Kot blog

Today, I will show you two technologies. Where one design solution turned out as complete disaster and another where it made the technology more comfortable and usable.     GIMP GIMP logo ( Image source ) GIMP is a free open-source image manipulation program, which allows you to work with raster-graphics images and modify them. The overall design of this program makes harder to find the right tool for you. To get used to it you must first look for some guides on the Internet and spend around a week to understand where everything you needed is located. Also, some of the design choices made there looks outdated compared to modern programs. Another big problem with design is that some of the sub windows inside it could be easily closed by a miss-click. However, then you try to reopen them, you find yourself on the spot where you don't have even any clue on how to do it. Because of those problems, many users are abandoning this program in favor of the enterprise ones (Like Adobe P...

Today we're going to look at IT specialists. How, this profession looked like 20 years before and it's place nowadays         Who is the IT Specialist Image source First, we must define who is IT specialist. This is a person, who works within IT industry. They could write code, create architecture, test IT solutions, or maintain the servers. Now when we know who is the IT specialist, we can compare the today IT specialist with the old one.     IT specialist in 2000's The IT specialists back there wasn't as needed as today they are. They role was more about educating other workers in their company on how to use a computer.  Also, because the hardware back then wasn't as powerful as today it is, the programmers had to optimize their code rather than focusing on the goals and achieving them. Then there is the cybersecurity aspect, it wasn't as developed as it is today. Back there the HTTPS protocol was only introduced in RFC 2818 document, so almost...

Today we're going to talk about the netiquette and one of the ten commandments published by Virginia Shea.         About Netiquette Image source The Netiquette is a net etiquette. In other words, it the rules for polite online communication. That rules is needed for keeping toxicity away when people communicate over the Internet. Another reason for that is to hear your partner. In case you listening for your partner, the partner themselves begin to listen.     Ten commandments Virginia Shea published a book named the Netiquette in 1995 where she proposed ten commandments on how everyone on the Internet should talk. Those commandments were: Remember the human Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life Know where you are in cyberspace Respect other people's time and bandwidth Make yourself look good online Share expert knowledge Help keep flame wars under control Respect other people's privacy Don't abuse your power Be f...

 Today we're going to learn what is the copyleft. What types does it have and how different they are.         The Copyleft Copyleft logo ( Image source ) Copyleft is a practice of distributing projects or software, by granting the right to freely distribute and modify the source code of the project. The copyleft is used in case the author wanted to distribute its work freely between individuals. There are three main types of copyleft licenses. The strong copyleft, the weak copyleft and non-copyleft. Each have some major differences that we will talk about now.     Strong copyleft GPL logo ( Image source ) First type of copyleft licenses is strong copyleft. It grants the abilities of copying and modifying the source code. However, if the one who is using the software with strong copyleft cannot use it in closed source projects. Meaning, if somebody wants to use this software, all files in their project both their own and the software's will use the same...

Today we are going to review the book named "The case of copyright reform" and I will show my opinion on it.         Background Christian Engström  ( Image source )     Rick Falkvinge  ( Image source ) This book was written by Rick Falkvinge and Christian Engström back in 2012. They were two Swedish Pirate Party activists. Their intention on writing this book was that the current copyright system is broken and creates some difficulties for new artists and ordinary people. So, they proposed several reforms that could fix that problem.     Introduction In the book they clearly mentioned that they didn't want to abolish the copyright system. Instead, they propose a reform to it. In the first chapter authors mentioned how broken the copyright system currently are when it comes to intellectual property (IP) owned by some organizations. They also mentioned that those reforms are aimed to "end criminalization of the young generation and pr...

Today, we are going to review the report about the challenges that Information Society faces back in 2004. We also will look into, how the author proposed to solve those challenges and which of those challenges is relevant to this day.         Background Pekka Himanen ( Image source ) That report was done by a Finnish philosopher Pekka Himanen, who was born in 1973. This report was aimed to show how the Information Society impacts the world. How previously created standards changed because of the globalization. In the report the author also covers good and bad effects dealt by this society. For example, how changed the work environment, their ethical aspects from globalization and internationality.     Global trends In the report he mentioned several global trends and how each of them affects the world. One of these trends were the "population ageing". By that the author means the growth of the average person age in Europe and the arising possible problem w...

The Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol The interface of an IRC application ( Image source ) Back in the 80's there wasn't many ways to communicate with others, except through different mail services. The Internet there was staler and more static.  However, even then, there was attempts to create fast and easy real-time chat applications. One of those attempts were the Internet Relay Chat protocol or shortly IRC. This protocol revolutionizes and change the way to communicate through a computer. It let people connect to the IRC servers to send and receive some messages, like we do today through the messengers. However, it wasn't as fast and as good as it is today. The rise of popularity When the first version of IRC protocol was created it had very low functionality. But that was enough, to create attention around that new, to this time, technology. The users, praise this protocol and soon enough the first third party IRC servers begin to emerge. As anything popular and stabl...