Adeona: Keep Track of Your Laptop
According to http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/adeona.html Adeona is “The Roman goddess who guides the child back home, after it has left the parental house for the first time.” (Seemingly a lesser-known goddess from the Roman empire times, and who I as a Pagan was unaware of, as were a couple of other Pagans who I asked.)
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This isn’t an exercise in invoking any Roman deity though - The software was named after the goddess Adeona for seemingly obvious reasons:
Developed by the University of Washington, Adeona is totally Open Source and completely free. It is the first such program that tracks the location of a stolen laptop, and it relies on no central service. Its use only requires a small software client to be downloaded to and installed on your laptop.
This new development in Open Source software was initially presented at Gnomedex on August 23rd 2008 by a representative of the development team.
For more information and links, please visit http://adeona.cs.washington.edu/ Also go here for more in-depth on this topic:http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10024278-52.html
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Comments
Gnomed-ex
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What an absolutely fantastic event Gnomedex 8 turned out to be! Held in Seattle USA; this once-a-year event has reached and completed its 8th-time round. Run by Chris Pirillo and his wife Ponzi in association with their sponsors, which this year included HP as the main sponsor, this year’s show was simply awe-inspiring to me as I watched, despite the fact that I was online, across the pond in UK, and in an 8-hours ahead time-zone. There isn’t much more to say other than the above now it’s over. At the end of the last night, Chris and Ponzi mentioned a chance of there being several one-day events of a similar nature in various locations around the USA; I suppose that would be next year if it happens, in addition to the main venue in Seattle: That would be utterly fantastic; especially if they were all streamed online too. Having bade farewell to Gnomedex 2008 from my office chair in front of my monitor; (Yes I am still using a 17″ CRT monitor - I wrote a script to make the streamed picture cover the entire screen in 1024 x 768 resolution so that I didn’t have to watch through a magnifying glass.) I leave you with the closing views of the event as seen on the stream: |
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See this video to check out some stills of the highlights: |
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Shazza Does Gnomedex - From the UK
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I caught David Risley online via the feed at the Gnomedex pre-conference bash and tried to get an interview of sorts. The chat was so hectic that this was quite obviously impossible and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I did manage to get about 3 lines through though, as you’ll see toward the end of this video clip recorded from the online stream: Technology is a fantastic thing; and all the world’s population now has the opportunity (Most have the ability.) to communicate over large distances via the internet to unite the entire globe.
After Dave Risley followed Sarah Lacy, who seemed to do her own show jointly along with virtually everyone else present: Sarah turned out to be an excellent chat-show co-host, and the presentation was most enjoyable and entertaining. The chatroom crowd interacted with the presenters and guests, resulting in a quite spectacular interactive production which, other than for the quality of the Ustream feed, was worthy of a television performance. Towards the end of the long evening, as the alcohol flowed freely, one of the guests became aggressive and attempted to disrupt the show with a verbal attack on Sarah, her other current guests, and her co-presenter(s). This was handled extremely professionally, courteously, and graciously, by Sarah herself and a couple of the guests; one in particular whose name I forget (’May have been Eric Rice?) as it was about 4AM BST and I had my eyelids propped open with matchsticks. Another small downer was the absence from the show of Tara Hunt, aka @missrogue, who was requested to guest by a large number of the chatroom, including myself; and who I feel could have made a valuable extra contribution had anyone been able to locate her. Quite obviously Tara has an extremely busy schedule: This most articulate lady leads a jet-set life filled with great achievements, and parties hard in any spare time she gets: Quite a live-wire! Everything suddenly scaled down in a matter of minutes, and the party was completely over and empty by 6AM BST. The main host, Chris Pirillo, did make a short appearance on the feed towards the end of the night; after his parents had been on and had been interviewed by the chatroom crowd about his young days and his personal life. During this time I was writing the first draft of my last blog entry in addition to watching the feed. I hope my multitasking didn’t make me miss too much of the proceedings. All in all it was a thoroughly dynamic event. Apologies for having missed out anybody: There were three birthday people that night; one of whom was Kathy, the others…I think I remember it was Sarah Lacy’s too: Belated Happy Birthday wishes to all anyway. The rest of Gnomedex is currently running for real. You can pick up the live Ustream feed at http://chris.pirillo.com/live/
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2.0 In The UK - ?
