If you run a blog or website, join us in protest by blacking out your website with an overlay on the 18th. Feel free to share your thoughts about SOPA on the overlay, and explain to visitors about the potential ramifications if the bill passes.

Even if you don't run your own site, you can help! Check out the article Hate SOPA? 6 things you can do to stop it for some ways that anybody can help in the fight against Internet censorship.

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• Reddit to go silent in SOPA protest (news.cnet.com)
• SOPA: Anonymous Extends OpBlackout Protest to non-US Citizens (ibtimes.com)
• Reddit is Having a Blackout on 18 January in Protest Against SOPA [Internet] (gizmodo.com)
• Will Reddit's SOPA Blackout Make a Difference? (readwriteweb.com)
• Is SOPA Internet Censorship and a Threat to Free Speech? (blogcritics.org)
• Internet users are urging Wikipedia to 'go black' in protest of SOPA / PIPA (thenextweb.com)
• Nuke the Net: How to Get the Mainstream Talking About the Dangers of SOPA (mashable.com)
• Reddit's SOPA Blackout Admirable, but Google and Facebook Must Follow (forbes.com)

A quick search helped me to discover that the F1 Fuse on the circuit board is prone to failure, and the symptoms matched perfectly. It had been ages since I fired up a soldering iron, but I decided to give it a go.

First, I pried apart the halves of the receiver. If you can get something really thin, you can simply shove it between the two halves and gently pry them apart. I had to be a bit forceful with mine, and it no longer looks new, but I don't really mind. I unplugged the single plug connecting the USB wire to the circuit board, and unscrewed the board from the plastic shell to access the bottom of it.

On the upper right-hand corner, there is a very small fuse labeled F1. Yes, it's practically the smallest thing attached to the board. The fix involved simply bypassing the fuse altogether by applying a small amount of solder to connect the two posts on both sides of the fuse. This will make a connection between the posts, and should allow power to flow normally.

Since I can be a bit ham-fisted, and the work area where the fuse is located is tiny, I was somewhat worried I had damaged the board or something else around it, but I put everything back together and alas, it worked like a charm.

I just avoided having to purchase a replacement Microsoft component--today was a good day!

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• Best Xbox 360 Mod Ever: Turn Your Xbox 360 Into a Toaster (crenk.com)

So there is the LGPL, which might be a good choice for my libraries, but has similar restrictions to the GPL that I simply don't want to require people to adhere to.

I then found the CDDL, and I really liked the way it was written. It's unfortunate that it's incompatible with the GPL or it would be my top choice for pretty much everything. But it's not compatible, and I don't want to keep my software out of the hands of developers of GPL'd software.

None-the-less, the CDDL is one of the few file-based open source licenses, and one of my requirements for some of my software is that I need to mix in some commercial libraries which are obviously not open source. The best answer might be a dual-license model, but as far as I can tell, I wouldn't be able to mix in proprietary code with a GPL license, so the GPL version of those products would need to be severely crippled, which might not make sense to do at all.

The only course I can see clearly working is releasing the following:

• For libraries containing only open source code, dual-licensing the CDDL and LGPL (allowing GPL developers to choose the LGPL license, making it compatible)
• For applications containing only open source code, dual-licensing the CDDL and GPL, for the same reason as above
• For libraries or applications containing open source and proprietary code, licensing only under the CDDL is the only option. Nothing compatible with the GPL can contain proprietary code in my understanding.

For this reason, I will try to keep as much of my code as possible in the dual-licensed projects and available for all open source developers. However, many of my applications themselves will be mixed in with proprietary code, and this will be released only under the CDDL (with the proprietary code released under its own license, all fully documented).

Of course, all of my past work up until this point is still available and can continue to be used under the MIT license it came with. Most of my future code, however, will not be released under an MIT license. None-the-less, if you opt for the CDDL license on my future projects, it has the handy addition of allowing you to mix it in with any proprietary, closed source code that you want, as long as you keep the original code and any modified files based off of the original code under the CDDL.

