Posers

To regualar Facebook users it's a typical week when your roomate's identity or Profile Picture alternates between Borat and Jonathan Papelbon, but word on the street is some users are taking this too far, creating accounts and posing as these famous faces online. An October 26, 2007 article published by CBC News reports on the latest Facebook outrage, Ottawa Senator faces off against Facebook phonies.

Some NHL players are worried about the number of people posing as them on the popular social networking site Facebook. Ottawa Senators forward Mike Fisher says he discovered through friends that someone on Facebook — a website where people set up profiles and exchange messages and photos — was posing as him. "You know, they were e-mailing people, saying they were me and it wasn't," Fisher said. A number of other NHL players have also complained that people are subbing for them on Facebook.

What other pro-athletes feel they are getting "played?" Click here
to find out.

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Colin RULES

Beside that he is a Red Sox superfan, Colin Rule, Director of Online Dispute Resolution for eBay/PayPal can answer almost any question you may have when it comes to these two online powerhouses. Here are some highlights from today's online lecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Colin:

• PayPal has a lot more ability to enforce because of less disputes, access to money and can do things that eBay cannot


• On PayPal, there are no unpaid items disputes, but you have 45 days after you make a payment to file a dispute


• PayPal and eBay have full-time staff comprised of former law enforcement that work very closely with cities and towns experiencing conflicts


• eBay has become so global, the need to start designing tools for the "big guys" is evident


• On eBay, counterfit items are becoming harder and harder to distinguish and take an expert to determine whether they are indeed real or fake


• eBay's advisement to buyers: "If you see a deal that's too good to be true, it probably is!"

Check out Colin Rule's blog to learn more

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Eco-Craft

If we put our minds to it everything in this country can be turned from not so environmentally kind to the latest and greatest eco-friendly. The following article from Conita.com explains what is next in this exciting movement.

Nobody tells you this, but using and disposing of a computer has negative effects on the environment. Computers are not very energy efficient and are even less so when they have a large monitor screen. In addition, the substances including cadmium, mercury and arsenic that are found in most computers are toxic which makes the discarded computer into toxic waste.

Throw Away Computers are Toxic Waste
Discarded computers are also making a huge pile in your local dump too as people abandon their old computers for the latest models. During the manufacture of computers, more water is wasted, more energy consumed and more toxic waste is created than that created by the manufacture of automobiles.

Wooden Computer will Use Less Energy
There is good news for anyone who uses a computer and who is interested in reducing his or her ecological footprint. PC World, UK manufacturers, is set to release their wooden computer to the market in October 2007. Their wooden computer, which is not named yet, uses up to 87% less energy than the conventional plastic computers use yet offers the same power and price of conventional computers. This wooden computer will be less expensive to run than a conventional computer because it will run on only 40 watts instead of other computers that use 300 watts. Another feature that cuts down on energy use is from the replacement of the LED power lit buttons with plain buttons. By using the wooden computer, it will be possible to save money on your energy bills.

Recycled Casing
The eco friendly computer will not use a fan, which will make the computer quieter than its all-plastic counterparts, and this cuts down on energy consumption. The reason it does not need a fan is that the power pack will be on the outside of the computer tower and thus will not need cooling. Also, related to the unnecessary fan issue is the fact that its recycled case will transfer heat away from the computer chip. The case will be made from recycled aluminium such as from soda pop cans and recycled plastic. Sustainable ash, beech or sapele will be used to make the casings for the screen, keyboard and mouse. These wood types were chosen for this purpose because they are sustainable woods.

Eco Friendly Computer for Eco Friendly Computer Nerds
Every aspect of the wooden computer is meant to save the planet. The computer is only about one quarter of the size of an average computer. The computer will come in packaging that has been recycled. Instead of coming with printed instructions, the computer will come with its information as provided on a CD. To compensate for the pollution released in the manufacture and delivery of the computers, the manufacturers will give buyers an energy efficient light bulb.

If the wooden computer is a hit, this will set a standard for other computer manufacturers. Manufacturers of the conventional computer types will have to consider the importance that saving our environment holds for many computer geeks. This is a good thing.

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Could've? Should've? Would've?

I recently blogged about a U.S. jury's decision regarding Minnesota Mom, Jammie Thomas who was penalized for illegally downloading music.

The latest news is brought to us straight from some of the case's jurors-via the Associated Press and what they could have, possibly should have or maybe would have done.

Some of the jurors who levied a $222,000 penalty last week against a Minnesota woman for illegally sharing music online would have liked her to pay the maximum $3.6 million penalty, one juror said.

Jammie Thomas, 30, is one of about 26,000 people the music industry has sued for copyright infringement and the first to take a case to trial.

