Topics

176

Living Room / 2010: Will it be better than 2009?

« on: January 01, 2010, 06:45 PM »

For me, it has to get better. 2009 was a very tough, tight financial year. Well, every year is, but I'm glad it's over.

177

Living Room / Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

« on: January 01, 2010, 04:48 AM »

Cute.

178

Living Room / How can we *share* Donationcoder.com better in 2010?

« on: December 31, 2009, 03:46 PM »

Let's help the DC community out in 2010 by expanding our reach. There are lots of assets, but they start with developers and members. Among the software offered, the contests, the free-wheeling discussions, the software discounts, more people should know and benefit from DC. So I'm asking for your suggestions:

How can we market promote and share Donationcoder.com better in 2010?

179

Living Room / [Humor]: Cluetrain gives way to the Cluefree Manifesto

« on: December 31, 2009, 03:40 AM »

Never mind that Cluetrain was about markets (and not marketing), this is funny.


To many web maniacs, a pivotal moment occurred 10 years ago when something called "The Cluetrain Manifesto" was published.

The Cluetrain Manifesto was a foundational document in the "conversationalist" school of marketing. It included "95 Theses" in the style of Martin Luther, meant as a denunciation of contemporary marketing and a clarion call to a new, idealized age of marketing enabled by digital communication.

The Cluetrain Manifesto's “95 Theses” was a smug and annoying document written in the voice of a petulant tenth-grader. Its vision somehow failed to foresee Facebook stalking, idiotic tweets, Viagra spam, or Ethiopian lotteries.

From a distance of 10 years, it seems even more ridiculous.

180

Living Room / Worldometers -- real time stats around the world

« on: December 26, 2009, 04:26 AM »

Well, this is a cool little site, even if it is difficult to fathom its numbers: Worldometers. Simple, but cool.

181

General Software Discussion / The 10 best new Firefox add-ons of 2009

« on: December 26, 2009, 03:37 AM »

Wow, had not heard of some of these cool add-ons for Firefox. But these are ones released this year.

182

General Software Discussion / Linux KDE's Window Switching Options Illustrated

« on: December 26, 2009, 12:52 AM »

Bob Kevan has the various screenshots. Love KDE's desktop effects, but I keep them turned off. Zazz is nice, but I prefer a minimally distracting desktop.

183

General Software Discussion / Must-have Windows Programs

« on: December 23, 2009, 05:02 AM »

It's been done to death, but let's make a list of must-have Windows programs for any category. For myself, the best ones are also cross-platform ones, but that's not required.

184

General Software Discussion / Opening a Window on the Mac

« on: December 23, 2009, 04:10 AM »

Opening a Window on the Mac
Katherine Boehret / WSJ

I’ve put together a quick and dirty guide for new Apple users that explains some of the ways the Mac operating system differs from Windows. It’s true: The way you’ll quit programs is different, the keyboards are set up a little differently and even the mouse is different. But once you adjust to these changes, you’ll be fine.

Quick guide to what's different and potentially confusing on a Mac if you're a Windows user.

185

General Software Discussion / Anyone still using WordPerfect?

« on: December 22, 2009, 12:52 PM »

I see they want $300 for their new version. Love that fancy XP screenshot. It really shows me what WordPerfect can do. Are they serious? C'mon!

186

General Software Discussion / The Five Distros That Changed Linux

« on: December 21, 2009, 04:30 AM »

The Five Distros That Changed Linux
Linux Magazine / Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Linux’s history can be measured in both releases 2.0, 2.6, and so on, and in its major distributions, which brought these releases to the masses at large. Here’s my list of the top five major Linux distributions that had the most impact in the operating system’s brief history.

- Slackware (1993) The first truly popular Linux distribution
- Debian (1994) Welcome to the community
- Caldera (1993/4) The first Linux for business
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1AS (2002) Linux joins the enterprise
- Ubuntu 4.10 (2004) Linux for everyone

.........................
The disagreements among the commenters are delicious.

