Cyberponcho's Netlog

Cinnamon a GNOME 2.x style desktop

2012-01-28T04:12:00.000-08:00

This afternoon while searching for more information about this ACTA mess i came to a site featuring Linux Mint's new desktop interface codename 'Cinnamon', a Gnome 2 looking desktop built on top of Gnome 3.

Is this a step backwards? Cinnamon interface looks and works a lot like the popular Gnome 2.x interface, but it’s built on top of the Gnome 3.x interface.

How is that going to work? Time to ask mighty Google for enlightenment, the first images weren't that impressing but being a geek i couldn't say no to try a new window manager so i installed it on my Ubuntu 11.10 using this instructions.

After a couple of commands on the terminal and a few minutes i was ready to go, the first thing you notice is the clean desktop featuring only the bar on the bottom as you see in the picture.

Standard Cinnamon desktop.

Not impressed? well, neither was i to be honest, but as i started to poke around i quickly realized that it's actually pretty nice, fast, and well organised, the menu window is big and is neatly arranged, on the far left you have your favorite applications, in the middle the different software categories and by hovering the mouse over any of those categories you have on the far right the applications corresponding to that category.


Menu window

AND here's this particular thing that i love on G3: when you move the cursor to the top left corner you have an overview of all the open windows :-)

Overview of all open windows

This combination of old school G2 interface on top of the actual G3 is well made, practical, productive and very nice to work with. Clement Lefebvre, lead developer of Linux Mint and his team created Cinnamon because many people, including Linux’s father Linus Torvalds don't like the new Gnome 3.x interface.

Among the new features that the now official stable Cinnamon 1.2 includes are desktop effects, desktop layouts, a new configuration tool, and applets as well as a variety of bug fixes and other improvements.

Overall, many of the changes aim to reintroduce a level of customisability that numerous desktops have lost in recent years, Lefebvre said.

Cinnamon is available as a download for the mayor Linux distributions on their website.

ACTA

2012-01-27T02:19:00.000-08:00

You think SOPA and PIPA were bad? Get ready for ACTA, this is SOPA and PIPA on steroids, imagine a global filter that allows you to see only what it wants you to see, imagine your ISP being allowed to monitor you and keep track of every website visited, every file downloaded and every bit of information you share, send and/or receive, IMAGINE your ISP could REPORT you to the authorities because you downloaded something that MAY be illegal and the authorities WILL have the right to raid your house, check your computer and put you in prison should you have an illegally downloaded song or any bit of 'dangerous' information whatsoever, this is ACTA, please watch the video and don't just think 'it won't affect me' because it will affect us all.

Megaupload is down, what's next?

2012-01-23T00:33:00.000-08:00

The FBI shut down the Megaupload platform and put it's owner Kim Schmitz and his associates in prison and they're facing prison sentences. 'Finally' some say, 'bad move' others call it.

What is exactly Megaupload?

Megaupload Limited, better known for its closed websites including the top-15 megaupload.com, is an online Hong Kong based company established in 2005 that ran a number of online services related to file storage and viewing (source: Wikipedia, the whole article is here).

Are such services illegal? Theoretically not, such services are used by millions of users everyday to storage legal and/or personal data, backup physical hard drives and to be able to access important data whenever needed from any computer.

Practically, these services are often misused for illegal distribution of copyrighted data such as movies, music, games, etc. Once a user uploads a file to a filehoster, this file becomes an 'address' which can be called from any PC and the data can be downloaded again.

Most filehosters can not always control all the data being up/downloaded, alone Megaupload was clicked an average of 50 million times a day, about 4% of the world's Internet traffic, with such a data volume, trying to keep control of every file is like a drop of water falling over a hot stove.

How do filehosters earn their money? The basic hosting service is free, for a monthly fee users get for example faster up/download speed. Megaupload had around 150 million registered users, that alone brought the company around 175 million dollars. Alone Kim Schmitz, head of the company is said to have earnt around 42 million dollars last year!

Will Megaupload's customers be prosecuted?

This is because of the huge amount of data probably impossible, there will be for sure enough illegal data to do so, but i don't think they could probably prosecute 150 million users, Washington said about this that they will concentrate on the people responsible for Megaupload.

The servers used to storage data in the US were shut down but Megaupload being a Hong-Kong based company, has many other servers spread around the world, which means the impact on the Net will be minimal, besides, many users who traffic with illegal data upload the same file(s) on different filehosters so if one goes down, the file is only a search away.

Gnome Tweak Tool

2011-12-11T15:04:00.001-08:00

GNOME 3 or as i like to call it 'G3' is the newest release of the Gnome desktop. Many Linux users and distributions are starting to adopt G3 as their default desktop environment because of its look and feel, user-friendliness and performance. But when it comes to customizing, there aren't many options available by default in G3. If you want to do more serious customization on your G3 desktop then you need the Gnome tweak tool.

The Gnome tweak tool is an open source tool developed to customize your G3 beyond normal settings. With this great tool you can make advanced adjustments to various G3 settings including fonts used in the user interface, user interface themes, changes in window management behavior and much more.

Interested? then let's proceed to install Gnome tweak tool in Ubuntu using G3.

Gnome tweak tool is on the Ubuntu repositories, meaning that installing is as simple as opening software center and typing 'gnome tweak tool' on the search box, clicking install and watch the progress bar :-)

Once you're through with the install, you can start tweaking the settings of G3. Gnome tweak tool has a very simple and intuitive interface, on the left panel you have six different categories (Desktop, Fonts, Shell, Shell Extensions, Theme and Windows) that can be 'tweaked' using the corresponding options on the right panel.

Let's click on the 'Desktop' category on the left panel, on the right panel you can choose from the different tweaking options for the desktop, an image says more than a thousand words so take a look at the following screenshots.

Now click Fonts, here you can configure the Text scaling factor, Default font, Document font, Monospace font, Window title font, Hinting and Antialising.

Under Shell category, you can configure date, time, calendar and arrangements of buttons on the titlebar.

The theme category takes care of the setting for menus and buttons as well as themes for cursor, key binding, icons, Gtk+, shell and window.

The Windows category,here you can configure the settings for various click actions on the title bar of windows and the window focus mode as well.

Happy customizing!!!!

How to install Gnome 3 on Ubuntu 11.04

2011-11-23T05:55:00.001-08:00

Gnome 3 is the next step in the evolution of the Gnome desktop environment and is a light desktop environment used in many popular Linux distributions.

Here I'll show you how to install it on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal.

