tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-144263332024-03-14T02:17:20.246-04:00hometoyRandom thoughts with no apparent order about technology, life and whatever else comes to mind.
You've been warned!Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-81533030782139528902023-07-17T11:35:00.001-04:002023-07-17T11:35:21.508-04:00Tip of the Hat!<p> I know there is all of this stuff flying around Red Hat right now and while there are mixed feelings about it I decided anyway to install Fedora 38 on my Lenovo Yoga laptop.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnglqBJPBQoC9qjmDdIJhHHlban_ZpCF7L7hOtZ_bQUqMQL9ZontQc6pODV1HOp7OAdrxlM5HMejhqg8o1mGc68y0YEX-dbuj6F4BZ56AKCrolKvl1ybPTR07Z5xYizJI6UibbA7fqqEF-kG1a89IPmQ_UPAh1jmRrTODX9QHqWPmecn_7BzvDaA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Fedora Linux Logo" data-original-height="1177" data-original-width="1200" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnglqBJPBQoC9qjmDdIJhHHlban_ZpCF7L7hOtZ_bQUqMQL9ZontQc6pODV1HOp7OAdrxlM5HMejhqg8o1mGc68y0YEX-dbuj6F4BZ56AKCrolKvl1ybPTR07Z5xYizJI6UibbA7fqqEF-kG1a89IPmQ_UPAh1jmRrTODX9QHqWPmecn_7BzvDaA=w200-h196" width="200" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>It's a handy little 12" laptop with a touchscreen and stores a pen in the case so I don't have to worry about something else to loose. The keyboard lives up to the Lenovo hype for comfortable keyboards and the trackpad feels precise.</p><p>This is in comparison to my 17" Dell Latitude that the keyboard is "meh" and the trackpad is ... well, not great. It isn't as comfortable to work on the laptop even though it has 5" more than the Lenovo. A mouse is essential for the Dell and the larger screen is handy for watching movies and videos, but even for that it is not as good as the older, previous Dell laptop that was running a Duo Core (this one runs an i7). If the keyboard wasn't broken, it may have been worth to swap the motherboard (and RAM) from the more powerful laptop to the more comfortable one (if that is feasible).</p><p>The laptop previously had an Ubuntu 22.04 installed on it which was working pretty well, including connecting via Bluetooth to a speaker and the keyboard & mouse. Unfortunately I did not give the root partition enough space, so it kept complaining. It did not help that I added a number of applications, mostly as Snaps, and that took a lot of space.š</p><p>So I had to resize the partitions, naturally, before installing. That was a pain because the Fedora installer doesn't really do any of that well. I ended up. in the Live USB , to install <i>gparted</i> to resize the partitions while maintaining the files already present (at least in the /home partition). Eventually I got it installed and had to re-arrange the boot loading so that it loaded Fedora rather than drop me into a <u>grub ></u> prompt.</p><p>So now that it is installed, I need to think about how I want to use this laptop, in part so I don't install a ton of applications I will never use. Easiest if I do this by not installing anything until I need it.</p><p>Use case ideas:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Browser and emails</li><li>Consuming social media and multimedia</li><li>Office-like productivity (usually Google Docs)</li><li>Dungeons & Dragons notes</li><li>Video editing</li><li>Minecraft and other time-wasting games (not too intense)</li><li>Managing Linux servers and network devices</li><li>Zoom & etc. video meetings</li><li>... and doing it all from the luxury of the couch</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;">The biggest drawback I have fund so far is that Linux does not suspend (Ubuntu or Fedora). If I tell it to suspend it will go to sleep an about 1-2 second(s) later it wakes up again. So it is not well suited for taking to a committee meeting or the like because I have to shutdown (so it doesn't overheat in the bag) and turn it on when I am there. It's not a killer, but that isn't kind to the battery life. </p><p style="text-align: left;">The other issue was fractional scaling. The 100% is too small, and 200% is just too big. Thankfully this is easily fixed by issuing the following command, and then re-opening Settings.</p><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #333333; color: white; font-family: monospace, monospace; font-size: 17.1px; text-align: justify;">gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']</span><wbr style="color: white; font-family: monospace, monospace; font-size: 17.1px; text-align: justify;"></wbr><span style="background-color: #333333; color: white; font-family: monospace, monospace; font-size: 17.1px; text-align: justify;">"</span></p><p></p></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #333333; color: white; font-family: monospace, monospace; font-size: 17.1px; text-align: justify;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;">Meanwhile I am going to hold off on the development environment for the moment, until I have a development server to work on, or a specific project in mind. This is something that will take up a lot of space and not really be utilized sufficiently to make setting it up and the memory usage worthwhile.</p><p style="text-align: left;">For development work, and as a baseline computer setup, I still have Windows available on my desktop. It gives me the advantage of the larger screen, keyboard and mouse (all of which can be shared with the laptop) and better graphic card for games. I have to keep in mind this, so that whatever the laptop does not use, he desktop is used for.</p><p style="text-align: left;">So, how do <b>you</b> use <b>your</b> computer?</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p></p>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-78177492229753413792023-07-13T09:45:00.002-04:002023-07-13T09:45:40.629-04:00Red Hat, where are thou?<p> If you are involved with Linux, including just an interest, you may have heard that Red Hat is putting restrictions on access to their RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) source code to clients only. There are posts, podcasts and videos going over this and with any controversy like this, there are differing views on it fanned by heated emotions and an army of numskulls who jump on the emotion and don't bother to look any deeper.</p><p>First things first, people more involved with the licensing and legal aspects of the GPL have looked at this and I have only heard their summation being that it Red Hat is fully in their right to do this and still be GPL / Open Source compliance. Many responses are long the lines of "it's a dick move, but it's allowed" so skip over that angle.</p><p>From what I have been reading, the summary is that Red Hat is limiting access to their source code because of freeloaders making money from Red Hat's work which takes away revenue that Red Hat could use to pay their developers to work on not only Red Hat projects but many other projects in the open source community.</p><p>When the various clones (CentOS, Rocky, Alma, Oracle and others) take the source code, 90% of the work is done for them. When there is a patch or update Red Hat works to squish those changes into their distribution and it is passed downstream.</p><p>Red Hat argues that this puts a heavy burden on their engineers and then along comes the clones that siphon off potential business revenue by these clones offering service packages for less because they have done less to create the product in the first place. </p><p>At least this seems to be Red Hat's take on the situation. And they may not be wrong.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<td><img alt="Old CentOS Logo" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="2400" height="87" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi9D69euuVJwbohrnjRJr2p3wTwTc43hDGsELPBAoOdUYq7ZobxGQModIR_TkFuiLZScn9l8yEgz5c92n9b14ytygWXWPwYJB2myTu7EIud9Lu9C9uZSC7oCwQ2lwunLaz2E33KLVgomig0mOhcOVHAy4ajM90UyCJdFf7psi3u8emKKCHKXgdwJw=w87-h87" width="87" /></td>
<td><img alt="Alma Linux logo" data-original-height="2059" data-original-width="2093" height="78" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9EZ6NIfa6ZbjDk598ReuPqEvBq9FS2QkBaADmdvm9LZHzSTKagbfODuITLU4gA2ch-CFpOzCHuMaCC4Iy7AYoZoXII9lo7DZf2MOmRnxTJANZ-BHTPCL9TN6OxEVAohfPUExeoj2I3iNC9C8WhXcKohQE6HSZD0RuzcV6PePC4lVOa8AQfCknhw=w80-h78" width="80" /></td>
<td><img alt="Rocky Linux logo" data-original-height="4096" data-original-width="4096" height="65" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRsp7alBR23oDteGt_8O6tPPiLAu_w7uI5YZ38DsrpkUedsU3SEov53S5JKZg5bMAoAC4wMfUs9zIY0YOUZIfnWdU7gkQn7t3Mi04LrRwd-v_JDuAZrl6ATffoQNr5ufz2TlsmQdhru9PtFV-LOnmJrxFNcUXQDUXOwBcgmhFaHo15_9eo7gkOiA=w65-h65" width="65" /></td>
<td><img alt="Scientific Linux logo" data-original-height="2043" data-original-width="2016" height="85" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-atx5pLUWHMnieZEYyos6B6A5J3jfd-nQeKdfdX4JPGxNeMkWxm91p6zUY27BDp0UGR6EaFkeENeRupsKhvoB_3VYhLIDO_SJjrF9851TTa9aG8JTCtlo8W_y9TEJMGJRPVl5p2Nt0GIVpQM4E3jtnaAqYP50JceJfkMnPQP1YVxz8jMvUFzDlw=w84-h85" width="84" /></td>
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</div><p>I would be curious to see how much these Clones have <u>actually</u> contributed back upstream directly. I may suspect that the majority would be from CentOS only because they have been around the longest, but the others may have, as some have claimed their involvement for 25 years or more!</p><p>It is interesting that the loudest critics seem to be coming from these clones that are seeing their free ride drying up and being forced to find alternatives.</p><p>For the Clones, however, a lot of the contributions may not be "from" them, but that doesn't mean they aren't facilitating individuals who use these clones who contribute to a number of open source projects, many of which may not be in what would be considered "enterprise" software and hardware.</p><p>To the benefit of Red Hat, the clones offered a chance to lure potential customers into the Red Hat ecosystem which may move to full Red Hat support once their need becomes great enough. Clones also allow small businesses and individuals with access to enterprise grade systems without breaking their bank. Not all companies can pay Enterprise-level support costs.</p><p>Outside of the community backlash and smudge on their reputation, by removing the clones Red Hat removes easy access and progression for smaller and medium-sized companies which may turn into paying clients.</p><p>So on the one-hand I can see why Red Hat is doing what they are doing and honestly I cannot fault them. They are a business and need to make money. That they were a billion dollar Linux and open-source company provided a significant level of stability and legitimacy to Linux as well as the ability to throw developers at the not-so-sexy projects that are vital to a working OS.</p><p>On the other hand, the clones approached people not big enough to go the whole paid-for support and individual developers working on open source projects and contributing their way. Usually used for servers, Red Hat's community focus in Fedora is not a suitable replacement.</p><p>Whereas in the past I could use Red Hat for work, CentOS for personal server and Fedora for desktop is whittled down to Red Hat for work and Fedora for desktop. Or, and I may not be alone, I can go Ubuntu LTS for work and personal server and [*]Ubuntu for desktop.</p><p>Red Hat is smart. It is only a matter of time to see if this move of theirs is beneficial for them, or not.</p>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-19889174117661247072023-06-15T12:20:00.003-04:002023-06-15T12:20:22.597-04:00Linux to the Rescue<p> Frequently, when things are not working quite right in Windows, on Linux things just work. Especially if there is corruption of a file or file system.</p><p>Recently Linux came to my rescue when Windows could not see the recent pictures on my wife's Nikon DSLR camera of my daughter's dance recital.</p><p>Windows would try to import the pictures when it is plugged in, but for an unknown reason would only open the folder of what it imported, and that folder was empty. Cue panicked heart palpitations!</p><p>Cooler heads (mine) went to see if I could navigate to the camera's contents through the file manager. Luckily I could, and so verified the pictures were still there! Whew! Time to copy the pictures off and manually put them where we want. That's when things didn't work again.</p><p>I could take the entire folder, or individual pictures, and copy them (via right-click). However, when I try to paste them anywhere in the computer, there is an error message about the device being "busy". It was then I noticed that every few seconds the activity light on the camera would flash.</p><p>Verified that all of the files were being displayed and all activity with the camera's drive should be completed. Still the light blinked, like a slow heartbeat.</p><p>This is when I moved it over to my Linux laptop. Plugging the SD card in, the file manager popped-up and the contents of the SD card showed right up. I could navigate through the card or, more importantly, copy the entire directory onto my laptop's hard drive!</p><p>I didn't see any messages regarding the files or folder or drive being corrupted or questionable until I tried to eject the card. To be safe I closed it all out, shut down the laptop and removed the SD card before booting up again.</p><p>Once it booted up again I made a copy on a USB Thumbdrive so the pictures can be copied over to my wife's desktop. That all works an she could copy them wherever she wants them.</p><p>Meanwhile I used Shotwell on my Linux laptop to import all of the pictures and to sort / store them in my pre-defined structure (yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd/).</p><p>This isn't the first time Linux has come to my rescue and could either work when Windows doesn't, or provide me with more information on what is going on and how to fix it.</p>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-147097613706768572023-06-12T08:26:00.005-04:002023-06-12T08:26:45.470-04:00Linux is not good for people with attention deficits, and also is perfect!