New Computer

So, I'm writing this little entry on my brand new computer. Well, not really brand, as I've had it for a little over a week now. The computer I'm talking about is one of those new "ultra-portable" computers that every one is talking about. The ones that are about the size of one of the portable DVD players that you can pick up.

There are not a lot of bells-and-whistles on the computer. No CD-Rom drive, no harddrive. Its got a fairly impressive 8" screen, and wireless Internet which makes it perfect for taking with you to the mall or even in the car. Its small enough to fit into the side pocket of most cargo shorts. (That is how I carry it around with me since I don't own a purse.)

The keyboard takes a little getting used to though, as the keys are small and compact which can make it a little difficult to type. I often find myself hittig the wrong keys while typing simple messages.

All in all its a great little item which I gladly use while sitting on the couch to do most of the tasks that I have on the Internet. Personally, I think that everyone should get one.

(Mine was free.) But you can pick one up for about $300 fully installed.

Portability: 4.5/5
Usability: 4/5
Cool factor: 6/5

Most people may find the interface cool, as everything is preinstalled and setup. Once you settle on the "Wow factor" someone will tell you that you're using Linux and you'll want to rush out and get it.

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Speaking of which, have I mentioned that I managed to switch all 4 of the computers in the house to Linux. Even my wifes? .... Under *her* request?

I was sitting there playing with some of the advanced graphics stuff that are available in Linux, more specifically I was making it rain on my desktop.



Cool shit eh? Bet you that you want it now.

Experimentations

Music: Skinny Puppy - Schrimpz

I've been away from this for the last few days for no fault by my computers.

You see I have been trying to go all open source on the computers that I own. I already have one running Linux which I'm using as my webserver of sorts. Its been working wonderfully and I have not had a single complaint about it since I set it up 8 or 9 months ago.

The harder one to deal with is my personal computer that I use constantly (too much if you ask my wife) [But thats part of being a nerd. :-)] On my own computer I use for a lot of different purposes, the most imporant is to manage the Photos that I've been taking lately. For this I use Adobe Lightroom, there is no acceptable open source substitute for this program. While messing around on the computer I actually manged to get Lightroom to install on my Linux computer at home. Hurdle 1 was clearly avoided.

Hurdle 2 is a little more tricky. I am music-nerd. I have lots of music and I am particularly fond of the out-of-print 7" vinyl tracks that I've managed to obtain**. To help me organize the collection of obscure music, I've come to trust and love iTunes. This is my downfall.

I have been experimenting with other Linux media players and none offer the functionality and organizational ability that I require. The only one that has come close has been Amarok, but its a sack of shit. When you change an artist, genre, album, year, etc on the mp3 file normally it gets stored in the file so that the next time you load the file it will have all of the information. Not Amarok, its big "selling" point is the Database that is uses for faster searching and interface loading. Now, see the problem. I change my song information and load it into my iPod and things are different, they don't match up. I don't like being tied into an application and having my information at the mercy of one thing in particular. ***

So far this week I've installed 4 different distributions (*) about 9 or 10 times to see if I can certain things working.

Reluctantly, you can see that the responsiveness of iTunes that I have been experimenting with isn't quite up to par. Clicking play normally doesn't take 30 seconds to respond, and using the volume slider in the app shouldn't cause the MP3 to skip.

** Read: file-sharing.
*** Hence, my reluctance to actually buy any music from the iTunes music store. I refuse to purchase music that I can't move, copy, rip, burn, encode, recode at my whim. Call me old fashioned, but you're essentially renting the song. (Though, the DRM-free stuff at iTunes is interesting.... )
(*) - meaning flavours of Linux.

Who put them in charge...

Music: Thanatopsis - Cross Section

I've been following the headlines these last few months concerning Microsoft's attempts to create an ISO standard document. They are trying to get OOXML to become a world wide standard for sharing documents with a government or organization. The problem they're having is this:

1. Its complicated. The document used to describe the standard was almost 9,000 pages, most of the features and functionality will only be available when using Word. (Surprised? I'm not.)

2. Its been done. PDF was created and standardized as a document exchange format. Some might say that PDF won't allow for editing documents, well for that Sun (the people behind Microsoft's cheif competitor, Openoffice.org) had ODF standardized several years ago and has been supported by many companies including IBM and Corel. This will allow you to share your document and edit it. Voila.

During the process, Microsoft hijacked votes in countries like Sweeden which before the vote had 6 active companies and at the time of the vote an additional 22 joined. That makes me angry. But thats not the point of this.

The point is this. Microsoft announced today that they are NOT going to be supporting their own OOXML format (because they can't figure it out) until the next version of Office which has no release date (I can guess 2012 by past performance).

The kicker... their main purpose of the press conference was to announce that they are supporting ODF documents. The same format that they were fighting when they devised a scheme to confuse the world.

Talk about not knowing what the right hand is doing....

http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-05-21-022-26-NW-MS-SW