News aggregator
150,000 take FCC broadband speed test in first week
The FCC has had it with ISPs. For more than a decade, the agency has relied on ISP reports to get a picture of broadband speeds and availability in the US, and the results have been uniformly terrible. The ISPs don't want to report numbers detailed enough to be useful, so the feds finally dropped a pile of cash on the table last year to do some proper broadband mapping.
Last week, the FCC went a step further, rolling out tools for Android, the iPhone, and the Web that enable users to test—and, crucially, to report—their broadband speeds. In addition, it decided to fund a third-party measurement company that will use hardware devices to test actual line speeds in tens of thousands of US homes. It's all about the data, and the FCC is determined to get it one way or another.
Jeremy Epstein: Generating unique integer IDs from strings in MySQL
I have an interesting problem, on a data migration project I'm currently working on. I'm importing a large amount of legacy data into Drupal, using the awesome Migrate module (and friends). Migrate is a great tool for the job, but one of its limitations is that it requires the legacy database tables to have non-composite integer primary keys. Unfortunately, most of the tables I'm working with have primary keys that are either composite (i.e. the key is a combination of two or more columns), or non-integer (i.e. strings), or both.
Table with composite primary key.
Cyber-criminals don't need Technical Skills
Dries Buytaert: Enterprise social communities and Drupal
Jay just posted a blog post, called Building enterprise social communities with Drupal, sharing a white paper that we have written at Acquia. In this white paper, we answer questions like: what kind of social features Drupal supplies, why Drupal is the best choice for building a social site, what Drupal modules are useful when building a social site, and some examples of successful enterprise Drupal communities.
The reason we wrote this white paper is simple: many of the enterprise organizations that we talk to ask us these questions over and over again. Building social business sites is a very hot topic in the enterprise. The work environment in these organizations is evolving, and increasingly more, people want to connect, create, share and find people and information relevant to their work. Needless to say, not all social business sites are equal -- some are team collaboration sites, some are community sites, and others might be networking sites. They can exist behind the firewall for internal teams, or they can be external facing sites to engage with partners and customers.
Fusion Drupal Themes: Going cold turkey on theme settings
Drupal has come a long way since Acquia Marina leapt onto the scene in 2008 with an unprecedented number of theme settings. Many themes followed suit, and we were thrilled at the extra power and flexibility that these theme settings gave to Drupal users. These theme settings had come out of lots of time spent in the forums and on IRC, finding out what site builders were constantly running up against and wished they had an easy way to change. We constantly got feedback about how great they were in the Acquia themes, and how much our customers enjoyed them in our premium Drupal themes.
feature: Smoking guns, dark secrets aplenty in YouTube-Viacom filings
Court documents in the $1 billion lawsuit between Viacom and YouTube were unsealed today, finally shedding some light on key questions: did Viacom have "smoking gun" evidence that YouTube was deliberately profiting from 62,637 Viacom clips that were watched more than 507 million times on the site? Was Google aware of the copyright infringement problems when it purchased YouTube in 2006? Were YouTube's own founders involved in uploading unauthorized materials?
On all three counts, Viacom says yes—and it offers up a host of e-mails to prove it:
Chris Shattuck: Video: How to keep high school kids awake while attempting to explain how a web shop works
I was asked to speak at this year's Career Day at our local high school, and thought it would be an awesome opportunity to skew the vision of young minds towards the possibilities that a work life in web design / development can offer. I did a similar talk a couple years ago at the last career day, and realized that in order to keep these guys from drifting off I had to make a concerted effort to break the third wall.
So, I put together this presentation that basically converts the room into a web development firm and introduces the multiple roles you can take on, all the while building out a spec for a popular web site clone (MySpace was the choice each time). I was really impressed with the kids' willingness to participate, and heard it went over pretty well.
HTC: we're ready for a big fight with Apple
Apple both publicly and privately warned smartphone makers that it wouldn't tolerate its intellectual property being infringed upon, and the company made its first move against Taiwan-based HTC earlier this month with a federal lawsuit and a complaint to the International Trade Commission. HTC says it doesn't plan to give up without a fight.
"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself," HTC Corporation CEO Peter Chou said in a statement. "HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible."
HTC cited the company's numerous firsts to market as proof of its innovation, including selling the first Windows Mobile smartphone in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008. (It also lays claim to the "first gesture-based smartphone" released in June 2007, but that's also the same month that Apple released the original iPhone.) It also noted that Fast Company and MIT Technology Review have both recently named HTC as one of the top innovative companies globally.