<p> I think Linux is not good for people with attention deficits. At the same time it is perfect for them as well. The draw of so many choices can be overwhelming while at the same time there <i>are</i> so many choices that it can take years to go through even just a portion of choices!</p><p>I label it as "with attention deficits" because if I am ADHD, it is undiagnosed and I don't want to muddy the water with calling myself that if I really aren't. I feel it is better to only label when it can benefit or explain a person's actions but is thrown around way too casually these days.</p><p>Back in the 2000s, after 2003 when I installed my first Linux, all of the choices for distros, applications, languages and desktops made me feel like a kid in a candy store. It was exciting to have everything available at my fingertips without having to pay hefty charges or limit myself to 90-day trials. I was able to try things like setting up web servers and thin clients and routers with content filters. </p><p>Without the financial expenditure or time limits I was able to try it, take my time to work through and break it to find out how it works and to walk away from it as long as I need for other priorities or until I can find inspiration or stumble across missing information that may work to help my situation.</p><blockquote><p>"<i>Linux provides freedom. Problem is most people </i><i>don't know what it is, or how to use it.</i>"</p></blockquote><p>Linux has since moved, evolved and changed over the years, and for the better. I used to switch between distributions to see who would be the first to recognize my Wi-Fi card, or graphics card, or DVD burner, out of the box first (always a fun race between Fedora and Ubuntu at the time), now most distributions are able to handle my hardware (with the exception of one laptop's Broadcom wifi adapter ... ).</p><p>Now that it has achieved my initial goal for "being able to do everything I can do in Windows, in Linux" I am starting to expand that goal and to expand my programming and enterprise systems knowledge by setting up my home environment with relevant tools.</p><p>This is where Linux, and open source, comes in strong. Having access to enterprise-level open source technologies I am able to explore settings at my speed (no trial periods), without expending (a lot of) money, if any, and usually with a large collection of online documentation when I need help.</p><p>I'm not the fastest learner, which is why trials don't work well with me, and I don't want to plunk down money on things that I don't know if they will work or not. This leaves my biggest challenge is not Linux or Open Source, it is my own head and my own attention span.</p>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-3386248310182025852020-07-22T18:00:00.017-04:002020-11-05T08:42:10.435-05:00What I like of Windows 10<div>I go between Windows and Linux often on my home systems and one reason is that neither Linux nor Windows has everything I like 100%. There are many aspects that I like of each, and a number of detractors. If I could merge what I like about both into one system it would be "perfect" (not really), for me at least.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I figured I would start out with looking at what I like about each of the systems.</div><div><br /></div><div>One may look at these features and say "yeah, but Gnome (or KDE) has that too", and that is fine. They can both have a feature that I like (means I REALLY like that feature, I guess). This isn't what I like about one that the other doesn't have, it is what I like about one.</div><div><br /></div><div>In this case, it is what I <i>like </i>about Windows 10.</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Clock/Calendar</h4><div>I like being able to click on the clock and see a calendar and list of events for the day selected. I have both Google and Outlook.com accounts that I use for different purposes and whichever calendars I select in the Calendar app will show up in the agenda.</div><div><br /></div><div>I use this often during work because I join video meetings from the host system (not work's virtual desktop). So I duplicate meetings from my work calendar to my Outlook.com calendar including the Zoom or GoToMeeting links. Having it listed in the Agenda, alongside my personal agenda items, gives me quick and easy access to the link.</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Sound Output Selector </h4><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq0SvhyNq314pSy2QcgpP3NRLpTsc2pqJHwOSMVeN6pkmLQ0CR0H7hUzaN9QqcNM9RrMtsWKerC1K7SCJBndpasLDwZVVOxlR6KTBsFHeuLs9bJvKopa_fmRN0-Rgz8VdeYGUP3A/s354/sound_output_snapshot.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="List of selectable playback devices when you click on the speaker icon for volume control in the system tray." border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="354" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq0SvhyNq314pSy2QcgpP3NRLpTsc2pqJHwOSMVeN6pkmLQ0CR0H7hUzaN9QqcNM9RrMtsWKerC1K7SCJBndpasLDwZVVOxlR6KTBsFHeuLs9bJvKopa_fmRN0-Rgz8VdeYGUP3A/w320-h200/sound_output_snapshot.png" width="320" /></a></div><div> For video meetings I have a headset and at the same time I have speakers plugged in for ambient sounds and music. The ouptput selector when you click on the speaker volume control makes it so quick and easy to switch from one to the other without unplugging or having to go into a separate window. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am grateful, too, that it remembers the setting for the volume of each output because my speakers are soft, but my headphones are loud. I don't want to blow out my ears!</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Edge Apps</h4><div>Some people like it, some people hate it. I like it . The ability to pin websites as if they were applications to make them open in their own window. Especially websites that do not need to open new tabs or navigate away (calendar, my web comics, google docs, etc.). </div><div><br /></div><div>It gives me quick and easy access to these sites and not have to worry about which browser window it opens in, or accidentally closing it while closing the window while on another tab.</div><div><br /></div><div>Chrome has the advantage of allowing you to choose whether it opens as its own app window, or just as a new tab on any existing browser windows. This is cool, and I like the options but Edge does it easy, the browser is quick to open up. It shows up so I can easily pin it to the Start menu.</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Start Menu / Tiles</h4><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiojLHYRBvntnIKUp6OqS22GhiGmU6oiOjTALlwDEFiIKosDAEaB5aStXXnADep807yQ1dWIHBjLAA9Sbzn5s-NeVw8KfHIa8SL41wOWZ9x9ULRZNi-Ts1itt5_rCUWlNXwQcIZNQ/s914/start_menu_snapshot.png" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="Snapshot of my start menu with the application tiles organized." border="0" data-original-height="914" data-original-width="753" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiojLHYRBvntnIKUp6OqS22GhiGmU6oiOjTALlwDEFiIKosDAEaB5aStXXnADep807yQ1dWIHBjLAA9Sbzn5s-NeVw8KfHIa8SL41wOWZ9x9ULRZNi-Ts1itt5_rCUWlNXwQcIZNQ/w264-h320/start_menu_snapshot.png" width="264" /></a></div><div>This has been a controversial part of Windows since before it came out. When I had my first phone, a Lumina 650 Windows 10 phone, I liked the live tiles. Their shapes, groupings and colors helped me know where the icon I was looking for was at a glance. I guess I am a visual person.</div><div><br /></div><div>In my start menu I do a couple of things to make it useful for me.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Turn off live tiles for most applications except the few I want to be able to see updates at a glance (calendar, tasks, weather, and photos)</li><li>Frequently used apps are sized larger than most of the other apps. This makes them easier to see and select while the others are still accessible.</li><li>Photos is larger, Wide in this instance, because I want to see the pictures rotating. (I have an issue with the Photos app, but that's for another post)</li></ul>I group them somewhat. Like all of my work-related apps (web apps as well as local apps) are in one group, while multimedia (pictures and video) are in another, web apps are together, etc.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><h4 style="text-align: left;">Snap Windows</h4><div>Using the Windows key and an arrow, being able to easily "snap" it to one side or the other, and then having another app snapped to the other side, is a very handy and often used feature. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is great when I am doing web development (browser/code) or research (browser/note taking app) where I can see both at the same time. Even more helpful with the larger monitor (27").</div><div><br /></div><div>Part of the benefit is being able to resize both apps at the same time. By grabbing the line between the two apps and moving it to one side or the other, it resizes both apps accordingly (one shrinking and one growing). </div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">OneDrive files on demand</h4><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYWYGWN6qEpJlwjedxu-fqxx5362Deikjti4ArQ3R_7H2rorkm4qRaiV__w08I6pZycApo90O_XiDRCG8XmKI4Xx3Q1aL5xG3Gm80QAkFzZpsx4pJbxT2z0n3lk3QQgSIQd_TGXw/s274/onedrive_status_snapshot.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Picture of status indicators on OneDrive, whether files are stored locally or only on the cloud." border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="32" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYWYGWN6qEpJlwjedxu-fqxx5362Deikjti4ArQ3R_7H2rorkm4qRaiV__w08I6pZycApo90O_XiDRCG8XmKI4Xx3Q1aL5xG3Gm80QAkFzZpsx4pJbxT2z0n3lk3QQgSIQd_TGXw/d/onedrive_status_snapshot.png" /></a></div>File storage apps (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) will synchronize your files locally to their cloud. OneDrive does one better.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't have to have the files taking up space on my local hard drive if I don't need it. However I still see and can interact with the files through the file manager as if it were. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I want to open the file, I double-click on it like any other file. OneDrive then downloads it and opens it. Yes it takes a few moments or longer, depending on the size of the file, waiting for it to download first but comparing the handful of files downloaded to the gigabytes of disk space saved is worth it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>So if I go between multiple machines, I don't have to wait for everything to be synchronized before opening any file, or if I had a portable machine like Surface Go, I don't have to fill up the disk space with files I'm not going to open on the smaller machine. </div></div><div><div><br /></div><div>I think this is a killer feature of OneDrive. </div></div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">WSL (Windows Subsystem of Linux)</h4><div>Edit: I forgot about WSL!</div><div><br /></div><div>WSL is Windows Subsystem [of] Linux which is really cool way of running Linux in Windows. It's command-line only, which suits me fine, and it scratches my Linux itch.</div><div><br /></div><div>I use it for running a webserver and do web development which is simple to set up and run. Since any deployment will be on a LAMP (Linux Apache MariaDb/MySQL and PHP) it works out perfectly.</div><div><br /></div><div>The feature I really love that makes it easy to develop with WSL is that I can mount the /var/www/ directory to a folder in Windows. This way I can manipulate the files in Windows Explorer and use development tools easily. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am also glad there is a WSL extension for Visual Studio Code that makes it easy to connect to WSL for development. This will come in handy when I start making my own Modules and Themes.</div><div><br /></div><div>This suits me fine because I use WSL for running Linux servers for developing and exploring web development. It's great because if I publish the website or code it will be on a Linux server anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is easy to set up, get into a work with WSL and in addition to letting me get my Linux fix, I map a drive to somewhere on my Windows computer so I can get the files</div><div><br /></div><div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Peripherals</h4><div style="text-align: left;">It's no doubt that most peripherals will work with Windows. Unless you use another system where you have to question "will it work", this is easily taken for granted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Not only do most peripherals work, plugging them into a USB hub or the CPU the new device is usually auto-detected and the system goes out and gets drivers for it automatically. I assume they are generic drivers, but enough to tell the device is recognized.<br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Conclusion</h4></div><div>So Windows 10 has some features that I like, and use regularly. Some of these features are available in Linux, and this doesn't mean that there are not parts that I do NOT like. But if I were making a 'perfect' computer I would want these features to be included.</div><div><br /></div><div>What are some of your favorite features of Windows 10. Only positives (things you like), negatives will come later.</div>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-56017988858321622272020-07-09T17:00:00.000-04:002020-07-09T17:00:09.818-04:00Working from home<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDJ90_6BM5ppKR-cHUQPU0DqJPAOPoLmPWx3VlOaMWyzD6LJzmdq09tP72p9g88YWxuCdBm5sOaZ45PFVpb-JEwQbQlibVI_w36_t-Pgyvq1RPa9q4ElATEaok9n-rWotH2rTdA/s1600/baby-working-on-a-laptop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Picture of baby working on laptop from PublicDomainPictures.net" border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDJ90_6BM5ppKR-cHUQPU0DqJPAOPoLmPWx3VlOaMWyzD6LJzmdq09tP72p9g88YWxuCdBm5sOaZ45PFVpb-JEwQbQlibVI_w36_t-Pgyvq1RPa9q4ElATEaok9n-rWotH2rTdA/s320/baby-working-on-a-laptop.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
