The next submitter was NZFACT and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). This was led by the MPAA’s managing director for Asia Pacific, Michael Ellis. He made much of the fact that he had flown from Singapore to New Zealand to talk to the Committee. Ellis tried to show a video to the Committee to explain how easy it was to download the movie “Boy”. The submission came dangerously close to farce as he repeatedly failed to make his laptop display the video. These attempts took up most of his allotted time. Eventually he managed to start the video without sound.

Colin’s entire piece is well worth a read.

Hi all,

We’ve got another Kiwi PyCon lined up, and we’re all expecting it to be as
good as last year’s event. This year it will be staged in lovely Paihia/Waitangi in the sunny Bay of Islands. It is on the weekend 20-21
November.

Find a link to the “Call for Participation” below. We are encouraging everybody to come and to participate. Do not feel intimidated, this is a community conference, and we are hosting talks and sessions for all knowledge levels. Be it a tiny demo or show and tell (by doing a 5 minute Lightning Talk), or up to running an hour long tutorial. Or are you interested in the dynamic evolution of a session? Then the un-conference like Open Spaces will give you just the platform for interaction …

Also … make sure to spread the word. Tell everybody else about it. Blog about it, post it on Twitter/Identi.ca, etc.

http://nz.pycon.org/2010/talks-cfp/call-for-papers/

…

Code and enjoy,

The Kiwi PyCon Committee
By Tim Knapp, Plone Developer at Emerge Technology

1. ubuntuzilla.py -a remove -p thunderbird
2. sudo apt-get update
3. ubuntuzilla.py -a install -p thunderbird
4. Download addon for lightning that is compatible with 3.1 e.g. Lightning 1.0b2
5. thunderbird -safe-mode
6. Install new add-on – probably you downloaded it to your desktop
7. Restart Thunderbird

cd /etc/php5/conf.d

sudo gedit xdebug.ini

The first line of xdebug.ini was _almost_ correct

Because I was using PHP 5.3 the key was zend_extension rather than zend_extension_ts. That part was right. But the path was not quite correct. Instead of:


zend_extension=/usr/lib/php5/2006 ... +lfs/xdebug.so

it needed to be (in my case):

zend_extension=/usr/lib/php5/20090626+lfs/xdebug.so

Make sure the path actually exists and hasn’t become orphaned during an upgrade.

I then stopped and started apache and restarted Netbeans to be safe.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start

—–

* Here are the lines you will probably already have added:

xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.remote_mode=req
xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1
xdebug.remote_port=9000

Volume Control

Another computer in the house has identical hardware and also runs Lucid but I couldn’t find any differences. Even swapped the sound cards as a test but still no luck. Here is what worked in my case:

1) sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer

2) Now open GNOME ALSA Mixer from Applications>Sound & Video>GNOME ALSA Mixer

3) Untick IEC958

Unticking IEC958

4) Enjoy music again!

Follow-up 19 Apr 2010 – Yeah Right is also the response of a local IP lawyer No ACTA-free trade link? ‘Yeah right’, says IP lawyer.

Hi,

Sorry to email you out of the blue like this but I thought the Wellington Declaration might be of interest to you. It is also very important and won’t take a moment.

Here is the petition: http://www.gopetition.com/online/35443.html

Here is the declaration: http://publicacta.org.nz/wellington-declaration/

Please sign the petition. Why? Because the exciting future offered us by the Internet (think of everything that could come after Trademe, Amazon books, Youtube, Wikipedia, Google Earth, Streetview, iTunes etc) is under threat by an excessive focus on the commercial interests of Big Media. Some multinationals would happily cripple the 21st century for their own gain and they need to be stopped before it is all locked up in binding international treaties.

Here is part of the text of my submission to the Ministry of Economic Development:

Excessive enforcement of “rights” will hinder innovation – PSAL believes that overly zealous enforcement of intellectual property “rights” could have a chilling effect on innovation. As a society, we will gain more if we let new technologies develop on a loose leash. Letting representatives of old industries shape the direction of the new is like letting stagecoach and railroad interests control the development of the automobile industry.

In the late 19th Century, the introduction of the automobile resulted in opposition from special interest groups, including railroad corporations and stagecoach lines. These interests promoted legislation to regulate operation of motorized vehicles and prompted lawmakers to impose command and control policies under the guise of safety, with which to regulate behavior of, and impose nonpecuniary costs upon the motorists driving the new machines. [emphasis added]

In the United Kingdom, the Red Flag Law, a policy requiring self-propelled vehicles to be led by a pedestrian, waving a red flag or carrying a lantern, to warn bystanders of the vehicle’s approach.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_laws)

ACTA could be the Red Flag Law for modern times.

Some of these issues are complex but if you don’t have time to explore them thoroughly please sign the petition while it still counts.

Why mightn’t you already know about this if it’s so important? Because most of the ACTA negotiations are being conducted in secrecy and the media is ambivalent about the whole issue.

All the best, Grant

• Why I Am Against Software Patents
  

  the patent system as applied to software today does not work, nor is there is any reasonable expectation that it will or could in future

• www.nosoftwarepatents.com

So it’s not that software patents are a necessary evil that realists learn to accept – they aren’t good at all. And the sooner we roll them back internationally the better.