I Never Promised You an Organic Garden

I originally posted this entry about Prism on the Summersault Weblog, but because I think it is such a great program, I want to share it here as well:

I recently found a neat little application that has been useful both at work and in my at-home computing. It is called Prism, and what it does is allow you to run your favorite web applications (Remember the Milk, Facebook, Google Calendar, etc.) as if they were desktop applications. Because it was built on the Firefox engine, it will run any web applications you can run in your Firefox browser.
Prism is still currently considered a prototype because it is under development by Mozilla Labs, but it seems to function quite well. I used it to access our VOIP-powered phone call routing panel at work and my Remember the Milk to-do list at home. It has resulted in a significant reduction of frustration caused by misplaced or closed browser windows and reduces the time it takes to reach my information because it is available at the click of a button on my desktop.

Getting Prism
Prism is very easy to use and available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux users. To start using Prism, simply download the appropriate version and install it on your computer. (Eventually, Mozilla hopes to integrate Prism into Firefox so you don’t even have to download and install a new program, but for now, it is still necessary.)

Once Prism is installed, start the program, and it will display an Install Web Application window.
Enter the URL of the application you want to use, a name for the application , and the locations you would like shortcuts to appear. Then click OK , and Prism will create shortcuts in the locations you specified and start the application.

For anyone who regularly uses web applications as a part of their work flow or daily life, Prism is a great solution for bridging the gap between web applications and desktop applications.

As the Presidential campaign heats up and we move closer to the 2008 elections, the potential problems with electronic voting become more and more pressing. Between the lack of a paper trail, closed-source software, and the hackability of voting kiosks, there are some serious potential concerns.

Personally, I think if done the right way, electronic voting could be safe and possible, but it would require open-source software, stronger checks and balances, a paper trail, and most importantly, our shadowy overlords preventing Diebold from leaking the election results early:

Definitely makes you think!

A Connecticut federal judge has ruled that the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) “making available” theory, in which they claim than individuals are breaking copyright law simply by making files available to download on file sharing websites, is insufficient because

““without actual distribution of copies…. there is no violation [of] the distribution right.” 4 William F. Patry, Patry on Copyright § 13:9 (2007); see also id. N. 10 (collecting cases); Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146, 1162 (9th Cir. 2007).”

Now the RIAA must prove that “actual dissemination” of a copy took place in order to accuse someone of distributing copyrighted music; a much more difficult task. This is a small but important victory for all the people the RIAA has been suing without cause and with reckless abandon. And after the RIAA’s recent attempts to force colleges to provide deterrents and “alternatives” to peer-to-peer piracy or run the risk of losing all federal financial aid for their students, it is nice to see someone reining them in.

After falling out of the public eye, Net Neutrality is once again back in center stage with a new bill surfacing in Congress.  The new bill, dubbed the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008,” adds a “Broadband Policy” section to the Communications Act.  It will require the FCC to look into current policies and ensure that the ISPs aren’t blocking or delaying traffic to any websites unreasonably.  The bill will also require the FCC to hold at least eight public “broadband summits” to “assess competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice issues related to broadband Internet access services.”

All in all the bill does not actually do anything to write Net Neutrality into law; it simply requires the FCC to do more to keep the net neutral.  To me this seems like a small step in the right direction, but it still leaves opportunity for ISPs and telecoms to continue using their money to influence the powers that be and reverse the neutral status of the internet.

To find out more about Net Neutrality and why it is so important, checkout my most recent posting on the Summersault Weblog.