So I have been working from home for about 16 weeks now, my last day actually in the office was Friday March 13, 2020. In this time I have been adjusting and learning about my habits, preferences and the environment called "home". I have to admit, though, I am one of the lucky ones.<br />
<br />
First off, work is pretty well situated with allowing me to work from home. In the office we were using thin clients and using VMWare Horizon Client I have access to my desktop the same as if I were sitting in the office. Once I was able to, I picked up a 27" monitor a couple of weeks in and now I dread going back to my 19" squarish monitors sitting in the office.<br />
<br />
Since I connect at home using whatever system I want and the client, it gives me great freedom in choosing whatever OS I want to use. I have it set up so my VDI (Virtual Desk Interface) is full-screened on the large monitor and my laptop screen just shows my local environment. Best of both worlds.<br />
<br />
The laptop I use I have 2 hard drives; one running Windows 10 and one running <a href="https://pop.system76.com/" target="_blank">Pop! OS Linux</a> and it is set up to easily swap between the two. Unfortunately, each one has some limitation that makes it less than ideal.<br />
<br />
Windows, for instance, will not be able to connect to the Internet when it wakes up from sleep. It shows it is connected to the wireless router, but no Internet access. The proverbial "the Lights are On but Nobody's home" syndrome and only rebooting will fix this. Or a network cable.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile there is one technology the company uses for video conferencing, GoToMeeting, that does not play well with my Linux system. While I can see and hear everybody else in the video call, my mic drops and nobody can hear me. This is a problem when I am meeting with my boss for a status update meeting, or our weekly standup meeting with the team.<br />
<br />
We do have Microsoft Teams which works fine with Linux, except it is basically the web app wrapped to look like a native app. Only loss I see here is the lack of screen sharing which is minor but a handy benefit when I am instructing or troubleshooting with co-workers.<br />
<br />
I can run some of this on my VDI, but that really sucks down some resources and can potentially crash my session. Best practice is running the communication programs on my local system.<br />
<br />
So for now I am running Windows on my laptop, plugged into the network and tied to the desk. Not ideal for a laptop and if the AC were to stop I can hear the laptop's fans working hard to keep up with the strain.<br />
<br />
My goal, now, is to set up the desktop that is running Windows 10 with the large monitor and USB webcam, and use that for work. Meanwhile take the laptop and switch it to Linux and use it.<br />
<br />
It's just dealing with my daughter, who is using the desktop now for her Zoom ballet classes... Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-56294254400148835732019-07-16T09:05:00.003-04:002019-07-16T09:05:34.778-04:00Linux in a Microsoft worldWhen I started using Linux, in 2003, I gave myself the challenge: to do everything I do in Windows, except in Linux. That goal has been met many years ago with Ubuntu (and derivatives) and even today it still is my preferred OS.<br />
<br />
However, at work things are a little different. At work we run a lot of Microsoft technologies, The biggest exception of this is the Drupal/Wordpress running on Linux for external websites (currently). Even there, though, it looks like SharePoint is going to be getting into the mix.<br />
<br />
So it seems, other than getting hired by Red Hat *hint* *hint* or Canonical, I need to brush up and improve my Microsoft skills for work. I need to improve for current employment and for prospective employment in case things do not work out here.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNh8CaFm7_NeKozGJpXku4ezxq-3CV2NDlAGc7HJp_-oQxvnnFTYWnd6H330JlylwxnIXVn_u6bL_L8yAX4khAkpH-ghAzVxge_oP_BOoUn4kuOo9Fod7X3ik3xpni6EHAwWqIrw/s1600/A_Microsoft_poster_proclaiming_its_love_for_Open_Source.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNh8CaFm7_NeKozGJpXku4ezxq-3CV2NDlAGc7HJp_-oQxvnnFTYWnd6H330JlylwxnIXVn_u6bL_L8yAX4khAkpH-ghAzVxge_oP_BOoUn4kuOo9Fod7X3ik3xpni6EHAwWqIrw/s320/A_Microsoft_poster_proclaiming_its_love_for_Open_Source.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Now Microsoft "loves Open Source", or so they say, but this love-fest resides in Linux on servers only. You look at what Microsoft has opened up and worked with Linux and you quickly see they are Enterprise and Server focused (WSL is CLI, Azure is for Linux servers, SQL Server runs in Docker on Linux, dotNET core, Visual Studio Code is for developers, etc.). Their desktop offerings have a bit to be desired (Skype is outdated, Office 365 does not work well with WINE, etc.)<br />
<br />
I don't fault them, and am glad for every validation of the Linux platform they generate with more integration. This leads me to my next goal;<br />
<br />
To use and integrate Linux as much as possible while I update and improve my overall technical capabilities, predominately Microsoft technologies.<br />
<br />
This means building an environment for development that can transfer easily to my work environment, which is Microsoft based, and becoming familiarized with the languages and technology.<br />
<br />
My focus is on development, not system administration, which Microsoft can make it very easy to breeze over. Visual Studio can start coding and debugging without having to have a full-blown web server in place. Azure provides an easy (but can become expensive) platform or even software as a service so you don't need to be involved with the underlying bits.<br />
<br />
I don't want to end up spending all of my time deciding container (which?), virtual machines, cloud, source control, backups, restores and updates of a local system in hopes I can use it for development. As I get more active in development, I will be trickling down into the details anyway, but I don't want to have to start at the bottom and build up and not know if I am even going in the right direction.<br />
<br />
I am being vague and that is partially because I don't know what exactly this goal means. That's perfectly fine, because it is a larger and broader goal to guide my continued technological journey. Does this mean I run Windows and use WSL for my Linux "fix"? Maybe. Does it mean I heavily learn how to use Visual Studio Code (which is confusing as-is) on Linux and figure out how to transfer it to a Windows server? Maybe. I just don't know HOW I am going to do it, but I hope to learn from it.<br />
<br />
Just like it was with my first goal, the Internet will likely prove to be the bridge between the two systems. In the past, so long as I had a browser I had the bare minimum of capabilities and productivity.<br />
<br />
Let's see how far this rabbit hole goes...<br />
<br />
<br />Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-45515511572798198022019-06-24T11:41:00.002-04:002019-06-24T11:41:09.978-04:00New Raspberry Pi 4!<br />
<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8T0YDrZGqC0_Lvu_QAPBD0c8ZMgwj7lXVXS-e1CmUJ3JeEYcaL0OQ34emir2FJqH2kszxam9ec879pQSXIUDYf5uX0kqt011uDB4l6ZQi5LgdMeB6AflVZKpe56XoZS5t0o2Oug/s1600/RPi-Logo-SCREEN.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="493" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8T0YDrZGqC0_Lvu_QAPBD0c8ZMgwj7lXVXS-e1CmUJ3JeEYcaL0OQ34emir2FJqH2kszxam9ec879pQSXIUDYf5uX0kqt011uDB4l6ZQi5LgdMeB6AflVZKpe56XoZS5t0o2Oug/s200/RPi-Logo-SCREEN.png" width="158" /></a></div>
So I read today that there is a new version of Raspberry Pi out, Raspberry Pi 4! Not only is it more powerful and capable than the other versions, which were pretty capable of themselves, it now boasts specs pretty close to the old CPUs I use for various severs!<br />
<br />
Most headlines I have seen focus on how you get more power for the same $35 price tag, but this glosses over probably the biggest feature I see with ver. 4; that it comes in 1GB, 2GB or 4GB of RAM versions! The 4GB version tops out the price but $55 is still not bad for what you get!<br />
<br />
This quite largely addresses the largest weakness I found in using the Pi. The chip and RAM update with the 3B+, Wi-fi and Bluetooth sold me on the version but this takes that and makes it even more palatable.<br />
<br />
Naturally, this starts getting me thinking about what kind of projects I want to do that warrants purchasing a new Pi!<br />
<br />
<h4>
What's it got?</h4>
It shouldn't be hard to find the specs, but here's a listing.<br />
<ul>
<li>64bit Quad-Core ARM CPU (1.5GHz)</li>
<li>1-, 2- or 4GBs of RAM</li>
<li>Ports</li>
<ul>
<li>2 x Micro-HDMI (yes.. can handle 2 monitors!)</li>
<li>2 x USB 3</li>
<li>2 x USB 2</li>
</ul>
<li>Gigabit Ethernet (no PoE from what I've seen)</li>
<li>Wi-Fi (dual-band)</li>
<li>Bluetooth</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
</h4>
<h4>
NextCloudPi replacement <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_NumqBM9IT0LIs3VOAOpl51m87Y79bISpFW8BFfIT1umzQBLAapYIzWJ4iZGXDymyi6oux53WYNC99eLq16jgnz5qWBjKHo2OnTWJORlLb2Dn-XOFlqvQOKgukS58dmyCNrVR5A/s1600/Nextcloud_Logo.svg.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="1280" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_NumqBM9IT0LIs3VOAOpl51m87Y79bISpFW8BFfIT1umzQBLAapYIzWJ4iZGXDymyi6oux53WYNC99eLq16jgnz5qWBjKHo2OnTWJORlLb2Dn-XOFlqvQOKgukS58dmyCNrVR5A/s200/Nextcloud_Logo.svg.png" width="200" /></a></h4>
I set up a Pi 3B+ with <a href="https://ownyourbits.com/nextcloudpi/" target="_blank">NextCloudPi</a> to run a <a href="https://nextcloud.com/" target="_blank">NextCloud</a> server for all of the family members. It works wonderfully and I took the suggestion to throttle the upload speed when initially synchronizing files to the server so you don't end up doing DDOS on yourself.<br />
<br />
The Raspberry Pi 4 with a gigabit Ethernet and more RAM than the 3B+ I think will make a huge difference in performance over the 3B+.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Some other ideas</h4>
I've had some other ideas, which just seems so much sweeter with the added "oomph" of the 4!<br />
<ul>
<li>Thin-client like setup, or ChromiumOS, where it is a desktop for purposes of getting online, or connecting to either a local LTSP server or, even better, to work's remote access.</li>
<li>PiHole</li>
<li>Network handling, like local DNS (for accessing local servers) and possibly single sign-on server(?)</li>
<li>Brains for my 3D printer</li>
<li>Smart home server (handling multiple camera feeds)</li>
<li>Minecraft server (it may not be great, but I've run on less and being portable makes it easy to carry to a friend's house).</li>
<li>Basic desktop (nothing too strenuous, just browsing/email/chat, etc.)</li>
<li>I've always been tempted to hack the window fans to read the outside and inside temperatures, direct the airflow appropriately and synchronize the activity of multiple fans (blow out on one side of the house, suck in on the other so air travels between them).</li>
<li>If it can handle LXD/LXC, then I may be able to run multiple servers in one machine.</li>
</ul>
<h3>
What are you going to do with all that extra power?</h3>
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Referenced Links</h4>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">NextCloudPi (<a href="https://ownyourbits.com/nextcloudpi/">https://ownyourbits.com/nextcloudpi/</a>) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">NextCloud (<a href="https://nextcloud.com/">https://nextcloud.com/</a>)</span>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-70677982449986780632018-05-16T11:34:00.002-04:002018-05-16T11:34:39.004-04:00Microsoft Surface TabletBoy, lots of articles going on right now about Microsoft's plan to release a 10 inch Surface tablet this year and for somebody in the Microsoft universe this could be a good situation.<br />
<br />
Imagine now that you work on a powerful computer for something (heavily in Excel, development work, graphics, etc.). You don't want a tiny screen to squint at all day long! You want ta full-sized keyboard and one or two (or more) large monitors, or at least a laptop with enough power to crunch all the numbers and render all the frames quickly. But how portable will such a rig be?<br />
<br />
No matter how hard you try to avoid it, at some point you need to leave the house. It could be to take your kid to practice, or some other activity where you're not expected to watch actively (if it is, then put down the device and be involved with their lives!), or to show the prospective client where you are at, or to make a presentation. Whatever the reason, chances are you don't want to lug that 22" laptop with a 20 minute battery life you use to develop everything on, even if you have a swell-looking bag. That's where a tablet like this would come in.<br />
<br />
There are Android tablets and iPads available, but they run pared-down mobile apps. That is even if there are mobile apps for whatever you are working on. Plus the fun of moving things around between devices (OneDrive for Android? Google drive on your primary? Dropbox?)<br />
<br />
The advantage Microsoft should use in marketing is the ability to have full-blown apps on the device, and the seamless inclusion of OneDrive. OneDrive allows for not storing all of the actual files on the device, which will save a lot of space on the tablet, yet is almost seamless between devices and storing files in the exact same spot (OneDrive/Documents) so no hunting for the file on an Android device.<br />
<br />
Assuming there either is a keyboard accessory or can use existing bluetooth keyboards, like Android and iPad tablets use, then the other benefit is hopefully good pen support. My Android tablet, it feels like I am using a pen the size of a crayon, and it's roller-ball is dirty and doesn't work all of the time. If the pen support is as good as is on the other surface devices then that is a plus.<br />
<br />
In the education market, the pen is something that schools going with Chromebooks will not have. Schools look at Chromebooks because they are cheap devices and easily replaced. This means the touch-enabled Chromebooks are likely not in the running (for now).<br />
