A Conservative Techie

It’s amazing the whole let’s fork KDE discussion and keep the 3.5.X series but port to KDE and the hate people have towards the new desktop.

I have been using KDE 4 since the first packages came out for Kubuntu, Gutsy I think.  At first I found there were things I couldn’t get done it, but guess what, it was Alpha at that stage and since then I have grown to love and work better with KDE4. 

I am amazed at the personal attacks that I am seeing levied against some of the developers for the KDE 4 project.  I think it is a great change and is the next step forward.

During my day job I use Vista on my main machine.  I’ve been using Vista since it RTM’d and have grown to enjoy some of the way things are  organized.  Two examples of these are per application sound settings and the way the Start Menu and Search operates.  When I play music, I can keep the sound of the music up loudly while decreasing the sound of the other applications.   On the Start Menu, I simply start typing the name of the application or the name of the file and through the Windows Search, simply hit enter on the file or application I want to use.  I use the start menu, shortcuts on the desktop, and navigate a lot less using Windows Explorer.  These are the two biggest things I miss when I have to work on an XP computer.  To me XP feels outdated and old…. No longer “new” technology, but something I’ve been using for a long time.

Going back to KDE 3.5.X feels the same way.  How long has KDE 3 been in development?  New things come out, technology changes and KDE 4 proves that times have changed.  And for the better…. Going from KDE 4 to KDE 3.5.X is like going back to the past and no longer using the best that’s available

Disagree with what would you like to, but I would like to offer a word of encouragement to the developers and to those that have poured their time, money, and love into the new product.  Keep up the great work.

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Update:  My arguement got lost in translation from my head to the keyboard… I’m not arguing we should KDE 4 cause it’s like Vista… I guess what I was trying to argue was that like Vista, KDE 4 takes some while to get used to and that I don’t want to use KDE 4 jus tlike I don’t want to use XP.  I feel less productive in both.

Here is a chart by FareCompare.com that lists all of the fees charged by every single airline.

Great job and very interesting.

I’m looking to figure out the best way to manage my music library and be able to use the files on all of my machines.

My setup:  Windows Vista Business Edition Laptop, Windows Vista Business Edition Desktop, with a 500 gig NTSF formatted USB drive, a Mac OS X laptop, and Kubuntu 8.04 workstation.

I am currently using iTunes to manage things, but have contemplated using some other program to control everything.  Also I have shared out my Music folder and so far have mapped drives, but is there a better way to manage my Music so I can play things on all devices?

Thanks in advance

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

Catching up on old posts and information that I’ve read lately…. Here is a map of Google’s data centers around the world that I found pretty intersting.

The last time I was in Omaha, NE all the talk was in regards to the new datacenter that Google was putting in across the river in Council Bluffs.  Lots of tech turnover at the time because people were trying to get in w/ Google and leaving their current jobs and then people were leaving their jobs for the recently vacated postions, etc.

Also there are couple of more interesting posts there as well.  Lots of good google goodness

Interesting article on the dot, in regards to KDE4 running on Windows, titled “Can KDE Save a Dying Windows Platform?“

It is an interesting preview of KDE4 on Linux, but yet nothing on it talks about how Windows is dying, why the platform is dying, etc.  It is nothing more then a review of KDE4 on Windows, nothing more then that, just the fact that KDE can run on Windows.

Can someone please explain why Windows is dying?  Why the Windows Platform is dying?  Is it because of slow adoption rates of Vista? Or is there something that is causing Windows to  die?  I’m not seeing it in the businesses I work with.  In fact I see almost no Linux implementations going on.  In fact as I travel across the country in various different airports I see hardly anything on the desktop that resembles Linux.  There is an increase in Apples that I see, but nothing that would show/tell me that Windows is dying.

In fact with SQL 2008 coming out soon, along with Windows Server 2008, I think there will not be the decrease or death of the Windows Platform.

Prove me wrong….