While searching for the means to combat the spam attacks that hit my WordPress blogs on a daily basis I was led to the site VilliageIdiot. What I found were some awesome tips (I was looking for htaccess rewite rules) and lots of nifty plugins for WordPress. What I also found was that the site owner has been involved in a nasty legal battle that could have happened to just about anyone I know. She is now in debt $35,000 to lawyers who worked to prove her innocence after being named in a “John Doe” case.

Check out Her site, read the tips, and review the plugins. If you found the site as useful as I did, please consider donating to help her with her legal fees and as a nice gesture to return a little bit to someone who provides all these awesome things that help us run our sites a little better. Every amount helps. Got a dollar? Consider sharing it. It will get you good Karma points in the long run. ;)

Note: My deepest apologies for the original post which I mistakenly called her a dude. ;P Even MORE reason to share the love- geek chicks RULE!

Funambol, which makes an open source mobile application server, announced last week that it will be creating a mobile messaging system designed specifically for Google’s Android platform.

Read more at Network World 

Funambol currently can be used with third party apps on a jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch.

Holy cow how did this get this far?! A headline at ArsTechnica tonight proclaims Bill tying financial aid to antipiracy efforts passes House committee

“The House Education and Labor Committee unanimously passed the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007. Among other things, the COAA would require colleges and universities to adopt strict antipiracy policies and possibly offer students access to subscription-based music services like Napster.”

This could effectively place the RIAA and others in bed with them in control of college access to those who need it most. It is no secret that the majority of RIAA accusations and demands have been made to individuals who are more likely to settle or cave in to the demands rather than fight in out in court due to financial stature.

An earlier post at ArsTechnica states:

“A massive education bill (747-page PDF) introduced into Congress contains a provision that would force colleges and universities to offer “technology-based deterrents” to file-sharing under the pain of losing all federal financial aid. Section 494 of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 is entitled “Campus-Based Digital Theft Prevention” that could have just as easily been called “Motion Picture and Recording Industry Subsidies,” as it could force schools into signing up for subscription-based services like Napster and Rhapsody.”

This bill represents several problems:

1. Even with special grants, preventing file sharing on a college network will involve large expenses for the purchase of technology and additional staffing. Students frequently use their own personal devices on wired and wifi college networks. Scanning traffic for digital signatures should not be the responsibility of the college.
2. Education is the number one priority of an educational institution. Safeguards for health and safety on campus are services that ensure access to education. Preventing file sharing does not fall under services that ensure access to education. Implementing technology to prevent file sharing on college owned equipment is already in place in most, if not all colleges. Policing student devices crosses that line. Holding a college to student’s personal devices and/or personal activities is similar to revoking financial aid to a college if a student is caught shoplifting.
3. College costs are rising and federal financial aid assists financially deserving students in their pursuit of higher education that might be unattainable otherwise.
4. Forcing an educational institution to purchase access to a subscription based commercial media service to avoid penalties is unacceptable.
5. To take education away from any person because of the possibility of sharing material that is protected under copyright is unacceptable.

This is a threat to revoke funding if an institution of higher education does not take enough precautions to prevent the possibility of illegal file sharing. Who will be the organization policing the policies and precautions in place at the colleges? The RIAA? Contact your congress person today and take action. This poses a dangerous precedent.

Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we’re not announcing a Gphone. However, we think what we are announcing — the Open Handset Alliance and Android — is more significant and ambitious than a single phone. In fact, through the joint efforts of the members of the Open Handset Alliance, we hope Android will be the foundation for many new phones and will create an entirely new mobile experience for users, with new applications and new capabilities we can’t imagine today.

This is the word from the Official Google Blog .

Bet you good money it won’t make my Sidekick3 any less crappy. At least I won’t have to change carriers. ;)

“In what may well be one of the most unusual computing tasks performed by the Linux operating system, Terra Soft Solutions integrated its Yellow Dog Linux distribution and the Sony (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 3 to guide a specially designed driverless car competing in the qualifying rounds for the DARPA  (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) autonomous vehicle challenge in Victorville, Calif.“Integral to the on-board, real-time image processing system, the YDL PS3 rode atop a set of 1U rackmount servers inside the experimental car, dubbed the “Spirit.” The team used the Linux equipment to navigate the vehicle through simulated city traffic and obstacles during the qualifying rounds the last week of October.”

Read more at LinuxInsider

Every so often I get all kinds of sidetracked here at linuxchic.net and wander away from tech and nix and wind up posting stuff like blog tips and such… well, no more (blog tips anyway). I’ve decided to fully utilize my blogagory.com domain and dedicate it to the topic of blogging. This is a pretty big topic so I suppose it will end up encompassing such things as social networking and new media as well, but only as it applies to a blogger. To make a potentially long blog post short, head over to blog(a)gory.com and read about blogging (the URL doesn’t actually have the parentheses in case you are confused) . Stay here or listen to the alternageek.com podcast to read/hear about tech, gadgets, nix, and open source. Want to hear random life rants of mine? That’s what my Twitter and Vox blog is for. Why so many blogs? Because sometimes you just don’t give a crap about my issues with pajamas in public or my opinion of the blogosphere (there it is, I used the word!) and you are visiting linuxchic.net just for the ‘nix stuff.

Yes indeed, free Ubuntu stickers. Nothing new but for those of you who don’t know, you can get free Ubuntu stickers one of two ways:

• Visit System76.com and send them a SASE and they will send you free Ubuntu stickers
• Order a free Ubuntu disk from the ShipIt service and it will arrive with a couple of free stickers.