30September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
This is really a “Vista - updated” post. So I’ll keep it brief - too many watts have been spent displaying pages of vista reviews, too much time wasted reading how its kinda, sorta okay which really it isn’t. Possibly the most frustrating thing about Microsoft Windows Vista is that it exists. That Redmond didn’t just ship a decent service pack for XP and keep going is a crying shame.
Vista has been out a year to all intents and purposes and despite spending two days with it there is no single compelling reason to get it. None whatsoever - running Vista feels like trying to waltz with a bull in the proverbial china shop. I add a shortcut in the programs menu - a folder inexplicable appears on the desktop. A folder that can’t be deleted.Computing just shouldn’t be that hard.
I had wanted to post a “Hey, its actually not all that bad” post. Its too easy to throw rocks after all. But I just don’t care anymore - I’m incredibly disappointed that Vista really is the best that Microsoft could do but kind of happy because the road is open now for the things I love to steal the march. Fedora 8 is out in about a month - it will be the world’s most advanced operating system available and it will be yours for free if you want it.
I’ll be in Australia though. :)
26September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
I just downloaded git for the first time:
[chris@kilimanjaro ~]$ git
Display all 144 possibilities? (y or n)
Oh help.
26September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
A couple of years back whilst I was still operating in Windows-land, I signed up to the Microsoft beta testing program. I’d become bored of XP and am the kind of person always excited by emerging technologies - where things are headed. So I ran Windows Longhorn (the codename for Vista) for about six months before I realised the benefit was really only one way. I also got very uncomfortable with what I was being asked to do, how little feedback there was from the Microsoft development team and how much time was taken testing the Windows Genuine Advantage parts of the OS. As time went on I just spent more time with Linux (then Mandrake) and less and less time using Windows.
So it was a strange experience to actually come face to face with Vista for the first time today. Its been six months since Vista’s release and this is the first time I’ve even seen it running. I remember attending the launch party in Sydney for XP (and wincing every time Bill Gates said “Cool” - he is the only man I know who can’t carry it off with any conviction). I was already running XP and can remember booting into it for the first time and thinking after an hour or so of use that this really was a good operating system. I still think it is the best they have ever produced. It does the job - the only thing I believe they could have improved on was the shipping of the firewall switched on by default.
So what of Vista? Well, it reminds me of listening to the latest Prodigy album. I thought, after all this time and all that money, “Is that really it?”. Vista (or at least the Lenovo-customised version of it) is a bloated horrid mess. Perhaps I’ve become too *nixified, too used to GNOME and the all-you-need-and-nothing-more mentality. Everywhere, there were pop-ups. Surely there is nothing worse than booting into a new computer for the first time and getting the warning “Your computer is at risk”. What, already? You mean I have to buy more software to slow my computer down just to check every incoming and outgoing file to see if it has a virus? Okay, I didn’t buy antivirus - I did what most people do and installed AVG. Still, I quickly got sick of the Allow or Deny prompts and the flashy graphics that, like the Linux equivalents, just don’t seem to add anything. Sure the finish is polished but there is too much for the new user, too much that has been shifted around. We recently went to look at a house we were thinking of buying and my younger brother commented that the doors seemed to take up too much room and make it seem cluttered. I know that Vista reviews are extremely old hat by now but I think if anything that sums up my experience, just too many doors.
The problem is, I have to sell it to a 60+ year old tomorrow and when an Internet Explorer upgrade turns the air blue, this is not going to be pretty.
17September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Travel & Leisure.
By some wierd coincidence I ended up meeting my now-retired mother and not-yet retired father at Stansted airport at 7am on Saturday. I was re-discovering Krispy Kreme’s, basically Starbucks but for doughnuts, which I was introduced to in the states on my last trip out. Next stop was the Southampton Boat Show which can also be called “How to feel poor in a very wealthy country” - the amount of money changing hands was beyond a joke. If you ever need proof that being wealthy attracts beautiful women then visit this show. I’m not cynical you understand. Some of the world’s finest boat-building on display and for the average joe to work around and … dream. I discovered the boat I will one day eventually live on however :)
13September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
A few weeks back the main fedora kernel hacker commented that the number of bugs filed against the Fedora kernel since FC6 was getting out of hand.
“The current state of bugzilla for the kernel is pretty depressing. Counting in all the bugs we never fixed for FC5 (a lot of which are probably still valid for everything through to rawhide), there are around 1600 open bugs.”
So this evening I dove in and started working forwards from the oldest Fedora 7 kernel bug. After one evening the total has shrunk by 20 with at least three times that waiting for feedback - many have not been touched for months.
Bug triaging is surprisingly addictive and rewarding - I was expecting a few “Why did you change my bug status?!?!?!?!” replies but so far one chap has discovered the joys of audacious and another is involved in testing the newly released Fedora 8, Test 2 which came out today. Early days but promising ones nonetheless…
12September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
I finally lost my rag today and set up a secret wiki, inspired by the terminally bald Adrian Bradshaw, formally of LUGRadio. I’m forever forgetting nuggets of really useful information and in particular where they are located. This is an excellent idea - I like to think of it as my internet where it all makes sense and there are no ads (not that thats a huge problem anyway as I use the brilliant Adblock plus).
7September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
One down, four to go all you iFolder fan-boys. Next up log4net…
4September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Travel & Leisure.
Four legends about to set out on an epic ride around some primo singletrack at Dalby, nr Whitby. Purish.
4September2007
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
My webhosts are 1and1. This will produce groans from anyone who has tried to contact their support department - possibly the worst of its kind, save perhaps for Pitney Bowes (more on that later perhaps). Logging in recently I noticed on the splash screen that they had developed an application for accessing their facilities from the Windows taskbar. Great! Except of course I don’t run Windows. So I thought I’d give it a go in Wine. Works perfectly, so well I thought I’d email them to let them know. I’m not expecting a reply from anything more intelligent than their autoresponder.
Wine is a bit of a divisive technology in the Linux community. There are good arguments for not trying to allow Windows applications to run on Linux (virii for example) however I never cease to be amazed when an application designed for another operating system runs perfectly on mine. Well done Wine devs!