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With Gnomedex going full-pelt in Seattle in the USA I am baffled as to the seeming total lack of interest in, even knowledge of, the Web 2.0 phenomenon in the UK. All this antiquated “stiff upper lip” crap and resistance to change, coupled with general lethargy and a lack of motivation, is a hindrance to progress. From what I’ve heard the general perception is that the UK is ahead of the USA technologically to a certain extent; in which case why oh why can I get no public wireless signal anywhere along the line on the train travelling from Warminster in Wiltshire to London? Why is it that, when I go to a place called Wilton which used to be the capital of Wessex, I have to stand at a particular point on a particular road to get a GSM 900 signal and GSM 1800 signals are virtually non-existent. Why the heck do we have 2 different frequencies here? (In USA they all use GSM 1900.) As for Wifi; (In Wilton, as well as in most places outside the city centres - Even in London itself, apart from the City Centre.) unless I am within close proximity of any one of a small number of dwellings, and the owners of those individual properties happen to have their BT Home Hub routers switched on at the time, there is no Wifi signal. As for anywhere rural; forget it: Usually no Wifi at all, and perhaps a fluctuating poor-quality GSM900 3G signal that’s as good as useless for anything other than making an interrupted phone-call on the Vodafone network. Even if I owned a house any distance out of town I’d probably not even be able to use anything other than dial-up or satellite to connect to the internet: That’s not technologically advanced; that’s third-world! The sad fact is that the UK is or seems to be a third-world country as far as the internet is concerned; and the future of the UK will be affected by that inasmuch as it could well become a third-world country bearing in mind that the future world-economy will depend upon internet communication and usage. Despite boastings from government officials and companies such as Virgin Mobile that they have expanded the internet service and are continually developing it, the truth is that only populated areas close to a telephone exchange, and some other sub-urban areas as far as cable-internet is concerned, are able to get anything on a wired service greater than 5.6K dial-up. This situation is slowly improving; but at a rate which is far too slow. Honestly in most rural areas I’ve been to I am unable to get any Wifi or mobile telephone signal whatsoever. As a geek I’m quite ashamed in a way to be British - But the Wifi and 3G signals, or lack thereof, aren’t half of the problem: The attitude, bad attitude, or complacency/lethargy of a lot of the British public, but moreso the “ruling classes”, is a major factor.
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Gnomedex in its original format could never happen in the UK. Why? There is nothing even remotely like Gnomedex in the UK outside of private corporate functions that are for internal company personnel only currently, and attitudes are so different here. There seems to be very few in the way of dedicated internet entrepreneurs in the UK. Why? Because the Government does its utmost to make it impossible to be such. Also there appears to be an overall work-ethic-dependency-culture amongst the population. I blame Government yet again: The bullshit that the UK Govt., in association with what the UK media spew forth, is unbelievable and it soaks everybody in crap: The negative deprecating content of it encourages a controlled tiered society; with the masters - the bosses - controlling their highly-paid understudies, who in turn regulate the multi-tiered workforce consisting of managers, Sub-Managers, Assistant Managers, Supervisors, and General Dogsbodies: Like ‘The Victorian age meets Communism’ under a negatively-oriented right-wing political system. The UK Government provides you with the incentive to stay within this aged, stuffy, culture, by taxing anyone who decides to go it alone extremely heavily: As a “drone” or “worker” subservient to the work-ethic-based culture they tax a person at between 10 and 15%, I think it is, of their gross income. Attempt to break free from the dominant suppression, however, and that person can be taxed anywhere up to 50%. (Yes; half of their gross income!) For the Owner/Director of a large successful company whose gross (personal) income can be anything up to £1 million pounds a year, it presents no problem whatsoever. For anyone trying to break free from the work-ethic culture, however, it means that essentially they have no option but to stay working at least at a part-time job until their income from self-employment matches up to double their gross earnings from their j-o-b in order for them to be able to maintain the lifestyle that they are used to. - Is it any wonder that people in the UK lack the motivation to go outside of the job-dependency-culture as it would mean leaving their comfort-zone: Something which the average British worker can’t even imagine doing for that very reason: It’s a vicious circle.
