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7501

General Software Discussion / Re: iBooks vs Stanza displaying an epub on iPod Touch/iPhone

« Last post by 40hz on June 09, 2011, 06:34 PM »

Calibre is definitely the hot trend on the Linux side this year, given its quick improvement:
http://calibre-ebook.com/

(Works on four platforms)

-zridling (June 09, 2011, 06:02 PM)

Wow! And here I've been happily running v6.9 and ignoring all the new version alerts. Talk about missing out on some serious improvements. Udating now.

7502

General Software Discussion / Not bad article on The Sins of Ubuntu

« Last post by 40hz on June 09, 2011, 12:25 PM »

From the good folks over at OSNews, a quick rundown of some sticky points when it comes to Ubuntu and Canonical's current modus operandi.

The Sins of Ubuntu
posted by Howard Fosdick on Mon 30th May 2011 22:04 UTC


IconCanonical Ltd., the company behind Ubuntu Linux, estimates that the product has over 12 million users worldwide. And why not? Ubuntu is free and it runs more than ten thousand applications. It has a vibrant user community, websites covering everything you might ever need to know, good tutorials, a paid support option, and more. Yet I often hear friends and co-workers casually criticize Ubuntu. Perhaps this the price of success. Or is it? In this article I'll analyze common criticisms and try to sort fact from fiction.

I should mention that I'm a big Ubuntu fan and have used it for five years. Even so, it pains me to see the obvious ways it could improve. As I'll explain, I believe Canonical's business model holds Ubuntu back from fulfilling its potential.


Why It Matters

One obvious response to anyone who criticizes Ubuntu is to say to them: why don't you just run another operating system? There are so many competing Linux and BSD distros out there.

True. But there is a larger issue here. Ubuntu's great popularity means that it represents Linux to many people. It's the distro vendors pre-install. It's the distro the mainstream media always review. It's the one distro everybody's tried. It's been ranked #1 in DistroWatch's yearly popularity ratings for the past six years (1).

Fair or not, Ubuntu reflects on the Linux community as a whole. How well Ubuntu meets criticisms matters even to Linux users who don't use it.

So what are common Ubuntu criticisms? Here are those I often hear...

Full article can be found here.

Nothing hyper earth-shattering. Just some very good observations - even though I think Howard Fosdick could have gone a bit further and maybe not pulled his punches quite as much as he does. But I suppose you can always get the professional penguin bashers out there to provide some 'snark' if you feel a sudden craving for vitriol. So maybe a more rational (and less hostile) tone makes for a nice change of pace after all...

Worth a read IMO.  

7503

General Software Discussion / Re: Web vs. Device?

« Last post by 40hz on June 09, 2011, 12:05 PM »

Apple will continue to get a free ride as long as Steve Jobs is alive. Once he's gone it will be open season on Apple because it will finally get called on all the problems many in the tech press are reluctant to acknowledge.

-40hz (June 09, 2011, 08:45 AM)

Perhaps so, but I bet they wait three days before drawing any conclusions...  

-Stoic Joker (June 09, 2011, 11:25 AM)

 

It will only be a problem if that wooden stake somehow works itself loose.

7504

Living Room / Re: Opinions on database items that can be provided otherwise ... ?

« Last post by 40hz on June 09, 2011, 10:14 AM »

Been ages since I coded anything worthy of the name, but one thing we used to do for that type of semi-fixed data variable was to store them as plain text in a simple file. A small routine would read them in at program start. This gave it most of the advantages of hard coding and avoided the complexity of adding another table to our database. it also made the variables easy to find and change thereby eliminating a need to edit (and possibly screw up) the main program.

In one program we wrote, we used this 'method' for sales commission rates which changed very infrequently - but needed to be updated immediately when they did.

Using a flat text file, all we needed to do was backup a copy of the old file, edit it, and save it back.

Later on I created a spreadsheet so management could experiment with commission rates. When they were finished playing around, they could run a macro which exported the requisite file - and that was that. Sped things up dramatically, and got us off the hook since there was no way we could screw up an update because we no longer were responsible for keying in the data. Sweet!

Note: don't know if it's still necessary to do it this way, but all our 'bushel basket' variable collections were stored as text. If a numeric value was required by the program, the loading routine would convert it to the proper numeric variable form. Doing it that way allowed us to mix & match text and numeric values in the same file. Most of our initialization routines got their values from this sort of 'init' or 'cfg' file.

 

7505

General Software Discussion / Re: Web vs. Device?

« Last post by 40hz on June 09, 2011, 08:59 AM »

I had a server with Layered Technologies. Raid 1 mirrored. A drive died. Server went off-line. They f**ked the other drive and formatted it...

