpaper so you can have different wallpapers on two monitors. It can be run automatically to randomly change your wallpapers at set intervals. It is intended for Gnome users who like to change their wallpapers often but dislike having to create dual-screen wallpapers in Gimp (like me).

The code is very poorly written and relies on a few assumptions: (1) you have a single, writable directory with wallpapers, (2) this directory contains only image files (jpg, gif, png), (3) either your monitors are the same aspect ratio, or you don’t mind some stretching/squishing (though there’s a half-fix if you read the comments in the code), (4) you’re comfortable editing the first few lines to configure your screen layout. This is my first Python script. It’s not terribly bulletproof or feature rich but it does the job. Once I’m a bit more comfortable with Python, I’ll probably write an improved version with more options and error checking.

Edit the code below and save it somewhere (e.g. ~/.scripts/wallswitcher.py) then execute it with: python ~/.scripts/wallswitcher.py

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Lately I’ve felt that I’ve gotten too lazy. Ubuntu requires almost no work to get running and I have little to no idea what all the fancy stuff they’re doing actually means. So I’m ditching Ubuntu (on my personal desktop, anyway) and installing Gentoo. For my own records and to help anybody else who has similar troubles, I’m keeping a journal of everything here.

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If you’re reading this on Facebook, click here for the video.

Everybody thinks Rupert Murdoch is crazy for wanting to hide his web properties from Google, but I’ve been thinking: maybe he has a point. Bloggers and podcasters say that Rupert doesn’t understand the Internet; I think they’re probably right but I also think the bloggers and podcasters are too understanding of the Internet. They (we?) put out content for free and whenever something comes along that makes an old media guy like Rupert uncomfortable they just brush it off and laugh: “That’s the Internet for ya.”

Don’t get me wrong, I like Google and I mostly trust Google, but I can see how what they do might be called unfair. When they index websites, they make a copy. Somewhere hidden in an abandoned missile silo (I assume) they have a vast array of computers mirroring the Web. When you search, Google searches these computers and presents you with a link and a little snippet of text from the site. Everybody generally agrees that the little snippet is fair use. But what about that underground data centre? It’s a huge asset for Google and it is made up of content they copied from other people. Think about it this way: if you go to the library, look up a definition for a word and quote it in an essay, that is fair use; but if you go to the library, photocopy the entire dictionary and take it home so you can look stuff up later, what is that? Google takes home the entire library. It’s not the display that is the problem, it’s the process before the display.

But, people say, Google is providing a service. True, but they’re also capitalizing on other people’s work without paying. Further, Google’s copy of a particular website is a valuable asset whether or not Google ever sends traffic to that site. But, they continue, if you want to exclude them, you can just put a robots.txt file on your site. Also true, but if you do that then your site may as well not exist. Google won’t offer to pay to get a single site into their search engine. But, the conclude, this is the way the Internet works now, search engines index and don’t pay to do so. True again, but does it have to work this way? Why shouldn’t search engines pay sites that they index? (I can actually think of a number of extremely practical reasons but for present purposes I’ll pretend I can’t) Just because something works one way now, doesn’t mean we all just have to accept it.

[Added Mon, Nov 30, 2009] My first website went online in 1997. For 12 years, I’ve been ecstatic every time somebody read something I posted. I imagine many bloggers feel the same way. It leads us to disregard a property right that we have. When Rupert comes along with his old media view, he’s shocked. We’re all just giving Google our content; Google is making money from it and giving us nothing in return. Back in his day, people wouldn’t have stood for it and he’s not going to stand for it now. Google provides a commercial service on the back of what may be massive copyright infringement, it’s something worth thinking about.

In trying to figure out where the value comes from, ask yourself this question: who would last longer, Google without content, or content without Google?

I finally got a new phone last week: the HTC Hero (Telus). It has been a week, here’s what I think. Summary: this is the best phone I’ve ever owned. Disclaimer: it’s the first smartphone I’ve ever owned. Acknowledgement: this phone was released many months ago in the US and there are much better reviews of it already.

When I heard Telus and Bell were getting the iPhone, I put off renewing my contract. I thought that with increased competition for iPhone customers, they and Rogers would release better data plans (I was wrong). At the same time as I was dying to get the iPhone, I felt kinda bad. I’m not a huge fan of Apple. Yes, I have a Mac, but it’s only because I’m tired of plastic laptops breaking on me (my first four laptops all developed cracks and started to fall apart). Apple is evil, and not in the kind of endearing, bumbling way that Microsoft is evil, but rather summoned with the aid of a pentagram evil (I exaggerate). Rogers was also selling two Android phones, but they were bulky, long obsolete models. Luckily for me, along with the iPhone, Telus also released the HTC Hero. Which is only recently obsolete (gotta love the choices we have in the Canadian cellphone market). I teetered back and forth on the issue and, almost entirely on impulse, I bought the Hero (I was right in the middle of negotiating my iPhone plan when I changed my mind). I have not been disappointed.

