I use
USAA for some of my finances. They specialize in remote banking (i've never been in a physical branch). Sadly, they can still be pretty clueless about how to use the web properly. My latest frustration with them was trying to use their
Deposit@Home service, where you scan your checks and upload them. No problem, right? I've got a scanner and a web browser and i know how to use them both. Ha ha. Upon first connecting, i'm rejected, and i find the absurd
System Requirements -- only Windows and Mac, and only certain versions of certain browsers. You also need Sun's Java plugin, apparently. Deliberately na ve, i call their helpdesk and ask them if they could just give me a link to let me upload my scanned checks. They tell me that they want 200dpi images, and then give an absurd runaround that includes references to
the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act as the reason they need to limit the system to Windows or Mac, and that security is the reason they need to control the scanner directly (apparently your browser can control your local scanner on Windows? yikes). But they let slip that Mac users don't have the scanner controlled directly, and can just upload images (apparently the federal law doesn't cover them or something). Preposterous silliness. The Workaround Of course, it turns out you can get it working on Debian GNU/Linux, mainly by telling them what they want to hear ("yes sir, i'm running Mac OS"), but you'll also have to run Sun's Java (non-free software) to do it, since their Java uploader fails with
nasty errors when using icedtea6-plugin. I set up a dedicated system user for this goofiness, since i'm going to be running apparently untrustworthy applets on top of non-free software. I run a separate instance of iceweasel as that user; all configuration described is for that user's homedir. If you do this yourself, You'll need to decide if you want the same level of isolation for yourself. So i have the choice of installing
sun-java6-plugin from
non-free and having the plugin installed for all web browsers, or just doing a per-user install of java for my dedicated user (and avoiding the plugin for my normal user). I opted for the latter. As the dedicated user, I fetched the self-extracting variant from
java.com, unpacked it, and added it to the iceweasel plugins:
chmod a+x ~/Download/jre-6u25-linux-i586.bin
mkdir -p ~/lib ~/.mozilla/plugins
cd ~/lib
~/Download/jre-6u25-linux-i586.bin
ln -s ~/lib/jre*/lib/*/libnpjp2.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/
Then i closed iceweasel and restarted it. In the relaunched iceweasel sesson, I told Iceweasel 4 to pretend that it was actually Firefox 3.6 on a Mac. I did this by going to
about:config (checking the box that says i know what i'm doing), right-clicking, and choosing "new >> string". The new variable name is
general.useragent.override and i found that setting it to the following (insane, false) value worked for me:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20060426 Firefox/3.5.18
Note that this configuration might make
hotmail think that you are a mobile device. :P If you try to use this browser profile for anything other than visiting USAA, you might want to remove this setting, or install
xul-ext-useragentswitcher to be able to set it more easily than using
about:config. Once these changes were made, I was able to log into USAA, use the Deposit@Home service to upload my 200dpi grayscale scans. I guess they think i'm a Mac user now. The Followup After completing the upload, I wrote them this review (i doubt they'll post it):
The Deposit@Home service has great potential. Unfortunately, it currently appears to be overengineered and unnecessarily restrictive. The service requires two scans (front and back) of the deposited check, at 200dpi, in grayscale or black-and-white, in jpeg format, reasonably-cropped. The simplest way to do this would be to show some examples of good scans and bad scans, and provide two file upload forms. Once the user uploaded their images, the web site could run its own verification, and display them back for the user to confirm, optionally using a simple javascript-based image-cropper if any image seems wrong-sized. This would work fine with any reasonable browser on any OS. Instead, Deposit@Home requires the user to present a User-Agent header claiming to be from specific versions of Mac or Windows, running certain (older) versions of certain browsers, and requires the use of Sun's Java plugin. Entirely unnecessary system requirements to do a simple task. Disappointing. :(
Acknowledgements I found
good background for this approach on the ubuntu forums. The Takeaway I continue to be frustrated and annoyed by organizations that haven't yet embraced the benefits of the open web. Clearly, USAA has spent a lot of money engineering what they think is a certain experience for their users. However, they didn't design with standard web browsers in mind, so they appear to have boxed themselves into a corner where they think they have to test and approve of the entire software stack running on the end-user's machine. This is not only foolish -- it's impossible. When you're designing a web-based application, just design it for the web. Keep it simple. If you want to offer some snazzy java-hooked-into-your-scanner insanity, i will only have a mild objection: it seems like a waste of time and engineering effort. My objection is much stronger if your snazzy/incompatible absurdity
is the only way to use your service. A simple, web-based, browser-agnostic interface should be available to all your clients. Even more aggravating is the claim that they don't think they should engineer for everyone. I was told during the runaround that they would only support Linux if 4% of their users were using Linux (which they don't think is the case at the moment -- if you are a USAA customer, and you use something other than Mac and Windows, please tell them so). I tried to tell them that I wasn't asking for Linux support; i was asking for
everyone support. If you just use generic engineering in the first place, there's no extra expense for special-casing other users. But they couldn't understand. And now, since i'll need to lie to them in my User Agent string every time i want to deposit a check online, those visits won't even show up in their logs to be counted. "Our web site deliberately disables itself for $foo users; we haven't written it for them; but that's OK, we don't have any $foo users anyway" is a nasty self-fulfilling prophecy. Why would you do that?
