I've been using Linux as my main desktop platform for about 10 years now. In that time, we've seen some amazing work done in regards to the usability and hardware support that Linux users enjoy today. I'd go so far as to say that Linux has completely altered my conception of how the computing world, and perhaps the world in general, should operate. That said, I'm not sure I'm ready for the masses to embrace Linux.
Sure, it would be nice from a driver standpoint, as I can foresee many more hardware manufacturers hopping on board the Linux bandwagon if the user base keeps expanding. Also, I imagine some of the bigger software players, such as Adobe, might start offering more of their wares for Linux. Adobe already has Flash support, the Flex developer platform and Adobe Reader, so it's not out of line to think that their Creative Suite might be ported one day as well, if the user base is large enough.
That said, I'm not so sure I want "the masses" to use Linux. The main reason I say this is that I fear the things I love about Linux will slowly be watered down in order to appease the non-geeks among us. Now I'm not saying that in order to enjoy computing I need to have a platform that's difficult to use, but I would be concerned that the ideals behind Linux would slowly erode once big business sees that there is money to be made on it. Additionally, I would hate to see the Linux platform start to sacrifice power for ease of use. Making once difficult tasks easy is a fantastic programming goal, but when we start sacrificing flexibility in the process, we start taking Linux out of Linux.
I try to post fairly often on Linux forums in order to help new users find solutions to their problems, so I'm certainly not opposed to more people embracing Linux and enjoying what it has to offer. I just question whether I really want Linux to become the "New Windows", as I feel we may get more than we bargained for if that comes to fruition.
Fairly recently I had to battle with Microsoft to use my purchased copy of Office on a single computer. I had to call Microsoft thirteen times over the course of 2 weeks to get it working again. It's sad when a version you can download online offers you less hassles than the legally purchased version: http://www.thelinuxpimp.com/main/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=743
What odd timing. I literally swapped out Hula this morning with Really Simple CalDAV Store. The only reason I used Hula was for it's CalDAV support, so that Evolution clients can work on a shared calendar. It worked fine for a while, but it started eating up 99% of the CPU on the server, so I had to dump it for something else. So far RSCDS seems to do the trick, but I haven't tested it extensively yet. You'd think a shared calender server wouldn't be very difficult to implement, but there doesn't seem to be many stable options in the Open Source world. Evolution's CalDAV support does seem to be a bit lacking, however, so that could be the bulk of my problem I imagine.
Thus far I've tried Hula, RSCDS, Cosmo, and Apple's CalendarServer and none of them seem to be the perfect solution. I'd love to see a package that acts as both a CalDAV server, but also gives you the ability to view and edit the calendars via a nice looking web-interface as well. I'm thankful for the projects that are currently being worked on however, and I guess I should stop complaining and start coding...
Here's the email I received from Godaddy.com regarding this issue: "Today I have the unfortunate responsibility of informing you that there has been a decision made by bureaucrats of a Federal agency that takes away your right to privacy as guaranteed by the United States Constitution.
This decision was unilaterally made by the National Telecommunications and Information Association ("NTIA") www.ntia.doc.gov without hearings that would determine the impact on those affected, and delivered without notice -- in short, the NTIA decision was made without due process of any kind. This is exactly how our government is not supposed to work.
The effect of this decision is to disallow new private domain name registrations on.US domain names. In addition, if you already own a private.US domain name registration, you will be forced to forfeit your privacy no later than January 26, 2006. By that time, you will need to choose between either making your personal information available to anyone who wants to see it, or giving up your right to that domain name.
I personally find it ironic that our right to.US privacy was stripped away, without due process, by a federal government agency -- an agency that should be looking out for our individual rights. For the NTIA to choose the.US extension is the ultimate slap in your face..US is the only domain name that is specifically intended for Americans (and also those who have a physical presence in our great country). So think about this for a moment. These bureaucrats stripped away the privacy that you're entitled to as an American, on the only domain name that says that you are an American. I am outraged by this -- you should be also.
If, like me, you are outraged at the NTIA's decision to strip away our constitutional right to privacy, www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com will provide you with a petition to sign. (Only your name will be published, your address and email information will be kept private.) This Web site also provides a very easy way for you to send either a fax or an email, expressing your outrage, to your Congressperson and Senators. This is all provided at no cost to you. All that is required is for you to take the time to visit www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com sign the petition, and send the fax or email to your legislators.
On my personal Blog, www.BobParsons.com there are a number of articles where you can learn more about the NTIA's unfortunate decision and what you can do to help get it reversed.
I also will be talking about our right to privacy on Radio Go Daddy, our weekly radio show that debuts today, March 30, at 7 PM PST. To find out how to listen in, please visit the Web site dedicated to the show, www.RadioGoDaddy.com.