Attention! If you're doing this inside Unity, you'll break your session. I don't know of a way to revert this process, I did, and I recommend you do this inside Gnome 2 as well, I'm not in any way responsible for your mistakes. You've been warned!

Ok, you've been warned, now lets get down to business, first thing is to do is open a terminal and add the Gnome repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3

Enter your password when asked and then ENTER. Once the repo is added we update:

sudo apt-get update

Enter your password again if necessary and then ENTER, this may take some 30 seconds depending on your conecction speed, when update is done type:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Again type your password if needed and hit ENTER. You will be asked if you want to upgrade your packages, type Y (yes) and hit ENTER.

We're almost there, once the dist-upgrade is done then we come to the point of this tutorial which is install Gnome, type in terminal (or copy/paste if too lazy)

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Type your password and hit ENTER. You'll be asked if you want to install gnome-shell, type Y and hit ENTER.

You're done! Not as colorful as 'The most incredible and really unbelievable dream has become true: You compiled e17 successfully!' (Enlightement fan here ) but GNOME 3 is now installed in your Ubuntu machine. All you have to do now is to reboot your system and choose 'Gnome shell' at the the login screen.

And this is how it looks, enjoy it!

Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' on HP nc4200

2011-11-22T12:14:00.001-08:00

It's been a couple of years already since i posted my notebook's hardware specifications and my experience installing Ubuntu 7.10 'Gutsy', since then i have loyally upgraded to every new Ubuntu release, Ubuntu has been my distro of choice because HP's original concept was to actually market the nc4200 with Ubuntu so they made sure that all the hardware was 100% Linux compatible (and believe me, it still is!!)

A few months ago i upgraded the ram to 2 Gb and got a 100 Gb hard drive before upgrading to 10.10 'Maverick' and just a couple of weeks ago i upgraded the same notebook to Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' which is running perfect.

One thing i don't like from the latest Ubuntu releases is the Unity interface, it feels like a huge smart phone and i just couldn't work comfortably with it, so i kept using Gnome 2 and waited (un)patiently for Gnome 3 to be released.

When i upgraded to 11.04 i read with great pleasure that Gnome 3 was released so i happily made the necessary arrangements to upgrade to this long awaited release.
Gnome 3 is great, it's interface is a bit like Unity but you find your way around much faster... at least i do. Coming to think of it, if Gnome 3 looks and works as good or even better than Unity, why didn't Canonical stick with Gnome and saved themselves the whole work of developing Unity?

Well, there are a lot of happy Unity users too so kudos Canonical for developing another way to customize our desktop :-)

While running on 11.04 Gnome 3 was lacking a bit of performance but after upgrading to 11.10 it's performance improved a lot and G3's interface is very pleasant and user friendly, if you still want to customize Gnome 3 beyond what configuration editor allows you'll need the Gnome Tweak Tool to do so.
To sum it all up, the Oneiric Ocelot / Gnome 3 combo is great, and my notebook is a perfect example that you don't need the latest, most expensive and fastest hardware to run the latest Linux releases efficiently, so you can keep your hard-earned cash for more important things :-)

How to re-enable wireless in Ubuntu 11.10

2011-11-22T06:13:00.001-08:00

Yesterday while checking settings on my laptop i accidentally switched the wireless lan off -Stupid me- i thought, but as i tried to switch it back on it didn't work!

Wtf??? was my first thought, i clicked on the enable button but nothing happened, i also notice that the 'Airplane mode' button was enabled, so i switch that one off and tried the wlan again button without success.

So i put on my Google and dived into the net, within minutes i got an answer and a few minutes later i had everything working again, there were a few option how to deal with this, but i managed to fix my problem using only two commands, see graphic below:

To check if wireless is blocked, we use the 'rfkill list' command, in my case, '0: hp-wifi' is the interesting part of the output. When wireless was blocked it showed 'Soft blocked: yes' (sorry, screenshot was made after everything was fixed) in order to unblock it enter the next command 'rfkill unblock wifi'.

In my case that's all i had to do, no reboot, no nothing else, nada, there were other, more complicated methods to get around this issue but probably because of my laptop's hardware i didn't have to do anything else (lucky me!!)

How smartphone users see each other.

2011-10-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

Why are we (still) here?

2011-10-13T01:56:00.000-07:00

The manufacturers of the Blackberry will today be asked to explain why the Planet Earth still exists.

Still here for some reason
After the crash of its email and messaging service, experts say the smartphone may not be as vital as all the people who own one had led us to believe.

Technologist Stephen Malley said: "According to my calculations none of us should be here.

"In the event of such a prolonged absence of Blackberry messaging facilities, the Earth should have exploded by now in a hellish furnace of molten rock and body parts.

"There should be charred Blackberries spinning silently through space that will one day be picked up by aliens who will then be able to work out where it all went wrong for Earth."

He added: "I did the calculations on my Blackberry."

But Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: "It's an easy mistake to make. Blackberries are owned by people who think they're incredibly important, whereas iPhones are owned by people who think iPhones are incredibly important and Android phones are owned by poor people who don't matter.

"Anyway, we worked out that the world was able to continue to exist for two key reasons. Are you ready?

"One - if you're in the office you can get emails and stuff on your computer, and two - if you're out of the office and something happens that actually matters then people can phone you. On your Blackberry."

He added: "We then did another experiment which shows that if people keep using Blackberries then the word will eventually disappear up its own rectum."

To swap or not to swap?

2011-09-11T13:26:00.001-07:00

Today as i switched my notebook on and logged into Ubuntu i was welcome with the message 'your system has only 348Mb of free space' wtf? was my first impression, i have a 40 Gb HD and i dual boot win7 and Ubuntu Natty Narwahl, but i was sure to have a few Gb of space left, so i started Gparted and took a look...
WTF??? I discovered 3 swap partitions totaling a bit over 6 Gb, something went terribly wrong while installing, there is my missing space!!!
So i happily deleted 2 of those partitions and then i started to wonder, i recently upgraded my RAM to 2 Gb, so what would happen if i delete the third swap partition and run Linux totally without swap? I considered worth a try, so first thing to do was ask mighty Google for enlightenment.
Swap vs. no swap - Alex on Linux gave me quite a bit to read and a lot of useful info, for instance one thing that made me think twice about running without swap is the fact that without swap there's no possibility of hibernation, one of the reasons why recommended swap space size is twice the size of the RAM that is in the computer is to allow the operating system to accommodate all your RAM in swap partition – to allow hibernation. I do hibernate my system often so i don't have to sometimes close running programs... i know it's a commodity but once you're used to that is difficult not to do it.
Has swap still a use with 4 GB of memory? | KernelTrap has also a good discussion about swap, some people do, some don't, i guess it depends what programs you work with and how much memory they use.
sourcefrog : Is swap space obsolete? this particular article gives a deeper explanation why swap is still important even if you have a few Gb of RAM.