Due to all the confusion and incompatibilities surrounding the current crop of open source licenses, I was very tempted to simply write my own. But that would just add to the confusion, so the best choice right now seems to be to play along while being as open as possible.

I will be sure to fully document on each project homepage the licensing model of the project and what it means for others wishing to redistribute the source code.

Related articles

• Is Copyleft Really Right for Open Source? (intridea.com)
• My take on open source licenses (spf13.com)
• Why the GPL Matters (avdi.org)
• Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software (gnu.org)

You may have noticed most of my websites have been very ugly for the past couple of days. The reason for this is that UK2 have seemingly used some very underhanded business tactics to shut down SimpleCDN, their customer and my Content Delivery Network responsible for delivering much of my static content.

Over the next day or so all of our sites should be fully back online, albeit temporarily without a CDN while we get set up somewhere else.

I'm not in a position to say that SimpleCDN has done nothing wrong, and that it's all UK2's fault (though that is what outward appearances make it seem). However, I would certainly recommend that anyone thinking about signing up with them watch this situation closely and use its final outcome as a determining factor in whether they are someone you wish to do business with.

You can follow the situation from SimpleCDN's perspective here. If you're as frustrated as me by the situation, I urge you to do as I have done and contact UK2 to voice your opinion.

Related articles

• What's a CDN? Content Delivery Network (marketingtechblog.com)
• SimpleCDN has been effectively kicked off the Internet by its ISPs w/o warning (admin.simplecdn.com)

Over the next few days, I'll be tweaking things, updating my core WordPress and Drupal installations, and causing general mayhem throughout my entire environment. My monitoring systems need to be overhauled completely and until then I will not have any good monitoring in place.

Let me know if you experience any odd issues--I haven't changed anything in any of my databases or files on the new server, so it's possible something won't work right until it's updated. Although I've kept all paths identical to avoid many such issues.

It's been a while since I've created a new document in Google Docs. I usually just need to access old documents or shared documents from others. But today, when I tried to create a document, I received an error to the effect of, "We're sorry, you do not have access to this document."

I was logged in with the same account that I just used to create the document, so the error was baffling. There was a link to request access for myself, specifically displaying the same address as the one I created the document with. So what the hell, I figured--I requested access. Immediately I received an email, at the same account I was already logged in to, requesting access for myself. I approved the request and the document opened without issue.

So I closed the document, and searched for it in Google Docs, and then opened it again, and lo and behold I received the same Access Denied error.

I then remembered that last month Google indicated they were disabling offline access for Google Docs while they worked on a new version to re-release later. So on a hunch I disabled offline access and everything is now working as expected.

Perhaps I was not supposed to have been able to use Google Docs offline, but then why was it still enabled for me? Either way, it looks like I'm stuck using the Online version of Google Docs until the problem is resolved.

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• Google Docs makes it easier to share--or not (news.cnet.com)
• Chrome extensions for Google Docs (googledocs.blogspot.com)
• Google Docs Now Does OCR for Images & PDFs (Sort Of) (readwriteweb.com)
• Google Docs Changes Sharing and Privacy Options (mashable.com)
• Google Adds OCR for PDF Files and Images (Alex Chitu/Google Operating System) (techmeme.com)
• Google Docs adds new features to make sharing easier (thenextweb.com)
• Google Adds OCR for PDF Files and Images (mt-soft.com.ar)

The functionality will include the ability to manage the entirety of a business or individual's web presense, from domain names and websites to providers, datacenters, servers, and more. Manage them all in one place and interact with them in intelligent ways--get renewal reminders, login links to all services, relevant contact information displayed on related pages, and much more.

This project came about because I was tired of having to manage my various web assets in all different disconnected places--my registrar for domain names, my various hosting providers and control panels, all of my websites, pages, and projects around the web, and more. It was all just getting to be too much, and while there are a lot of organizational tools, none of them seemed to be designed for this specific type of management. In this, I saw a way to make something that works better for me.