187

General Software Discussion / Best KDE distro? openSUSE says TuxRadar

« on: December 15, 2009, 02:30 AM »

Although the others are no slouches, DistroWatch links to TuxRadar for the best KDE Linux distro:



The verdict? The best KDE distribution today is openSUSE 11.2: "Our winner is openSUSE. It's a distribution that's got the professional sheen and gloss that only Novell can bring, and it's a distribution that always manages to bundle a cutting-edge KDE installation that will last you the full nine months of the distribution cycle. The custom artwork looks great, and shows that the packaging team has a great understanding of what KDE is capable of and what users need from their desktop. YaST is always going to be unwieldy, but its fantastic integration into the KDE desktop (it's written in Qt) makes Linux feel much closer to its Windows and OS X competitors than other KDE distributions.

It's also the most Microsoft-friendly of the distros since Microsoft partnered with Novell back in 2006 for greatest document format compatibility and virtualization. (That's good or bad depending on how you look at it.)

188

General Software Discussion / Google creates a URL shortener, but it's limited

« on: December 14, 2009, 04:16 PM »

Google has launched a URL Shortener (http://goo.gl/), but only through Google Toolbar and Feedburner. It "is not a stand-alone service; you can't use it to shorten links directly."



Looks like I'll keep using bit.ly, which has always worked well for social media if yours does not include the service automatically.

189

Living Room / If cats had TV shows

« on: December 12, 2009, 04:02 AM »

Perhaps an action show:
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=U8vvhGixWQQ

Or maybe this is more your style if you like the Baby Network:
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=idRc_KkInds

190

Living Room / 150 Widescreen HD Wallpaper images

« on: December 11, 2009, 01:05 AM »

Most are 1920x1200. Nice!


(rar file)

191

Living Room / Google's Eric Schmidt has a stupid moment on privacy

« on: December 11, 2009, 12:09 AM »

First it was Mozilla exec Asa Dotzler taking a golf club to Google's head by recommending Firefox users switch to Bing as their search engine in response to privacy concerns with Google. Now the big dog, Bruce Schneier steps up to the tee.

Google's Eric Schmidt said:
I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.

Schneier's response, from 2006:
Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance. We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

.......................................................
Total Recall all over again. Why do I feel like whatever can be used against me will be used against me online? (Usually by a corporation.)

192

Living Room / Virtual London coming January 2010 via Skape

« on: December 10, 2009, 03:25 PM »

Skape shows what's coming in this remarkably high resolution digital tour. Holy crap I think that guy just spit on the grass, the bloody grass!

193

Living Room / How to un-Google yourself

« on: December 02, 2009, 09:20 AM »

According to Google, I was a woman from 1997-2003. Wired magazine posts a guide on how to decouple yourself from Google.

194

Living Room / Murdoch and Microsoft: When no one wants to buy your content, take it offline!

« on: November 22, 2009, 08:41 PM »

Rupert and the last buggy whip maker....
http://www.ft.com/cm...78-00144feabdc0.html
http://www.businessi...-from-google-2009-11
http://www.dailytech...ent/article15906.htm  (earlier story from August)



Good luck with walling off the internet. Basically Microsoft is going to pay companies for the sole right to index their content. I'm guessing that aside from being a waste of money, I'm pretty sure "I won't index you if you ask me politely not to" is more of a courtesy than a concern arising out of genuine copyright claim fears. Reminds me of professional sports in the US: charge more and more until fans stop coming, and when the fans don't show up, blackout the games from TV viewers, too! Now ask them to pay for news and stories about teams they won't watch and can't see.

Makes sense! Not. If you ask me, Rupert should pay the subjects of his stories since they're the ones creating the actual content he's writing or reporting on (and making money off of someone else's life and work).

195

Developer's Corner / Apple's App Store Mistake

« on: November 21, 2009, 03:29 PM »

Paul Graham's latest essay on how Apple is treating the programmers who develop Apps for the iPhone/iTouch is characteristically on target. Here's how it begins:

I don't think Apple realizes how badly the App Store approval process is broken. Or rather, I don't think they realize how much it matters that it's broken.... The way Apple runs the App Store has harmed their reputation with programmers more than anything else they've ever done. Their reputation with programmers used to be great. It used to be the most common complaint you heard about Apple was that their fans admired them too uncritically. The App Store has changed that. Now a lot of programmers have started to see Apple as evil.... How much of the goodwill Apple once had with programmers have they lost over the App Store? A third? Half? And that's just so far. The App Store is an ongoing karma leak.