Bottom line is, without swap you won't be able to hibernate your system (not to be confused with sleeping, in sleep mode the system still works and consumes power while in hibernate mode it comes to complete stop) without swap your system may loose stability and disk speed access will be slower compared to a system with swap, so I'll keep for sure that last swap partition.

Outer space facts.

2011-08-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered if we're really alone in the universe? What would happen if suddenly you have to leave your ship and have nothing but clothes on? Here's a list of amazing outer space related facts, enjoy the read.

Extreme!

2011-08-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

The human body is an amazing machine, and being pushed to it's very limits like in this video is even more amazing, fasten your seat belts and enjoy this one.

Modern slavery

2011-07-10T06:50:00.000-07:00

In the old days during the slavery in the United States, slaves used to be fixed to a black iron ball with a chain and a shackle at the bottom, so that they couldn't run or escape the cotton fields. Their masters used to call this device ´Blackberry´ because it resembled that fruit due to the ball's irregular shape. That was the ancient symbol of slavery, and meant the wearer of such device would be forced to give up his own life to perish without escape in these fields. In modern times, new employees can not be tied to an iron ball so that they don't escape, instead, are given a ´Blackberry´ (or call it iPhone or any other smartphone for instance), this way they are chained to this wireless shackle, which they, like former slaves, can not put aside so they're bound to work all the time, this is the modern symbol of slavery.
Like many managers, directors and businessmen, i got one too, and just see how we're always glued to this little machine, like an addiction, in the bathroom, in the car, at the movies, during dinner, etc. There is no escape when the boss calls or when you receive a message. There is no way to say no or that you did not listen because this little gossip machine alerts when you got a call and did not answer, if you have messages to read or if you already read them, reminds you of your appointments, schedules, wakes you up, turns itself off and back on to wake you up and allows you to be dumbed for hours on the internet, while your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend/children and whole family complains that you do not pay attention or don't have time for them.
And there you see them, new modern executives feel very important because their boss or their company gave them their first ´Blackberry´ to prevent them from escaping the work fields.

Drivel

2011-03-16T05:23:00.000-07:00

This is a test using Drivel Journal Editor 3.0.2, a light weight blogging application for the Gnome desktop.

John Lennon + Van Halen = Imagijump!!!

2011-01-24T15:37:00.000-08:00

Imagine an impossible hybrid song, take John Lennon's classic Imagine and cross it with Van Halen's jump, what do you get? an absolutely hilarious mix that actually sounds good (at least it did to me)
Listen up here.

Virus alarm on Facebook.

2011-01-23T06:02:00.000-08:00

One day like any other you log in to your Facebook account to check what's new, suddenly it goes 'ping' and a chat window opens. A friend writes 'funny picture' or 'hey, you look so weird in this video' followed by two smileys and a link, you get too curious and click on the link to see what your friend meant, in the worst case you're lost: both the picture and your friend's message are fake, organized cybercrime is behind this and other tricks.

Facebook is with over 500 million users the world's most popular social networking platform on the Internet and a perfect playground for cybercriminals to spread viruses and trojans. Using security 'holes' in the browser they get access to unprotected user login data and through

them they send a message with a link to the user's friends.

As soon as a friend clicks on the link, he comes to a modified website where a virus 'sneaks' in the users computer, his mission: get in that user's facebook account and send messages to his friends list, this way the virus reproduces itself and spreads around.

Facebook says: 'as soon as a message is sent around at a unnormal speed in a short period of time, it gets block automatically by our systems' but that doesn't seem to be enough, so how can you protect yourself without depending on Facebooks system?

-Keep your browser updated, Get the latest release of Firefox or Google Chrome, if you are using internet explorer 6 or 7 (yuk!!) get the newest release asap (or just uninstall it and get yourself one of the two mentioned before), a good antivirus program is a must have, (ask God... er, i mean Google for enlightenment)

But even the best antivirus program is not good enough, the best weapon you have is yourself, don't open everything that is sent to you, specially if you're not expecting such a message or if your 'friend' is just someone you just met online in a chatroom or over Facebook, make sure the message is coming from a trusted source before opening it or you may be the next victim :-)

10 years Wikipedia

2011-01-17T14:16:00.000-08:00

How many meter does a sea mile have?

What does 'lamprophony' mean?

You don't know the answers? well, me neither, but that doesn't matter, because since 10 years we can rely on Wikipedia giving the answers to these and millions of other questions and it has become a part of our lives as common as toasted bread and traffic jams.

Today kids can barely believe that there used to be a time when you would have to actually open and read a book (or many ) whenever you needed some information on a particular subject.

Wikipedia is one of the best examples why the internet so wonderful is and why we couldn't picture life without it anymore.

But lets go back 10 years in time and witness the 'birth' and humble beginnings of Wikipedia.

It was January 15, 2001 when Jimmy Wales put Wikipedia.com online, 'the free encyclopedia', back then it was unthinkable that some hobby author would pretend to deliver the same knowledge quality of for example Microsoft Encarta, and the editors of Brockhaus & Co. simply laughed their butts off at this crazy 'pioneer' of cyberspace (since Wikipedia's founding, Microsoft stopped issuing updates to its Encarta encyclopedia. Microsoft didn't blame Wikipedia as the reason, but did admit it)

Wikipedia is in my opinion the ultimate source of knowledge nowadays and nobody at Brockhaus & Co. is laughing about it anymore.

Here are just a few numbers to show you the massive growth of Wikipedia the last 10 years:

It's been translated in 260 languages.
It has more than 10 million articles.
The English Wikipedia is with over 3,46 million articles the world's biggest.
The German Wikipedia receives every hour 2,56 million calls, almost twice as much as last year and almost 52% of these calls come through Google and other search engines (are there really other search engines??)
99578 authors were registered at Wikipedia until September 2010

The biggest part of Wikipedia's articles are about art and culture (33%) followed by biographies (15%) and history (11%) and is in permanent expansion, making it mankind's ultimate knowledge collection and something we just couldn't live without, happy birthday Wikipedia.

Free and Open Source audio application.

2011-01-03T12:32:00.000-08:00

The Open Source world has a gazillion free applications to offer, here are some of the best audio applications offered, be it an audio player, a very profesional drum machine or a audio editor, you may find something to your liking.

Maverick Meerkat upgrade.