You can be sure that I, and everyone at GoDaddy.com, will do everything in our power to get the NTIA decision reversed. However, we need your help. Please visit www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com to sign the petition and express your feelings to your Congressperson and Senators.
Is there any way for Apache 2 to throttle bandwidth for Virtual Hosts? I know the mod_throttle and mod_bandwidth modules for Apache 1.3 were extremely popular with people hosting multiple sites. Is there any support for this feature in Apache 2?
I agree with some of the points made in the article, however, I have to disagree with the opinions expressed regarding permanent player death. I tend to get very attached to the characters I roll in MMORPG games, and I would likely cancel my account if a character I had invested 8 months of time developing was permanently killed due to a bad sequence of events.
I appreciate the fact that it's going to cost a company some money to switch from Windows to Linux, mainly to hire competent administrators (and if you're thinking of doing so, hiring competent administrators is an absolute must).
However, I also appreciate the fact that said company is never going to have to pay for a software and/or operating system upgrade ever again. This is called smart spending. You shell out money in the short term to save significant amounts of money in the long term.
Speaking from experience here, my company has switched every machine in our office to Linux, both servers and clients, and we've saved a bundle in the long run by doing so.
I've been a Red Hat/Fedora user for years now, but I decided to give Ubuntu a try, as it had some of the most recent packages included (Gnome 2.8 and Evolution 2.0) by default. Needless to say, I was very impressed by the polish of a pre-release version, and I have switched my workstations at work, and my Linux boxes at home over to Ubuntu.
I was, however, disappointed by the lack of "corporate" tools currently included with Ubuntu. All of our client machines here are currently running Fedora with a customized install script written using kickstart, so when a machine dies,I can pop in the custom install CD and have a blank machine back on the network in 5 or 10 minutes. Are there are plans to include kickstart-like features and NIS support inside of Ubuntu's installation routines? I would switch our entire company over to Ubuntu in a flash if that were the case. I'm sure other companies would enjoy seeing the addition of such features as well.
This isn't for personal use, but if I wanted a RAID at home, I would definitely consider the same setup as this: I'm using the 3ware 7006-2 on two Linux boxes (Fedora Core 1) and I'm also using one on a Windows 2003 Server as well. All of them are configured with RAID 1 support and I haven't had any issues on any of the machines thus far (knock on wood). I also bought the Vantec EZ-SWAP MRK-102FD Mobile Rack Frame & Carrier for each drive I have in the RAID as well, these things are dirt cheap ($35.00) and are really nice looking with the LCD temperature readout on the front. This setup might be overkill for home use, but it's certainly not terribly expensive either.
If you're using a webcam based off of the Philips chipset, be aware that the kernel shipping with Fedora Core 2 (2.6.5-1.358) has the pwc driver disabled due to bugs, so your camera will not work with this release.
This issue should affect all of the following cameras: Excerpt taken from the linux-2.6.5-1.358/drivers/usb/media/Kconfig file:
I've been keeping up with XFCE for a while now, and I've really enjoyed using it. I typically use either it or fluxbox when I'm in the mood for a minimal window manager. Anyhow, if you'd like to edit your keyboard shortcuts in XFCE (one of the first things I do when I install a new WM), you can do that in the following file:/usr/share/xfwm4/themes/default.keys/keythemerc
I know other users have already pointed out how well Evolution works for sorting mail, but I just wanted to attest to how well it works even for large amounts of email.
I used to create new folders for specific types of email, but I found it very difficult to manage and search all the folders after a while, so I ended up moving all of my email to a single folder, Inbox. I currently have 24,949 messages in my Inbox and Evolution is still extremely fast when it comes to sorting and searching through them all.
I also make use of the excellent VFolders feature of Evolution, to save frequent searches into their own folders. I've been using Evolution now for several years, and it just keeps getting better and better.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been using Linux as my main desktop platform for about 10 years now. In that time, we've seen some amazing work done in regards to the usability and hardware support that Linux users enjoy today. I'd go so far as to say that Linux has completely altered my conception of how the computing world, and perhaps the world in general, should operate. That said, I'm not sure I'm ready for the masses to embrace Linux.
Sure, it would be nice from a driver standpoint, as I can foresee many more hardware manufacturers hopping on board the Linux bandwagon if the user base keeps expanding. Also, I imagine some of the bigger software players, such as Adobe, might start offering more of their wares for Linux. Adobe already has Flash support, the Flex developer platform and Adobe Reader, so it's not out of line to think that their Creative Suite might be ported one day as well, if the user base is large enough.
