the great software blog

Not sure how others surf the web, but the idea of “start pages” like mine below have been around since the beginning. I’ve been using a similar setup of this one since early 1995. Unseen, farther down the page, I keep a list of all my personal desktop settings, colors, and tweaks, just for reference.

A version is kept online in case I’m at another computer. In all, this page alone has over a 1,000 links. I usually run through about 200 each day. This was created using the KompoZer editor.

via the KDE Mailing List:

Most people use either the twitter web page or local software such as TweetDeck when using twitter. But the best twitter web client is called brizzly.

The reason is its speed, features, and yes, keyboard shortcuts. brizzly allows a variety of channels, simultaneous twitter accounts, and an easy way to attach photos or multimedia. It even has a mute button for someone you’re following when they’re updating constantly — such as a sportswriter at a game or someone at a conference. You can hide their tweets for a while until the the game is over. I also love the wide format view, which puts a lot of tweets on the page. URL shortening is done automatically using bit.ly if the URL is longer than 20 characters, but yet readers can still see the source before clicking.

Best of all is brizzly’s keyboard shortcuts, which makes it fly. They’re really simple.

• j  – move to next item
• k – move back to previous item
• v – open link
• h – return home (top of the screen)
• c – compose
• r – refresh
• / – search
• ? – list of keyboard shortcuts

Not to many to forget, but enough to get around and get things done. brizzly is the kind of webware we need more of. I was enjoying TwitIQ, which is similar to brizzly, but they recently changed their UI for the worst.

I pulled a book off the shelf that I have not read in 29 years yesterday. There it was, in good condition, no DRM, no revocation by “Big Corp.,” and  no outdated proprietary formats that killed it. Just open and read. And 29 years from now, I’ll still have my book and I’ll reread it then, free of charge, without having to purchase expensive technology to enjoy it.

Simplicity will always win over complexity. Low tech over Hi, when it comes to books.

For 64.bit:

cd /opt/google/chrome

ln -s /usr/lib64/browser-plugins/ plugins

. . . . . . . . . . .

And for 32.bit, open a terminal and type:

cd /opt/google/chrome

ln -s /usr/lib/browser-plugins/ plugins

. . . . . . . . . . .

Close and then reopen Chrome and you’re set.

Its excellent installation routine along with its strong partition abilities get you off to a good start. Repositories are easily found on the openSUSE site, and yes, its implementation of KDE is by far the most polished. openSUSE also automatically places your /home folder on a separate partition, which allows you to freely install and test other distros or OSes without touching your data and settings. However, for the sake of newcomers, more emphasis should be put on reading the Release Notes immediately after installation. There you will find information you’ll need to work around any issues. Like Ubuntu, openSUSE has an excellent forum.

In the category of “I’m not falling for that again,” I suggest we take 2010 off as a year of predictions.

In a year when:

• Linux on the desktop improved with the maturity of KDE 4, but that whole “Year of the Linux Desktop” fad was put to rest
• Vista got an upgrade called Win7, but users paid full price
• Netbook sales were up, but no one saw how Chrome OS would change Microsoft’s approach to Win8
• Smartphones got better, but consumers were raped by expanded telecom contracts and poor service
• Android had a good year, but Android showed Wall Street how open source had a better year
• Apple marketshare did not grow. Who could have known!
• Shareware prices for many applications doubled and tripled, shocking many a Windows user

no prediction was safe.

One reason we should not make predictions for 2010 is because of the propensity to overmarket and underdeliver most every product anymore. If a tech company is not “confident”; that is — when it’s not lying its ass off — then it can’t hook you into talking about its vaporware for another year. Cue all Windows 8 talk… now: Windows 8 will challenge Google and Apple; Windows 8 will be revolutionary; Windows 8 will drive new businesses; Windows 8 will make Microsoft uber-profitable again, you know the drill.

I could do the same for both Apple and to a lesser extent, Linux. But by now you’ve memorized the drill and know exactly what the press releases will say.

Some things are certain. Your tech life will get smaller, smarter, and more mobile. But it will not necessarily be cheaper. That’s merely another year of ordinary evolution. Instead, a more productive way to spend 2010 will be to inform yourself about tech policy and how ACTA-inspired governments believe that our future is not digital. Lawyers have tasted blood thanks to endless RIAA suits and see your internet access as a way to make money through greater restrictions on its use under the guise of copyright infringement.

It’s simple. Go to openSUSE-Community.org and follow the Multimedia/Restricted Formats link. You can also go to the Package Repositories page on the openSUSE.org site.

Enjoy!

As computing has gradually moved toward the cloud in the past three years, one may not have noticed until Google announced its Chrome OS this week. But as Microsoft and Apple have put their money on locking in users by controlling their platforms in consistently more restrictive ways through patenting everything they can think of, App Stores, constantly shifting proprietary formats, and silly-looking ribbonized UIs, Linux has moved in and made itself at home with embedded chips, server space, large colliders, netbooks, and mobile phones.

October saw the industry upgrade its operating systems. Ubuntu continues to embarrass “Linux” by ignoring usability issues while Fedora and openSUSE have impressed most everyone. Apple’s OSX plays the middle of the road for the masses, almost as if Apple wants out of the OS/PC business, and while Microsoft stabilized Vista with Win7, it’s still a big fat expensive OS to run. Google announced its Linux-based Chrome OS and if you look close enough, you see the future far more clearly than a week ago. openSUSE is fast, can virtualize anyone else’s OS using VirtualBox, can run well on netbooks, and so far has been stable as a rock.