The project is built with CakePHP 1.3, the MooTools Javascript framework, and the MochaUI interface to give users a full desktop-like experience on the web.

I am not sure yet what different versions I will offer, and whether this will be a locally-hosted product or SaaS (Software as a Service) hosted and provided by the Digital Empire. Only time will tell, and I should hopefully have some screenshots and more information posted soon.

Before I get started, let me just state that I still like SugarSync and once they can get past the issues that are evident in the current release, I will once again gladly recommend them to anyone. Those who have followed my posts know I have been having a myriad of issues with it.

Luckily, SharpCast has been helpful and has been trying to get in touch with me to further discuss the problems I have had. Unfortunately I have had absolutely no free-time other than 5 minutes here or there throughout the day, so I just have not had a chance. This is my fault, not theirs--as soon as I have some time available (hopefully this week), I will set up a call with SharpCast and hopefully we can get to the bottom of the issues.

In the meantime, however, because I still want a Sync solution, I decided to give another contender in the online backup/sync war a chance. This time, it was SpiderOak.

SpiderOak is a peculiar beast--in my week-or-so of using it so far, I am very impressed by some things, and a bit underwhelmed by others.

The Client Application

SugarSync has a nice interface for Windows that is simple to get started with, and offers a huge amount of features compared to something like Dropbox. The interface mostly fits in with the Windows UI, and it integrates with Explorer to show you the status of your synced folders with small colored indicators overlayed on the file/folder icons. There is no background service--the application must remain open (though it can be minimized to the tray).

SugarSync offers clients for Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile. Unfortunately this leaves other operating systems, such as Linux, out in the cold.

SpiderOak, on the other hand, offers a consistent and advanced user interface which completely separates its main functions into tabs (Status, Back Up, View, Sync, and Share). The interface is not quite as simple as SugarSync's, but it is perfect for an advanced user looking for advanced functionality. Like SugarSync, there is no background service and the SpiderOak application must remain open (and again, you can minimize it to the tray).

SpiderOak seems to have a focus on being platform agnostic, at least on the Desktop side of things. They support Windows, Mac, and most popular Linux distros. From what I can tell, it looks and works the same on all operating systems it supports. This is a huge plus. You can back up (and even sync) folders between Windows and Linux, or any other supported platform. They have an iPhone application, but there is no Android, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile app just yet.

In short--For a simpler experience (somewhere in-between Dropbox and SpiderOak), or if you require support for your Android, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile device, SugarSync might have just the interface your'e looking for. If you prefer more options over simplicity, or if you need support for Linux but don't mind waiting a while for better mobile support, I recommend SpiderOak.

The Web Interface

The two offer similar features from their web interfaces, but they look very different. SpiderOak takes a minimalistic approach to giving you only what you need where you need it. SugarSync offers a highly-polished web interface with a lot of flash and pizazz, but again, similar features.

SugarSync implements share administration in the main web interface, while with SpiderOak "Share rooms" are completely separate from your web interface.

SugarSync definitely has the more polished UI that is the nicest to work with. SpiderOak's offers similar functionality, but again, lacks some of the bells and whistles and is very minimalistic.

Speed

Comparing the speed of these services is a bit challenging. SugarSync transfers one file at a time, and does it quickly. SpiderOak takes longer to calculate files, and seems to be a bit slower uploading (perhaps because of the server-side processing required), but it uploads batches of files at a time, and only the portion of the file that has changed.

If you need to upload a lot of files in the shortest amount of time, SugarSync will be happy to oblige. SpiderOak gives up a little bit of speed for some advanced data processing, so depending on how you use it, one or the other may be a bigger factor for you.

Backing Up and Syncing

SugarSync supports file versioning, keeps deleted items until permanently removed, and will monitor your filesystem for changes and automatically upload them. SugarSync even offers a Web Archive where you can store files without keeping them synced to any devices. You can move files there from your synced folders, or just upload something directly to the Web Archive. That is a nice feature to have. Also offered are things like simple file sharing, and a new feature with which you can email files to your SugarSync account.