That said, I'm not so sure I want "the masses" to use Linux. The main reason I say this is that I fear the things I love about Linux will slowly be watered down in order to appease the non-geeks among us. Now I'm not saying that in order to enjoy computing I need to have a platform that's difficult to use, but I would be concerned that the ideals behind Linux would slowly erode once big business sees that there is money to be made on it. Additionally, I would hate to see the Linux platform start to sacrifice power for ease of use. Making once difficult tasks easy is a fantastic programming goal, but when we start sacrificing flexibility in the process, we start taking Linux out of Linux.
I try to post fairly often on Linux forums in order to help new users find solutions to their problems, so I'm certainly not opposed to more people embracing Linux and enjoying what it has to offer. I just question whether I really want Linux to become the "New Windows", as I feel we may get more than we bargained for if that comes to fruition.
Fairly recently I had to battle with Microsoft to use my purchased copy of Office on a single computer. I had to call Microsoft thirteen times over the course of 2 weeks to get it working again. It's sad when a version you can download online offers you less hassles than the legally purchased version:
http://www.thelinuxpimp.com/main/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=743
Not sure if it's who you were thinking of, but this happened to Ernie Ball, the largest maker of guitar strings. http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
What odd timing. I literally swapped out Hula this morning with Really Simple CalDAV Store. The only reason I used Hula was for it's CalDAV support, so that Evolution clients can work on a shared calendar. It worked fine for a while, but it started eating up 99% of the CPU on the server, so I had to dump it for something else. So far RSCDS seems to do the trick, but I haven't tested it extensively yet. You'd think a shared calender server wouldn't be very difficult to implement, but there doesn't seem to be many stable options in the Open Source world. Evolution's CalDAV support does seem to be a bit lacking, however, so that could be the bulk of my problem I imagine.
Thus far I've tried Hula, RSCDS, Cosmo, and Apple's CalendarServer and none of them seem to be the perfect solution. I'd love to see a package that acts as both a CalDAV server, but also gives you the ability to view and edit the calendars via a nice looking web-interface as well. I'm thankful for the projects that are currently being worked on however, and I guess I should stop complaining and start coding...
Isn't it usually the other way around: Man sells gadgets to pay for baby?
Here's the email I received from Godaddy.com regarding this issue:
.US domain names. In addition, if you already own a private .US domain name registration, you will be forced to forfeit your privacy no later than January 26, 2006. By that time, you will need to choose between either making your personal information available to anyone who wants to see it, or giving up your right to that domain name.
.US privacy was stripped away, without due process, by a federal government agency -- an agency that should be looking out for our individual rights. For the NTIA to choose the .US extension is the ultimate slap in your face. .US is the only domain name that is specifically intended for Americans (and also those who have a physical presence in our great country). So think about this for a moment. These bureaucrats stripped away the privacy that you're entitled to as an American, on the only domain name that says that you are an American. I am outraged by this -- you should be also.
"Today I have the unfortunate responsibility of informing you that there has been a decision made by bureaucrats of a Federal agency that takes away your right to privacy as guaranteed by the United States Constitution.
This decision was unilaterally made by the National Telecommunications and Information Association ("NTIA") www.ntia.doc.gov without hearings that would determine the impact on those affected, and delivered without notice -- in short, the NTIA decision was made without due process of any kind. This is exactly how our government is not supposed to work.
The effect of this decision is to disallow new private domain name registrations on
I personally find it ironic that our right to
If, like me, you are outraged at the NTIA's decision to strip away our constitutional right to privacy, www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com will provide you with a petition to sign. (Only your name will be published, your address and email information will be kept private.) This Web site also provides a very easy way for you to send either a fax or an email, expressing your outrage, to your Congressperson and Senators. This is all provided at no cost to you. All that is required is for you to take the time to visit www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com sign the petition, and send the fax or email to your legislators.
On my personal Blog, www.BobParsons.com there are a number of articles where you can learn more about the NTIA's unfortunate decision and what you can do to help get it reversed.
I also will be talking about our right to privacy on Radio Go Daddy, our weekly radio show that debuts today, March 30, at 7 PM PST. To find out how to listen in, please visit the Web site dedicated to the show, www.RadioGoDaddy.com.
You can be sure that I, and everyone at GoDaddy.com, will do everything in our power to get the NTIA decision reversed. However, we need your help. Please visit www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com to sign the petition and express your feelings to your Congressperson and Senators.
Sincerely,
Bob Parsons
President and Founder
GoDaddy.com"
"A bunch of bright high school kids from Carl Hayden Highschool beat out MIT in a Marine Technology Center's Robotics competition."
That's pretty cool, but not quite as cool as if a bunch of retarded high school kids had beat them instead.
Uh oh, not good. Unscalable too? I guess someone should break this bad news to Google.
The Department of Energy has some information on solar lighting available here.