Find time to read the whole thing if you can.

The only way to break Apple’s stranglehold on the "App Store" business is to find a way of making the Android platform attractive to developers. Maybe a smart strategy would be for Google (or Motorola or other handset manufacturers who aim to offer Android phones) to identify developers and offer them free Android phones.

196

General Software Discussion / Chrome OS preview looks pretty cool

« on: November 19, 2009, 10:41 PM »

Google previewed its Linux-based ChromeOS Thursday and though it won't replace the big three desktop OSes, it will serve as a superfast thin client on netbooks and mobile devices. "Chrome OS is also fully open source, and will run on a wider variety of hardware than standard x86-based PCs."



Google is working with multiple partners on commercial devices, including Acer, Asus, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. Google has very specific ideas on how these machines will be designed. The OS does not support hard drives, just SSDs (solid state devices), on which files, and much content can be cached. With a boot time of 7 seconds to an open browser, this could be exciting for business travelers. Full release [might be] expected in late Summer or Fall 2010.
..........................................
Cade Metz provides an excellent counterargument to Chrome OS.

197

General Software Discussion / [rant] Seriously? Software pricing is officially nuts

« on: November 18, 2009, 09:40 AM »

I've seen several shareware programs double and triple their prices recently and I'm shocked that they have the chutzpah. Here's the latest in my inbox:



The guys at IDM want $280 for a lifetime license now, hey, but it's on sale for $180 if you hurry. All hail donationware, freeware, and a bunch of open source apps, otherwise, I'm saying a big "Hell naw" to these prices. Sorry folks, I have a limit, and lately I'd rather pay the bills.

 

198

Living Room / Best tech news sites?

« on: November 17, 2009, 08:56 AM »

I love Ehtyar's tech news reviews, and while I have a few sites I visit for news, most fall short. Help me by sharing your favorite tech news sites.


pic unrelated

199

General Software Discussion / Linux/Unix multimedia codecs

« on: November 17, 2009, 08:37 AM »

Fluendo has released a new set of their Codec Pack which includes improvements in the Windows Media codecs, aimed at enhancing the support of MSB Streaming, generating a GstIndex while demuxing, and improving seeking functions. The MPEG pack has been enhanced as well by increasing video fluidity for MPEG2. Many other fixes and updates have been included, making the Fluendo Codec Pack one of the most efficient and complete solutions to playback audio and video on a wide variety of devices and formats.



Offering the Linux/Unix community stable solutions and a quality experience when playing multimedia is not an easy task. Among those for sale are the full pack, which includes:

• The new Fluendo codec pack V7 includes Windows Media Audio Decoder (Windows Media 7, 8, 9, 10, Pro, Lossless and Speech)
• Windows Media Video Decoder (Windows Media 7, 8, 9 and VC1)
• Windows Media ASF Demuxer
• Windows Media MMS Networking
• MPEG2 Video Decoder
• MPEG4 Part 2 Video Decoder
• DivX 3.11 Alpha Video Decoder
• H.264/AVC Video Decoder
• MPEG2 Program Stream and Transport Stream demuxer
• MPEG4 ISO Demuxer
• MP3 Audio Decoder
• AAC Audio Decoder
• LPCM Audio Decoder

Great stuff.

200

General Software Discussion / Linux Desktop Turns 10: World Yawns?

« on: November 12, 2009, 09:10 AM »

Got a kick out of this SJVN article: "while there are many excellent Linux desktops available, including Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and SLED, the Linux desktop remains a niche player. "



Methinks Steven a bit harsh and perhaps expects too much for what is effectively an unfunded [desktop] OS effort. I loaded openSUSE a couple of days ago and it's very Microsoft-friendly, comes with the cool Droid font by Google, KDE 4.3, and am running Win7 inside VirtualBox without a hitch. Firefox is the default browser; OpenOffice the suite. Best of both worlds, man!