2010-10-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu 10.10 codename 'Maverick' is finally being given to us, among other goodies is the new KDE 4.5 release on board, there are by the way no packages planned for Kubuntu 10.04 LTS, so is recommended to upgrade to 10.10 (normal release) if you want to try the newest KDE release software.

Upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to 10.10 on a desktop system couldn't be any easier, first press Alt+F2 and type in "update-manager -d" (without the quotes) into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '10.10' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

As i'm writing this, the upgrade process is happening, will let you know more when i do :-)

The end of the web.

2010-06-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

Here it is, after years of looking around and surfing through the (almost) endless ocean of information known as the internet, i have finally found the last webpage and the end of the net here

Change buttons from left to right in Ubuntu 10.04

2010-06-21T12:28:00.001-07:00

When I first ran Ubuntu 'Lucid Linx 10.04' inside Virtual Box, i was really surprised of all the new features and look of the newest OS from Canonical... but hey, wait a minute, where the heck did my window buttons go? Why in the world did they move them to the left on this release? Probably a lot of you asked the same question, is this some kind of Mac-feeling-joke? I want to use Linux, not Mac, and for Google's sake i sure want my window buttons ON THE RIGHT SIDE AGAIN!!!!!

So here comes the solution, please notice that i'm a Kubuntu user and i ran the Ubuntu release inside a virtual machine, so there may be differences or this may not work at all for you, use at your own risk!!

First thing to do is open a terminal, either though your start menu or with Alt+F2 and execute this command (without the '<>' of course, you can also copy and paste it if you're too lazy to type)

< gconftool -s /apps/metacity/general/button_layout -t string menu:minimize,maximize,close >

After this your buttons should automagically be back on the right side of the screen.

Steve Jobs hates you.

2010-05-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

The iPhone and iPad don’t support Flash, and as much as it may annoy users, it doesn’t come near to how much it annoys Flash developers or website owners. McCann creative Mat Bisher at Mashable has built his site in Flash and thinks that Apple’s policy toward Flash “sucks.” He decided to send a hidden message to all iPhone and iPad users in a very special way — read the whole story here.

Stock market for dummies.

2010-05-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

50 Places Running Linux That You Might Not Expect

2010-05-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Focus has posted a really interesting list of 50 places running Linux. Some of the companies and places on the list are obvious (although there are quite a few missing) but others just may surprise you.

Linux is hovering just beneath 1% of the overall market share in operating systems. And although that might sound like a small number, Linux is far more than just a fringe OS. In fact, it's running in quite a few more places than you probably suspect. Here are fifty places Linux is running today in place of other OS's.

Lunix??

2010-05-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

This one i just had to post, made me ROFL.

Is your son obsessed with "Lunix"?

BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. It is based on a program called "xenix", which was written by Microsoft for the US government. These programs are used by hackers to break into other people's computer systems to steal credit card numbers. They may also be used to break into people's stereos to steal their music, using the "mp3" program. Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as "telnet", which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone.

Your son may try to install "lunix" on your hard drive. If he is careful, you may not notice its presence, however, lunix is a capricious beast, and if handled incorrectly, your son may damage your computer, and even break it completely by deleting Windows, at which point you will have to have your computer repaired by a professional.

If you see the word "LILO" during your windows startup (just after you turn the machine on), your son has installed lunix. In order to get rid of it, you will have to send your computer back to the manufacturer, and have them fit a new hard drive. Lunix is extremely dangerous software, and cannot be removed without destroying part of your hard disk surface

University Professor puts Linux and Open Source down.

2010-05-24T07:10:00.000-07:00

While looking around in the Ubuntu forum i found this now quite old thread about a very narrow-minded 'professor' trying to explain his students the 'disadvantages' of Linux and Open Source, it's quite long and old already but worth the reading.
Quote of the original post by Almumin:

While I was in class, a professor tried to hammer Ubuntu and Open Source with comments that I have added below. Anyone want to help me with some ammo to put a foot in his proprietary mouth?

The disadvantages of open source are:

Restricted choice - In virtually every area of software there are dozens if not hundreds choices for different commercial packages, but rarely are there more than one or two, if any, open source options.
Poor integration with Microsoft - Open source products tend to be created by people who do not want to work with other platforms like dot net, so as a result their products are poorly integrated with Microsoft products such as Windows, do not use Microsoft features well, and fail to take maximum advantage of the Windows environment.
Poor vertical integration - Open source products tend to be written by people who buy into the "software tools" idea of UNIX whereby one puts together an ultimate application by stringing together smaller applications like pearls on a string.
Poor interactive capabilities – there aren’t any or few open source packages with an interactive user interface as good as "average good" interactive packages in Windows. Packages like Adobe PhotoShop, Visual Studio, Microsoft Word and others have GUIs of extraordinary breadth and depth, all accomplished with care and attention to hundreds of thousands of details of the user interaction.
Difficult to use - Open source packages tend to be written by engineers for other engineers and for many of them it is accepted that ordinary function will involve creation of configuration files, writing scripts, or actually editing the source code and recompiling.
Higher cost of installation - Commercial vendors are forced by intense competition to configure their products for easy installation. Open source tends to have much higher installation costs because a much greater degree of expertise usually is required for installation.
Higher cost of operation - Open source products tend to require a much higher degree of technical expertise to operate and maintain, so they end up costing more.
Higher cost of technical support - Open source costs more to support because the software is typically self-supporting.
Lack of capabilities / features - Open software packages tend to have far fewer features and capabilities than commercial equivalents.
Poor customer response - A well-run commercial software company will immediately turn around customer requests for enhancements. With open source, if you don't do it yourself you are at the mercy of a disjoint community of developers.
Lack of innovation / codification of obsolete architectures - The glacially slow pace of development within open source movements and the design by committee, consensus process tends to assure that obsolete architectures get implemented within open source.
Exposure to Intellectual Property theft issues - If you buy an open source product you have no assurance whatsoever that you are not buying intellectual property that has been stolen from its rightful owners, or has been created illegally by people who are violating a nondisclosure contract.
Greater exposure to security problems - If your adversary knows your source code and your mechanism they have a big leg up on compromising your system.
No warranty - If you use open source you are on your own. There is no single company backing the product.
Fraudulent status as 'open' source - If one actually looks at where some of the 'free' open source was developed, one finds that it is not really open source but is the result of an enormous investment of funds, quite often by a poorly-managed public agency. The GIS example would be GRASS, which was developed at immense cost by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Read the rest of this hilarious thread here.

