The latest release of Ubuntu has hit the streets. The much-acclaimed “Karmic Koala” (Ubuntu 9.10’s codename) is now out in earnest, bringing many usability enhancements as well as technical ones.
Make sure to use the torrents if you can, just to relieve server tension.
Because I can’t update incredibly often, I’ll use this post to point you to OMG! UBUNTU!, probably the best Ubuntu blog I’ve seen out there. Regularly updated, OMG! UBUNTU! gives you the low-down on everything Ubuntu-related, including upcoming plans.
It has come to my attention that the public is not educated about the intertube’s latest sensation, FilmRiot, the Revision3 show that shows you how to pull off the techniques you see in the movies without having to sell your soul for an FX budget.
So I present this Public Service Announcement for the betterment of my readers.
I can’t honestly say I’m surprised, but I can say I’m dismayed as I’ve heard good things about Bing…
However, Microsoft has been found to be skewing results in it’s Bing Decision Engine, which now provides search for Yahoo as well and provides 20% of the search market.
In the examples given, a search for “Why is Windows so expensive?” turned up results for asking why Macs are so expensive. Similarly, when asked if Microsoft is evil, it would link to articles where Google was portrayed as evil. Google queries – including asking if Google was evil – did their job and returned appropriate results.
Microsoft has cleaned up these certain examples, but what worries me is Microsoft’s tampering with the results which may be as of yet unnoticed. Could they hide a PR faux-pas? Could they hide news of more bugs?
I had been tempted to try Bing as I’ve heard some good things about it (mostly “It’s better than Live Search”, but I’d have to give it a fair shake before knocking it) but this has trampled this temptation. Too bad Microsoft.
Fans of Battlestar Galactica might remember the track “Battlestar Operatica” on the soundtrack which aired during “Tigh me up, Tigh me down”. It was an operatic piece composed specially for Battlestar by the soundtrack composer, Bear McCreary. The lyrics (in Italian) are:
Maledetto sia tuo cuore Cylone
C’è una tostapane nella tua testa
E porta tachi a spillo
Numero Sei ti chiama
Il rivelatore Cylone impone
La tua ragazza è un tostapane
Maledetto sia tuo cuore Cylone
Ahimè, disgrazia! Ahimè, tristezza e miseria!
Il tostapane ha un bel vestito
Rosso come la sua spina dorsale ardente
sussura Numero Sei:
“Per tuo commando” Maledetto sia tuo cuore Cylone
Which translates into English as:
Woe upon your Cylon heart
There’s a toaster in your head
And it wears high heels
Number Six calls to you
The Cylon Detector beckons
Your girlfriend is a toaster
Woe upon your Cylon heart
Alas, disgrace! Alas, sadness and misery!
The toaster has a pretty dress
Red like its glowing spine
Number Six whispers:
“By your command”
Woe upon your Cylon heart
And that’s the kind of random post for today. I should appologize for my absence; I got back from a trip to les Etats-Unis where I couldn’t blog. Thanks to my friend Jay for providing some content while I was away!
This is assuming that the government of North Korea *is* behind the attacks against South Korea and the USA. The question implied in the Wired article is whether such a cyber-attack should be considered an act of war (for the record, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance is starting to shift towards considering it one, based on experience in a 2007 attack by a Russian botnet against the entire country of Estonia). Personally, I believe that a government-sponsored attack against cybernetic infrastructure should be considered an act of aggression, no different than bombing hydroelectric dams or poisoning the water system. In the West – especially in the West – so much is done over internal, national networks that to take those down would be *more* dangerous than poisoning the water main of a major city (think about it: if Canada’s internet went down East-West-North communications would be severely curtailed, and that’s the least of it: Provincial health authorities would be unable to relay important information, traffic would stop flowing in many urban centres, news services would be down as well as cellular networks (upon which Canada relies heavily), the Canadian Banks would be down, the RCMP and Provincial Police Forces would have to enforce order, and so forth. A state the size and population density (or lack thereof) of Canada can not function without its communications networks. America has a more modular political system – each state could assume responsibility for their own wellbeing; as I understand it, each state has their own military force of some kind (state troopers?) and has an executive which has wide-ranging powers. Canada has one military, one executive. The only way a provincial authority can exert force is through its municipal and provincial police.
So yes, a government-sponsored cyber-attack should be grounds for war or at least very very very strong sanctions and a retaliatory cyber-attack (which I’m sure Canada could mount much more effectively than North Korea and the US even more effectively)
Getting involved in cyber-warfare is one of the career possibilities I am possibilitiatizing right now with the Canadian Forces, so this is particularly interesting.
On a lighter note, Wired has a list of 100 *basic* skills for Geeks. I do #44 and I should show #77-79 to my Computer Science/Engineering teacher who runs KCVI’s robotics club (and is very good).
Google, the big little company we all know and love, has decided that a logical extension of their vision for Google Chrome is the Chrome Operating System. While the original Chrome was marketed as being similar to an OS in how it handled the web, Google decided that the desktop OS is built for an age where people are tied to desktop applications. Google says that ChromeOS will be a lightweight, fast-to-boot-fast-to-run OS that focuses on getting people to the web. While aimed at netbooks, it will also be available for desktops and laptops (so presumably not a Moblin-like interface).