The company is confident that its own patent portfolio will prove useful in its defense. "We've been in business since 1997 and a pioneer in the smart phone space," HTC America VP Jason Mackenzie told Forbes. "We absolutely have our share of patents."
However, Deutsche Banks analyst Chris Whitmore noted recently that Apple has amassed a much larger patent portfolio than HTC, or even Google, whose Andriod operating system is believed to be the real target of Apple's legal ire. Since 2000, Apple has been awarded over 3,000 patents, compared to Google's 316 and HTC's 58. Prior to the launch of the iPhone, HTC actually filed zero patents with USPTO. Sheer numbers don't guarantee a slam dunk for Apple, but they do certainly give Apple a much larger cache of ammunition to draw from.
Many have criticized Apple for "competition by litigation" by filing complaints against HTC, but as The New York Times recently reported, lawsuits are not at all uncommon in the mobile space. Apple believes it has a right and duty to protect its own innovations, apparently just as other companies in the mobile market do. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said earlier this month.
Furthermore, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said the lawsuits are merely a sign that the modern smartphone market is still in its early stages, and that this particular lawsuit won't stifle innovation as some believe. "The smartphone market is still in a nascent state; much innovation still lies ahead in this field," he wrote in an analysis of Apple's patent litigation. "In all nascent technology markets, there is a period early where IP rights will be sorted out."
Unless Apple and HTC come to an out-of-court settlement, we could be waiting until at least 2012 to hear a decision from either the ITC or US district court on the matter.
Drupalcon SF 2010: Customize Your Schedule: Sign Up for Sessions!
Plan your DrupalCon adventure by picking the sessions you want to attend!
Because DrupalCon is such a large event, and the time flies by so fast, I always recommend you put together a list of the sessions you really want to go to and keep it handy. You can start doing this now by going to the session schedule and adding sessions to your personal schedule. By signing up you'll be able to see what sessions are on what day and at what time, and come to the unfortunate realization that you can't be in three places at once.
Appnovation Technologies: Theming the printed version of your Drupal website
A lot of the times designers forget to make sure their websites print out clean and readable. Users sometimes want to archive your website as a hardcopy so they can reference it later. This means they print it out by doing the most simple way they can think of which is going to File > Print instead of clicking some random print button on the page.
Note: Some important things people print off the web are coupons and purchase orders which is normally reminded on the web page.
On the piece of paper they end up printing, they will be viewing the navigation menu system, a random blank white page, a bunch of ads, form elements such as input boxes and useless images. The content they really want is just a section of this cluttered page of ink. The solution I am giving is to clean these pages up, make it readable for even my grandma, and save paper.
First step is to add a print.css file to all your printed pages, to do this is to add the code to your theme_name.info file.
Lullabot: Drupal Voices 84: Chris Heuer on the Future of Social Media and Drupal
Chris Heuer founded the Social Media Club and came to DrupalCon Paris to talk about "Social + Media: What's Needed Next." Heuer talks about the social media trends that he sees as well as how Drupal plays a part in them. He also shares some of his insights into some of the darker sides of social media, and how to best use the available tools with the highest intentions of social change.
read more »etc: Comcast will begin rolling out 100Mbps home Internet service over the next 12-18 month. No word on pricing.
Comcast will begin rolling out 100Mbps home Internet service over the next 12-18 month. No word on pricing.
Read More: Multichannel News
etc: A London hospital has begun treating Internet-addicted teens.
A London hospital has begun treating Internet-addicted teens.
Read More: AFP
HigherVisibility: Video-cast: Drupal as a profession
etc: When it comes to getting advice on personal issues, British teens are more likely to turn to the Internet than their parents.
When it comes to getting advice on personal issues, British teens are more likely to turn to the Internet than their parents.
Read More: Reuters
Security updates for Drupal modules
Mac OS X: "safer, but less secure"
ZivTech: Drupalcon Sessions: the Good, the Great, and the Folks From Philly
The voting is over and the Drupal Con San Fran sessions have been posted. I'm proud to say there will be a number of sessions featureing folks from Zivtech and the Philly area:
Alex - Zivtech:
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/contractor-shop-how-make-leap
Alex - Zivtech:
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/panel-many-flavors-drupal-t...
Alex - Zivtech:
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/state-drupal-web-applicatio...