-Renegade (June 09, 2011, 08:42 AM)

Not the first time I've heard of that happening. I've also known of an instance where a tech tossed the good drive in the trash, installed a new drive, and then couldn't figure out why he couldn't create a new mirror set with the bad drive. Thank Buddah the good drive wasn't damaged or picked up by the trash guys before he figured out what he'd done.

RAID  diagnostics report which drive has failed. That's why those multidrive bays have numbers on the slots. You'd think if the controller reported the drive in slot 1 failed, he'd look at the slot number rather than pull out the first drive in the multibay - which is usually slot zero rather than 1.

Even dumber was when he got caught. Rather than acknowledge he made a fixable mistake he tried to lie his way out if it. Unfortunately, the manager he was "explaining" things to wasn't clueless about servers.

Which is how I found out about it. (And also got a new client in the process.)  

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General Software Discussion / Re: Web vs. Device?

« Last post by 40hz on June 09, 2011, 08:45 AM »

Apple will continue to get a free ride as long as Steve Jobs is alive. Once he's gone it will be open season on Apple because it will finally get called on all the problems many in the tech press are reluctant to acknowledge.

Of course the fanboys will be ok with that. Because if Apple does fail after Jobs is gone,  they have an excuse that fits in with their mythology: Steve (the Messiah) is dead - and it was only HIS "vision" that made it all possible.

I truly do believe if Jobs has any genius at all, it lies in his uncanny ability to surround himself with very bright people who are completely willing to let him claim their innovations and contributions as his own.

There has to be some kind of brilliance present to be able to do that.  

7507

Developer's Corner / Re: Apples, Walled Gardens, and Screw Deals - Oh My!

« Last post by 40hz on June 09, 2011, 07:28 AM »

Interesting though that the one thing you guys would not want to give up is the web connection. It's weird how important the web has become in our lives, something that did not exist in the current form a mere 20 years ago.

-phitsc (June 09, 2011, 01:13 AM)

That ones been bugging me to. How exactly do you go "off-the-grid", while being on the internet?

-Stoic Joker (June 09, 2011, 07:05 AM)

You're absolutely right. You can't.

But in my case I wouldn't want to go completely off the grid. (Unless maybe the Feds were after me. )

I'm thinking more in terms of 'simplifying' and 'paring down' rather than 'abandoning.'

Despite occasional lapses of patience with what I consider stupidity, I very much enjoy the company of other people. Even if it's just online. Because you really can't live alone. Even in Antarctica!

Actually, when you think about it, the more remote a place you go to, the more you'll need to depend on what few people are there simply to survive. So if you want to eliminate the need to depend on other people any more than you have to, a big city is a far better choice of residence since so many human interactions have been replaced by automation in areas of dense population.

A guy living in a penthouse in New York City has a better opportunity to live completely alone than does some guy counting penguins on a glacier shelf.

Rather paradoxical.

If you truly want to be alone, your best bet is a dense population center.   

7508

Developer's Corner / Re: Apples, Walled Gardens, and Screw Deals - Oh My!

« Last post by 40hz on June 09, 2011, 07:07 AM »

^It is interesting...

When I first wrote my list of essential takealongs, the books, musical instrument(s), and computer got put down immediately.  Mainly because I've been thinking about this subject for a very long time. But as I was looking at the list, it somehow didn't look quite right. After some additional thought, I realized I really wouldn't want to completely give up a web connection. At least not by choice.

So you're right. The web has changed many people's perspectives in very deep and subtle ways. I know the reason why having that link is important to me. But that reason doesn't go into words that easily. At least for me. Which is further indication some deeper thought processes are involved.

Gonna have to ponder that one a bit and see if I can articulate my reasons why the web would be a factor in my current notion of happiness. Because it didn't used to be.

Hmm...

--------

P.S. I also realized I left out one other absolutely essential item from my 'happiness' list: coffee!  :  

7509

Developer's Corner / Re: Apples, Walled Gardens, and Screw Deals - Oh My!

« Last post by 40hz on June 08, 2011, 04:58 PM »

I just watched an interesting travelogue about Antarctica.

Almost made me wish I pursued that PhD so somebody down there would hire me for either the US or Ukranian station. I'd sign up for the "winter over" shift in a heartbeat the way I've been feeling lately. As long as I had three dozen books, a computer, a musical instrument or two, and a web connection, I'd be happy there. Or pretty much anywhere else, as long as it wasn't hot and humid, and I didn't really know anybody.
 

7510

General Software Discussion / Re: Zenix is a "fun, fast, different" Linux distro!

« Last post by 40hz on June 08, 2011, 03:55 PM »

a guitar like that should be played by someone like this

-superboyac (June 08, 2011, 10:49 AM)

This is way off topic

You talkin' about that handsome young feller up there? For him, I'd say it should be the Eastwood Ichiban. Perfect for someone who has respect for the past - but doesn't allow himself to be held back by it.

