A Conservative Techie

On the blog search engine land, there is a very interesting article by Danny Sullivan.  In it, Mr. Sullivan argues that because Google made such a stink about Microsoft making Live Search its default for Firefox 3 search.  It is a valid argument that I wish more people would take up.  MS was forced to allow people on a fresh install of IE7 to decide what the default search engine was.  I choose to use Google, instead of Live Search.  However there doesn’t let me add Live Search to the list

In fact w/ MS IE7 I can chooe a whole list:

Something that can’t be done with Firefox, but I can choose to search Creative Commons (what is this?).

The comments are the greatest:

“This story is a joke and you should be [sic]embarassed for posting it.”

“The coexistance of Google and Firefox runs deep enough that you can type a keyword into the browser and you will be directed to the #1 website that is in Google search results for that keyword 90% of the time. Type in a word or a phrase (laptop, cheap laptop, iphone, Danny Sullivan) hit Go and see where you end up.  In IE this is not possible”

Gotta love fanbois

Found something interesting from Redmondmag.com that I didn’t know about and I bet you didn’t know about either.  Microsoft is a large supporter of MySQL, in fact it was recently signaled out for its contributions to the open source database.

An article here has a quote that probably sums up what you think: “Seriously?”

I learn something new every day

And its beta?

Ok this is a little wierd to me, I wouldn’t trust my health records to any company that is a search company. In fact out of the 5 people I showed Google Health to none of them would trust their records.  And more specifically to a beta product.

Why would I want to put my information online with a search company?  Will I be searching for things and see paid advertising for health problems I may or may not have?  What happens if this product doesn’t pan out and I “lose” the information I have put in their?  How safe is the information stored there?

Better yet, when I go to my doctor can I say “upload the visit to google heath for me?” If I tried that, the office would stare at me and then laugh.  Then I would have to take notes and spend my own time uploading the information.  Seriously a waste of my time.

Google has some great products, but this seems to be a flop, a real stinker… However since it is “Google” people will just use it

I work with a product called Altiris (now a part of Symantec) that supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE Enterprise Linux for imaging and software distribution.  However there is next to no training on how to use these products for Inventory, Software Delivery, etc.  So I am in the process of working on actual hardware to test.

The laptop I have is a Dell Latitude D830 and is using an Intel Wireless card.  In Ubuntu the card works out of the box, however I am unable to find a solution to get it to work.  Anyone out there able to help me?

Thanks

Found this post via techmeme in regards to Why man MCSEs won’t learn Linux and am disappointed by some of the reasosn given but agree with some of them.

A little background about myself.  I am not a MCSE, but I have several Microsoft Certifications, MCSA MCP, MCT, along with my LInux+ certification and several years helping out with the Ubuntu distribution.  I use Linux on a daily basis and at work am considered the Linux guru, which may not be saying much about my co-workers.

The biggest disagreement I have is the difference between a Windows admin and a Unix admin is “the difference between rote learning and the application of theory to practice.”  This statement assumes that MCSEs memorize the tests answers, get the certifiation and then couldn’t admin their way out a situation that doesn’t fall on the test versus Unix/Linux Admins who “understand key ideas and acheive expertise by expanding both the set of ideas and the ability to apply them.”  In other words, Unix/Linux admins are smarter because they can apply practices and ideas, not test questions.

In my travels as a Windows consultant I have met a large number of Windows admins who not only are willing to try new ideas and new utilities but then apply those ideas to solving business needs.  As a consultant for a management product the people that are hardest to get to change are the Unix/Linux people.  A Linux admin is more stuck in their ways and assumes they know the best way to do things is the way they have always done things.  That no one could ever come up with a better management tool or utility to help them out is a common occurence.

The author of the post makes a comment that scripts from a book in 1984 provides great scripts that still run today.  That is great, but is it still the best way to manage the devices?  Is there a more powerful way then a script or cron job?  Some form of centralized reporting software that can track hardware/software inventory, patch management, and software delivery?  Or should we still rely on these scripts as the “best” way to do things.  A Windows admin is more wililng to adapt and change to the best practices.

Also the author compares a Windows 2000/2003 admin trying to figure out how to admin a Windows NT box.  I remember when I made the trasnsition from NT 4 to Windows 2000 and it was a large change.  However I didn’t give up, I was forced by my company to adapt or to start looking for a different job.  I wonder if the people the authors talks about that are  Windows are admins that shouldn’t be in either a Windows environment or an Unix environment.

Feel freee to argue

On the DOT an announcement was just made for the KDE 4 release schedule. Congrats to the developers and the team and everything.

April 1, 2007: Subsystem Freeze
From this date forward, no new KDE subsystem or major changes can be committed to kdelibs.
May 1, 2007: Alpha Release + kdelibs soft API Freeze
Alpha will be a source-only release without translations. The kdelibs API is “soft-frozen”, meaning that changes can be made but only with the consent of the core developers.
June 1, 2007: trunk/KDE is feature frozen
Trunk is frozen for feature commits. Internationalised string changes are allowed. A list of main modules that will be included in the final release will be made.
June 25, 2007: Beta1
Beta 1 is prepared and released after some initial testing. The incoming bugs will be reviewed for their severity. After this release, a new Beta version will be released every month.
September 23, 2007: Total Release Freeze
This is the very last date for committing anything that isn’t reviewed on the development lists.
September 25, 2007: Release Candidate 1
Targetted date for first release candidate. Only regressions (breakage caused by the KDE 4 port) or grave bugs can be fixed. Starting with this Release Candidate, a new Release Candidate will be put out every two weeks until the codebase is sufficiently stable and all showstopper bugs have been fixed.
October 23, 2007: Targetted Release Date