Is there any way for Apache 2 to throttle bandwidth for Virtual Hosts? I know the mod_throttle and mod_bandwidth modules for Apache 1.3 were extremely popular with people hosting multiple sites. Is there any support for this feature in Apache 2?
I agree with some of the points made in the article, however, I have to disagree with the opinions expressed regarding permanent player death. I tend to get very attached to the characters I roll in MMORPG games, and I would likely cancel my account if a character I had invested 8 months of time developing was permanently killed due to a bad sequence of events.
I appreciate the fact that it's going to cost a company some money to switch from Windows to Linux, mainly to hire competent administrators (and if you're thinking of doing so, hiring competent administrators is an absolute must).
However, I also appreciate the fact that said company is never going to have to pay for a software and/or operating system upgrade ever again. This is called smart spending. You shell out money in the short term to save significant amounts of money in the long term.
Speaking from experience here, my company has switched every machine in our office to Linux, both servers and clients, and we've saved a bundle in the long run by doing so.
I've been a Red Hat/Fedora user for years now, but I decided to give Ubuntu a try, as it had some of the most recent packages included (Gnome 2.8 and Evolution 2.0) by default. Needless to say, I was very impressed by the polish of a pre-release version, and I have switched my workstations at work, and my Linux boxes at home over to Ubuntu.
I was, however, disappointed by the lack of "corporate" tools currently included with Ubuntu. All of our client machines here are currently running Fedora with a customized install script written using kickstart, so when a machine dies,I can pop in the custom install CD and have a blank machine back on the network in 5 or 10 minutes. Are there are plans to include kickstart-like features and NIS support inside of Ubuntu's installation routines? I would switch our entire company over to Ubuntu in a flash if that were the case. I'm sure other companies would enjoy seeing the addition of such features as well.
gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser true
This isn't for personal use, but if I wanted a RAID at home, I would definitely consider the same setup as this:
I'm using the 3ware 7006-2 on two Linux boxes (Fedora Core 1) and I'm also using one on a Windows 2003 Server as well. All of them are configured with RAID 1 support and I haven't had any issues on any of the machines thus far (knock on wood). I also bought the Vantec EZ-SWAP MRK-102FD Mobile Rack Frame & Carrier for each drive I have in the RAID as well, these things are dirt cheap ($35.00) and are really nice looking with the LCD temperature readout on the front. This setup might be overkill for home use, but it's certainly not terribly expensive either.
If you're using a webcam based off of the Philips chipset, be aware that the kernel shipping with Fedora Core 2 (2.6.5-1.358) has the pwc driver disabled due to bugs, so your camera will not work with this release.
This issue should affect all of the following cameras:
Excerpt taken from the linux-2.6.5-1.358/drivers/usb/media/Kconfig file:
* Philips PCA645, PCA646
* Philips PCVC675, PCVC680, PCVC690
* Philips PCVC720/40, PCVC730, PCVC740, PCVC750
* Askey VC010
* Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000, 4000, 'Zoom', 'Notebook Pro' and 'Orbit'/ 'Sphere'
* Samsung MPC-C10, MPC-C30
* Creative Webcam 5, Pro Ex
* SOTEC Afina Eye
* Visionite VCS-UC300, VCS-UM100
The PWC driver is disabled as noted by the "&& BROKEN" at the end of this line in the Kconfig file:
depends on USB && VIDEO_DEV && BROKEN
"I routinely drive w/o my hands on the wheel. I also tend to take ?half-naps? by closing one eye."
Could you let me know before you're going out for a drive.
Robocop
Good god! It's weilding a giant ladle.
Searching for prior art is too difficult, what we need is something where you can just click once to find what you need.
Just put 4 or 5 computers in your room and you'll never hear the harddrives at all.
There's another review here.
I've been keeping up with XFCE for a while now, and I've really enjoyed using it. I typically use either it or fluxbox when I'm in the mood for a minimal window manager. Anyhow, if you'd like to edit your keyboard shortcuts in XFCE (one of the first things I do when I install a new WM), you can do that in the following file: /usr/share/xfwm4/themes/default.keys/keythemerc
I could've sworn that said: "Smacktards to Track London Computers"
I know other users have already pointed out how well Evolution works for sorting mail, but I just wanted to attest to how well it works even for large amounts of email.
I used to create new folders for specific types of email, but I found it very difficult to manage and search all the folders after a while, so I ended up moving all of my email to a single folder, Inbox. I currently have 24,949 messages in my Inbox and Evolution is still extremely fast when it comes to sorting and searching through them all.
I also make use of the excellent VFolders feature of Evolution, to save frequent searches into their own folders. I've been using Evolution now for several years, and it just keeps getting better and better.
This is great news, Florida's got some pretty good T&A.