The six record companies that sued her accused her of illegally dowloading songs and offering 1,702 for other people to download from her Kazaa file-sharing account. She denied ever using file-sharing software.

The jurors quickly agreed unanimously that Thomas, a mother of two from Brainerd, had infringed the copyrights of all 24 songs examined in the trial, juror Lisa Reinke told The Associated Press Wednesday.

The deliberations then turned to how much Thomas should pay the six record that sued her, with the jurors settling on an award of $9,250 per song. They could have awarded the companies as much as $150,000 per song.

To continue reading, click here.

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Apple Forgets To Lock Their "Doors"

I first heard about the iPhone's unlocking capabilities in August when news spread of of 17 year old George Hotz's and "the hack." Although not an iPhone owner myself, I found this topic an interesting one and just two short months after its unlocking capabilitie were released to the public, today the method appears to have become even simpler.

Slate.com's Tim Wu chronicles the "legal, ethical and fun" aspects in The iPhone Freedom Fighters:

Apple is not happy with its customers. Disobedient iPhone owners are unlocking their iPhones (modifying them to work with carriers other than AT&T) and installing "unauthorized" third-party apps. Last week the company struck back with a software update that acts much like a virus. It wrecks the operation of third-party applications and can turn unlocked iPhones into "bricks." Is Apple on the right side of this fight? Is it really wrong or illegal to unlock your iPhone? Well, I figured, there's only one way to find out.

Unlocking works, is doable, and improves the iPhone. But while unlocking can be fun, it's still a vaguely scary process, a little like installing your own car brakes. My project began at the giant Apple Store on New York's Fifth Avenue. I needed to buy the iPhone and figure out how to unlock it, and I had imagined that Apple's sales staff might be ambivalent or even helpful—"You really shouldn't, but …." I know that there's even discontent inside Apple headquarters, that some of the company's own employees have unlocked their phones and are complaining about Apple's Empire Strikes Back mentality.

My hopes were high as I approached a typically chipper Apple salesman, clad in
black with spiked hair. "I'm purchasing an iPhone," I began, "but I'm a T-Mobile
customer, and so I was just wondering, I read that you can unlock the phone—"

To continuing reading, click here.
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First And Hopefully The Last

Jammie Thomas, a 32 year old Minnesota woman was the first, and hopefully the last, to fight illegal file-sharing charges in court.

At a rate of $9,250 per song, according to BBC News Thomas was ordered by the jury to pay for offering to share 24 specific songs online at a grand total of...$222,000.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst's Office of Information Technologies Copyright Infringment as the unlawful use of any material protected under copyright law, violating one or more of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights. OIT also warns, downloading and sharing files which contain copyrighted material is against the law. A single unauthorized download or upload of copyrighted material can put you at serious risk for criminal consequences such as fines and imprisonment. The responsibility to restrict sharing and monitor the legality of your downloads lies solely with you.

In order to avoid Thomas' current situation-copyright violation, OIT recommends the following:

• Download all music, movie and other types of files from authorized sites.
  
• Turn off file sharing in your peer-to-peer application.
  
• Keep your computer password protected and never share your OIT account information with anyone.
  
• Do not connect personal wireless routers to the campus network.

To read the full BBC News story, click here.

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Dot-Asia

A project that is eight years in the making is proposed to wrap up by March 2008 and introduce a new twist for online users and big firms seeking domain names. According to a report in today's online BBC News:

Governments and companies can now register interest in specific domain names, such as http://www.yournamehere.asia. Companies will be able to register domains for which they own a trademark and governments will get a chance to earmark those on a reserved list. The general public will get a chance to snap up their own .asia domain when the landrush starts in February 2008.

--To read the full story, click here.

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Converge!

Patrick Stiegman, Executive Editor of ESPN.com spoke at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Journalism lecture series Monday evening addressing the topic of convergence in the media.

As we all begin to converge, popular and highly trafficked sites like Stiegman's ESPN.com is already ten steps ahead of their competition. Their latest venture reaches out to bloggers anywhere interested in putting their "sports cents" in from athletic legal struggles to the teams of cricket. But with all things there are rules. The following is not specific to ESPN.com's new blogging forum, but touches upon the overall terms of use according to the Walt Disney Internet Group.

You are and shall remain solely responsible for the User-Generated Content submitted and/or posted under your user name or otherwise by you in any Public Forum and for the consequences of submitting and posting same. You acknowledge that the use of User-Generated Content posted in any Public Forum is at your own risk. For example, we are not responsible for, and we do not endorse, the opinions, advice or recommendations posted or sent by users in any Public Forum and we specifically disclaim any and all liability in connection therewith.

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