In memory of Ronnie James Dio

2010-05-17T02:36:00.000-07:00

One of heavy metal foundations have passed away, but your legacy and music will stay with us forever, rest in peace master Dio.

Extremely cool powerbook

2010-05-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Has your hard drive ever died on you? you try to boot but once the Hd gets warm it just clicks and clicks and nothing happens? Adam Kempa has found a simple solution to this problem... throw your laptop in the fridge and close the door!! read his experience here, absolutely hilarious stuff :-)

Network manager issue on Kubuntu 10.04

2010-05-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

Today i'll show you how to re-enable the network manager on Kubuntu 'Lucid'

After upgrading to Kubuntu 10.04 a couple of weeks ago, everything worked just perfect, but today, as i switched on my notebook i couldn't get online, neither by wlan nor by cable, a situation i just couldn't understand because it was working just a few hours ago.

After a few minutes of Google search i found out that this issue is known as bug #524454 and thank the Ubuntu community there's a simple solution to it:

Open up a terminal and start dolphin as root 'sudo dolphin' then navigate to /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state, this is a text file that you can open in your favorite text editor, if you were victim of this bug your network setting should be NetworkingEnable=false, just change 'false' to 'true', save the file and then let the command 'sudo restart network-manager' work it's magic... voila!

A perfect excuse.

2010-04-21T10:58:00.001-07:00

A senior citizen in Florida bought a brand new Mercedes convertible. He took off down the road, flooring it to 80 mph and enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left on his head.

"This is great," he thought as he roared on down I-75.He pushed the pedal to the metal even more. Then he looked in his rear view mirror and saw a highway patrol trooper behind him, blue lights flashing and siren blaring.

"I can get away from him with no problem," thought the man and he tromped on it some more, and flew down the road at over 100 mph, then 110, 120mph. Then he thought, "What am I doing? I'm too old for this kind of thing."

He pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the trooper to catch up with him. The trooper pulled in behind the Mercedes, and walked up to the man. "Sir," he said, looking at his watch. "My shift ends in 30 minutes and today is Friday. If you can give me any reason why you were speeding, that I've never heard before, I'll let you go."

The man looked at the trooper and said, "Years ago my wife ran off with a Florida State trooper, and I thought you were bringing her back."

The trooper replied, "Sir, have a nice day."

Easy ways to trick a windows user.

2010-04-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so your room mate is a windows user and he's tired of hearing you praying how much better Linux is and you should just quit the sh**?, well then try a few of this pranks whenever he leaves his windows machine unattended and watch him freak out, have fun :-)

Amazing bodypainting

2010-04-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

While surfing around the web i came across this site and i was really amazed at what people can do with some paint and a model's body (a nice one, by the way!) there's more amazing bodywork on this site, enjoy it!

MS offers free MS office.

2010-04-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

This free edition of its Office software -- which will not include PowerPoint but will have crippled versions of Excel and Word -- will be given away with consumer machines in an effort to poison the well for competing open source productivity suites like OpenOffice (which includes a PowerPoint-compatible presentation application and full-featured spreadsheet and word processing programs.)

"Microsoft appears to have woken up to the fact that free open-source Office clones like OpenOffice may prove to be the thin end of a very slippery wedge, and if users discover they can get by with it instead of paying for a full version of Microsoft's Office, then the next step will be to switch to Ubuntu (or some other Linux) instead of paying for Windows."

Read the complete article by Paul Rubens here.

Installing Wicd in Ubuntu Hardy.

2009-12-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

While using 9.10 Karmic, i learn of this excelent application that makes conecting to wireless lan a breeze (and my life less complicated!)

Wicd is an open source wired and wireless network manager for Linux which provides a simple but effective interface to connect to networks with a wide variety of settings and features starting with no Gnome dependencies (but note that it does require GTK), so it is easy to use and install in XFCE, Fluxbox, Openbox, Enlightenment, etc.

Need more?

-It has the ability to connect to wired (Ethernet only, no PPPoE/DSL support yet) and wireless networks.

-Individual profiles for each wireless network and wired network.

-Many encryption schemes, some of which include WEP/WPA/WPA2

-Remains compatible with wireless-tools

-Tray icon showing network activity and signal strength

-A full-featured console interface

If you are using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty), Wicd 1.5.9 is in the universe repository, so a simple sudo apt-get install wicd will do it. If you want the latest version of Wicd when it comes out, though, you'll need to add the Wicd repository. Jaunty users who need to download the Wicd deb package can grab it from Ubuntu's Universe repository.

Non-Jaunty versions of Ubuntu (Intrepid, Hardy, etc) or Jaunty users who want the latest updates will have to add the Wicd repository to the Ubuntu package manager. To open the package manager in Gnome, go to Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. When it appears, go to Settings > Repositories > Third Party Software > Add..., and enter the following line:

deb http://apt.wicd.net jaunty extras

where "jaunty" is your version of Ubuntu in lowercase (dapper, edgy, feisty, gutsy, hardy, intrepid, jaunty). You'll also need to add the key used for signing Wicd by running the following command in a terminal:

wget -q http://apt.wicd.net/wicd.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Now, click Reload, and wait while the package lists are downloaded. Now, search for "Wicd", and right click on it. Select Install, then press Apply, and Wicd will automatically be downloaded and installed for you. This will also keep you automatically up to date with the latest and greatest version of Wicd. Please note that this will remove network-manager, which is the default GNOME network manager and may cause loss of network connection temporarily.

Ubuntu down(up)grade.

2009-12-18T06:35:00.000-08:00

After upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 'Jaunty' and working with it for a couple of months, i took the next step and upgraded to 9.10 'Karmic Koala' to see what was new on this release, upgrade was like always a breeze (typical Ubuntu :-)) and there were quite a few features and apps that caught my attention, like the 'Ubuntu Software Center' replacing 'Add/Remove' in the Applications menu ,a program similar to Freespire's CNR where you can easily and painlessly download and install hundreds of applications, very nice indeed :-)

But i, being a LTS user did long for my Hardy so it was time to down-up-grade my box again, not without taking some notes and installing some of the new tools found in 9.10 ;-)

Testing Zoundry Raven

2009-08-09T02:09:00.000-07:00

Because at work they use of course windows i needed an application that i could carry on my usb stick to write stuff for my blog while at work, so after asking the wisest of the wisest Google i found Zoundry Raven, it seems quite a nice tool for that purpose, so i'm writing and publishing this first post with it, should it work you will read a bit more about it, stay tuned!

Ubuntu 9.04- the Jaunty Jackalope, report.

