Software

‘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....

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)....

For reasons that are too long and tedious to recount here, I have had cause to rebuild my Lenovo T61 laptop many times over the last month, using a bewildering range of operating systems, Linux distributions, live CD’s and dual boot configurations. During this time, gparted and an external USB 500GB disk drive have become very close and reliable friends. In fact, I have only lost data once and, inevitably, that was due to my own stupidity....

London, near England - 23 April 2008. For immediate release. Brightside Software Enterprises are pleased to announce the immediate availability of ‘FriendOrFoe’. Tired of being followed by those mindless idiots on Twitter, not to mention those horrid spammers ? Tired of having to search out new friends with similar interests, sense of humour and outlook ? Tired of being a ‘soul in isolation’ with 0 (zero) friends in the whole wide world ?...