This is a lot of functionality, but it is within this area that SugarSync also seems to suffer from some issues (see my previous posts, and the information below).

SpiderOak also offers file versioning, keeps deleted items, and offers the ability to monitor the filesystem live for backing up. It also allows advanced scheduling functionality, such as choosing how often to perform a backup instead of always doing it live. You can also choose when to schedule syncing and sharing processes--normally it is done on the same schedule as backing up, but you can choose another value.

SpiderOak does not seem to offer a Web Archive feature--every folder is assigned to a device (computer). SpiderOak does offer file sharing much like SugarSync's.

SpiderOak offers similar functionality, without some of the bells and whistles, but in my experience it does not suffer from any of the issues I have had with SugarSync.

Infrastructure

Not much is known about the SugarSync infrastructure--they advertise that data is SSL-secured, and encrypted once it hits their servers. They also indicate the data is stored in "geo-redundant, world class data centers." In practice this seems to work fine, but it's not clear what technology they use for storage and data validation on the back-end, so there is not much I can brag about here.

This is an area where SpiderOak shines. They have developed many open source components to help in this area. They use a custom-built transactional file-system API, They use advanced de-duplication to ensure that the same data is stored in only one place at any given time--this means you will never need to use up extra space when storing the same file more than once.

Price

Both services offer 2 GB of free storage to do whatever you want with--you can use all features, add multiple devices, and sync and share files up to your 2 GB limit.

Beyond 2 GB, both services are very comparable. At the time of this writing, storage from SugarSync costs more, but they do offer cheaper plans with less space than SpiderOak as well. You can get 30 GB from SugarSync for $5/month, which is nice for those who are extremely budget-constrained. On the other hand, you can get 100 GB from SpiderOak for $10/month. This is substantially cheaper per GB, but they only offer 100 GB-increments so you cannot spend less than this.

Problems

Neither service is perfect. But what about issues that might affect your data, or your ability to utilize the advertised features?

I'll switch this around and cover SpiderOak first, because it's the simplest in this respect. I have had two issues in the week or so I've used the service.

1. The SpiderOak Windows client freezes when I try to expand my AppData/Local folder, where a lot of the files I want to back up are located. In the Back Up tab, as soon as I expand the folder, the whole app freezes for a few minutes, then unfreezes for a couple of seconds, then repeats continually until I close the process and start it again. This is highly annoying, and I have not had this issue with any other sync services.
2. I backed up a folder on one machine, created  a new folder on the other machine, and then chose to create a sync between those two folders. While it consistently indicates it's processing the sync, it never actually syncs any of the files to the other machine. Maybe it's something I did wrong, but it seems like it should just work.

Next, SugarSync's issues--they run a bit deeper, and are the main reason I decided to check out SpiderOak in the first place.

1. SugarSync constantly believes that some files are "Backed up and in sync", when in fact they do not seem to be on the server at all. The only way I realize this is when syncing something new to another machine, some files simply don't sync, and I then go in and verify they don't appear in my SugarSync account online. Renaming the original usually causes SugarSync to see it and upload it, but you then cannot use the original name, or it won't sync.
2. In other cases SugarSync believes a file is not in sync, when it actually is. This happens even more often than the previous issue. I will modify a file that is in sync, and immediately upon saving SugarSync renames the file on my computer, appending " (From [Computer-Name])" to it. Attempting to rename the file back gets it immediately renamed by SugarSync again. I can see the file having the original name in my SugarSync account online, but it no longer exists on my computer and won't sync down. I have to delete the file from my SugarSync account online, then rename the new file back to the original name again. This obviously loses all version history for the file and takes a ridiculous amount of time for something that should be automatic.The worst part is, SugarSync never tells you when this happens, you just have to notice it. I eventually went so far as to create a script to scan all of my sync folders and let me know whenever SugarSync renamed a file without my consent. I ended up spending probably an hour per day just fixing all of my filenames.
3. I re-installed SugarSync on their technician's recommendation, and was unable to restore my previous settings after that. Every time I opened SugarSync, it asked if I wanted to restore my old settings, I would choose 'Yes', and it would scan all of my sync folders again (which takes a very long time). Next time I open SugarSync when it's not running, it again asks if I want to restore my old settings and scans everything again. This was very annoying the the only way past it was to set up all of my sync folders again.

