Mad, I say!!!

The world has gone mad! First, IBM sold it PC business. Then Apple announced it's switching to Intel chips. Now, VMWare (http://www.vmware.com/communitysource/) and Micro$oft (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/default.mspx) are starting their own open source initiatives. Is this really happening??? Technically though they can't be called open source. While these projects release their source code to the public, they do so using restrictive licenses. Same proprietary model for luring open source enthusiast back to proprietary software, it seems.

Incidentally, a sizeable number of European local government bodies (http://www.theregister.com/2005/10/21/opensource_government/) are using open source software. M$ must be feeling the dent on their sales.

Tuxmania

I discovered this neat site that puts together cute little tux icons. It's called CrystalXP.Net . Their site's main attraction are the Win-XP themes but they have these Tux icons that people could download for personal use. Linux user or not, you'll have to adore them. Check them out here: Tux Factory.

Bad Start...

Talk about a bad way to start the day. I endured ear-shattering tantrums all morning. While that was goign on, I was also being bedgered by the wife about something that's too personal to share here. All the while, I was unable to control my seething anger. I was trying as hard as hell to control it but I blurted out a few inappropriate words. There was a point back there when I was in tears trying to keep the anger in.

To top that, my phone got redirected. I wasn't monitoring my usage and apparently the peso equivalent of my minutes exceeded my meager credit limit.

Badger aboot!

I had trouble with my Ubuntu partition yesterday. I couldn't boot the GUI (pronounced as gooey, Graphic User Interface). My PC locked up everytime the GUI started :-( Although that isn't the whole system that's locking up, I'm still pretty much dependent on the GUI way of doing things. Take for example the last piece of software I downloaded to my Ubuntu install. Its called Prozilla and its a download accelerator. I just had to download the GUI that came with it.

Things change though when you're moved from your comfort zone. There are times though when I want something bad enough that I muster enough brain matter to figure it out. Since I couldn't use Ubuntu, I switched to my old reliable CentOS partition. I downloaded Prozilla and the GUI (seperate program called ProzGUI) that came with it. Since it wasn't in the CentOS repository, I had to download the needed files one by one. I couldn't make ProzGUI work. After trying for several hours. I gave up. I tried to launch the thing from the terminal and lo and behold. Help was not so far away. After typing 'proz' in the terminal, I was prompted to input additional info about the file I wanted downloaded. And so began in earnest my use of Prozilla minus the attractive GUI. Using the terminal commands do make me feel geekier in a nice sort of way. I'm downloading Breezy Badger at the moment. I've decided to wait for that and use it to install over my old Ubuntu partition.

A Bit Off...

Yesterday, I woke up late. It was usual for someone who's in the GY shift to sleep late, even on their day-offs. Woke up late, had lunch,reinstalled one of my linux partitions. Normal day, 'cept I had to
work last night. I went to work without sleeping another wink. So this
morning I was dead tired. I was about to collapse into bed when I realized that I should finish setting up my Ubuntu partition so i could set it up to download stuff while I sleep.

So, I updated Ubuntu with all the file-sharing software I could find. The first one I installed was called GTK-Gnutella (http://gtk-gnutella.sourceforge.net). I found it alright, but I had a learning curve to overcome before I doze off uncontrollably. I settled on Limewire because I've had experience using it. You can get Limewire at http://www.limewire.com. I set-up Limewire to download the first .ISO disc of the Mandrake Limited Edition 2005 (info here: http://beta.mandriva.com) . These files takes really long to download, as they are really big files ready to burn to CD's. An .ISO's typical size ranges from 600 to &700 MB. I left the computer on and slept.

I was rudely awakened at 2pm, by a call from my mother-in-law. The Smart Wifi people were at her place and they needed the admin password for her desktop over there. I had given it a password so they wouldn't go onlines using the Windows Administrator access. That would've been a careless way to roam the net. Paranoid me.