2009-07-23T01:38:00.000-07:00

It's been more than 2 months since i upgraded my laptop to 9.04 'Jaunty Jackalope', and about time to share the results with the rest of the world, the whole upgrading process took about 2 hours (8.04 LTS to 8.10 and then 8.10 to 9.04) but it was completelly painless and there wasn't much i had to do, i even went to the gym for the last hour of the process and when i came back the whole process was almost finished, hurray!!

Warning!! don't hold me responsible if after following my notes your system is messed up, my laptop is 100% Linux compatible and your hardware may not be, do this at your own risk.

First thing i did was update my 8.04 LTS, once my system was up to date i started the upgrading process to 8.10 (you can only upgrade to 9.04 from 8.10). Note that upgrades from 8.04 LTS to 8.10 are not enable by default because 8.04 is a long-term-support release and 8.10 is a regular release, but upgrade is 100% supported and easy to enable, if you are not sure which version you are currently running type on a terminal 'lsb_release -a' to find out.

Now go to System/Administration/Software Sources, then click on the "Updates" tab and change "Show new distribution release" to "Normal releases", now get outta there.

Again start System/Administration/Update Manager, click the Check button to check for new updates. If there are any updates to install, use the Install Updates button to install them, and press Check again after that is complete, make sure you have all the updates for your current version installed before upgrading, a message will appear informing you of the availability of the new release, click upgrade and follow the instructions on screen, the upgrade manager will then start downloading the necesary packages.

Depending on the speed of your Internet connection this can take just a few minutes to a few hours, once the necesary files are fetched you can sit back and watch it work, this may take a while too depending on your hardware speed.

Once this is done and you have restarted your system you can check again with 'sudo lbs_release-a' if the upgrade was succesful, then you should see the following on your terminal:

Distributor ID: Ubuntu

Description: Ubuntu intrepid

Release 8.10

Codename Intrepid

Not as colorful as 'The most incredible and really unbelievable dream has become true: You compiled e17 successfully!' (Enlightenment fan here) but if you see this then you have succesfully upgraded to 8.10.

To upgrade to 9.04 the steps are pretty much the same, update your 8.10 and then proceed with the upgrade, it should be as easy (or even easier) than the previous upgrade.

Was it worth the upgrade? Hell yeah!! For example hibernating did't work that good with 8.04, now it works without a problem, from switching on until login screen takes about 20 sec, the overall impresion is very good and the new release works faster and efficient.

Before you attemp to do an upgrade, don't forget to backup your system and get as much information and feedback about other people's experiences about upgrading their systems, best place for this is of course the Ubuntu Forum, good luck!! :-)

Upgrade.

2009-06-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

After many months of happily 'ubuntuing' with 8.04 LTS i decided to upgrade my notebook to 8.10 and then to 9.04, tests and results will be posted soon.

Connect Ubuntu to wlan automatically

2009-04-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

One issue i had in my Ubuntu laptop, everytime i booted up i had to manually enter the password to connect to our wireless lan at home.
-Oh well, it's just once- i thought.
But this little issue became slowly an annoyance so i decided that it was time to do something about that.
What is the first logical step? right! ask google! a couple of minutes search and i found this little trick in order to make my laptop connect automagically to my wlan.
Open up a terminal and navigate to /etc/network, the open the file 'interfaces' with your favorite editor in superuser mode, then add this under iface eth1 inet dhcp.

wireless_essid (essid here)
wireless_key (password here)

Make sure you don't use quotation marks with the essid or it won't work and don't use the brackets.
This little trick has saved me some anoying time, now everytime i boot at home, my laptop finds and connects automagically to my wlan :-)

Macbuntu.

2009-04-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

Not long ago i had the chance to play around on a friend's macbook and must say that i quite like the interface, specially the bottom bar with the jumping icons, so i decided to give it a go and turn my ubuntu into 'macbuntu.'
First step? of course ask o'powerful google for enlightenment, which came by the lot, at the end i ended up following this excellent tutorial and i must say that i'm very satisfied with the results.

In the following picture you see the original mac leopard desktop

The next picture shows how my desktop turned out, mind the 1024 x 768 resolution of my 12' laptop :-), notice that there are more icons on the top right that i decided to keep and the missing menus of the left that i think i could live without, installing the needed applications was a easy as copying and pasting most of the commands from the tutorial into a terminal ( was too lazy to type) and the result you can see, give it a go and have fun!

New Linux mascot.

2009-04-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

The rumors are true, Tux days are counted, our long-time Linux mascot can finally go into retirement and rest.
Introducing Tuz, a Tasmanian devil camouflaged as a penguin, the official 'release' will be with the new kernel 2.2.29.
Linus Torvalds sent Tux in a 'sabbatical 3 month vacation' and presented Tuz to the main kernel developers, Linus said this way he hopes to bring more attention to the Tasmanian devil which is in danger of extinction due to "Devil Facial Tumour Disease", some rare form of transmissible cancer.

The 10 geek commandments.

2009-04-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Here are the holy ten commandments of the Net, stick with them and you will reach enlightenment :-)

Ubuntu on HP nc 4200

2009-02-07T14:46:00.000-08:00

Well, finally i got around to publish this, the HP nc4200 is the nicest piece of Linux compatible hardware that i ever laid hands on, don't look no more!

Ubuntu 7.10 'Gutsy' on HP nc4200

Intel Pentium M processor 740* (1.73-GHz, 533-MHz FSB, 2-MB L2 cache)
Works / no special procedure required during installation.

12.1-inch TFT XGA (1024 x 768 resolution and 16 M colors)
Works / Select Generic LCD Display in Installer

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
Works / no special procedure required during installation

1024-MB 400-MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Works / No special procedure required during installation

40 GB 5400 rpm SMART
Works / No special procedure required during installation

Integrated 10Base-T/100Base-T/1000Base T Ethernet local area network (LAN) network interface card (NIC) with RJ-45 jack
Works / No special procedure required during installation

Internal 56k Modem No idea Not tested

External DVD-ROM MultiBay II Drive
Works / No special procedure required during installation

TouchPad, pointing stick pointing devices and a dedicated vertical scroll region Works / No special procedure required during installation

One integrated Secure Digital slot
Works / No special procedure required during installation

Sound ADI AC '97 CODEC Integrated 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro compatible audio
Works / No special procedure required during installation

Integrated wireless Mini PCI IEEE 802.11b/g and 802.11a/b/g WLAN device
Works / No special procedure required during installation

Bluetooth
Works / No special procedure required during installation

Basic Installation of Ubuntu 7.10 'gutsy':

* Why Ubuntu? HP originally planned to release this notebook with Ubuntu so it was the obvious choice :-)
* Obtaining Ubuntu: do i really have to tell you how to obtain Ubuntu?
* Installing: pretty straight forward: put cd in drive, answer a few questions, partition if wished and let the installer do the rest :-D
* Post-Install modifications/tweaks: just customizing options (desktop, starup programs/daemons, etc), everything tested worked out of the box.

