Mozilla has released
- Firebird 0.7, A better browser
- Mozilla 1.5, A better browser suite
- Thunderbird 0.3, A better Email-News client.
So why not make this a Microsoft Free Friday and try these out. They're all small downloads, easy to install and just work (better).

Here's the full SP.

A couple of interesting releases by mozilla.org. First of all Mozilla 1.5 was released. This is supposed to be the last version of the old Mozilla suite. Mozilla Firebird 0.7, the stand-alone browser by mozilla.org was also released today. It includes many new features, e.g. Web Panels. For more information see the newly designed product page for Firebird. A third release is the stand-alone version of the Mozilla mail-program Thunderbird , which has now reached version 0.3.

The Mozilla Foundation also launched new end user services, like CD Sales and Telephone Support. As an effort to target more end-users, a redesigned website was also created.

As always MozillaZine has all of the stories, too. Give these new releases a try, but please use a mirror if possible. [from: JB Ecademy]

There's been two recent posts asking about home wifi installations connected to ADSL. I've also been asked offline what to recommend. Although there were several suggestions I still feel confused.

Most ADSL modems in the UK seem to have a USB connection rather than an ethernet connection. I've only been able to find a single router that uses USB on the internet side and that doesn't have WiFi. This is the Draytek 2200.

So now we have two options.

The first is to put in an ADSL modem with ethernet. The we can choose from a large number of virtually identical boxes from all the major manufacturers. Linksys, Dlink, Buffalo, Belkin, Netgear, etc, etc, all sell a 802.11g WiFi access point with 4 ethernet ports and a built in Router, Firewall, NAT. You can buy these in any PC World for around £125.00 I don't know how to choose between them and don't have the personal experience to make a recommendation so you can either go for a name brand, cheapest or read all the reviews and try and make your mind up.

The second is to buy a box that has a 802.11g WiFi access point with 4 ethernet ports and a built in Router, Firewall, NAT but also has an ADSL modem built in. You junk or return the USB modem. It looks like Draytek and possibly DLink make these. You may or may not then have problems with your ISP because you're using a modem they don't recognise or understand.

Next we come to Cable which basically means NTL. Originally NTL used to supply Motorola ethenet modems but now their supplying USB modems. We're in exactly the same situation except that I don't think anyone makes a combo box with a built in cable modem. Or at least not at an acceptable price.

So let's say we've now navigated successfully through the hardware minefield. The next problem is that one or more of these boxes now has to connect to the ISP. This is typically one of three options. PPPOA, PPPOE and DHCP+MAC. The first two are ID+Password systems and are common on ADSL. The catch is that not all of the hardware above supports both standards and both types are in use in the UK on ADSL. So can anyone fill in the blanks and say which ISPs use which system and which hardware boxes support it? The last DHCP+MAC is typically used by cable. It just means that the cable connection is tied to a MAC serial number in the modem and the first device after the modem is given a dynamic IP by DHCP. Given that we're going to have to use the cable modem and all the boxes support upstream DHCP this is not going to be a problem. Probably.

So now we've got an internet connection coming into the house and this is being shared by a wireless WIFI LAN and 4 wired ethernet ports. The next task is configuring this and connecting devices but I'll leave that for another day.

Clearly there's quite a lot of blanks in the description above. And I'm still not giving you complete answers and shopping lists. Can anyone help out here? And if you think you can, please provide some hard data with URLs, product numbers and shops. [from: JB Wifi]

So how does this work then? Boingo Wireless partners with The Cloud and so get 2,500 hotspots in the UK. Except that The Cloud has already partnered with BT Openzone. $21.95 per month for unlimited usage vs £85 per month unlimited over the same hotspot? [from: JB Wifi]

I've done some more work on the SeaWiki - Home Page. Hopefully this will make it clearer what I'm trying to do. There's also much updated sample code for the client.php and server.php. And a Drupal authentication module that implements the client side.

In the process, I discovered a schema for vCards in RDF. I'm wondering why there's so much overlap here with FOAF tags.

This has also raised some questions about how the remote auth works in Drupal when working with a remote Drupal site. I'll flesh these out later.

Then there's the discovery that Deanlink generates FOAF. Here's Zack's sample.

A standard way of serializing RDF in YAML would be an interesting exercise.

BTW. Any thoughts that ReST + YAML could be a replacement for XMLRPC or that RSS and Atom could be reworked via s/XML/YAML/ should be banished the moment they arise. They are much too disruptive and likely to cause a complete melt down of certain sections of the interweb during the ensuing flame war.

emotion : LOL

The Social Software Weblog is one of the first of Jason Calacanis' commercial weblogs from Weblogs Inc. Which is all well and good, but where's the RSS, Comments, Trackback, FOAF and all that other Movable Type goodness? Can anyone work out what platform they're using? And the posts are from someone hiding behind "Weblogs, Inc. Staff". Having said all that the content is quite good.