After the short call, I took a peek at the comp. Limewire was stuck at
16% with a download rate of 10 B/sec. I had to remedy this and find a
better way to download this stuff. Like Rene Descartes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes#Philosophical_legacy) waking
from a dream, I was struck by a sudden realization that I had forgotten a small program I discovered a few months back. I never did try it out since downloading it through my dial-up connection would take days. It was a download accelarator for GNU/Linux called Prozilla. Oh, the irony of it all. I immediately fetched it from the Ubuntu servers. Luckily, they had a copy. I also got ProzGUI,the graphic application that partnered with Prozilla. You can read about it here: http://prozilla.genesys.ro/ .

What I was after was the ability to resume downloads and the ability to span numerous sources. With Limewire, I was stuck with 1 source (that was all I could find, but its possible to have many) for the file I was getting. With Prozilla, I could go to an FTP or HTTP mirror of a download site and it will look for other mirrors to get other sections of the download. It gets the fastest mirrors and checks for faster connections every 30 seconds (i think). It switches to faster servers if it finds any. During the time it took me to write this entry, Prozilla had already downloaded 6% of the first CD and 3% of the 2nd. That's FAST! Considering the fact that each .ISO was 700MB.

I'll be dozing off again so I must bid you adieu. I'm leaving my comp
on to max out my connection. I need to do this to make sure the new
Smart Wifi antenna isn't defective -- again. I'm concentrating on
bandwidth intensive stuff to see how far it goes. That's it for now.
Ciao!

--
"Coffee is evil...a necessary evil."-

Daysleeper Ed
Registered Linux User # 398135

Forum Post

I recently read a post in one of the forums I frequent. A poster was bemoaning how expensive it was to use licenesed software on many machines if you happen to own an internet cafe. Cant blame the guy. It's true. Below is a copy of my reply to his post:

"Instead of looking at it that way, why not look at the bigger picture? The BSA and the NBI raiding teams are raiding places with pirated or illegal copies of proprietary software. Parang ganito kase ang proprietary software tulad ng M$-Windows. Kapag bumili ka ng Windows license hindi mo naman binibili ang software. Binibili mo ang 'right to use'. Maraming restrictions ang mga licenses ng proprietary software dahil dyan, tulad ng restrictions sa modifications at commercial use. Alam nyo bang bawal gamitin ang Windows sa commercial set-up tulad ng internet cafe dahil bawal ipaupa ang isang PC kung ang Windows ay licensed sa pangalan mo? Andun yan sa E.U.L.A. (End-User License Agreement) ng Windows 'yan. Kanya nagsulat na naman sila ng isang mapanlinlang na supplementary agreement (makikita dito: http://www.microsoft.com/philippines/internetcafe) ang M$.

Why not try open-source software (definition here: http://www.answers.com/open%20source%20software) that will set you free from restrictive licenses and fees? Use a free GNU/Linux operating system. O kaya, kung resolbado na kayong bumili ng M$-Windows na operating system, pwede naman kayong gumamit ng open source na office suite tulad ng OpenOffice (makikita dito: http://www.openoffice.org) na libre din kasya sa bumili pa kayo ng M$-Office na may P8,000.00 din yata ang halaga. Ganyan ang ginawa ng kaibigan kong may internet shop. Bumili sya ng Windows XP Home, dahil pinili nyang magpatali sa M$-Windows. That's his decision. It's his choice. Pero gumagamit na sya ngayon ng OpenOffice. Nakabawas sa gagastusin sana nya. May 21 units din sya, malaking halaga ang kapalit kung ibibili nya lahat ng M$-Office license.

Bottomline, you do have a choice about which OS or software you use. You can reduce costs if you go with open-source. You can free yourself from restrictive licenses and high fees. Kapag napababa mo ang halaga ng investment mo, mababawasan ang pressure na kumita dapat ng malaki para lang makabawi.

To find out more about your open-source options go to http://linux.org.ph/ and contact the group. Thanks for reading."