<br />
So, this could be a handy device; more portable than my current systems (other than the Android tablet) with full apps available.<br />
<br />
Make me wonder, Microsoft was offering Office mobile apps the ability to edit files with systems (on? or) under 10" screens. If this comes with the mobile versions of MS Office apps that can edit documents and files, that would be another great selling point.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-62038609114636399822017-12-26T22:25:00.003-05:002017-12-26T22:25:56.263-05:00Windows Apps-only revisitedMicrosoft, it seems, is going ahead with its idea for Windows 10 S being a Windows Store Apps only design, and includes it by default on the Surface Laptop, a thin and light laptop it hopes to break the grip of the cheap and Internet-friendly Chromebooks in schools, businesses and beyond. Iām setting aside my feelings on that strategy for the moment.<br />
<img alt="Surface Laptop" height="178" src="https://img-prod-cms-rt-microsoft-com.akamaized.net/cms/api/am/imageFileData/RE1I4Eo?ver=1a15&q=90&m=6&h=423&w=752&b=white&o=f&aim=true" style="display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="316" /><br />
On the surface (pun intended) Windows 10 S looks like a dumbing-down for Windows 10 and an effort to force adoption of the App Store and provide a cheap alternative without cheapening its other versions, the Home and Pro edition. <br />
<br />
The real questions is the impact on individuals. People who use specialty software or play heavy games need not apply, so wonāt bother with them until that changes.<br />
<br />
I recently refreshed my Windows 10 installation and decided to take an inventory of store apps and desktop apps installed that I regularly use. Using this, I am conceptualizing whether a Surface Laptop (or like device) would be usable by me or not. YMMV, but I hope it may help you outline your needs.<br />
<br />
First off, letās look at the Windows Store apps that I do use fairly regularly. Some apps, marked in italic, could be done through the web browser and so does not need to use the app. So at least there are alternatives.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><div align="center">
<strong><span style="font-size: x-small;">APP</span></strong></div>
</td><td valign="top"><div align="center">
<strong><span style="font-size: x-small;">USE AND NEEDS</span></strong></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Daily Picture</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I like the Bing Pictures of the Day, so this automatically changes my wallpaper and/or lock screen.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><strike><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Facebook</span></em></strike></td><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">This app sucks; takes a long time to load and crashes often. I use the web interface for now in hopes that someday this app will be improved.</span></em><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fitbit</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I use my Windows phone to synchronize with my Fitbit currently. If the computer has Bluetooth then maybe can use that to synchronize the Fitbit rather than only my phone.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fresh Paint</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Just a fun application for drawing. Much more useful with a touch screen device, though.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Messenger</span></em></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Another application that can be done on the web. I just wish it would be integrated with the People shortcuts on the taskbar</em>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mahjong<br />Minesweeper</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A couple of games that I use primarily on my phone but unfortunately when I move to Android (since </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">MS is abandoned the phone) these games are not available as far as I can tell.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Minecraft</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">One of the few games I frequently play, and my system cannot run the Desktop (Java) version but can run this one pretty well.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Open Live Writer</span></em></td><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">It is what I wrote this on <img alt="Smile" class="wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-smile" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbi3XgS-gyQk0ro6294Luxx5H_J5h4QN0dvKEabcV1lOx9uCDpqJyxzNV3cAwyB9_d7qiGmITXM9Ti7z8VtMwKq2L1gHX5Tk1y6xn2Efhr1TnSxSENZIq5sM0rbSLOzIts2jzK_g/?imgmax=800" /> !</span></em><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pandora</span></em></td><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">I regularly listen to Pandora and have dozens of stations. The good thing is I can also run this through a web browser.</span></em><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Skype</span></em></td><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">I donāt use this often, but I most of my family does use this on the infrequent times we video chat.</span></em><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Twitter</span></em></td><td valign="top"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">This can be done through the web, but is a pain when you have >1 account you wish to go between. The app allows me to easily switch which feed I am reading.</span></em><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">World of Tanks Blitz</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Another fun game. Not as good a s the full-blown game on the desktop but good when I occasionally want to just blow things up!</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wunderlist</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This is my go-to list maker. I also have shopping lists shared with my wife so she can add things whenever I am going to stop by the store on my way home from work.</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br />
So now comes the applications that I use that are not readily available in the App Store or I have not found a good-enough alternative (for free). Some apps I may be willing to pay a few bucks for but really, unless I <u>know</u> it does what is needed and maybe even better, Iām not going to bother with it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top"><div align="center">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>APP</strong></span></div>
</td><td valign="top"><div align="center">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>USE AND THOUGHTS</strong></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dungeons & Dragons Online<br />(DDO)</span><br />
<br /></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Itās an older game, but a fun game to waste some time. Although if I were using a device like a Surface Laptop, I may opt to taking even an old desktop computer and setting it up with a larger monitor for playing so this could be a moot case.</span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gimp</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Itās a powerful image editor. It could be replaced with an App version of Adobe products though that would be overkill for what I use Gimp for. There is also Pixlr on the web that should work as an alternative.</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Google Chrome<br />or</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Mozilla Firefox</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Edge is alright except for 2 issues I have with it currently.</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lack of extensions on Edge. There are a few extensions I use regularly that is not available or an equivalent available for Edge.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>With only a few tabs open, Edge will grind to a halt not only the browser, but the ENTIRE SYSTEM!</strong> Nothing responds (Start menu, switching apps, closing apps, closing tabs, Ctl+Alt+Del, nothing!). Task manager does not show it locked at 100%, and once I can close Edge (which takes minutes after hitting the close window), after a second or two the entire system returns to being responsive.<br /></span></li>
</ol>
</td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Google Drive<br />(formerly<br />Google Photo Backup and<br />Google Music Manager)</span><br />
<br /></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cannot complain about Google Photoās unlimited storage, even if I have to reduce the quality of the pictures. Google Drive and Music Manager allows for automatically uploading these files as I import them from my camera. The only thing that keeps this from being a killer issue is that it can be done manually, using a web browser but automatically (and automatically resuming where you left off if you have to close the lid for going somewhere) is very, very handly.</span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Notepad++</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">When I do work, it is usually in script languages like bash and php. Notepad++ is quick to open, provides color syntax and plugins and allows me to do things quickly and easily. I imagine Visual Studio Code may be able to do this but it is a bit more comlex and confusing for me and at this point is not a Windows Store App (but a likely candidate to eventually becoming one)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">For editing scripts on one of my Linux servers, by using SSH into the server I will have access to CLI text editors that while not as good, are sufficient in most cases to do what I need to do.</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">PuTTY</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I look forward to when SSH is in Windows, which it is supposed to either have or is coming, and if it can handle making it easy to set up servers and logins so I donāt have to type it each time (bookmarks?) then that should suffice for me.</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">VLC</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I only use VLC for playing DVDs, since Windows 10 eliminated that feature. On a Surface Laptop, however, there isnāt an optical drive so this application would not be needed anyway.</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Windows Media Player</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Like VLC, I use this only for ripping CDs and if the device does not have an optical drive, then this is not so needed anymore.</span><br />
<br /></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">WinSCP</span></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Like PuTTY, I use this for moving files between my computer and my Linux servers. I may be able to work around it if when SSH is working, then maybe SCP would be available too. I can hope.</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br />
So from looking at these lists, it seems that while moving to Windows 10 S would require adjustments, on a device like a Microsoft Surface Laptop (no optical drive) would be or should be suitable in most instances. I can hope that Edge would be working on a new device, and the issue of it grinding the system to unusable is something my current laptop is alone in suffering.Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-30062479822519505602017-03-08T22:30:00.003-05:002017-03-08T22:30:55.240-05:00The Windows 10 Store Apps challenge<span style="font-family: inherit;">Inspired by the article </span><a href="https://mspoweruser.com/experiment-using-windows-store-apps-exclusively-week/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Experiment: Using Windows Store apps exclusively for a week</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I have been thinking of trying this sort of challenge myself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The idea is pretty simple; can I do everything I currently do but only with using Windows Store apps. This is similar to the challenge I gave myself so many years ago when I was starting to use Linux except this time it is Windows Store apps and just Windows apps. I already know there are a few apps or games that I am using that do not have a corresponding Windows Store app to use, so I'll have to concede those but that doesn't mean I cannot try and avoid using those or alternatives.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk7-o53mgUNGpwiUzG-femlQZLEcCtEar2tTWs5vy2ObX0hlNzw7cIAjKEvvM4wXidw_6aBLTuBFxH3QKvQVd8faQ87pFzAG5jCtPBHPDeXCONf2EGVgl6Y7bhcJkS1r4t2MjyUw/s1600/windows-10-hero-wallpaper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk7-o53mgUNGpwiUzG-femlQZLEcCtEar2tTWs5vy2ObX0hlNzw7cIAjKEvvM4wXidw_6aBLTuBFxH3QKvQVd8faQ87pFzAG5jCtPBHPDeXCONf2EGVgl6Y7bhcJkS1r4t2MjyUw/s320/windows-10-hero-wallpaper.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now if anybody knows me, they know I am a pretty cheap bastard. So you won't find me using Microsoft Office 365 and gaining the ability to edit in the mobile versions. On the other hand, I will do everything I can to avoid using the LibreOffice suite I have installed. Instead, I'll be planning on using the web version of Microsoft Office, Google Docs or Zoho (since I'm using the web version, any of these are game so long as they do what I need).</span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I really don't think it will be the difficult because I have already some experience in not having access to the proprietary versions since going into Linux. Now, Linux has such a wide breadth of applications that cover 99% of what anybody would want to do, I really don't miss the Windows programs anymore.