40hz, that unrepentant non-DeadHead "Child of the 70s" is more the Eastwood Airline Tux type.

Love that 'stringy' quasi-eastern sound and the controlled musical feedback. Rock on!

Interestingly, the Ferguson part of the demo gets remarkably close to the sound and style of music I most like to do.  

And for BOTH of us, the Eastwood Mandocaster!

Awesome guitars!  

=============================

OK. Back on topic:

Loaded Zenix on an older AMD64 box. It does work remarkably well with what it finds, although now that I've used it a bit, I realize it is a minimalist looking rather than a true minimalist distro since it butchers in at almost 600mb on the CD. No knock that. but it's an important distinction to keep in mind.  Especially if you're short for drive space on whatever you're installing it on.

I wouldn't recommend this as somebody's first foray into Linux however. The interface, while pretty and very well thought out, is NOT your standard Linux desktop by any stretch. Nevertheless, I like it.

This will probably be more of a novelty distribution for me. But what the heck - weirdness and novelty is what it's supposed to be about, right?

For at least part of the time anyway.

7511

Living Room / Re: Security by obscurity fails again (RSA)

« Last post by 40hz on June 08, 2011, 10:27 AM »

IMO not disclosing the full extent of the vulnerability serves no real purpose other than to allow RSA to attempt to hide, from its SecurID customers, the the sand their castles are built on.  

As the article pointed out, the hackers already seemed to know what to do.

7512

General Software Discussion / Re: Zenix is a "fun, fast, different" Linux distro!

« Last post by 40hz on June 08, 2011, 09:13 AM »

And it probably did sound macish... Yeah... I admit it... I sometimes like shiny things.

-Renegade (June 08, 2011, 08:20 AM)

No crime in liking shiny blingy things. I happen to love the weird, utterly ludicrous retro looks (and equally unique sounds) of guitars built by Mike Eastwood so who am I to criticize.  

7513

General Software Discussion / Re: Zenix is a "fun, fast, different" Linux distro!

« Last post by 40hz on June 08, 2011, 07:50 AM »

I read the review, but it just didn't inspire me. It sounded like yet another "minimalistic, fast, blah blah blah" distro. The review wasn't remotely compelling for me. I didn't see anything that really said, "try this".

-Renegade (June 08, 2011, 07:17 AM)

Post back and let me know if it's worth looking at.

-Josh (June 08, 2011, 07:49 AM)

Not too jaded, are we?  

@Ren - Can I use your line in my script as the response from the female character when the gentleman finally tells her what it is? It sounds sooooo Mac-user! (kidding...just kidding)

7514

General Software Discussion / Re: Zenix is a "fun, fast, different" Linux distro!

« Last post by 40hz on June 08, 2011, 06:29 AM »

Bloody hell...I swear I'm gonna start a support group for people who are constantly trying out Linux distros and put myself down as a charter member...  

This does, however, look like an interesting riff on a semi-minimalist nix suitable for use on all those single core/512mb laptops that are currently gathering dust. Could make for a nice little grab & go" laptop when you don't want to take your usual 'hipster busybox' with you. They can't all be used as firewalls, home webservers, or DVD players.  

Nice sexy dark look to the desktop too! Bound to be a "babe magnet" at your favorite bookstore cafe or coffeeshop. (Random attractive Macintosh user pauses in mid-sip of her double latte and glances over at gentleman seated at next table. The normally bored expression behind her designer glasses gives way, first to wide open surprise, and then a bemused semi-frown. "Excuse me... I'm sorry to disturb you...but what is that you're using?" she says, her eyes staring intently at his laptop rather than him...*)  
---------------------------
* What? You thought she might actually be interested in him? C'mon.
---------------------------

Downloading now...

7515

Living Room / Re: Microsoft unveils new UI prototype - Windows 8?

« Last post by 40hz on June 07, 2011, 06:31 PM »

^Wonder if its battery will still hold a decent charge if it's been 4 years since it last got plugged in.  

7516

Living Room / Re: $ vs €. there we have it again!

« Last post by 40hz on June 07, 2011, 06:16 PM »

My point is that with proper financial regulation

-Shades (June 07, 2011, 06:12 PM)

End of script. 

7517

Living Room / Re: $ vs €. there we have it again!

« Last post by 40hz on June 07, 2011, 05:29 PM »

Get accustomed to the pain. The USDollar will continue to be devalued over the next decade to ease the US foreign debt pressure. If you're in the US, it means you're working for less and less value.

-zridling (June 07, 2011, 05:01 PM)

Less international purchasing power actually. In the long run it will be worth it, however, if it finally gets the US off its overdependency on petroleum and other imports. Not to say it won't be painful in the short term. But that's something that will need to happen anyway so why continue to act increasingly stupid in a futile attemp to put it off indefinitely?
 

