My ticket is confirmed! Any conference or technical gathering that I can attend for free, I do attend. Its nearly a family tradition.

• http://www.martinaberastegue.com/wp-vidz.txt (Save As and rename it <code>wp-vidz.php</code>)
  

   

• Some usage examples of wp-vidz in action.

• I took time out to find a simple, fast, and free burner application. It creates image files (.iso) like OSX’s Disk Utility which can then be burned onto an optical disk (CD or DVD). ImgBurn
  is the solution I found.

• If your ambitions are higher — lets say burning .bin files, the logical choice is MagicIso.
  

  A bit of the homepage of MagicISO

• You should also install MagicDrive if you are looking to mount CD images in a virtual CD drive. It allows you to use almost all CD/DVD image without burning them onto CD or DVD in order to easily access your favorite games, music, or software programs —- It works like a real CD/DVD-ROM: You can run programs, play games, or listen to music from your virtual CD-ROM.

The aim of this survey is to gain a comparative insight into the career dynamics and flexibility available to IT workers and consultants in the UK and the USA (covering both employees and contractors).

If you are self-employed, part of an agency, or otherwise a Digital Native operating without a full-time employer, inputting your perspective will help them teach future executives, marketers, and other PHB sorts on what to expect when dealing with skillfully-mobile professionals such as ourselves.

Its 13 pages long and should run about 15 minutes. Not bad for a voluntary contribution to the science of business. I hope they contact me for further study…

I started late at the conference, dallying at home for the morning and early afternoon. I arrived on-site about 2pm, then proceeded to sit and type away on the HOPE wifi for another hour-and-a-half before remembering why I was there. I paid my $80 conference fee (tax deductible… or death!), performed a cursory tour of the Exposition area, then went up to the 18th floor to listen to the presentations.

Of the four that I saw, I found Hacking the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer: Something About Education to be the most satisfying. Gillian Andrews’ presented the information with style and humor, making up for the absence of her parnter Ivan Krstic. The discussion focused on

…the critical element in teaching with technology is people - and that hackers need to consider what this means. The talk will encourage the audience to consider the best ways to tackle the horrendous failures of current technology education. Topics to be covered: Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age/Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer and whether it can be achieved; the one laptop per child project and the difficulties it currently faces; hair-raising experiences writing an A+ certification curriculum; whether the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is real; responses from seventh-graders (or Why Johnny Can’t Read on the Internet); and Richard Feynman already taught us everything we needed to know about education - why aren’t we listening?

An audio recording of the talk will be posted online later.

I sat in on other talks such as Macro Social Engineering and Hackers and Planet Earth. The material presented was less-satisfying and the presenters themselves seemed novices at public speaking, or at least very introverted individuals bravely standing before attentive crowds. Nice guys though.

I left around 9:30pm, much to my later regret. I missed out on Hacking the Body: Pleasure, a presentation on sex and teledildonics; I also missed the 11pm electronic music and visualization expo, which is ironically what I left the conference to find elsewhere.

Catch up on posts from the conference with the #thelasthope (official) and #HOPE (unofficial) tags on Twitter.

Through the NYNewMedia list I received a request for volunteer help from the Free Software Foundation and offered my assistance in exchange for a free pass to the convention. I was contacted by Jeanne Rasata, coordinator of the project and, most likely, the only woman associated with this geekiest of collectives.

Here are a few pointers I am requested to keep in mind while representing the FSF:

• We always say “free software” and never substitute the phrase “open
  source” as the latter is the name adopted by people who reject the
  philosophy of the Free software Movement. For a full explanation of the
  importance of nomenclature in this instance, please, read
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
• We always say “GNU/Linux” rather than just “Linux” except when we
  are referring to the kernel. We do this to give the system’ principal
  developer due credit and because GNU carries the philosophy of freedom for
  computer users - rejected by the Linux developers.
  (cf.http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html)
• We don’t recommend any distribution which is not 100% free,
  including Ubuntu which distributes proprietary software to its users. We
  do recommend gNewSense to people as a user-friendly, completely free
  operating system.

I am going to have a hard time keeping a straight face while saying it. But I will be true to my word.

The Last Hope Conference is taking place July 18, 19, & 20 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City.

View the full list of presentations at the conference.

Conference Agenda In A Nutshell

It has been argued that new information technologies and other online tools have the capacity to enhance political transparency and the accountability of government officials, processes, and institutions to their citizens. How does the Internet interact with, protect or endanger democratic engagement and trust? What can we do to push forward in a positive direction? Are there unintended consequences that need addressing? An invitation to a dialogue about the future of politics in the internet age.

Other sessions at the upcoming conference include:

• Anonymity, Privacy and Identity: Towards a Bill of User rights
• Democratized and Distributed Innovation
• The Dilemma of Games: Moral choice in a Digital World
• Framing the Net: What We Say is What We Get
• The Global Internet: Emerging Tech in Emerging Markets
• Internet Censorship and Surveillance: A Multi-Stakeholder Response
• The Musician and the Scientist Write the Code: Protocols for Compensation and Openness
• Netizenship: Engaging with Race and Diversity Online
• Networked News and Public Discourse
• Open Access: Problems of Collective Action and Promises of Civic Engagement
• Political Mobilization, the Internet and the 2008 Elections

Browse the full Agenda.

I digested the info presented at the Electric Equinox panel entitled Evolving the Network: Politics, Culture, and Consciousness on March 29th and want to cover the real thing. Updates will be posted here, and if all goes well, to the berkman10 Facebook group as well.

These are times when waiting for a slideshow screensaver or using a big bulky photo application will not

I’m do. I searched Google many times in vain for a suitable application and found nothing but shareware garbage.

I came across a couple of Flash offerings from airtightinteractive. My requirements—free, open source, stylish, straightfoward to use—these were all admirably met. They can be run on screen for fast presentations or embedded in a webpage with a few lines of code.

So without further delay, here they are:

• SimpleViewer http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/ (download here)

• AutoViewer http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/autoviewer/ (download here)

• PostcardViewer http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/postcardviewer/ (download here)

I’ll be using them for the NYE event tonight.

Get Microsoft’s Virtual ISO Drive

The installation and user interface are Spartan. Here’s a quick run through on how to install the control panel:

1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.

2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe

3. Click "Driver control"

4. If the "Install Driver" button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.

5. Click "Start"

6. Click OK

7. Click "Add Drive" to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click "Add Drive" until an unused drive letter is available.

8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click "Mount".

9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click "OK". UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK.

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the driver from memory using the driver control.

The Windows XP Recovery Console is designed to help pro-teks recover from situations where a Windows XP-based computer does not start. It allows you to perform a limited range of tasks using a command line interface and recover your system and your important documents and files.

It also requires you to boot from a CD, wait 10 minutes, and go through the process repeatedly to verify your changes. Its annoying as hell.

The good news is that you can manually install the Recovery Console.

To install the Recovery Console, follow these steps:

1. Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. In the Open box, type d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons where d is the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive.
4.  A Windows Setup Dialog Box appears. The Windows Setup Dialog Box describes the Recovery Console option. To confirm the installation, click Yes.
5.  Restart the computer. The next time that you start your computer, “Microsoft Windows Recovery Console” appears on the startup menu.

Whenever you want to use the Recovery Console select the “Recovery Console” option from the boot list.