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The other thing working in my favor is that ever since I received Google's original Chromebook, the Cr-48, and decided that to get the most out of the device by "buying in" to the concept, I can pretty much do what I need via the cloud. Ever since there, whatever Linux distro or platform I use, so long as I can use the browser and get online, I can be functional. This is further emphasized by being able to take advantage of this cloud-centric focus while at work where I cannot, and do not want to, install programs on my work computer. Have browser, will be productive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And there is no time like the present to start using Store Apps only. So I installed this Windows Store app called </span><a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/net-writer-blog-post-authoring-tool/9nblggh69f7s"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Net Writer</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. I was about to use the Windows Live Writer I have installed, but then realized when I opened it, that it is the former Windows Live applications and not a Windows Store app. Unfortunately, I would have preferred to use Windows Live Writer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've only used it for a short time, basically just to write this post, and I now know I am going to look and see what else is available.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The interface itself is not bad. Fairly basic, but does is not too bad. It does the basics like connecting to my blogger site here and allows me to do basic text editing. I can add pictures and it includes the options for changing the size to one of 3 preset sizes (small, medium and large) as well as a custom size. Unfortunately there is nothing about wrapping the text or controlling the flow over it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I guess the couple of things that do get me is first off, I cannot save a draft. Or rather, I can but only after I pay for the "Pro" version ($7.99 for 1 year, $16.99 for lifetime). Like I mentioned before, I'm a cheap bastard so I am not inclined to shell out that money and am definitely not interested with such a limited application. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's too bad the Windows Live Writer is part of the now-defunct suite of applications that was great on Windows 7 and no equivalent Windows 10 Store Apps match it yet. At least as an "all-else-fails" I can still use Edge to access my blog and type up drafts there, or can use the email client's formatting capabilities and email my blog entry to be posted. Yet, neither of these give me the experience of surviving in a Windows Store App only environment (the web being my fallback).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So I'll be looking for other Windows Store apps and if I find one that works for me, I'll let you know. I'm hoping to highlight those apps I end up using and what ones don't.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let me know if you have any Windows 10 Store apps you are fond of, or have found to work. If it's free, I'll give it a try!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, let me see if this app can actually publish like it says it can... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ok, first try failed. Seems it requires you to save the picture in a Google Photo album named 'NetWriter'. So that's what I did. Well, seems it cannot find it for some reason. So I deleted the picture and will try to Publish this and then if I want, I can add the picture back in via the web browser.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Final word: I ended up having to copy-and-paste this into a Blogger draft via the browser.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-14754285937167088002013-10-15T14:03:00.001-04:002013-10-15T14:03:50.168-04:00Turnaround is fair play<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div>I just think it is funny how Apple and Microsoft have changed places.<br><br></div>In the 90's and early 2000's one of the arguments used against Apple was that there were not as many software titles available to Apple computers are there were to Microsoft Windows computers.Ā The hardware was comparable, though Apple would try to debunk the "numbers game" (GHz, MB, etc.) saying they were not the whole picture.Ā At the same time critics would point out how there are many more software titles for Microsoft Windows than for Apple's Mac. Apple's response was one of "quality" over "quantity", asking "how many word processors do you use?" and that one good quality program is all you need.<br> <br><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT6ftWI3Lpjbj87jBX3vvKVsc2T3xcA81tfDptJdEvuK8rtMmoEwupepaoueiBg0ZcqlGbm9NaptrCeD2-kzqTvukDhHWtFCTw6ZMvTzIFwU4VZA5XER7JQnl9dJvXH5efSD_QrA/s1600/Microsoft-vs-Apple-730168.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT6ftWI3Lpjbj87jBX3vvKVsc2T3xcA81tfDptJdEvuK8rtMmoEwupepaoueiBg0ZcqlGbm9NaptrCeD2-kzqTvukDhHWtFCTw6ZMvTzIFwU4VZA5XER7JQnl9dJvXH5efSD_QrA/s320/Microsoft-vs-Apple-730168.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5935044499546519810" /></a><br><br></div>Now about 10+ years later, turnaround is fair play.<br><br></div>Microsoft is the new and smaller player in the mobile market largely dominated and more recently shared with Apple (and Google).Ā Guess what one of the arguments being used against the Windows Phone?<br> <br></div>The (smaller) number of apps available. Wow, deja vu!<br><br></div><div>Apple countered that argument by making a whole new niche (smartphones) before there were any competitors.Ā Wonder how Microsoft is going to try and handle this?<br> </div></div> Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-40628514510572409532013-10-03T09:41:00.001-04:002013-10-03T09:41:40.371-04:00Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro? tempting<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>So it seems Microsoft is trying to make a push for Windows 8.1 being released in a couple of weeks by offering Windows 8.1 free upgrade (for Windows 8 users) or full-blown Windows 8.1 and 8.1 Pro installations and not upgrades from existing Windows.Ā (<a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57603341-75/microsoft-windows-8.1-free-to-windows-8-users-$119.99-and-up-for-others/">source</a>) Of course if you are installing 8.1 and not upgrading from Windows 8 you will need to install all of your applications and files afterwards.Ā If you are doing this on a build-it-yourself computer or on an already blank box then this is a non-issue.<br> </div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><br><img class="" src="http://asset1.cbsistatic.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/09/17/win81pricing-200x236.png" alt="" height="236" width="200"><br><ul><li>Free upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1</li> <li>$119 for Windows 8.1 installation DVD (not an upgrade)<br></li><li>$199 for Windows 8.1 Pro installation DVD (not an upgrade)<br></li></ul>Which brings me up to my temptation. The family desktop is currently running Ubuntu 12.04 and works fine for the most part.Ā Unfortunately it does not play some of the games or applications the kids want or need.Ā Not to mention feature that Windows has when working with other Windows on a network, peripheral compatibility (wireless printer, network drive, tablet, etc.) that are available with Linux *if* I want to put all of the pieces together (assuming I know how).Ā And it isn't just the kids, either.<br> <br></div><div>I am not shy about saying that if MS Office was made available for Linux natively (100% compatibility) I would be willing to pay for it but it doesn't quite work yet and it doesn't include my wanting Visual Studio and/or WebMatrix for my web development.Ā I haven't quite been happy with the solutions on Linux yet.<br> </div><div><br></div><div>So the temptation is that for only $199 I can get a Windows Pro installation DVD, so I don't have to upgrade from XP to 7 beforehand, compared to $264.59 (free shipping) for Windows 7 Professional from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-FQC-00129-Windows-7-Professional/dp/B002DHLVII/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1380806263&sr=8-10&keywords=windows+7+software">Amazon</a>.Ā I could be saddled with Windows 7 Home for less than $100, but I have already run into the issue of Home's inability to back up to the networked hard drive (Professional or higher version required).Ā Not that I am looking at changing that system to Windows 8.1 (I think my wife would kill me ;) ).<br> <br></div><div>Windows 8 is very touch-focused and the idea of working with it on a non-touch device is not a very enticing.Ā In fact, I dreaded the idea. With Windows 8.1 you can automatically go into the more familiar Desktop mode and have a Start button available giving it essentially a traditional Windows-like interface with the option of Windows Store apps and the Metro interface.Ā Some argue that Windows 8.1 should have been what Windows 8 was released as.Ā Oh well, at least it is here now.<br> <br></div><div>Tempting, but we'll see. Now I wonder about dual-booting.... :)<br></div></div></div></div></div> Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-70361719007128680142013-10-02T11:04:00.001-04:002013-10-02T11:04:54.250-04:00Do I bother putting Flash on?<div class="WordSection1"> <p class="MsoNormal">I think it is a good idea to refresh your computer system every so often and not only to clear out “cobwebs” and remove unused programs and libraries. I think it is good to do a refresh so that you can take a moment and figure out what you have used, and what you haven’t. What should you keep and what to dump.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Take for instance I just installed Fedora 19, Gnome, on my laptop.<!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter" /> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0" /> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0" /> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1" /> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2" /> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth" /> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight" /> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1" /> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2" /> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth" /> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0" /> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight" /> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0" /> </v:formulas> <v:path o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" /> <o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t" /> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_3" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="http://fontmeme.com/images/Fedora-Logo.jpg" href="http://fedoraproject.org/" style='position:absolute;margin-left:293.05pt;margin-top:0;width:231.85pt;height:231.85pt;z-index:251658240;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square;mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-wrap-distance-left:9pt;mso-wrap-distance-top:0;mso-wrap-distance-right:9pt;mso-wrap-distance-bottom:0;mso-position-horizontal:absolute;mso-position-horizontal-relative:text;mso-position-vertical:absolute;mso-position-vertical-relative:text;mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-width-relative:margin;mso-height-relative:margin' o:button="t"> <v:imagedata src="cid:image001.jpg@01CEBF5D.6D226F00" o:title="Fedora-Logo" /> <w:wrap type="square" side="left"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><![if !vml]> <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEkC09qWzO_ikeEDTHFelaD1SmwxuLfvLie7i8IfZCz30Y2GZwWmH5f_MbIvF22gp23AZiMIZCV4ckjRDMr9PD5EVnpmC3GRNwyDW9UC0QljrUv6_95I-Oql6MgeRdf6pWWidpTQ/s1600/image003-794250.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEkC09qWzO_ikeEDTHFelaD1SmwxuLfvLie7i8IfZCz30Y2GZwWmH5f_MbIvF22gp23AZiMIZCV4ckjRDMr9PD5EVnpmC3GRNwyDW9UC0QljrUv6_95I-Oql6MgeRdf6pWWidpTQ/s320/image003-794250.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5930174280883020194" /></a></a><![endif]><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This laptop is older (pre-Lenovo deal) IBM Thinkpad with not a ton of horsepower compared to modern devices (Pentium M @ 1.8 GHz, 2GB of RAM), but it is adequate to doing most things. It runs Windows 7 fine, so long as I don’t do too much in the way of heavy compiling or video editing. The good thing is I don’t do that too much already and now I have a desktop to handle some of the heavier tasks.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So now that I have a fresh Fedora 19, Gnome, installation once my updates are done I will be able to start looking at which programs I want to install and actually use, and which programs I usually install but never use.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The first item coming to mind, though, is Flash; do I really need it?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">YouTube plays many of its videos using HTML5 instead of Flash and outside of a couple of games I really don’t use Flash all that much as far as I am aware. If I have a need for Flash, I can still use the desktop or switch to the Windows 7 hard drive.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Probably one of the more used, at home, Flash application I use is to listen to Pandora. Pandora has years of my music preferences collected and I have my stations pretty much the way I like them so I am not too interested in trying another music service that allows streaming over the Internet which I need to “teach” all over again. Not to mention, to hope that it will recognize that if like one song flagged with “rap”, that I am not suddenly interested in “gangsta rap” in the middle of my Christmas-themed radio station!<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Thankfully I may be able to fulfill this with the use of <a href="http://kevinmehall.net/p/pithos/"> Pithos</a>. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://kevinmehall.net/p/pithos/"><span style="color:windowtext;text-decoration:none"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJCm4qaxCbBJmpcgiuCcDjidqt8It8XRBj7z5kjFfnI_bSkA1B98L46ycM7kJMBQawwsauXTEReFI82JoiOJhHN-xciRMypn8d2WetjvXGPJzwnCrMWUkNHW1cGCcn1r93FW5ew/s1600/image004-796013.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJCm4qaxCbBJmpcgiuCcDjidqt8It8XRBj7z5kjFfnI_bSkA1B98L46ycM7kJMBQawwsauXTEReFI82JoiOJhHN-xciRMypn8d2WetjvXGPJzwnCrMWUkNHW1cGCcn1r93FW5ew/s320/image004-796013.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5930174287997050354" /></a></span></a><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So between Pithos and HTML5, I am going to see how far can I get without Flash before breaking down and installing it.<o:p></o:p></p> </div> Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-79069601794463553192013-01-24T11:36:00.000-05:002013-01-24T11:40:11.291-05:00Finger pointing Windows 8 failings<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<br /><img height="145" src="http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/GvRW/microsoft-surface-pro-windows-8-tbalet-0.jpg?20120619-174252" width="200" /></div>
