Josh the Aspie’s Blog

For those of you that don’t know, I’m one of those people that actually names his computers and other networked devices. I don’t mean that I just randomly assign names to differentiate the computers, I christen them with a name that reflects their qualities. For example, my main power-tower is named Kusanagi-Makoto.

Well, since my phone is capable of being hooked up to a Bluetooth network, and needed a device name, I included it in this trend. It’s a small device that I keep on me all the time, and includes a wide selection of built in tools. Remembering Bob’s little bracer side kick from the Computer Generated (CG) TV show Reboot, I named my RAZR “Glitch.” Unfortunately I couldn’t have come up with a more appropriate name.
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I just installed the “Top Commentator” plug-in, that you can see on the sidebar of the blog. This plug-in will let people view just who has posted the most comments on this blog. In addition, any links that show up on this list will actually count as back links to other websites out there, which is another way to create a back-link to boost your Google rankings.

This plug-in came from the blog Personal Finance Advice, and is in wide use among WordPress Blogs.

Yesterday I spent my day getting trained by the Red Cross. In exchange for nine hours of my time, and a few hours worth of pay, I learned skills that may help me to save the rest of one of my family members lives. I’d recommend that anyone out there who can, take the class.

The full version of the class is for First Aid, Adult CPR+AED and Child/Infant CPR.

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Previously I talked about what HDCP is, and how it does what it does; as well as problems With HDCP, and why big media uses it anyway. This time we’re going to talk about what HDCP means for consumers.

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Last time, I explained what HDCP is, and how it works.

This time I’ll be writing about problems with HDCP, and why they haven’t caused HDCP to be scrubbed.

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I’ve previously defined what DRM is, but why does big business want DRM at all?

Big media makes its money off of media content when the consumer buys its products.

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HDCP

1. Officially: High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
2. A form of DRM invented by Digital Content protection LLC, a subsidiary of Intel.
3. Technology used to block people from displaying “HDCP” protected digital content on media described as being insecure. The technology will either completely block, or blur the content, unless all devices in the chain are equipped with HDCP technology. It is purportedly designed as a form of “copy protection” but has wound up becoming a form of “access prevention.”

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DCMA is another abbreviation that I’ve used, and received blank looks about. I’ll be giving what it officially stands for, as well as my definition.

DCMA

1. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998
2. The Defrauding Misappropriation Copyright Act of 1998
3. A law passed by congress in 1998, which restricts and inhibits the creation of new ideas and technology by causing copyright law to cover derivative works as well as the original work. The law also criminalizing the unauthorized accessing or copying of materials who’s use or ability to copy has been restricted through any technological means.

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A lot of people I’ve talked to recently are unaware of what DRM is, so I’ll try to fill you all in with what it stands for officially, my definition of the term, and do a basic discussion of the reasons for it’s existence, and the problems with it.

DRM

1. Digital Rights Management
2. A term used to describe any form of technology which is designed to restrict the use, access, or alteration of any form of data or content. This technology is desired primarily by those who create content, and wish to control how that content is used even after they sell a copy of said content. For example, a system of DVD or CD encryption designed to prevent people from ripping their DVD or CD, and then listening to the music they bought on an MP3 player, or watch it on their computer.

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Recently I snatched up a 720p 32″ LCD TV with 2 HDMI ports and a VGA port, which was drastically on sale. I was told in store that HDMI was backwards compatible with DVI, and it even said so on the package of a converter. I also have a video card with 2 DVI outputs (and no VGA outputs), 256M DDR3 RAM.

Unfortunately it turns out that HDMI is only backwards compatible on pin out. As DVI and HDMI are both digital signals, they are both encoded. There are differences in this encoding, which can cause problems in hooking up DVI and HDMI devices together. Unless the device accepting the input can understand the encoding of the other format, problems are very likely.
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