Setting up additional features for Ubuntu: nothing i can think of.

Unresolved issues: none!!

Links:

* The Ubuntu forum offers excellent support and almost any question will be answered to satisfaction.
* HP has tons of information on the website about this notebook.
* Laptop was recently upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS with Kernel 2.6.24-23 without any problems, now running compiz and desktop effects.

I originally wanted to get a IBM because of the famous Linux compatibility but after doing a lot of research and reading i ended up buying this notebook. Linux often requires several kernel patches, or even windows drivers to work properly on a portable computer. HP originally intended to market their NC4200 notebook with Ubuntu, so they went the extra mile to get the system working and they did a great job :-)

Note: On November 2011 this notebook was upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot'. Check here for the full report.

How to install games on Samsung SGH-F480

2009-02-02T11:26:00.000-08:00

As soon as i layed hands on my new samsung, i was dissapointed that there was only one game installed so i wanted to have a couple more options to choose from, unfortunately samsung made it quite a difficult (but not impossible)task, here is the result of a few day's investigation and googleing, the TKFileExplorer is a windows application but i'm sure there must be a Linux counterpart.

Necessary Programs for Installation: TKFileExplorer 2.2
Download http://azev76.free.fr/U700/JavaInstall.rar
The .jar and .jad files for the application.

Step1. Download and install TKFileExplorer. In the same .rar file, open SAMSUNG_Composite_USB_Driver_4_34_WHQL.zip and choose the Setup.exe file. This will install the necessary Samsung Driver to use TKFileExplorer.
Step2. Open TKFileExplorer and go to Settings then choose COM. On port, click the drop down menu and choose the port that is visible (something like port 5/port 6). NOTE* you must NOT be connected in pc studio program. Now click on FILE and CONNECT.

Step3. On the bottom half of TKFileExplorer, browse through these folders Exe/Java/Games. Now that you are in games, create a new folder. Name it after what you are going to install (for example, Google Maps, Gmail, Opera Mini etc). Now you will need to place the .jar & .jad files of the program you will be installing. On the top half of TKFileExplorer, browse through to where you saved the application files (.jar/.jad) and select them both. Now right click and choose ‘Download’. All done for this part.

Step4. Open up your dial pad and enter the following, *#6984125*#. Choose INTERNALS and enter the following, *#9072641*#. Now scroll down and choose Storage Settings. Then update Java DB, followed by update apps database. Now you are finished. Go to Menu>Applications/Apps & Games. Your newly installed app should be visible!

Enjoy it and i hope it helps someone :-)

Samsung SGH-F480

2009-02-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

My newest adquisition is this, the samsung SGH-F480, real nice and hi-tech device, with a full touch screen, a large 2.8” QVGA LCD that offers a full touch navigation experience, haptic technology offers tangible feedback when you make a selection on the touch screen and widgets that allows you to customize the user interface with applications that move with drag-and-drop ease, the only thing i found anoying was that you can't install any more games, or can you? Of course there must be a way!!

Upgrade.

2009-02-02T10:55:00.000-08:00

After a few months running Ubuntu 7.10 'Gutsy Gibbon' on my laptop without any big issues i decided to take the next step and upgrade to 8.04 LTS, the process took a good hour and went completely smooth, after upgrade was complete i made a full reboot and the results are simply wonderful, now i'm running compiz and all the effects work just fine, all my hardware was again recognized and everything is up to date, excelent work Ubuntu team!!

A black hole?

2009-01-26T11:53:00.000-08:00

Ever wondered what a black hole is? how and why does it come to be? then check out this site for an excelent explanation on this cosmic phenomenon.

Ubuntu on HP nc4200

2008-10-30T03:01:00.000-07:00

I recently got my hands on a HP Compaq nc4200 so that i could finally run Linux without lots of problems and configurations, the results of the installation and post configurations are here.

2008-08-10T12:42:00.000-07:00

Microsoft, Intel and the OLPC

According to the free dictionary a predator is:

1. An organism that lives by preying on other organisms.

2. One that victimizes, plunders, or destroys, especially for one's own gain.

Corporations are predators, they find a victim, let it play around, get comfortable and when the victim thinks 'everything is ok' and takes a little more space than the predator allows then the predator strikes and destroys the victim, the difference is that the 'animal predator' does in most cases it to feed, the 'corpredator' does for fear that the victim grows strong enough to become a threat.
Enter the OLPC. Mr Nicholas Negroponte had a vision: to build a $100 laptop and give away millions to educate the world’s poorest children. Enter the fat-cat multinational 'corpredators' microsoft and intel: the OLPC is becoming a threat: it's cheap, it's using AMD chips instead of intel and it's running Sugar, a free operating system devised by geeks for the love of it instead of windows, so they got scared and tried to kill it, read the complete story here

2008-07-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

Live CD list

I just found this site, there's a quite long list of Linux distros that run off cd ( there are some that i didn't even know myself... blasphemy!!! )
Here is the link

2008-05-28T03:14:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu update

It's been almost 6 months since i installed Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn on my desktop, to be honest, it hasn't been an easy road running Ubuntu (had better luck with Open Suse for example) but being a diehard i decided to stick and take my chances (considering the fact that Suse/Novell sold their soul to the biggest software manufacturer)
Was is worth it? Hell yeah!! i've been able to finally run Virtual Box and test other Linuxes without having to install everything (or even insert a cd to run in live mode), bluetooth? no problem, i can access my Nokia phone without a problem, had succesfully run some of my favorite games under Wine (they've gone a long way, keep up the great work guys!!!) and i'm able to manage my entire network from my desktop (all the window-based systems are now my slaves, MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!) this is but just the iceberg's tip, Ubuntu has become an excellent distro and the growing Community offers support and help for just about any problem one can have.
I had just upgraded to latest release 8.04 and it went like a breeze, test drives will be run again soon and the results will be posted... Ubuntu rules!!!

2008-05-28T02:42:00.000-07:00

As a personal note, yesterday was finally confirmed that we're becoming a little girl!! My wife is on her 6 month and little Emily is on her way to world domination!! :-)

2008-04-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

Mac Vs PC Vs Linux

I just discovered this hilarious episode, this is a sequel to the original Mac Vs PC South Park style, Gabe Schwarzer has done it again, really hilarious stuff.

