Showing headlines posted by helios

In the realm of Open Source software development the adage "good enough" is often interpreted as this software is good enough for general use. It should read "good enough for me", speaking only from the software author's perspective. Here's what I mean.

Employee turnover seems to be a big problem, at least at the Austin location(s). A good friend who works the swing shift for call center server support told me bluntly:

"It's like the D-Day landing at Normandy. People are dropping all around me, but I keep pushing on."

In April of 2012, in the product forum for Google, Julio G. Alvarez pretty much told the Linux community to chill. A native Linux client for Google drive was forthcoming. You can read the specifics here along with a new petition to get them off their backsides.

16 months later, we are still without a native Drive client for Linux. They aren't even bothering to send someone from out behind the curtain to talk to us. Their position seems to be "let them eat Insync cake". Which pretty much sucks from any seat in the house since The Dynamic Duo of Advertising had their road to riches paved by Linux.

By the way boys....it was us that bought you those Gulfstream G5's. You don't seem to be able to remember that.

We recently started a fund drive for our effort, Reglue.org. But in times when many people are finding it harder and harder for their dollars to stretch, Reglue has found a new revenue source, and it's one most anyone who works in computer tech can assist.

For cheap.

You can fund a kid's tech non profit with your computer junk.

it's a mantra all of us have heard at least once. "There is no "I" in team". And it's true that a group effort more often than not is responsible for reaching goals. But every now and then, it all comes back to one person, one decision...one thing that changes history for many. This is an acknowledgement of one person's impact that changed everything for an organization.

The Australian government, which had previously decided to mandate the Microsoft-driven Office Open XML format within its departments, has now proposed requiring instead that any office suite used by the government should, at a minimum, support Open Document Format 1.1.

Really? I gotta wonder what (internal) forces mandated this. I have many people I consider friends Down Under and to a (wo)man they all agree that Australia is a Microsoft-owned continent. At least in Government and the Enterprise.

We'll watch and see what happens.

While the main focus of Reglue.org is insuring that financially-disadvantaged kids have a computer, we often answer the call for a more community-oriented effort. This was one of those times.

I installed the 12.04 Ubuntu release on a spare partition yesterday, in preparation of using the Ubuntu Customization Kit. My intention was to use UCK to respin a game DVD for our Reglue Kids. Our last LTS was 10.04 and we used that respin successfully for a number of years. So while we are waiting for SolusOS 2.0 to come out, and the subsequent Reglue Respin, I thought a nice game DVD would be fun.

Uh...it would have been except.....

But, but Ken..., can a one man show meet the obligations of not only Reglue, but of their userbase in general? If Fuduntu folded, what are the chances that Ikey will one day decide it's just not worth it?

I thought long and hard about this. If I did not know the developer as well as I do, I would say without reservation....

No. We would go with a more mainstream solution.

Some will blame the fragmentation of the Linuxsphere. Some will say that too many choices have diluted the product and confused the customer. I'm not going to disagree with that theory. Friend and colleague Dietrich Schmitz argues that point strongly. So if we are to embrace that particular theory, what is to be done? Let's fragment it some more.

To say that I coexist with Chrome is more accurate. Two months ago, I absolutely despised Chrome. It was a white-hot hatred that transcended the Mortal Plane. I'm sure such powerful emotions were the trigger for some short bursts of telekinesis around me.

The new version of Solus OS will come with a lot of changes. One of those changes being the Consort Desktop Environment. To find out more information about the development I've talked to Ikey Doherty. Below you can read a short interview.

Two weeks ago, Friend was in Texas and He drove down to see me. We knocked back a few beers on some small patio bar in Round Rock. When the subject turned to work, I knew Friend was in a position to answer a question for me. It's probably something you knew in your gut anyway. Yeah you did. I asked him the question: "Why does Google refuse to reference that Android or Chromebooks are Linux-based?" He took a pull on his Shiner Bock and did something I didn't really expect. He answered me.

Ikey Doherty, the creator of SolusOS, a Debian-based distribution is one such person. Ikey came from humble and rocky beginnings. A "builder" by trade, what we in the US refer to as a Carpenter, Ikey delved into computers and software via a back door of sorts. How does someone go from physically building structures to building operating systems?

Gnome Team awakens, coffee is smelled.

While not a Linux story, it's interesting to watch Microsoft shoot themselves in the foot again. Or have they? Only time will tell but either way, it's going to have a huge impact on technology in general.

No, this entry has nothing to do with Linux, its applications or it's inner-workings. It has to do with many of the people that use Linux....and how they came together to save a man's life.

"Razer makes gaming devices. Expensive gaming devices. The problem is, when you buy a number of Razer gaming mice, you are required to have an online connection in order to "configure" the mouse. Those configurations are stored in "the cloud", so ideally, you have your pre-sets available to you regardless of where you game or where you go.

The problem is, you cannot use the mouse without "registration". It's not just simple registration. It's the information Razer wants in order to register. But nowhere on the box does it say that it requires an online connection to get the mouse to work. That's only one of the pleasant surprises that await you after the unboxing."

...now we learn that Apple is turning to the designers of Google Maps to flesh out iOS Maps. Wait....I'm confused. Didn't Apple drop Google Maps for their own map app? I'm sure there is room for speculation that Google may have forced their hand in doing so but still....

This is innovation?

It's been a tough couple of months and in particular, the past three weeks. Let's take a break from the problems and just laugh for awhile. Maybe at these, maybe at others, and most probably at ourselves.