While it will be Linux-based (like Android but seperate), ChromeOS will build many things from the ground up. Now, I probably won’t wind up using ChromeOS (this is purely speculatory with no screenshots or anything) as I like the full-fledged Desktop OS provided by Ubuntu, but because the project is open source and builds on open source projects there will be a lot of new material coming in to the FLOSS ecosystem which will inevitably be picked up by the mainstream Linuxes.
I incorrectly reported on Twitter (based on a misunderstanding of Gizmodo) that it would be able to run Windows and OS X apps. As far as I can tell, there won’t be apps per say but rather web-based applications which can be run on any operating system from any modern browser. This, needless to say, makes more sense, though I am dissappointed because geting Win/Mac compatibility in an open source project would mean Win/Mac compatibility for the Linux universe.
So yes, I’m excited. Can’t wait to see where this goes. I am a fan of Chrome as a browser (if it only did Flash it’d be my default on Linux – it’s alpha is great) and I’m sure Google will do a great job on ChromeOS
According to NetApplications, Microsoft’s forced-use browser Internet Explorer lost 11.4% of the browser market between the three versions currently in the wild (the recent IE8, the first-IE-with-tabs-finally-half-baked-standards-support-they-could-have-gone-all-the-way-but-noooo IE7, and the it-just-won’t-die-no-matter-how-many-times-I-whack-it-with-a-sledgehammer-AHHH-AHHHH-AHHHHH IE6). While IE7’s loss in popularity is explainable – people upgrading/being forced to upgrade to IE8 – and IE6’s persistence is starting to wane because it lacks certain features like tabs and any notion of security, the nice thing is that it’s losing to the renewed competition in the Second Browser Wars. Where it was once mainly between Netscape and Internet Explorer, there’s now Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox (Netscape’s next of kin), Opera,Apple’s Safari, and the new and very impressive Google Chrome. As the Internet Explorer line has done very little in the way of innovation (A small browser called NetCaptor invented them in 1998 and after losing market share to the tabbed Opera, Firefox, and Safari, IE integrated them in 2006) this isn’t surprising.
What is surprising (though not at all unwelcome) is that people are taking enough interest in quality to look past the default, to revolt from the dictatorship of Good Enough. All the new entrants to the browser wars bring new innovations – Firefox with extensions, Opera with Unite and many others, Chrome with Tab Sequestration – and people are realizing that what comes installed on their computer really isn’t that good.
Aaaand Firefox 3.5 drops today. This post is a Three-In-One. Part One is a Firefox Overview, Part Two is how to give Firefox some (more) serious speed, and Part Three is how to stop wasting your time on the web.
Here’s your overview. I was going to write one all by myself but the Mozilla team’s great quick tour really defeats the purpose:
It’s interesting how “buying gifts” has become a universal euphamism when it comes to Private Browsing…
There are also all the usability features which are great but don’t really *innovate* as much as they follow Google’s (amazing) Chrome browser.
As someone who designs and builds websites, however, what I’m really excited about is Open Video. Open Video uses the OpenSource OGG-Theora video codec (which is included by default in Linux, BSD, and Solaris systems and available for Windows and OS X) to do some really neat stuff: Continue reading
Today marked the release of Crossover 8, an implementation of WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator), for Linux and Mac OS X. WINE is unique in that it allows the use of MS Windows applications on Linux and Mac without virtualization, which involves running a full version of the Windows OS to use the applications. Crossover is a set of improvements and streamlinings (if that’s not a word it should be) that make running Windows applications on Linux and Mac a whole lot simpler.
It’s not that hard to understand. Really. Look at their website…
If that sounds snarky it’s because it is, though it is not aimed at you my dear reader.
No, it’s aimed at PC World.
I subscribe to Crossover for Linux. I bought it at 7.1. The subscription model at Crossover means that if a new version comes out within x months I get the new version for free. So I grabbed the new one from my account. I love Crossover; it helps me run Photoshop and MS Word 2007 reliably. It’s the only money I’ve spent on Linux applications and it’s totally worth it. It’s a great company and they make it easy to find out about their products and they answer questions promptly (disclosure: when I asked some questions about Crossover I had them answered and then was offered Crossover Pro (which is better support, longer upgrade duration, and Crossover Games included) for roughly the same price as Crossover. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with the organization).
But PC World doesn’t manage to find any of this stuff out. Continue reading
Wow I haven’t updated this place since May 3? tut tutu
Nothing much has happened except for the release of Star Trek, which I will not go into except to say that I’ll be monitoring your frequency (nerdiest love line ever!).
I will, however, talk about the reopening of Linux.com to the general public. It now has an Answers section (where newbies can get quick answers to any questions from experts), personal blogs, and a social network that’s really great. Also, the top users every year (determined by “Karma Points”) will get a signed laptop from Linus Torvalds. I’m going to crosspost my blog post at Linux.com:
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