Incidentally, there's what looks suspiciously like a job advert for journalists who want to blog for money on the sites. [from: JB Ecademy]

Smart Mobs points at Jon Stahl pointing at a thread on Howard Dean's campaign blog where they're brainstorming tools for political activism (phew). Jon (or was it Howard) has summarised the 173 posts so far into at least 23 (fnord) key suggestions.

The one I really like is to run a copy of Bugzilla to track issues. This is something that should actually be done at every level of politics. Of course, we (the electorate) should be able to post bugs in the social fabric. Discuss them, categorise them, allocate responsibility and check them off when they are fixed and tested. It's the perfect geek solution to open government.

But also of course, it would never work.I mean "Society" is not an open source development project, now is it. You can't check the local school out of CVS, fix it and then check it back in. You can't run the benchmark test suite against version 1.02 of the Health system after the nightly build.

There's something happening here and what it is ain't exactly clear. And it may even herald a radical change in political process where we finally get some real participation. Or is it just the shift of power from the genuinely wealthy power class to the moderately wealthy middle class while still leaving two thirds of the population dis-enfranchised. And maybe it's still encouraging politicians to play their power games without actually changing anything. [from: JB Ecademy]

That asshole, Chris Locke never called me an asshole. And that asshole, Dave Winer has never called me an asshole in public. For that, that asshole, Julian Bond says he's truly thankful.

We may not do Burning Man in the UK, but we can do The Big Green Gathering. And one star attraction there this year was the iTrike: The World's First Solar-Powered Internet Rickshaw! which provided WiFi connected Internet access to a satellite base station, streaming video and music all while sitting in a sofa and being gently pedaled round the campsite. Yes. That is a giant pantomime Zebra next to the giant fluffy sheep. [from: JB Wifi]

OhMyGod! Like gag me wth a spoon! It's the official George Dubya Bush Campaign Blog!

You've got to admire a website that has menu options for both "Compassion" and "Homeland Security"

Come on Tony Blur. Get with the program. It's time you had one too. [from: JB Ecademy]

Quick and dirty solution to putting your Skype account on your profile. People can then click on it to call you.

Cut and paste this into your profile notes.



and change your_skype_id to your Skype ID.

eg



If enough people want this I'll add it as a field on the database. [from: JB Ecademy]

Most cable and ADSL modems these days have a USB port rather than ethernet. You typically have to pay extra for an ethernet connection. This makes sense as it means that the connected PC can use it's typical one ethernet port to share the connection with a LAN without having to install an extra port.

So why do none of the consumer grade WiFi Router/AP/Hub combination boxes have a USB port for the WAN side of the box? Surely direct connection to an ADSL or Cable modem is their primary market?

If you have this setup of a USB modem and Ethernet Wifi box, how are you supposed to rig everything up? ADSL - Modem - PC - WiFI - LAN ? In which case, the router functions are unused. Or do you have to buy a USB-Ethernet adapter to go ADSL - Modem - Adapter - Wifi. [from: JB Wifi]

SEA - Simple External Authentication or Simple Single Sign On for the rest of us now has a mailing list and a wiki.

Mailing list

Wiki

I'd meant to post this earlier but have had a little time out. Anyway here's some thoughts on the WiFi event.

1) The panel seemed to be perfectly OK with a private individual using whatever open access point they found. This is a real position that I mostly agree with from a pragmatic point of view. However I really wonder whether the guy from SUN understood what he was suggesting. If someone in SUN put in a rogue Access point inside their firewall would they really be OK with me using it from outside the building?

I know that this is a grey area where the law clearly says that un-authorised access is illegal. But I'm puzzled about the real world implication. It's not hard to configure Win XP to auto-associate with open access points. Now if an AP is unencrypted, responds to DHCP, provides an internet gateway and my laptop uses it and then downloads email with no interaction from me, It's pretty hard to see what harm I'm causing, or what bad intent I have. And again in the real world, it's pretty unlikely that anyone will notice or prosecute me. So without saying whether it's right or wrong, legally or morally, you have to end up going "who cares".

2) The advice from several panel members about securing your use of a public (or private) access point was to use a VPN. And I and others sat there listening to this and thought "Hmm? VPN? to where exactly?" Now if I was an employee from a large corporate wth a large IT department, and I was using internal systems then I'd agree absolutely and I'd expect the IT dept to sort it all out so that my access was secure. But for the rest of us as private individuals, or employees of SMEs, or BigCo employees who aren't using internal apps, all we really want to do is surf the web and deal with email. For the web surfing, security is either irrelevant, or should be secured with https in the normal way.