2008-04-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

This is a test post using BloGTK, i'm posting now a picture of my backpack (not my own but the same model) the Boblbee, is an awesome piece of equipment, hope you can see it! :-)

Ubuntu Linux in test

2008-03-10T16:29:00.000-07:00

I just installed Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn on my desktop and i'm running some test drives, this post is being written with 'Blog entry poster', an application i just installed from the big pool of extra software available.

You will read more soon, stay tuned :-)

New Puppy Linux release.

2007-12-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

Puppy Linux Community Edition 2.15 has been released, i being a Puppy fan had to give it a test drive, so i downloaded and tested the live cd on my 'new' guinea pig, an old Clevo notebook 800Mhz/128Mb Ram/6Gb HD.
First impressions? Gorgeous looking desktop (something i did miss in early Puppy releases) the clear icons are simply fantastic, after trying many applications while running live i decided then to perform a HD install, this of course was a breeze (you may need some basic knowledge if you need to partition/format your HD) in some 10 minutes the install was complete, and of course being Puppy, it work incredibly fast on this system, here is a screenshot from the default desktop with the VistaBlack theme, I've always customized my desktop, either with another WM, another background and/or different icons... but i can't get away from this one! simply beautiful, great work Puppy community.

A lot more information about Puppy Linux here.

Linux for everyone?

2007-10-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Can Linux really be for everybody? I read not long ago about a family father who wanted to make all his family windows free and use only Linux... whether they wanted it or not.
Should everyone become a Linux-only user, should we, the Linux community talk everyone we know into using Linux instead of windows?
My answer is: NO! Linux is much more than an operating system, and free software is not only a bunch of programs you can download on the Internet for free, both have a strong non-technical or economical context: they show us what an individual without being controled or monitored can achieve and show that not only commercial software works or can get things done.
For these reasons (and many more) i'm simply fascinated about Linux -and i would use it even if it was the world's technically worst operating system.- Which is of course not, but it isn't either a replacement to windows, but an alternative: it does the job in a different way -and many times better- although different. Linux gives the user total control over his system, which is a Pandora's Box effect, in the hands of an unexperienced user this can have catastrophic effects on the health of the operating system, this i think is one of the main reasons that makes the transition to Linux difficult for many people.
Some people even think of Linux as a windows-wannabe with less functionality, integration and much more complex.
So how do you talk these people into trying Linux?
First by waking up their curiosity, by showing them under windows what many free alternatives to commercial software exist: The Gimp, the Mozilla Suite, Open Office, etc.
Explain them what free software is, that is free as in freedom and not free as in beer (sorry couldn't help myself:) )
By showing them what a Linux OS looks like, by explaining how things work and most important by supporting them and answering their questions.
I used these steps to talk a few people into trying Linux, many of them stuck with it, others got back to their safe point-and-click windows enviroment, that's just the way it is, after all, they have the freedom to decide.

Linux powered subnotebook.

2007-07-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

Asus presented in the Computex in Taipei a project they've been working on together with Intel, the EeePC is powered by a Intel mobile processor, has 512 MB of DDR2-400 memory and comes with a choice of between 4 and 16 Gb flash drives.
Although the EeePC is windows-compatible, Asus has decided for a self-developed Linux operating system (Hooray!) The EeePC's main target will be the comunication market (web-browsing, e-mail, office work and digital communications) in order to achieve this, is equipped with a fast-ethernet port, 802.11b/g WLAN and a 56k-modem, in the multimedia department has a 3 megapixel webcam, hi-fi audio and microphone, the smaller model with a 7" screen will cost around 199$, while the 'big brother' with 10" screen will start at 299$ (hardware specifications and prices are from press releases)
Asus plans to start producing the EeePC in August (and so do i), will be looking forward getting my hands on one.

The Gimp

2007-07-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

Of course this blog wouldn't be complete if i don't make a little tribute to what i consider to be the most special jewel in the Open Source crown. The Gimp (short form of 'GNU Image Manipulation Program') is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
It works on many operating systems, in many languages. In the official GIMP web site you'll find information about downloading, installing, using, and enhancing this fantastic graphic suite. This site also serves as a distribution point for the latest releases.
What? you're still reading this? go check it out!!!!

Microsoft will help making a better Linux. (????)

2007-07-19T16:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally happening, ms realizes that Linux is a real competition and a possible threat to them on the desktop and is now throwing it's tentacles around and trying to get a hold on it... just shortly after saying that Linux was violating some of their patents, now they're willing to happily "work" together with some of those companies? Funny i'd say, i used to be a SuSE user, but after novell threw herself to ms feet they lost my respect, i can do on Linux everything i can do on windows (and sometimes even better) and i'm no Linux guru... heck i can barely write a shell script!! if something doesn't work "out of the box" i still make it work, even if it takes sometime reading in a forum or asking Google.
Fact is that most PC users just want things to work, and ms does a great job at that (which to me translates into treating you like a braindead moron), insert the cd and watch the light blink.
I won't say that novell/xandros/linspire and whoever else is throwing himself to ms feet is doing a bad move, i just truly hope that in a future our Linux stays pure, open and free.
I wonder what does Linus think of all this mess...

Teenage rebellion?

2007-07-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

As we were shopping in Ikea, we pass by the children bedroom section and stumbled across this view... i guess some rebel teenager was messing around here already and made it clear that he doesn't like the decoration.

Good new for web designers.

2007-07-19T16:08:00.000-07:00

Now you don't have to mess around with virtual machines, emulators, etc in order to run internet explorer under Linux, the IEs4Linux script makes it possible to install almost automagically the popular MS browser.

IEs 4 Linux needs two packages: cabextract and Wine. You can install them using your Linux package manager (synaptic, apt-get, yum, emerge etc) or go to their sites.

Download and more information here.

KDE 4 live for testing available.

2007-07-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

For those wanting to get their hands on the latest release of KDE, the developers have a live CD based on Open Suse10.3 ready for download and be tested. Note that this is an early unstable Alfa release and not suitable for end-user, so count with bugs and some applications like KControl don't work so well if not at all.
The Dolphin file manager makes a good impression although is not completelly prepared for everyday use.

Highlights of KDE 4.0 Alpha1 are:

A new visual appearance through Oxygen
New frameworks to build applications with, providing vastly improved hardware and multimedia integration (through Solid and Phonon, spelling and grammar checking, to name just a few)
New applications that focus on a smooth user experience, such as Dolphin, the file manager, and Okular, the document viewer

For more information visit the KDE website.