<br />
<br />
There has been a lot of bashing of Windows 8 and Microsoft lately, and finger pointing to what has gone wrong. Truth be told it is never only one entity's fault, rather a combination of multiple factors. Some are controllable, others are environmental and others are just out of your control.<br />
<br />
Take for instance the following article that incited a forum thread entirely negative towards Microsoft:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/24/windows_8_blame_game/" style="font-family: Arial, FreeSans, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" target="_blank">Microsoft blasts PC makers: It's YOUR fault Windows 8 crash landed</a></div>
<br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">
Keep in mind that media hypes up anything they can represent as "controversial" or attempt a "train-wreck" kind of slow drive-by by rubberneckers to read their articles/blog posts. In other words, out of a dozen "journalists", maybe one or two spent more than 15 minutes on Windows 8, have never tried anything other than Windows XP and maybe 7 (which are very similar to each other in my opinion) or started in with the mind-set of "this is going to suck, I just need to research details...".</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">
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I did not say, however, that Windows 8 is any good (or bad). </div>
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Personally, I have gone through some UI changes on the Linux front (Gnome2, Gnome -shell, Unity, KDE, Xfce, etc.) and the one thing I have gathered from this is that you cannot go into a new interface and expect it to run just like the other interfaces. It's a mind-set that most people haven't had to use because Windows has predominantly stayed the same in a UI manner since 95!</div>
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So Microsoft is starting something new, a new UI and a new "philosophy" of how to navigate the system. This after waking up and realizing the world has gone on without them and IE 6 is no longer the only browser in the market (let alone Office, Windows Server, etc.). It's taken a while for them to rub the sand out of their eyes, and I think they are still working on their first cup of coffee but at least they are shambling around like a Monday morning zombie.</div>
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The OEMs, though, are grumbling and whining about having to change their way of thinking, to include touch, mobile devices, power AND efficiency and more device-like computers than the old beige boxes sitting on a desktop. Coupled with strong Apple sales and a slower economy to navigate through and they have had to actually... um... work! Innovate! Come up with something more than same-old-same-old. And just to help drive home the point, now they have to compete with Microsoft themselves! Gosh, guess they can't be caught sleeping at the wheel anymore.</div>
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Microsoft is "rebooting" Windows 8 February and it does make sense. The name "Vista" became synonymous with "sucks" and though it was more of a bug-fix and polishing up of Vista, "Windows 7" has become the heir apparent of Windows XP's position of the most popular operating system (of the world). </div>
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Technical issues will exist regardless of how long they tested and developed the OS, especially at the size and and magnitude Microsoft and Windows exist. Really what Microsoft needs is a marketing "reboot", not a technical one!</div>
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Hopefully Microsoft has learned. They have had 3+ months of real-world feedback that they could address so that Windows 8 Pro on Surface can benefit from it and have fewer flaws. The world has had 3+ months to learn how to operate this new UI.</div>
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I think that Microsoft needs to push education (books, video, blogs, etc.) on HOW to work the Windows 8 UI and push deals to get it into the hands of people so they can get used to the new interface. Also, there are plenty of improvements "under the hood", let people know how it benefits them whether it be safety, security, stability or even putting into place a framework that can easily handle massive changes in the near future.</div>
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Now is their time to push and push hard on it; Apple is looking old, Linux's competition is still forming and the mobile market is young enough that nothing is set in stone. </div>
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Yet.</div>
Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-33179725164170472462012-04-17T23:37:00.001-04:002012-04-17T23:37:13.841-04:00Windows 7 is the most Linux-like Windows<p>And this is a good thing!</p> <p>Recently, when my laptop hard drive failed on my IBM Thinkpad,  I was faced with having to re-install Windows XP before upgrading it to Windows 7 on a new hard drive which formerly housed a Linux distribution.</p> <p>Being familiar with installing different Linux distributions over the years, I thought it would be very simple to do.  I had the recovery disks, so how difficult could it be.</p> <p>Boy was I in for a surprise.</p> <p>Restoring from the Cds went smoothly and predictably as expected. This issue arose when I tried to upgrade to Windows 7, in the same method I used last time on the hard drive that died.</p> <p>No go.  The installer said it could not continue because the partitions were of a ānot supported NTFS formatā.  This was a surprise.</p> <p>After running the recovery disks again after pre-formatting the hard disk using an Ubuntu LiveCD it still did not want to install.</p> <p>I found a CD, though, that came with a Dell and figured I had nothing to lose trying it.  There was no surprise that when the installation was done the screen did not reach end-to-end and the network (wired and wireless) was not detected, but this didnāt bother me.  I knew that Windows 7 was going to have to overwrite everything on the disk regardless.</p> <p>Thankfully, that is exactly what happened, the entire disk was overwritten and when Windows 7 booted up for the first time the wired and wireless internet connections were available.</p> <p>The screen still did not reach end-to-end, but this was the only thing that didnāt ājust workā and letting it search online for driver updates solved that painlessly.</p> <p>All-in-all, installing Windows 7 was almost as smooth as the numerous times Iāve installed Linux on desktops, laptops and servers, with the exception that I still had to install the applications to make it usable on my own.  But hey, this is an experiment anyway.  If all else fails, I'll just wipe it out and put some version of Linux on top of it.  Within an hour I should have a working, usable system.</p> <p>But Windows is getting better.</p> Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-2258987646471110152011-12-01T08:43:00.001-05:002011-12-01T09:13:07.183-05:00I have seen the future of Office collaboration!<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Nothing is more satisfactory than seeing the technology you read about actually being used in a real-world situation. While nothing compared to what it would be like in a full enterprise-level application of use it is a glimpse into the future nonetheless.</div>
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Usually I don't see my brothers except around Christmas time so it is difficult to keep track as to what they are in to, what they have and what they need. So for a few years now we've all been exchanging Christmas lists usually soon after Thanksgiving.</div>
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Last night I took the lists the kids and my wife had written and placed it in a Google Doc. I added my wife's account to be able to edit the document figuring that she could edit it during the day or if the kids come up with something new or so she could update her own list.</div>
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Having the list in that location </div>
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<li>Each of us can get to it anytime regardless of what computer we're using (home, work, laptop, etc.), </li>
<li>Don't have to worry about making sure our program can handle that file format (no need to make sure it's saved in Microsoft Office format), </li>
<li>We don't have to worry about which version we are working on and </li>
<li>We are able to be in the same program at the same time.</li>
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Last night, though, she must have been more adventerous because while I was in the document and starting to add items to MY list I noticed that there she is, in the same document and making changes! We were in the same room, but she was at the Ubuntu Linux desktop with Firefox and I was on the couch with my Chromebook.</div>
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So whenever I saw this pink cursor, I knew where the cursor was in her screen and when she typed I saw it pop up across the screen! Since I could hear her typing and when she stops, I could tell there wasn't a lot of lag either despite having a very slow DSL connection!</div>
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Also, we were able to talk back-and-forth using the chat window on the side for things we didn't want to type in the document to say.</div>
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While we were having fun, it dawned on me that this is the future. Really, how easy it was for us to collaborate on this file, to access, view and edit it really shows how far behind Microsoft Live really is! I cannot say anything about Live365 because I don't have any experience with it.</div>
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I see this as a glimpse into the future, and one that I plan to explore even further.</div>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-53897138099705008512011-08-20T09:25:00.001-04:002011-08-20T09:26:08.566-04:00Google, WTF?<p>I use Google for my online life, which as of lately has been growing significantly over my conventional desktop-based computing. Unfortunately of late I have been getting more nervous regarding my online security and beginning to think twice about relying so much on Google specifically.</p><p>Last year, close to the middle of August, I took my laptop with me to a wedding in Maine and used it once on the last (full) day we were there to make sure I received the link for wedding pictures. I did this from the motel's wireless and tried to make sure it was all done with HTTPS. It was as short as possible on-and-off.</p><p>That week, I got a message that my account has been locked due to "suspicious activity" and spamming. Yeah, I thought that motel was the culrpirt too. </p><p>Within the year since then, my account was locked again due to suspicious activity! Argh! On the plus side I found out about Google's 2-step authentication, which uses your cell phone for receiving the verification code, and immediately signed up. While it is a pain considering I have 2 browsers on my main (stable) systems and am constantly refreshing the laptop with different or new Linux distributions (each time, connecting via browser to my account requires this verification code).</p><p>So, I thought I was safe. Little did I know that just this past week I would be locked out of my account again. The browse would not accept my password for whatever reason! It's easy enough to get by with the secret questions AND the verificaton code sent to my cell phone. It would have been a lot sooner, too, if I hadn't forgotten my cell phone at home!</p><p>Getting back in was easy enough, and I reset my password to the same one it was before. While I was looking in my email through the browser, I get a message that I have been logged out because somebody else was logged in! WTF? So I went through getting access to my account again and this time changed the password immediately. I haven't been kicked out since, but that is still scary and annoying!</p><p>I thought this 2-step verification system was to help prevent people from getting in! Especially if when I went in, it should have booted them out just like I got booted out. I admit, getting booted out was in part my fault for not changing the password to something new.</p><p>Now I am keeping in mind when and how I am connecting to the internet when away from home (probably should see what I can do about beefing up my home security as well). What is beginning to worry me is trying to figure out what programs installed on my systems are automatically sending my credentials over Wi-Fi to look for updates and/or run in the background. I can understand Dropbox and UbuntuOne running when you log in to find out whether there are any updates, which requires credentials to pass. </p><p>What about ChromeOS though, which relies so much on Google for logging in, email, documents, synchronizing extensions and apps, Google talk and whatever else? And in using Apps, does it really use HTTPS or just HTTP to connect? I use <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gbnlondidnnfmfnglkpaoagecnkkpcjp">Secure Login Helper</a> extension which supposedly tries HTTPS first for sites, but does this work for Apps? Plus I removed as many extensions as I can and keep primarily Apps which are just glorified bookmarks and bookmark those that aren't direct links and removing them.