So that leaves us with email. Now just about the only security issues with email are exposing the password and being able to send email. The first can be solved with TLS/SSL encryption. The second can be solved with SMTP AUTH again secured with SSL. And if we're concerned about keeping the email contents secure then we should be using S/Mime or pgp. Now SSL and SMPT/AUTH are supported by almost all email readers and typically only require a couple of extra checkboxes to configure. So the only problem left is that our typical ISP's email or corporate email system don't yet support SSL and SMTP AUTH.

So we should be demanding that our ISPs support these standards, perhaps as a premium service. We should be demanding that our IT dept support them. And if they don't then we should be using "wires only" broadband with a boutique email only ISP that does all this as well as spam blocking and virus checking. And for the WISPs and Hotspot operators, there's a secondary business for you. [from: JB Wifi]

I've been trying various VoIP systems both at home and on Wed afternoon over the WiFi service at Cafe Grand Prix. Here's a quick summary.

MSN Messenger. I've never been able to get audio or video to work with full support going both ways. There always seems to be some firewall or NAT problem. MSN6 seems to be marginally easier than ealier versions and Netmeeting. Bu like I say I've never managed to get a full two way audio and video link. Attempts in the last week and over the WiFi failed as usual.

FWD. I've had success in the past using standard SIP systems along with FWD's SIP proxy to get through firwalls. However on the WiFi both my SIP clients failed to connect through the gateway. This was using SJPhone and XTen Xlite. Presumably some essential ports wer being blocked.

Skype. It just worked. No firewall problems. Good quality. No difference between home and wifi. One conversation was with a guy in Spain and the quality was at least as good as a cellphone. Another conversation was with someone using a laptop with the built in mic and speakers. Until he'd said, I couldn't tell. The one thing to be aware of is background noise such as music as this can increase the bandwidth needed and hence reduce quality if the bandwidth is limited.

So even though Skype is proprietary, the combination of hype, PR and code quality looks like winning out. And using it from a WiFi hotspot seems to be trivial.

Now this brings up the last issue. Most paid for Hotspots use a captive webpage for sign in. This is fine as long as your device has a browser. But if your device is a dedicated VoIP phone, you may be stuck. This probably means that the minimum device is a PDA. And it also means we're still a long way from VoIP over WiFi being anything like as easy as using a cellphone. [from: JB Wifi]

My VoIP over WiFi report is here. [from: JB Ecademy]

What are the news sources you regularly read for information about WiFi? Do you know of any others with an RSS feed? I'll start:-

802.11 Planet http://www.80211-planet.com/
80211b News http://wifinetnews.com/
Channel 'wifi' http://topicexchange.com/t/wifi/
CNET WiFi http://www.news.com/
Computerworld Mobile/Wireless News http://www.computerworld.com/
CYBERFROST.net http://www.cyberfrost.net/weblog.php
DailyWireless http://www.dailywireless.org/
E3 http://www.e3.com.au/
GoogleNews: WiFi WLAN 80211
http://news.google.com/news?num=15&scoring=d&q=wifi+OR+WLAN+OR+80211
InfoWorld: Wireless http://staging.infoworld.com/cgi/redesign/subjectindex.wbs?
year=&month=§ion=&startcount=1&topic=WIRELESS
Muniwireless http://www.muniwireless.com/reports/
net stumbler dot com http://www.netstumbler.com/
Network World on Wireless and Mobile http://www.nwfusion.com/topics/wireless.html
O'Reilly Wireless Dev Center http://meerkat.oreillynet.com/
Reiter's Wireless Data Web Log http://reiter.weblogger.com/
Sifry's Alerts http://www.sifry.com/alerts/
Techdirt Wireless News http://techdirt.com/news/wireless/
Voxilla http://www.voxilla.com/
Warchalking http://www.warchalking.org/
WiFi Tech http://www.wifitech.com/ [from: JB Wifi]

Websites within 100 miles of Ecademy

The localfeed from London weblogs. And in RSS.

Perhaps we should add this to DailEnews? [from: JB Ecademy]

Bruce Sterling's Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die

1. Nuclear Weapons
2. Coal-based power
3. The Internal-Combustion Engine
4. Incandescent Light Bulbs
5. Land Mines
6. Manned Spaceflight
7. Prisons
8. Cosmetic Implants
9. Lie Detectors
10. DVDs

Incidentally Bruce has a catalogue of all his online work here. Now where's the RSS file? [from: JB Ecademy]

I've now implemented half of Drupal's remote authentication. If you go to any Drupal site, you can log in and create a user record by using your ecademy ID and password. So for instance you can go to drupal.org and log in with id= your_ecademy_login@ecademy.com and password= your_ecademy_password.

I'm working on the reverse of this. To be able to create a user record and login to Ecademy using credentials that are validated against other Drupal, jabber, blogger or whatever sites.

If anyone is interested in trying to extend this to a much more general (but low tech) single sign on system please get in touch. [from: JB Ecademy]