Software

Cary Millsap posts a brilliant article about his approach to performance troubleshooting that resonated loudly with me. When I first started working at Siebel, a standard review was a production health check that consisted of meetings with key project staff (Siebel Administrator, DBA, systems and network admins, project manager, developers) coupled with some standard checks on key Web, Siebel and Oracle configuration parameters. At the tail end of one engagement where I had precious little to note or report on, I asked to meet with an end user for a brief chat. The response was surprising and not dissimilar to the standard retorts Cary describes. ...

I have been running Linux Mint for 8 weeks now and I’ve been delighted with it. My desktop PC is fast and responsive and I am hugely impressed by the sheer amount and quality of software available for Linux. Printing, scanning, wireless networking, audio, DVD writing and all my USB devices just work. I don’t have a virus scanner consuming memory and chewing clock cycles. I am no longer considering a memory upgrade as Linux works fine with my paltry 512MB. ...

‘Dear Father - It is 6 weeks since my last confession. Since then I have…’ Installed Thunderbird 3 which handles all my work email. This upgrade went smoothly enough although there were some minor glitches with server authentication and message filters. Thunderbird 3 adds tabs, UI enhancements, IMAP synchronisation, much needed improvements to the address book in addition to faster searching. Upgraded my desktop PC to Linux Mint 8. Again, this went smoothly enough, mainly because I did a full blown install while carefully preserving my user data. Until Linux upgrades are ‘rolling’ and as easy as applying a Windows Service Pack, Linux will never succeed in the mainstream. ...

After the Yak was shaved, we suddenly realised we had missed ‘Football Focus’ and proceeded directly to the casting couch. I fully appreciate that evaluating a Linux distribution is just 18 minutes and 32 seconds isn’t probably sufficient to probably gain a full picture of the capabilities (or otherwise) of any software let alone a full blown operating system. However, this superficial, high level, cursory review of all the distros below is useful as it solely focuses on the installation process, ease of use - both of which are key for prospective Linux users; particularly those people who might be looking to migrate, as in my case, from Windows. ...

‘How I ditched Windows and embraced Linux’ - the prequel. On Saturday morning, I thought it might be fun to install Linux on my home computer. A year ago, I had experimented with a few Live CD’s and actually installed Ubuntu (not officially supported) followed by Oracle Enterprise Linux (officially supported) on my work laptop (Thinkpad T61). For various reasons, I subsequently had to reverse that change so I thought it might be worthwhile and interesting to install Ubuntu on my own computer (an ageing but reliable Dell 4500). ...

[Obligatory hat tip to ‘How to stop defragmenting and start living’. As an aside, if you’re an Oracle DBA and haven’t read this whitepaper, please do so. Now.] I have used various devices and software over my 76 years on this planet to listen to music: Record player Cassette player Transistor radio Ears WinAmp SonicStage Windows Media Player 18 months ago, I finally caved in and bought an iTouch which I use a lot; mainly for listening to music and podcasts at airports. ...

Garry Tan, a developer for Posterous (a simple but powerful blog platform), wrote a brilliant post about product design. Are there any questions? I said yes – one last one: “When do we decide to remove features?” In a similar vein, Amit Agarwal asks ‘What’s Common Between an iPod and Google ?’ Answer: Simplicity. If I had a cube, I would print both articles out and pin them up.

Recently, I started messing around with DokuWiki as a replacement for Google Notebook (which Google have helpfully decided to ditch) and Diigo (after the well publicised and unfortunate collapse of another cloud bookmarking service - ma.gnolia). In recent months I have also contributed to the Habari Wiki (MediaWiki), looked briefly at WikkaWiki and read Michael’s interesting, thought provoking article about his Wiki nirvana wishlist with interest. Last night, a throwaway post by Douglass Clem about TiddlyWiki resurrected my interest in my own long neglected, unloved local TiddlyWiki which I then upgraded to the latest version and then pondered consolidating that content into DokuWiki. ...

Pownce (a microblogging service) has been sold to SixApart and decided to close the service on December 15 which is a nice early Christmas present for all their users - both freeloaders (like me) and ‘Pro’ users who pay $20 per year. Although I have a dormant Pownce account, I don’t actively use the service. However, I find it odd that Pownce have decided to close the service and provide all their users with just two weeks notice to extract all their data and find another home. ...

My support for the Disqus commenting system used on this blog is well documented. I have also had great support whenever I have had minor issues with a service I paid precisely nothing for. Disqus are a small company with less than 10 employees. However, Disqus are not a cottage industry operating out of Daniel Ha’s garage. Disqus are funded by venture capital (Union Square and angel investors) and raised $500,000 in the last round of funding (March 2008). ...