The new version of Windows will be called “Vista”. (Link)
I have the urge to make fun of this name, but seeing as my OS of choice comes in flavors ranging from Puppy Linux to… urg… Mandriva… I don’t know that I have much ground from which to mock this name. Heck, my personal favorite Linux Distro is called Gentoo. Sure, it’s the name of a penguin, and I like the name, but it still sounds a bit silly. Gen-TOO. GEN-too. Hm.
So, enter “Vista.” Welcome to the pantheon of unfortunately named operating systems. Your name is neither as zen-like as BeOS, nor as pop-culturally hip as Plan 9, yet here you are.
I am personally not convinced that any businesses will be upgrading to this OS. Everything I hear sounds like they have just added eye-candy. That’s fine for at home, but what business wants to upgrade the video cards on their desktops just so their employees can run a 3D desktop? Hmm.
Continue reading ‘Introducing… Vista?’
Google is well known for their creative modifications to their main-page logo on holidays and other significant anniversaries. In today’s case, it is the anniversary of the first lunar landing (July 20, 1969), and they not only have a nifty logo, but they have launched moon.google.com, so that you can explore the moon just like Google Maps. They even have the sites of the moon landings marked; and not only that, if you zoom in as close as possible, you can see what the moon is formed of.
Continue reading ‘Google Confirms, Moon Made of Cheese’
Bush has appointed Judge John Roberts Jr. to the supreme court. Though he is a conservative, it seems that even the Democrats in Washington have mostly good things to say about him; hopefully he will be confirmed without a great commotion. Only the fringe left (Err America) who hate anything that Bush does, simply because he did it, seem to have problems with Roberts.
Hugh Hewitt has posted a great deal about this. Worth reading, if you’re interested in this.
Continue reading ‘Bush Appoints John Roberts’
My Laptop is becoming the recent revolving door of Linux distros. It went from Gentoo, some months ago, to (briefly) Fedora, to Ubuntu, to Ututo (that lasted one night), and for the last week has had only a small (7GB) Windows partition actually bootable.
Well, the time has come. It needs a good OS back, and I’m in the process of putting Gentoo back on it. Why Gentoo? I think it’s sort of like that story about giving a man a fish, or teaching him to fish. Except in this case, it’s “Give a man a Linux distro, and he will have a functioning computer. Teach that man to install Gentoo, and he will be up for three days finishing it and swear up and down that it was worth, mainly so that he does not feel foolish for how long it has taken.”
Clearly Gentoo is still my system of choice; though Ubuntu had its fine points, and I think it’s safe to say that if I run into any major snags with the Gentoo install, it’s Ubuntu that will probably take its place. We’ll see.
Continue reading ‘Another Late Night Install’
I would imagine that anyone reading this might already know this… but just in case…
O’Reilly has a portion of their site, called “Open Books,” which has links to the full texts of various books. Some are out-of-print, others are simply published under and open license that allows for free distribution in electronic formats.
I just started skimming the 3rd edition of Linux Device Drivers. No, I don’t anticipate actually sitting down and writing (or hacking) a device driver any time soon, but I’m interested in the closer look at the kernel that such a book will provide. So far, it seems to be written in a very accessible manner; that is, it is readable by non-kernel hackers.
There’s a lot of other great material there as well, from books on Samba, Linux, Networking, and Open Source culture. It’s a very cool resource.
Continue reading ‘Open Books’
How To Be A Programmer
The above link leads to a pretty interesting, longish, article, about programming and software engineering. Worth reading if you are in, or are considering, this vocation.
Continue reading ‘How To Be A Programmer’
If you work at a desk, with a computer, and that computer is connected to the internet… chances are you are familiar with the potential distraction that the World Wide Web can become in the face of, well… whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.
Speaking of which, I need to go back to work myself. ;-) But before I do, here’s a New York Times editorial by Lisa Belkin about just this subject; some interesting thoughts.
Continue reading ‘Surfing While Working’
Also seen on Slashdot, this Computer Business Review Online article makes some notes on Novell’s progress in moving themselves to desktop Linux.
I like to read this sort of thing; I’d say that Novell is doing the only thing they can do, here. If they are going to be selling the Linux Desktop, it would shoot a lot of wind out of their sails if they had to admit that they were still running Windows back at headquarters. On the other hand, the article notes that “Novell’s internal strategy of rolling out Linux to its entire desktop user base differs from its advice to customers, which is about finding where Linux can deliver the most business value and focusing there first.” This still makes sense, though I would anticipate that any measure of success in their in-house Linux migration will be reflected in a more agressive sales pitch for desktop Linux in the future.
As has been said before, a migration of this size will also accentuate any areas which are potential “problem areas,” and will hopefully promote solutions and fixes which can then spread throughout the Linux community. As ever, only time will tell.
The article closes with some information on some sizable Red Hat deployments in Europe. Interesting read.
Continue reading ‘Novell’s Progress in Linux Migration’