The Phone

There are two models of Heroes: the one with the chin and the one without. Thankfully, Canada got the one with the chin. I think the chin makes it distinctive and it just feels really natural in my hand. I don’t find it difficult to fit in pockets at all. It has a rubberized back that feels smooth. I can’t really compare it to the iPhone fairly because I’ve never held an iPhone that wasn’t in a protective case. I don’t feel the need to put this phone in a case (though I’m considering buying a screen protector) as it seems neither flimsy nor prone to scratches.

The camera kinda sucks. It’s nice 5 megapixels, but it just has a tough time focusing. Sample images: indoors and outdoors (they aren’t uploaded at full resolution).

It has an onscreen keyboard. I’m not sure whether this fits better here, or under the next section, but I’ll discuss it here. It’s fairly easy to use. It has a great autocorrect feature that gives you four alternate words you might have intended to type (based on probable typos). I seldom hit all the right keys, but I’ve learned to trust the autocorrect. It’s like magic.

I’ve so far managed to get about 12 hours of heavy use on a single charge. It would definitely last through an entire day or more if I wasn’t playing with it all the time. You can increase the battery life by not having as many applications running and by turning off things like GPS and Wifi.

Android

The Hero runs Android (which is a mobile operating system developed-ish by Google). Android is great. You get a customizable desktop with widgets (that display things like Facebook updates, weather, and your task list) and, more importantly, you get multi-tasking. Why is that important? I’ll have to compare with the iPhone here.

On the iPhone. You can have a single application running at a time. When you close the application, it is closed. If the application gets information off the Internet, it can only do this while you have the application open. You can’t set a timer in an application and have it notify you later. Apple has somewhat addressed this with push notifications, but those require that your phone has Internet access (you aren’t on the subway) and the application has a server to send them.

On Andoid. Applications can run in the background. When the phone is on standby or you are using an application, other applications can still perform tasks, download content from the Internet, and send you notifications. The greatest application that takes advantage of this: Locale. Locale runs in the background at all times. It checks to see where I am (using GPS, cell towers, and wifi networks) and when I get to school, it puts my phone on vibrate. When I get home, it turns the ringer back on. It integrates with my todo list to notify me if I have particular tasks that can only be done in my current location (e.g., it only bugs me to buy the latest volume of my IP reader when I’m near the bookstore). This program simply can’t be made for the iPhone.

Applications

I’ve tried a bunch of applications for Android. Here are my favourites.

Locale

I already explained this one. I’ll just quote myself. “Locale runs in the background at all times. It checks to see where I am (using GPS, cell towers, and wifi networks) and when I get to school, it puts my phone on vibrate. When I get home, it turns the ringer back on. It integrates with my todo list to notify me if I have particular tasks that can only be done in my current location (e.g., it only bugs me to buy the latest volume of my IP reader when I’m near the bookstore).” Locale is free.

Astrid

Astrid is the todo list I mentioned above. Astrid allows you to create, tag, prioritize and track time spent on tasks. The tasks can be recurring and can be hidden until a specified date (e.g., “Pay credit card bill” recurs every month but is hidden until a week before the bill is due). It automatically synchronizes with Remember the Milk and Toodledo (web-based task management services). RTM has its own application, but I prefer Astrid’s interface and the way it handles location awareness. I use RTM to manage tasks from my computer (so I can type them quickly). It’s open source and free.

BeyondPod

BeyondPod manages and plays podcasts (I can only get audio podcasts to work). It does not need to be hooked up to the computer to download new ones and can even run on a schedule. My phone downloads the latest episodes of all my podcasts at 6:30 every morning over Wifi. I tried Google Listen, but BeyondPod gives you more control. It costs around $10.

Advanced Task Killer (Free)

Unfortunately, with so many programs running at once, the phone can sometimes get a little slow. Advanced Task Killer closes applications that you don’t need. You can tell it to ignore some programs completely and configure a list of programs that can all be killed with one click (if they’re running). The phone preloads a few applications that I don’t use at startup, so I run ATK at startup to automatically close all of them.

Telus’s Network

I barely get signal at home. I’m giving them a pass for the moment because the new network has only been available for two weeks and I live on the lake (so there’s only room for towers to the north). The signal downtown is strong, although it degrades quickly indoors. I wonder if that’s a feature of GSM (my old Rogers phone used to be the same way).

Plans

I don’t like my plan. It’s ridiculous. Why do cellphone companies hate their customers? Why does caller ID cost $7 a month (I admit, I’m getting it free, but the question stands)? Why do I have to buy 300 minutes of airtime and 1GB of data to get nationwide favourite numbers? Why do I have to pay extra for text messages? If text messages are data, and data overage is three cents a megabyte, then text messages should cost one ten thousandth of a penny. But at 15 cents a message, that’s $1150 a megabyte. At least they got rid of the system access fee.

Final Thoughts

If you want a much more detailed and less subjective review, I suggest reading the Engadget or Gizmodo review. I really like this phone. I’m glad I didn’t get an iPhone. I’m annoyed that it was released six months late in Canada at the same time as the Motorola Droid was released in the States. Why can’t we get cool things too?

It’s all so beautifully true. An ad bashing the iPhone.

My latest IP Osgoode post is up. In it I discuss the difference between what consumers expect when they buy digital content or a network connected device and reality. This post expands and clarifies that article.