</p><p>The internet is not some place for the Paranoid, but I didn't think I was so lax in security to warrant getting compromised 3 times in one year. Hearing there are security issues with Androids is making me cuatiously watching Google's reaction to all of this. Hopefully it is just a "growing-pain".</p><p>Anybody else get their account compromised lately?</p><p> </p><p> </p>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-40635316158578700432011-03-22T18:00:00.001-04:002011-03-22T18:00:29.407-04:00Born Between 2 Programming Languages<p>I live in two worlds, and those two worlds pull me apart. One place where this shows is in the question of programming.</p><p>See, at home I am happily using Linux, as well as the whole family, and it is running very smoothly. We have the applications we need, controls we want and flexiblity to meet our needs. Though we do have Windows 7 installed on the system for dual boot, nobody uses it by choice. It is slower than Linux on the same hardware and I am not inclinced to spend hundreds of dollars for MS Office so I make do with open source and freeware alternatives including the Microsoft Live applications which are actually pretty good.</p><p>On the other hand, I do my work in ASP.NET using Visual Studio and SQL Server. Thankfully the company feels strongly about education and as such I have been sent to a number of .NET based classes, primarily VB.NET. Unfortunately I am pretty busy with it so my time to "explore" and further my experience is limited. I get excited when I get a project that allows me to focus on the .NET programming, while being flexible enough that I can explore options.</p><p>So the quandry I get into is which way to focus my personal programming, or programming for my own fun and enjoyment? Since I program in ASP.NET primarily, my focus is on Web programming more than locally installed applications. Could it at some point? Probably, but not just yet.</p><p><img style="float: left;" src="http://www.file-extensions.org/imgs/company-logo/3353/mono.png" alt="Mono Logo" width="133" height="159" />So t he question is do I stick with .NET (and possibly Mono) due to my familiarity already, and try to extend my knowledge so it may be able to help me at work as well? I know Monodevelop isn't the same as Visual Studio, but I could probably learn C# enough to help me with the ASP.NET at work. Either that or I start using Windows and Visual Studio or Web Matrix to this end, leaving Linux for all my other purposes.</p><p>The idea that what I explore with it can help with work is very tempting, though the better and easier solution would be to utilize Windows and Visual Studio so that it is even more similar to my work environment, Visual Studio is much easier than Mono develop, .NET skills are more marketable than Mono, and is more compatible.</p><p><img style="float: right;" src="http://www.bartoloilliano.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/php-logo.png" alt="PHP logo" width="127" height="67" />Or do I try and focus on a Linux-friendly programming language such as PHP and MySQL instead, trudging towards something completely different than a Microsoft-based solution knowing that I will have to take time to fill up the experience I already have with .NET but in the new language? Also, knowing that only a very small fraction of what I learn with home's solution can be migrated over to work.</p><p>The other situation I run across is what IDE to use for development. While Visual Studio is my favorite IDE, the closest equivalent I have found so far is NetBeans which is alright. </p><p>Two worlds, two directions. To try and live in both would mean neither solution woudl advance very far.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://rpmedia.ask.com/ts?u=/wikipedia/en/f/f3/Monodevelop-logo.png" alt="Monodevelop Logo" width="64" height="64" /> vs <img src="http://it.cc.stonybrook.edu/site_content/software/images/100x/microsoft_visual_studio.jpg" alt="Visual Studio Logo" width="64" height="64" /> vs <img src="http://www.jsprk.dk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/netbeans-logo-80x80.png" alt="Netbeans Logo" width="64" height="64" /></p>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-31600214074949697082010-12-21T00:11:00.000-05:002010-12-21T00:11:39.584-05:00I Got One!<p>What a surprise!</p><p>Being Christmas time I was not surprised to find some boxes came in, though I did wonder why they came to me here at home instead of at work where I usually have them sent. What surprised me, though, was in the box!</p><p>The Google Chrome OS Cr-48 pilot program Laptop! </p><p>I was so excited I nearly forgot that I had to put the kids to bed first! They were pretty excited, though, about me opening the box (almost as excited as I was).</p><p>I'll be doing reviews over time, between here and articles for DACS's newsletter, and I really do hope to be supplying feedback on the system's good and bad qualities. Not only because I am honored to have been picked, but I see the future as the blend of cloud and local systems and this system is a great chance to peer into that future!</p><p>One thing that got me in the beginning was trying to find out what the system's MAC address since my router does MAC address filtering. I'm not sure where I found it, but ultimately going into<strong> chrome://system </strong>brought me a,.. um... page I guess, with all of the system's information. It includes some Linux-friendly views such as dmesg, lspci, lsusb, etc.</p><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, it's getting late, so I'll leave you with this.</p><p><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_MTRRJXrmok0/TRA0MlQVx2I/AAAAAAAAC-o/sKqNGp1hAJw/s288/DSCN0296.JPG" alt="obligatory goofy shot" width="288" height="216" /></p><p>(obligatory goofy picture) </p><p><img style="vertical-align: middle;" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_MTRRJXrmok0/TRA0grhuSlI/AAAAAAAAC-0/qYy7F6eFFwA/s400/DSCN0299.JPG" alt="Even the cat wants to get into it" /></p><p>Even the cat wants to get into it!</p>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-74583180231258387002010-12-13T12:31:00.003-05:002010-12-13T12:35:16.420-05:00Google Chrome OS Laptop<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhbIkXYH1JVNP-gRjz-OBsuJ7Gj3ebb4SI68J7Bql8XQ0u8VNva8Y3RgpKbPauOikmIM20N_eIJi4EJPMdMDA4J2hu17HzGTX9fctu07Q9KvWY8WRNE_YivjXGjJizF3biCaCytw/s1600/chrome-logo.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 38px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhbIkXYH1JVNP-gRjz-OBsuJ7Gj3ebb4SI68J7Bql8XQ0u8VNva8Y3RgpKbPauOikmIM20N_eIJi4EJPMdMDA4J2hu17HzGTX9fctu07Q9KvWY8WRNE_YivjXGjJizF3biCaCytw/s200/chrome-logo.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550221167488715970" /></a><p style="margin:0in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; ">Google talked about their Chrome OS which seems to have been lost in the success of Android, until now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now Google is starting to run a pilot program of the Chrome OS built into a laptop that they supply!</span></p><p style="margin:0in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; "><br /></span></p><p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">I won't mince words, I <span style="font-weight:bold">want</span> one!</p><p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"><br /></p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">The pilot program is pretty simple. You request to be a part of it, filling out a questionnaire depending on your use (business, developer, individual, etc.) and if selected, receive a box containing the <a href="http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program-cr48.html">Cr-48 Chrome Notebook</a>. Unfortunately I probably shot my foot when I mentioned that I develop in ASP.NET, though<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was trying to indicate to them that I am familiar with web technology as well as Windows and Linux. Oh well.</p><p style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip_bSDPA_HQyOJFnbDohViEiv8cVpctlm5sb-rYzInuHqPGKtqXt7NjqjSPqiHoJGycCOe9UKqabtNTs7H4QOaAHuAhIvopIsAa6s_EtCYX8AJA013U9ugrtSu8eomEJBQwJ25sQ/s200/chromeOSbox.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 152px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550221363440189058" /></p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Is this the only way to get your hands on the Chrome OS?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Nope, you can get the open source <a href="http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os">Chromium OS</a> to install on your own computer system.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Other than combining a 12 inch screen, built-in Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, a webcam and 8 hours of battery life, there isn't that much different than a system running the Chrome or Chromium web browser.</p><p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"><br /></p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">So you can recreate this experience on your own system, but can this system recretae your experience on your current laptop or desktop? Yes, and no. </p><p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"><br /></p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">The biggest difference is that nothing is stored on the physical machine for the user, only system-level gunk works (drivers, system programs, services, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The good side is that if something happens to the computer, nothing is lost beyond the computer.</p><p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"><br /></p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">A weakness of this is that not all applications have a cloud-based equivalent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is where the <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore">Chrome Web Store</a> is able to help.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It provides a marketplace for people to deliver applications that work on the local system, without having to be installed like traditional applications.</p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">Just like the Netbooks, this concept works great for the more common, mundane and non-resource hogging activities such as reading email, surfing the web, writing documents or spreadsheets and chatting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All of these, including image editing, are available in the growing list of Google applications and can assume that in time other popular applications will likewise become available.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I remember Adobe even running<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>a pilot program for Photoshop on the web!</p><p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"><br /></p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">So if you don't get one of these laptops, you can still feel the experience by either downloading and installing the Chromium OS, or just use the Chrome/Chromium browser on your system and change your thinking; don't touch that local application, or save that image to your hard drive.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Pretty soon you'll probably start figuring out that cloud computing is doable, even today.</p><p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"><br /></p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt">I still want one.</p><p style="margin:0in;font-family:Calibri;font-size:11.0pt"><br /></p>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-47883013565055271492010-11-09T06:42:00.002-05:002010-11-09T09:31:47.455-05:00Easiest upgrade to KDE 4.5.2 with Fedora<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>On my laptop I have 3 hard drives and 4 "distros" (well, one is Windows XP); Ubuntu 10.04 (primary), Ubuntu 10.10 (testing) and Fedora 13 (becoming primary), each with their own state of working since this laptop has an Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02) for video which has a kernel bug that bit when 10.04 came out.</p><p>I was able to apply a patch in 10.04 to make it mostly work, while 10.10 worked better out of the box yet it lacks in other areas. </p><p><a href="http://fedoraproject.org/"><img title="Fedora Logo" alt="Fedora Linux" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikjPlcXn35VGR8SaD0jMAMduZt-FI3Fhw-lFSqZLBmB5UpgWANZwrD8P6NUBJ7sk9EsprUxg2B-nxzfPcyCYbH9DnQTHF1WJlQxoUVRSSDqt724laUZ8XDGOBOx1ihfrLMDmZBXw/s320/Logo_fedoralogo.png" /></a> Out of all of them Fedora 13 has been working this best, giving me desktop effects, handling external monitors and playing video. Ubuntu has varying states whether it doesn't handle external monitors (10.04) or desktop effects (10.10).</p><p>At one point I had openSUSE installed, but some update trashed the video in my system to almost make it useless after a short period of time.</p><p>Before I removed it, I tried updating it to KDE 4.5 two times. Both attempts failed and so I was accepting the fact I would have to wait until openSUSE 11.4 (next year) or later to try KDE 4.5.</p><p>I laugh because I thought openSUSE was a KDE distro while Fedora was a Gnome. Seems they work opposite on my system.</p><p>With Fedora I have been running the stock KDE. I was pleasantly surprised to find that after my 53 updates were installed (it's been a while), I have ended up with KDE 4.5.2! And even better, it looks like everything still works!</p><p>So this has been probably one of the most painless updtaes. Now I am nervous about upgrading to Fedora 14, but I'm thinking "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", so maybe I'll wait until 15.</p></div>Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-35747887207711047232010-06-21T12:17:00.013-04:002010-07-12T15:32:13.205-04:00Microsoft volleys back with Office 2010!<div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoxaAXmrTk3sjwvryeN7RdZ74x900CrtiXXDD6LOg3OVcRzdfA3SvBuTEoKiHTB_n1XS1-58C7oMPmE8p-hgzzOObvWUUvXvN__EoHGbEd2xiTmlLx-q20cfHCGvLw5X4pDno-ug/s1600/microsoft-office-2010-logo2sm.