Connectivity can be a force for autonomy and freedom, or it can be
used for control and subjugation.
The Nintendo 3DS is an example of the latter.
Okay, yeah, I just said a cute video game console is a threat to personal freedom. Hear me out. If you haven't read the highlights of Nintendo's Terms of Service for
the 3DS yet, you should do that.
On one hand, it's "just" a games console. On the other hand, it's a
computer, marketed to children, which monitors your location (based on
proximity to wifi access points), uploads your photos and messages to
Nintendo's servers (giving them a license to re-use that information
in various ways), and tracks your activity. Now that's entertainment.
If you wanted your Nintendo computer to stop doing those things, you
could try to install some 3rd-party "homebrew" software on it. Except
then, according to the Terms, Nintendo would "brick" your device
render it inoperable, when the modified software is detected. Would
you accept Ford disabling your car because you had a mechanic friend
fix a problem using some aftermarket parts? Microsoft breaking your
computer hardware because you installed Firefox?
The ability to stop your electronics from spying on you is an
important freedom to defend, even if you don't ever plan on purchasing
a Nintendo device. Such terms, and the Digital Restrictions Management
software that enforces them, are a problem in all areas of digital
life. It's the same fundamental strategy as Apple controlling what you
can install on the iPhone or iPad, or Sony sending police officers to
a programmer's house because he showed other people how to modify
their own computers to make them able to run non-Sony-approved
software.
If we don't set a strong precedent against this behavior, it will
become more prevalent. If we lose the ability to install what we like
on our computers, then we lose the ability to use those computers in
any way that isn't pre-approved by a corporation. We lose it not only
because we ourselves can't install some software maybe we hate
changing anything on our computers at all but because the people
who write the software we rely on lose that freedom, which ends up
impacting even the most non-technical of computer users.
Companies like to portray anyone arguing for this freedom as criminals just wanting to illegally copy software. But that's obviously not true -- a person who follows all laws, even the most absurd, might still want to install something to stop Nintendo from receiving copies of her photos or reporting on her location. Companies use the threat of illegal copying to justify massive infringements on real personal freedoms.
People often say, "well, just don't buy it then". I agree don't buy
it. But don't think this is merely a consumer issue. Terms like
Nintendo's are backed by the force of criminal law the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act in the US for example which can put you in
jail for helping people to modify their own computers. So this is more
than a mere preference issue, it's also one of law and
ethics. It's not a free market when one side has coercive state
resources in play to prop up its arbitrary business model.
To help send this message, I just donated to send 5 bricks to
Nintendo. I hope you'll send one or five too. The campaign has a goal
of sending 200 bricks by the end of today (Monday, May 16th). Nintendo
clearly wants to get into the brick-making business, so surely they'll
appreciate the extra inventory.
(Disclosure: While I do work for the Free Software Foundation and am
paid partly to run the Defective by Design campaign, I really did
donate, and support this campaign personally.)
My previous website was generated (dynamically) with 
Note that the syntax of the overrides should be backwards compatible, so unlike the 
Frequently Asked Questions and Common Problems
Why do links always open in epiphany instead of iceweasel? You need to upgrade to the latest version on libglib2.0-0, gvfs and gnome-control-center in experimental. Then you can customize the default application used in the control center (under System Information > Default applications ).
You might need to switch to iceweasel 4.0 in experimental to have iceweasel appear in the list of browsers. Or you can edit 
A brand new 0.9.4 release of
Today I shot an image of a bear my daughter gave to my wife for mothers day.
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Anyone having had to deal with these applications, especially the most complex ones, could tell you a few things:
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Update: Despite another email yesterday reasserting the 90-120 days lie, the source code has now landed on 
I recently