If you’re a developer, your best bet is to go with open development. Not Apple. Not Microsoft. Linux. And if you go with Google, remember, Google is one variant of the Linux kernel. And you don’t have to program for an OS; you can spend your time in browsers, embedded devices, phones, cars, robots, etc. If you’re a user, Linux distros are primarily built for the web from installation to updates to browser choices. Also, it cost nothing. Nothing! You won’t need a new machine, you won’t need to save money, you won’t need to upgrade or validate or register or activate or call in to get a serial number and so on. It’s ready to go.

So I ask: why not Linux?

The Chrome OS demo on YouTube. Very exciting. Windows users unfamiliar with Linux’s multiple desktop feature will be in for a surprise (or be pissed that Windows doesn’t have this old, old feature)!

If I’m spending 90% of my time online and 10% inside applications, Chrome OS is going to be nice. The fact that I can load it on my current system and save files to the HD means that computing may become simpler for the first time in 20 years. I’m eager to see the corporate pushback against this concrete shift between Apple’s gadget base and Microsoft’s heavy, “ribbonized” app constrictions.

This past week I tested the installation times — including HD format — of three distros and Win7 among five machines. Those five machines included:  an i7-2.93 Quad-core desktop, a Core-2, 2.83 desktop, a Pentium-III desktop, a 2Gb netbook, and a 4Gb laptop. Here are the averaged results in minutes:

• 7:05 – openSUSE 11.2
• 7:40 – sidux 2009.03
• 12:00 – Ubuntu 9.10
• 35:00 – Win7 (would not load on Pentium III’s videocard)

Mind you, Windows 7 installed no useful software upon installation whereas the Linux distros provided all but one or two pieces of software I use. When it comes time to upgrade, despite Windows’ vast improvement with Win7, on average it still takes five times longer to complete a fresh Windows installation than for openSUSE.

Damn.

I’m a confirmed distro-hopper, but openSUSE 11.2 works so well that Microsoft should begin to worry about desktop Linux.

• It installed in 11 minutes, which included a 2Tb HD format for the EXT4 filesystem.
• Recognized my second drive during installation.
• The integrated KDE Firefox is nice. Hardly noticeable until you remember its old look.
  
• Win7 running in VirtualBox. It installed in 30 minutes. Not bad!
  
• Droid Sans font family scales well and reads well on the the 24-inch screen!

The only real change I made after installation was to make the system font Droid Sans. Droid Sans, Droid Sans Mono, Droid Sans Fallback, and Droid Serif is a font family designed in 2006-2007 by Steve Matteson at Ascender for Google’s Android. I love it.

This is a distro anyone could use.

One of my favorite distros, sidux, debuts a new release today with KDE 4.3.2. This should be really fun. sidux installs faster than any other distro I’ve tested. Nothing could be easier. See for yourself!

Google’s Chrome OS, is based on Google’s Chrome web browser and the Linux kernel. What Chrome represents, however, is something much larger and far more significant for consumers than is realized with regard to data storage, IT and software licensing costs, and hardware savings.

With Chrome, the web and the browser are united as the platform for small computing; that is, either netbook or desktop computing done primarily online using cloud apps. Many saw this coming, notably IBM in the first half of this decade and has already setup businesses on the web. For example, my wife’s company of 60,000+ employees ditched both Microsoft Windows and Office last year in favor of Linux and putting their data in the cloud using Amazon’s S3 service. It wasn’t just Microsoft’s volume licensing costs that motivated that move, but the savings have allowed the company to both be more competitive and profit in a bad economy.

Chrome OS, as I have found with Linux over the past three years, can also turn back and clock and extend hardware life. Because cloud computing doesn’t require as fast a processor, as big a HD, as much memory, etc., all you need is a laptop, and barring that, a nine-year old desktop like the one I’m working on now! Normally, I’d scrap this system for parts, but Chrome is like getting a new engine in an old car. Feels good. Feels right.

I can’t do processor-intensive video editing on this old system, but I can surf the web and do 97% of what I do otherwise. But I also don’t have to worry about upgrading software or installing much locally. I already have my essential data stored online and backed up on a network of home computers along with tried and true discs.

What ties all this together is open source — Chrome is open source as is the Linux kernel it’s built upon. This means that your data is not locked into a proprietary format inside a proprietary program on a proprietary platform that you have to pay for over and over. I am free to walk away and take my data with me.

I can live with that. And so will you, in time.

mouser is producing 30 days of screencasts for his fantastic Screenshot Captor app, and he’s encouraging other developers to post their own screencasts.

As of today, The Great Software List has been parked, as has the Great Books List. In one form or another I’ve managed the domain for almost 14 years and I can no longer justify hosting costs with what little interaction I have with the sites. Besides, my interest has waned and maintaining those sites, its subdomains — along with a blog and twitter — seem overkill.

Thanks to everyone who recommended software to me over the years. Moreover, thanks to the endless labors of love that programmers put into their programs year after year. You make everyone’s life a lot easier. But if I find great software, I’ll write about it here.

The Great Software List blog will continue thanks in large part to mouser’s generosity at DonationCoder.com. It has been renamed as “The Great Software Blog.” And you can see my sparse tweets under zaine_ridling there.

SJVN updates us at ComputerWorld on KDE 4.3’s stability and refinement. Worth a look.

KDE Pinheiro has more.

Check out the responses to Chris Dawson and his ZDNet article on the Amazon Kindle controversy:

Don’t like DRM and Amazon’s ability to access your Kindle? The solution is easy: Don’t buy a bloody Kindle!

Dawson’s readers disagree that Amazon — or any company — should have the power to change or reinterpret their agreements post hoc. But those same readers agree that closed formats, vaguely-defined license agreements, and proprietary hardware are lethal to their (consumer) interests.

Users hold the key to unchain themselves from proprietary file formats and DRM if they would only realize they need to use it. As Chris Dawson points out, too bad they have to find this out the hard way.