I’ve looked at possible cross-platform mobile device development frameworks, and came across Appcelerator a company with the product “Titanium”, which ordinarily is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. However, if at any time I decide I need extra functionality than that provided by the default product the Titanium+Plus modules such as the urban airship module are available. I almost downloaded the demo module but stopped to check out the Terms assigned by ticking the agree box to get through to the download; it is here that I became flabbergasted and appalled that a) nobody has mentioned this before, and b) that it is even allowed to happen.

I along with countless others have opened a wireless network to allow strangers access via an internet connection that I pay for. I charge a modest amount which helps towards my internet charges (but doesn’t completely negate them), but primarily it’s open to allow others access when they would ordinarily be unable such as due to a problem on their line. However, my comment today is about an exciting new effort from the the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has published a call-to-arms over the short-term goal of getting more networks to open a portion of their bandwidth to passers-by, and the long-term goal of creating a new wireless standard that allows for encrypted communications over free wireless networks.

In recent news: Sun Microsystems has been targeted for takeover by Oracle. The deal is expected to complete by the end of the summer. Oracle and Sun have both published an FAQ which I briefly looked over. The bit that caught my eye is the wording to the effect that “[Oracle] remains committed to Linux”. Does that mean Oracle are going to push code from Solaris into Linux, eventually dropping the former, or that they are going to retain Solaris for High-end deployments?

I’ve been working increasingly on Windows Vista, as my desktop system’s Linux support is very minimal at the moment. The only Linux distro I’ve managed to get running on it so far is the *buntu series (7.04), but the Ubuntu binary nVidia packages are missing libwfb or some such which is required for the GeForce 8800 series nVidia graphics cards to operate. This means that I’m reduced to using the desktop with the rather unimpressively performing ‘nv’ driver that comes with the Xorg X server.

It looks like there’s a new social network emerging. This one is different, though, in that rather than you putting content onto their system, they trawl the internet looking for references to yourself or your email address. You can also provide hints as to where you hang out, e.g. your facebook/myspace/linkedin profile pages, your homepage and so on. The system then checks how active you are, and how many people’s lives you influence.

So, I decided to get mobile broadband on a whim for my holiday (I’m writing this on the broadband connection. Because I wanted it for the holiday, and I only decided the day before we left, I went into town to the 3 store to see what they had. It turns out that they had a special offer on the mobile broadband for “existing customers”. This meant that I could get the mobile broadband at half price with a new phone and contract.