Great job

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here, but Robert’s last post has gone over board. Scoble attacks MS that they suck and can’t do well. I just don’t understand why the sudden change in tone of voice? Scoble became an Internet Celebrity because Microsoft allowed him to post his own thoughts and ideas, but lately things are going out of control. The world is starting to revolve around his thoughts and his ego has gotten out of control.
In a great article on the Times Online, makes special note that his career is where it is because of what Microsoft allowed him to do. For many tech readers his voice was a softer side of Microsoft, was the “soul” of a “kinder, gentler” Microsoft, but it seems like he is now out to bash Microsoft whenever he can. He has previous posts were he praises products and then later changes his position to colaim that it “sucks.”
How much of what he does is just deisgned to drive traffic to the company he works at versus what he actually really thinks? In fact, how do we even know what he really thinks? Can we take his blog @ face value any more or has he become another shill for Google and part of the whole M$ sucks crowd that I believe is helping to prevent the growth of alternate choices to Microsoft.
I wonder if Google ever looses its popularity will we soon be reading posts from him about how bad Google is instead of how great the product is. Oh yeah and an example of how MS search sucks is because a search for Robert doesn’t show his name as first post. Wow talk about an ego trip… The first link for Jonathan isn’t this site on either sites so they suck.

Part of his arguments is that Google reader is great and is the most popular reader out there, that Google and Apple listen to their customers and those companies make changes based on customer feedback. But really is Google going to change what it is doing because someone suggests it?

I’ve been thinking about your comment:

“If any blogger out there has complained, I’ll see that and be warned away.”

and I find that extremly scary.  Remember one of the best and worst parts of the internet is the ability to be anonomoys and write whatever you want to without signing your name.  Lou Holtz, the great coach from Norte Dame, made a comment about how this has wrecked coaching football, some blogger/message board poster can write whatever he/she wants and pretty soon a coach is in hot water w/ the university/fans/media and is out of a job if enough people belive what one person posted w/o having to sign his/her name to the post.

So I can now game what companies you buy and do business with?  I can write “stories” of fraud and abuse and poor customer service and steer you away from doing business w/?

Really what Coach Holtz said is true, the power of blogging and Google is scary, coaches can get fired, Senators can face time in jail or loose their jobs, political lies can be brought to light, and I can make it all up as long I establish some form of high Google rank.

Scary eh?

Well its official SABDFL (Mark Shuttleworth) announced today the new codename for Ubuntu which will be released on the 19th of April 2007. Ubuntu 7.04 will be called the “Feisty Fawn” and here are the reasons to quote Mark’s email announcement:

With the final release of Ubuntu 6.10 approaching, and apparently set to be spot on schedule October 26th, we’re starting to look beyond it to Ubuntu 7.04, scheduled for release on 19 April 2007. In the next cycle we’ll expand on the brand new infrastructure that has landed in Edgy as well as branching out in some exciting new directions. This combination of courage and restlessness is also found in a young deer that sets out to explore a world that is new and exciting - seeing the world through eyes unprejudiced by what has gone before. In that spirit, the release will be be code named “The Feisty Fawn”.

The main themes for feature development in this release will be improvements to hardware support in the laptop, desktop and high-end server market, and aggressive adoption of emerging desktop technologies. Ubuntu’s Feisty release will put the spotlight on multimedia enablement and desktop effects.

Now I’m all excited by a new release and its time to start cranking out documentation Again but really did Edgy Eft meet its goals?

We told:

So dream a little about Xen for virtualisation, Xgl/AIGLX and other wonderful wobbly window bits, the goodness of Network Manager, a first flirt with multiarch support for true mixed 32-bit and 64-bit computing on AMD64, the interesting possibilities of the SMART package manager… and other pieces of infrastructure which have appeared tantalisingly on the horizon.

And yet I don’t we are making most of these changes. I don’t think Xen is going in by default, Xgl/AIGLX isn’t by default and Ubuntu won’t have the Edgy artwork that has been in development.

I know we are supposed to dream big w/ Ubuntu and especially Edgy Eft, but I think too many outside of the core-dev group dreamed big goals and maybe bigger goals then those core-devs did. Edgy Eft is great, new infrastructure, new artwork/theme for Kubuntu, but over all I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed.

Will that happen in Feisty Fawn as well? If we are looking to put the spotlight on multimedia enablement will that mean Ubuntu/Canonical will reach some licensing agreement on mp3? I doubt that… I don’t know how much further improvement will happen in the laptop area, I know a ton already has but should there be more? Kubuntu is using a new power manger that works very well…

I guess we will ahve to wait and see how the Fawn shapes out, but here’s hoping it will be great…. And I love getting back on 6 month development

I don’t know what happened to this post, but oh well… Accordign to this article in the Seattle Times, there is a clock in Buildin 9 in Redmond that is counting down the day until Vista releases to the manufacturer or RTM. This is a big milestone because it means Vista is closer to being available to the genuine masses. The big OEM’s and other shops will get this verion of Vista and will soon start cranking out Vista PC’s and all kind of Vista goodness. Soon, should be in January.

A nice quote in the article explains a lot of the information:

An Oct. 25 RTM date would give computer manufacturers enough time to get new machines loaded with Vista into store inventories for an early January launch, which could still catch some momentum at the tail end of the holidays, said Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research.

The other intersting part of this article is there is a rumor that Bill Gates will launch Vista at his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show or CES.

Can’t wait for this….

Update: Now Schedule to RTM Novemeber 2 due to a security hole that was found and fixed