Trapped In The Steam Engine Macintosh SE: Back in the 1990s I bought one, used, an upgrade from my Mac Plus (also used; I think I paid $400 for the Plus). Modern technology that made publishing my zine, The Ray X X-Rayer , a lot easier. Now in 2010 that Mac SE is steam engine tech, relatively speaking. A self-contained small box with its undersized black and white screen and floppy drive for external storage. I liked Apple but with my budget its units were more expensive, even used, so I ended up going with a PC. So here I am, my early work trapped on that Mac SE, no real compatibility with PC units. And to add to the problem, most of the 3.5 floppies created on my Plus and SE units are 2-sided DD (double density), not the later HD (high density). I had planned to scan in the hardcopies of the first ten RX XR issues on the my PC. I could save them as PDF files and also rescue the text by OCR scanning. I carefully filed away the first ten issues. So carefully that I can't fin
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You've Been Scraped. Now What? In a prior post I discussed an uproar by some bloggers over their work being hotlinked by other sites. Because those bloggers raised a justified stink, the problems with certain sites have been resolved, i.e., the hotlinkers stopped appropriating material they didn't create. But that doesn't mean it won't happen again. So if it happens to you, what are your options? (Standard disclaimer: I ain't a lawyer. I'm just sharing some info I've found on the net.) Steve O'Donnell, a patent lawyer over at the 3C Patent blog, offers his take on the issue in his post, How many copyrights does your blog infringe? He deals with pictures being scraped, including the use of in-line links or hotlinking, but what he discusses can be applied to other works. By taking legal action against the infringer, the infringed party could win up to $150,000 per violation. O'Donnell says that what would most likely happen is the infringer cou
Hotlink Hijacking I hate parasites. Like the incompetent boob boss at work who relies on your skills and intelligence to stay in power and collect a bigger paycheck. You do the grunt work, he takes the credit. And don't get me on the topic of volunteering your time and talent for a non-profit organization that doesn't recognize your efforts. And there are plagiarists or thieves who just take your work and use it any way they want, especially to make money. Some bloggers who have been "hotlinked" have created an online uproar. Usually hotlinking refers to one site linking to an image on another site. Because the image is still on the other site's server, the linking site doesn't have to worry about increased bandwidth costs. Sorta like hopping on the back of the bus and not paying for a ticket. Everyone else pays but not you. But hotlinking can also involve taking entire posts and other material from another site. Other bloggers do the work, the hotlinke
XR #68 More misadventures putting out the hardcopy version of my zine, The Ray X X-Rayer ... Due to a restricted budget I usually photocopy my zine for people on my snail mail list. #68 had some large images that didn't reproduce that well when photocopied at a printshop. Part of the problem is the shop's photocopier is getting worn out, affecting the output quality. The other part is that photocopying doesn't reproduce as well as a direct print-out from the computer file. So I tried directly printing copies at the printshop with my zine saved as a digital format on a thumb/flash drive. The shop wanted a twelve dollar fee -- even for one copy -- to access my file on one of their machines. I went to a second printshop -- no fee -- just a charge per side. The direct print-outs were better than photocopies but didn't have the same brightness and contrast as the ones that I printed at home with my own printer. After some rough calculations it seems it costs me just as