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So there seemingly can never be true freedom within the political control-society of the UK; and this is one aspect where the USA is truly “The Land of the Free”. There is the other side of the coin though - Health: The British NHS is funded by involuntary contributions from this dominated-work-ethic-culture, and without it there’d be no National Health Service, no free medicine, no healthcare for all. People’s health would be dependant on their ability to pay for healthcare and for medical insurance. There’d also be no state-funded retirement income for the elderly, (SERPS - the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme.) and those too old or too ill to work would have to rely on a private pension scheme or a welfare-handout system such as that currently running in the USA.
It all boils down to the old adage “There is no such thing as a free lunch” : What you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts. The British system has its faults; many of them - But so does the US system. The difference is that the US system is founded upon the concept of personal freedom; whereas the British system is founded upon subservience to State and to the class-system. Both work in their own way; but the US system works best as far as the concept of Web 2.0, co-working, and internet-dependency is concerned. |
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So what is the solution if there is one? The best I can come up with at present under the UK system is, as I mentioned previously, to stay in a job of some kind under the work-ethic-based system whilst at the same time building up an online enterprise. That solution is more difficult than it might at first sound. It requires twice the work for half the profit initially: One has to hold down a j-o-b and at the same time build an internet business. The j-o-b will pay peanuts (Enough to save you from bankruptcy - exactly as all such employment does.); around the same amount of peanuts as far as consistency is concerned; but nevertheless peanuts. The internet business will slowly take off and eventually equal the income from the j-o-b. (2 x peanuts.) When it does so perhaps it’s time to do the j-o-b part-time so that you can concentrate more on the internet business. Your income may stay static while the workload increases perhaps; but stick at it, as when the income from the internet business doubles you’re making as much as you were previously in your j-o-b. - Go for the gamble at this point: Say goodbye to the job. You’ve made it: You’re working for yourself and your income no longer depends upon working 9 to 5, 5 days a week - Rather it depends upon your own efforts and actions: You’re now your own boss and your destiny is in your hands. Remember, though, you’re paying up to 50% of your income to the UK Government still. You now have a choice: Stay in the UK and benefit from “free” healthcare + receive the pittance the state will pay you from SERPS when you reach retirement age AND continue earning from your internet business while paying up to 50% of that to the UK Govt. OR Move to America and become a US Citizen, and continue to control your own destiny.
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Freedom at Last!? |
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What would I do? I’m working on it. When I’ve researched this properly I’ll come up with a proper, stage-by-stage, formula for making a success of Web 2.0 starting in the UK (Maybe even completely in the UK.): It’s a tough one, so I won’t have all the answers tomorrow, next week, maybe not even this year. When I do I’ll publish the final article as a paid-for work: First as a prospective untested how-to; then, when I’ve done it myself, as a “How I Did It” article, again for a price. Watch this space - or somewhere near it - for more, at some point. I want to be doing what they’re doing at Gnomedex. I want to make money online; and use some of that wealth to change the world for the better in whatever way I can in tandem with the people from the USA at Gnomedex. I’m going to do it too; but starting from the UK as I will inevitably have to do, I first have to work out a strategy as I stated in the last paragraph; and I’m going to do that too. Then I’m going to share it as I said. If you have any ideas, insights, opinions, expertise, comments, whatever; then post them below. If you wish to dialogue or have any spontaneous input then I welcome it.
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