7518

Developer's Corner / Re: Backpager, an online web editor

« Last post by 40hz on June 07, 2011, 03:11 PM »

Played with it briefly today. It is very cool.  

Quick question for Justice: Why did you set it up as an online rather than desktop hosted app?

I'm always curious about why developers choose one approach over the other. Not being a software developer myself, I haven't a clue, so please forgive me if it's a naive question.  

7519

Living Room / Re: Looking for suggestions for domain name registration

« Last post by 40hz on June 07, 2011, 08:25 AM »

I use DomainDiscover.com for all my registrations.

Also not the cheapest ($12/yr single domain, discounts available for additional years or multiple domains)  but I have been extremely happy with them. Nice account management panel, good DNS, and competent tech support on those rare occasions when you need it. They also offer private registrations (i.e. ownership masking service) at a nominal additional cost if you want to hide your real contact info from casual perusal.

Good company too.  No games or scams with your domain registrations or searches.

Not much else to say other than I really like dealing with them.  

7520

Living Room / Re: $ vs €. there we have it again!

« Last post by 40hz on June 07, 2011, 03:54 AM »

FWIW I'm starting to see more and more European software being priced in Euros, and occasionally gritting my teeth when I see what it will cost in dollars after the conversion rate is applied.

Of course it doesn't disappoint domestic businesses that the US currently has the "weaker" currency. Unfavorable exchange rates help encourage US consumers to "shop at home."  

If it's any consolation, the US pays more for pharmaceuticals than any other country last I heard.  Maybe one reason pleasure is more affordable in the USA is because suffering is much more expensive?  

7521

Living Room / Re: Microsoft unveils new UI prototype - Windows 8?

« Last post by 40hz on June 06, 2011, 05:38 PM »

I had one for my Sony Clie until that died. I ended up giving my keyboard to a friend who had one that still worked.
 
I really miss my Clie. It was a simple and reliable device that didn't try to do too much. But what it did do, it did brilliantly. I wrote the entire first draft of a book on that little bugger. Too bad Sony scrapped it's PDAs and went completely over to smartphones.

-40hz (June 06, 2011, 12:48 PM)

You want another one (Sony Clie that is)? I got one sitting in the closet I never could figure out a use for.

-Stoic Joker (June 06, 2011, 04:40 PM)

Thanks. But I already gave away all my software and accessories and have since moved on to other things. And migrated all that data too. Boy was that ever a pain. Wish I got your offer three years ago! You could have named your price...   (Story of my life.  )

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Living Room / Re: Microsoft unveils new UI prototype - Windows 8?

« Last post by 40hz on June 06, 2011, 04:34 PM »

^Ah - the Journada! That was another neat little PDA. 

7523

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of an alternative to InfoSelect ...

« Last post by 40hz on June 06, 2011, 01:22 PM »

Got a friend who does heavy duty background research for his company's exec technical steering committee. He swears by UltraRecall Pro which you mentioned earlier. (He's also an absolute wiz with AskSam.)

I gave UltraRecall a try a few years ago. I found it extremely powerful. But something about it didn't sync with how my brain tends to work. It just struck me as being too much app for what I needed it for. But I have no doubt it's a very good app.

Might be worth giving it a try. They'll let you download a 45-day/20-use (item limited) trail copy. And they say they have provisions for extending the trial period or removing the item limit if you need more time or have to test it with a bigger database. That's unusual enough to make it worth checking out.
 

7524

Living Room / Re: Microsoft unveils new UI prototype - Windows 8?

« Last post by 40hz on June 06, 2011, 01:04 PM »

Sounds like a typical Sony story to me.  That's soooo Sony.  They tease you with amazing innovations and hardware, yet they never seem to be able to strike that perfect balance in their technology.  There's always something missing.  And nobody makes perfect devices, but the "something missing" for Sony always seems to be a backbreaker that makes.  Whenever I get Sony things, i quickly find myself saying, "If it could only do [whatever] it would PERFECT!"  And then I try to look for an alternative...

-superboyac (June 06, 2011, 12:54 PM)

+1. Truer words were never spoken. They always give you everything but that last 2%.  

7525

Living Room / Re: Microsoft unveils new UI prototype - Windows 8?

« Last post by 40hz on June 06, 2011, 12:48 PM »

Well damn, so they're no longer available?

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (June 06, 2011, 12:08 PM)

Some still are. Check Amazon.

Problem with the Targus Stowaway fold-ups was that they were device specific. AFAIK they only did them for the Palm, Handspring, and Clie.

I had one for my Sony Clie until that died. I ended up giving my keyboard to a friend who had one that still worked.
 
I really miss my Clie. It was a simple and reliable device that didn't try to do too much. But what it did do, it did brilliantly. I wrote the entire first draft of a book on that little bugger. Too bad Sony scrapped it's PDAs and went completely over to smartphones.