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 154px; height: 33px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoxaAXmrTk3sjwvryeN7RdZ74x900CrtiXXDD6LOg3OVcRzdfA3SvBuTEoKiHTB_n1XS1-58C7oMPmE8p-hgzzOObvWUUvXvN__EoHGbEd2xiTmlLx-q20cfHCGvLw5X4pDno-ug/s200/microsoft-office-2010-logo2sm.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485266495099776114" border="0" /></a>VS. ( <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzolJiyCb97JCgZ5c5O0mzJFOz83aEY4-_10USwGDzMnq4h1yG07U1EFaG2hAMQEiC97WmXrxqcdWw_KKV5WecXi4Y_TPK0s99j41WT9TzjywYoJc6GvKw3xdgLJej1fjAJ7mF0A/s1600/google_docs_logo_sm2.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 99px; height: 21px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzolJiyCb97JCgZ5c5O0mzJFOz83aEY4-_10USwGDzMnq4h1yG07U1EFaG2hAMQEiC97WmXrxqcdWw_KKV5WecXi4Y_TPK0s99j41WT9TzjywYoJc6GvKw3xdgLJej1fjAJ7mF0A/s200/google_docs_logo_sm2.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485266653383702082" border="0" /></a> +<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRN9J-QB1vwZT5BmujmzUoEAPqYH1m_H6LTlefhKgJ6q0toovHRBQ9_sSG4i_UwMWlhXusfOh7q6PDyx37OY307YbD1E1-G_C5HiDHxoSBGFomlK6Zc-zphMYnrYsC2LabEB_1fA/s1600/ooo-main-logo-col_150px.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 87px; height: 27px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRN9J-QB1vwZT5BmujmzUoEAPqYH1m_H6LTlefhKgJ6q0toovHRBQ9_sSG4i_UwMWlhXusfOh7q6PDyx37OY307YbD1E1-G_C5HiDHxoSBGFomlK6Zc-zphMYnrYsC2LabEB_1fA/s200/ooo-main-logo-col_150px.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485267534869856034" border="0" /></a> )<br /></span></div>For the past couple of years Google has been growing at the expense of Microsoft. Microsoft search is practically unheard of compared to the verbed "Google", and the newly tooled Bing still has a ways to go. To their merit, though, Microsoft has usually been a half-step behind in the world of the Internet, but when it comes to their bread-and-butter it seems Microsoft is still a power to contend with.<br /><br />I am talking about Microsoft Office, the powerhouse of the Office Suites and probably one of Microsoft's best products. While MS Office has been taking hits from the free and open sourced OpenOffice.org, it seems that with Office 2010 Microsoft has just leapfrogged OpenOffice.org and is taking the fight right up it's closest rival; Google Docs.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbtVits6H4SfJGsAxAouFwLBFxwUKy58j35PIQa2XNuMQnbyRt4sV7Jgnc8wDJSm7F0x4SgSI4eMvJxl9DXuOwwzLPAt51C9q8JsVZkhlXc3eNTCt80a5hRQMZE2IXEWVQG6vVAQ/s1600/ooo-main-logo-col_150px.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 47px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbtVits6H4SfJGsAxAouFwLBFxwUKy58j35PIQa2XNuMQnbyRt4sV7Jgnc8wDJSm7F0x4SgSI4eMvJxl9DXuOwwzLPAt51C9q8JsVZkhlXc3eNTCt80a5hRQMZE2IXEWVQG6vVAQ/s320/ooo-main-logo-col_150px.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485267120242839234" border="0" /></a>OpenOffice.org is a contender to the Microsoft Office, but only on the desktop. For most people this was a perfect alternative to shelling out hundreds of dollars, while at the same time being able to open and save existing Microsoft Office files. Additionally, OpenOffice was "true" cross-platform, in that it worked in Windows, OS X *and* other flavors of Unix including Solaris, Linux and BSD. OpenOffice provides the 20% functionallity that 80% of users actually use, and look to be growing into a true peer-to-peer contender.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhBOW5l2JumQfL011c36wt2hHRSobzzr9JM5PLWRwlHaLmDWamRP3yK5ywSZ9vUrKPNTekrnbz7ygghKGOuMkno6fj0ZEfn59qL2n00CGBU14w2EUubvaAEnzjvH1y3H7-wX2JTA/s1600/google_docs_logo_sm.gif"><br /></a><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKNiAjY-NV2DAnMSdgRcMZYtHuuNInWi_SIz2QJyb3QAMwSN_dl4hhQOtzrjY5iRxSEQR1QlpI_W704DgBIQBpuRqVA2nxlOzms0cw94NzQTkQi_MRKx8ijcPEfeICk_DN4XIQg/s1600/google_docs_logo_sm2.gif"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 122px; height: 26px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKNiAjY-NV2DAnMSdgRcMZYtHuuNInWi_SIz2QJyb3QAMwSN_dl4hhQOtzrjY5iRxSEQR1QlpI_W704DgBIQBpuRqVA2nxlOzms0cw94NzQTkQi_MRKx8ijcPEfeICk_DN4XIQg/s320/google_docs_logo_sm2.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485267329864050738" border="0" /></a>Meanwhile Google has come out with their own Office Suite called Google Docs. The catch was that it resided 100% on the internet, which means you can access it from anywhere, anytime, and could even upload existing MS files, Open Formats, PDFs and now any file type. Even better, since it resides on the internet it makes collaboration as simple as determining what access you want people to have, and the URL.<br /></div><br /><br />Microsoft's answer?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwwFKkIb2bXxcNAmxkQtCNj409BOo0JMTE6aLGP9NPWbEv0AVBFHmPY86BLJBLHWwtkbs5kh5o9swqHe_QwxE0BLfjQ6wWl7YPb_S6PJbtmpXJd2VcdDb-Pn-9gnM4QmxpudFEA/s1600/microsoft-office-2010-logo2.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 324px; height: 69px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwwFKkIb2bXxcNAmxkQtCNj409BOo0JMTE6aLGP9NPWbEv0AVBFHmPY86BLJBLHWwtkbs5kh5o9swqHe_QwxE0BLfjQ6wWl7YPb_S6PJbtmpXJd2VcdDb-Pn-9gnM4QmxpudFEA/s320/microsoft-office-2010-logo2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485265497159574226" border="0" /></a>Office 2010 provides an integration of local application, cloud application and free file storage, something I've seen as the next big step for Cloud Apps! The other important milestone will be if the online version of Office 2010 is available for an Enterprise to install on their own servers and be able to control the files storage/save/delete policies. If Office is able to do this, the both OpenOffice and Google are going to need to be fast on their feet to keep up.<br /><br />Office can be installed, just like OpenOffice, onto a Windows system and in that aspect the competition between them is the same. Office is still Windows-only, while OpenOffice.org is cross-platform and does the 20% people use an office suite for.<br /><br />Where Microsoft Office leapfrogs OpenOffice is that files can easily be stored in your personal SkyDrive and can be shared and collaborated on. This is new, and a direct volley over Google's bow that cannot be ignored! Even if Google Docs is better (currently), there is no doubt that Microsoft's existing Office user-base and experienced marketing machine is going to be a force to reckon with. One can even argue, Microsoft knows Office.<br /><br />Alone, these two features, native client and cloud, would be incremental steps in fighting the two-sided Office front against two strong competators but combining the local and the cloud means Microsoft is providing what Openoffice cannot (cloud-connection) nor Google (native client).<br /><br />Competition is good, and it is good to see Microsoft is rising to keep Google on their toes! Can't wait to see what Google uses to fire back!Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-39887467501929228062010-04-05T08:29:00.004-04:002010-04-05T08:37:51.490-04:00Are we there yet?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdUubbngamck-2SuznTcmOYFm1i4_X70r47sg33BQ0nuFRyURgHiJ-5g20e-jdPK09jAQe8sitWun6FssfHUTKeugeNPpoKw_08B6r4MiBp9sfPDDS9TdYolpU5jQhbO7iTqz7IQ/s320/blackeubuntulogo.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 84px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdUubbngamck-2SuznTcmOYFm1i4_X70r47sg33BQ0nuFRyURgHiJ-5g20e-jdPK09jAQe8sitWun6FssfHUTKeugeNPpoKw_08B6r4MiBp9sfPDDS9TdYolpU5jQhbO7iTqz7IQ/s320/blackeubuntulogo.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Only a little over 3 weeks until Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx is coming out! Woo Hoo!<br /><br />One of the fun things about each Linux distro release is the countdown banners (you can see 3 on my sidebar). Unfortunately I haven't see any official one yet so I'm going with this un-official one from <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Website/LucidCountdownBanners">Immanuel Peratoner's design</a>.<br /><br />I'm looking forward to this one not because of the hype, but because of the discussion and changes that are going into it. The new style, inclusion of social media, the UbuntuOne Music Store and usual round of updates and "tweaks".<br /><br />Especially since it is a Long Term Support (LTS) release it will be interesting to see how it goes on both the desktop and the server. I'm in need to improve my home server now that I have some idea(s) as to what I'm doing (or does that just make me more dangerous?).Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14426333.post-149758560926109732010-03-22T09:18:00.005-04:002010-03-23T12:05:02.328-04:00So Distro Updates are coming soon.. time to get ready!Now that Ubuntu 10.04 is beta and due out in a little over a month with Fedora pretty hot on their heels coming out in the beginning of May, I have to start preparing my systems for the coming upgrades.<br /><br />I'll be upgrading more this time than in the past because this coming Ubuntu is a Long Term Support (LTS) release and so this is going onto the family computer too.<br /><br />I have 3 systems which will be upgrading; a family desktop and two laptop hard drives.<br /><br />Part of the "preparing" process is going to be figuring out the best steps in upgrading and migrating.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >The Family Desktop</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdUubbngamck-2SuznTcmOYFm1i4_X70r47sg33BQ0nuFRyURgHiJ-5g20e-jdPK09jAQe8sitWun6FssfHUTKeugeNPpoKw_08B6r4MiBp9sfPDDS9TdYolpU5jQhbO7iTqz7IQ/s1600-h/blackeubuntulogo.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 84px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdUubbngamck-2SuznTcmOYFm1i4_X70r47sg33BQ0nuFRyURgHiJ-5g20e-jdPK09jAQe8sitWun6FssfHUTKeugeNPpoKw_08B6r4MiBp9sfPDDS9TdYolpU5jQhbO7iTqz7IQ/s320/blackeubuntulogo.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5451860293579591954" border="0" /></a><br />This one will be a little easier to upgrade because not only is the distro going to be upgraded but the actual desktop will be replaced with a "new" (used) desktop so I am afforded the luxury of being able to return to the "old" system if something really breaks!<br /><br />I'll be moving from Ubuntu 9.10 to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and probably sticking with it until the next LTS release in 2012. Since it is the family's computer and I have my laptop, it is a little easier for me to keep it stable (read: for me to leave it alone). Plus I can test things out on my laptop to determine if the upgrade is significant enough to push past the LTS-to-LTS cycle I am trying to impose.<br /><br />The new desktop will need to be as similar to the current one because I do have one user who is very visual, and needs things to be right where they expect it. The more exact it is for her, the happier she'll be and the sooner she'll be back to being up-and-running.<br /><br />Success happens with happy users, not happy admins.<br /><br />The other consideration is that this desktop has 2 hard drives, and the second hard drive already has Windows 7 installed on it. Now I hate the idea of having to fool around with registration keys, and system shutting down features if I don't "comply" (something I've been spoiled with Linux since it doesn't have these same "features") so it exists completely on a separate hard disk.<br /><br />I'm keeping the Windows 7 in part for fooling around with it when I need to, as well as for compatibility purposes. The only downside is the Printer/Scanner/Copier I just got is because the previous owner just got a Windows 7 laptop for Christmas, and Windows 7 doesn't like this machine. Linux, on the other hand, loves it even in 9.04!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >My Laptop</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikjPlcXn35VGR8SaD0jMAMduZt-FI3Fhw-lFSqZLBmB5UpgWANZwrD8P6NUBJ7sk9EsprUxg2B-nxzfPcyCYbH9DnQTHF1WJlQxoUVRSSDqt724laUZ8XDGOBOx1ihfrLMDmZBXw/s1600-h/Logo_fedoralogo.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 97px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikjPlcXn35VGR8SaD0jMAMduZt-FI3Fhw-lFSqZLBmB5UpgWANZwrD8P6NUBJ7sk9EsprUxg2B-nxzfPcyCYbH9DnQTHF1WJlQxoUVRSSDqt724laUZ8XDGOBOx1ihfrLMDmZBXw/s320/Logo_fedoralogo.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5451860436920287250" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" ><br /></span>My laptop will be slightly more complicated but still should not be overly difficult. See, it starts with having multiple hard disks in their trays so I can slide out one hard drive and replace it with another just like an old-fashioned game cartridge.<br /><br />One of my hard drives is a 60 GB hard drive which is currently running Ubuntu 9.10. The other hard drive I'll be fooling around with is an 80 GB hard drive which is the newest hard drive I have and after hearing hard drives lasting 5-10 years I've realized that this is the only hard drive that isn't near or exceeding the 5 year mark.<br /><br />My 80 GB hard drive already contains a Windows XP installation which I am going to hold on to for added compatibility purposes. The other distribution I have on it is Fedora 12. That's where the complication begins.<br /><br />What is going to make things slightly more complicated than just upgrading is that I want to switch the distros on the hard drive:<br /><br />My Windows/Fedora hard drive will become Windows/Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and my Ubuntu hard drive will become my Fedora 13 system.<br /><br />Of course I do not want to be losing all of my settings, applications and files. I will need to make sure I'm "organized" so I don't step over my own two feet and end up loosing all of the backups from one system or the other.<br /><br />To help with moving things around, I'll be employing an 8 GB USB Flash drive and possibly some of the networked Server space though it is in desperate need of cleaning out at this point.<br /><br />When all of this is done, then it comes time to focuse on the server, but that's a whole 'nuther story!Drewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16314292724948210056noreply@blogger.com0