As you can see, I've had a couple issues with SpiderOak, but in my experience everything I transmit to them remains secure and unaltered. The integrity of my data is the absolute most important thing for me, and until these issues with SugarSync are understood, I simply cannot put my trust in it.

For novice or intermediate users without huge directory trees to sync, SugarSync works quickly and looks great--you'll have your data synced in no time, but for the time being, you would be wise to monitor that data and make sure it stays consistent with your expectations.

For advanced users, especially those with tons of files to sync and manage, I wholly recommend SpiderOak at this time. You do not need to baby-sit the back-up process or worry about your files being renamed without notification (or at all!). I am still getting acquainted with its sync functionality, and it is not quite as straight-forward and simple to sync folders between computers, but the functionality is there and your data is safe, and that makes me happy for now.

I still have major issues with the way it's handling syncing my files, however--every day there are tens or hundreds of files supposedly in sync which are renamed inexplicably whenever I try to save them. Deleted folders still reappear if I do not permanently delete them manually from SugarSync. Some files still never sync, even though SugarSync indicates all files are "backed up and in sync." Hopefully they are still looking into these other issues as well.

Now, a new issue. For the past several weeks, I have been dealing with my Windows 7 Professional x64 machine's 4 GB of RAM filling up within a day or two of leaving it running. No listed application was actually using that RAM--adding up the reported memory commits of all running processes did not equal the amount of RAM which was used up. So I knew I was dealing with some sort of memory leak.

I tried disabling things I didn't necessarily need, but nothing helped until I finally decided to disable SugarSync from starting. Even though it would report very small memory usage, my memory leaks stopped completely when I stopped running SugarSync all the time. Looking at the process's history it would regularly use ~500 MB or more, but nowhere near what was actually being used on my system.

I do not have this issue on my Windows XP laptop, so it seems to be related to SugarSync and Windows 7 (not sure about Vista).

Anyone else noticed such behavior? I will report it to SharpCast so they can investigate further--maybe it's not SugarSync specifically but some interaction between SugarSync and another process running. But it makes my system crawl when the memory usage reaches 90 or 95% and the only resolution is a restart, so for the time being I am no longer running SS.

I tried resetting it to no avail. When it turned back on it was switching between having all LAN and WAN lights on (no power/wifi) and having the Power/WiFi lights on (no LAN/WAN), every second or so.

So I reset it again and put it into Recovery mode. I manually set the IP on my computer and used a TFTP client to re-upload my firmware image and reflash the device. To my happy surprise, it was working again. Problem solved.

Or not. I logged into the web interface to change my settings, which went great. I enabled Wireless, chose to Apply settings, and my router almost immediately reset and went back to the flashing lights again, just like before.

I tried this several times with the same result every time. Trying to avoid going insane, I ended up leaving for work and doing some investigation. It turns out I am experiencing the exact same symptoms as a lot of other people whose Asus power supplies have gone bad.

The problem is that a round-topped capacitor in the power supply is prone to electrolytic leakage. It essentially "blows its top" and its contents leak out into the unit. When there is not enough left in the capacitor, the PSU is not able to provide stable power.

The reason the problem only occurred after I enabled WiFi is that the router requires about 0.75 amps to boot up, but 1.1 amps is used when WiFi is powered on. It seems my PSU has enough juice to boot up, but as soon as it tries to enable the WiFi, there is simply not enough power and it gets stuck.

I am very hopeful (and 99% sure at this point) that it is the same issue I have as well. I'm going to stop by Radio Shack on the way home and get a replacement capacitor (hopefully 1200uF / 10v or close). I will report back my results afterward. If all goes well, I'll be making that post from my home computer through my working router!