Most people, I believe, think of all their physical possessions similarly. There is no difference between a couch and a novel as far as ownership goes. The incidents of ownership are the same: you possess the object; nobody can take it from you without permission; you can dispose of it as you please. There is, however, one significant difference between the two: the novel is a copy of a work in which the author retains rights. But physics isolates the consumer from this fact. They have a single copy and will probably never have more than a single copy. If they sell that copy, then they lose it at the very instant another person gains it. As long as the consumer treats the book as an ordinary possession, they will never have to think about IP rights. For most practical purposes, therefore, all physical possessions can be treated the same.

With digital content, however, all this changes. Rather than being given a physical object, consumers are granted a license to use the work in certain ways. This license will, at the very least, allow the consumer to possess and access copies of the work for personal enjoyment. Note that I said copies in plural. With a physical object, the owner has a single copy. The fact that they own a copy of Cryptonomicon (great book) does not give them the right to possess just any copy; it has to be that specific one. With digital content, however, you can have as many copies of the work as you want. In fact, if you buy a song from iTunes you will be told that it is your responsibility to make copies. And it shouldn’t matter where your copy comes from. If Alice and Bob both buy a song from iTunes and Bob’s hard drive crashes, then Bob should be able to just obtain a copy from Alice (at least in theory). In a real life example, if a user deletes a book from an Amazon Kindle (or lose the device), Amazon will let them download a new copy for free. This doesn’t happen with hardcover books; Bob can’t photocopy Alice’s copy of Cryptonomicon and Chapters won’t give him a new copy for less than the cover price.

In this fashion, licensing sounds pretty good. But it can give rise to strange circumstances that dealing in the physical world would not lead one to expect. Last month, Amazon remotely deleted two books from Kindle e-book readers when they learned that they did not have the right to sell the book. It sounds weird but consumers who purchased the book from Amazon didn’t purchase anything and Amazon did not take anything from them when they deleted the book; Amazon can’t give what they don’t have. Nobody would expect an employee from Chapters to come to their house and take back a hardcover book if it turned out to be counterfeit. There’s the practical difficulties, of course, but there’s also a physical item which the consumer owns. The consumer would be well within their rights to refuse to hand it over. In the case of an e-book, however, there is no interest in anything other than the license. The consumer may have other causes to complain, but they cannot claim that they had any right to keep their copy of the e-book.

The Amazon issue leads us away from ownership of digital content and into a related (and even more problematic) issue: ownership of network-connected devices. Unlike an MP3 or an e-book, the Kindle is an actual physical thing. Traditionally, consumers don’t expect manufacturers to interfere with their physical possessions after sale. Connected devices, however, routinely phone home for updates and content. This is very valuable behaviour but it isn’t always used to enhance the device. It can be used, for example, to remove the ability to skip commercials from a PVR; to block websites on a smartphone; or delete books from a Kindle. What this means is that, for better or for worse, the device someone buys is not in their own control. Why would a company want to downgrade a device? I think the best reason is to avoid liability. They have sold a device (or, in Amazon’s case, content) that has a defect of some kind and don’t want to be sued. The problem with this is that it shifts the burden of the company’s mistakes onto its customers. Amazon could have refused to delete the books but they would have been sued. Instead, they saved themselves by depriving others—although they did refund the purchase price.

That said, I don’t think that forbidding such practices is the way to go. It could very easily end up banning a lot that is useful about network-connected devices. I also think that over time an etiquette will develop over when such action is permissible and what compensation is required. Partially this will be regulatory, but the market will help define what people are willing to put up with. And I actually think that in Amazon’s case, it is defensible. If Alice sells Bob a stolen car, Bob can’t reasonably expect to keep it. Likewise with the example I used in my article of a defective reclining chair. It’s better to lose a function than a leg. Maybe companies should have to offer to buy back devices that they downgrade or offer a reasonable monetary payment.

I don’t think that we should try to force new forms of property into awkward physical molds (the music industry tried that with DRM and look where it got them). A balance has to be struck between the surety of the old ways and the flexibility of the new.

I think the problems with the above picture are pretty obvious.

I’m never going to get around to creating these web services myself, so somebody steal the ideas and do it for me… and send me a cheque if it works out for you.

Request a VCard by Email

A VCard is an XML (I believe) file that contains information about you (a virtual business card). It could contain things like your name, email, phone number, picture and address. I was thinking that it might be useful to have my phone number on my website, but I don’t like the idea of just listing it for anybody to copy down. This is where my web service comes in. I create a VCard at the website and place a link to it on my site. When a visitor needs my phone number, they go to this other website and enter their own email (free email addresses would probably need to be banned). The VCard is emailed to them. This would allow somebody to get my number easily but, in most cases, also let me know who is requesting it.

The other one

I forgot what it was. Honestly, I knew what it was just a few minutes ago. We got new carpet put in the house and I’m fairly certain that it is frying my brain. The whole house smells like a carpet store and I’ve had a headache and allergies for days. Maybe it will come back to me if I sleep a bit. ‘Tis late. I’ll probably remember the other idea when I’m driving on the highway and can’t write it down.