17 posts tagged “thoughts”

Every once in a while I get the urge to install a new linux distro and see the state of things.  I was first introduced to linux when I was a sophomore in college.  That would be more than 8 years ago now.  The last time I had looked at it was a few months ago when I installed Ubuntu on my desktop and my wife's laptop, and before that it had been a couple years.  I was pretty impressed with Ubuntu at the time, but I did have some issues with it (flaky driver support for my video card, no printer driver, no flash).  My wife still uses it occasionally on her laptop.

Since it has been another couple months and the linux install on my own machine hasn't been working due to the video problems, I thought I'd give it another go (also, I'd heard that flash was available for linux again).  This time I opted against the 64bit version, since that was my downfall last time (lack of driver support). I've also been disappointed to hear recent rumblings that a few mainline distros would be no longer including any closed source components. I decided to try SuSE, hoping that Novell's recent alliance with Microsoft would mean they wouldn't have that problem.

I have been very impressed so far. I feel like the operating system itself is now nicer than Windows XP (Ubuntu felt very close, but just shy).  There are, of course a few things Windows XP does that linux does not, namely DirectX (I want my Counter-Strike: Source!), but that's really something I can blame linux for.  I want to specifically call out the SuSE Start Menu equivalent as being very nice.

There are a few things I've noticed where linux still lags that I want to nitpick about:

• I think it's just because I'm more used to them, but to me the windows mouse cursors feel much more clean than the linux counter-parts.
• Windows does a much better job with my mouse.  Linux automatically detected exactly what kind of mouse I have (Windows only treats it as a generic), but still won't support the thumb back and forward buttons (which I use all the time) or using the middle button to scroll documents and web pages (again, I do this a lot).  This is what bothers me more than anything else.
  
• There were a few video sites (YouTube works fine) that wouldn't play because they don't detect flash correctly.  This is probably the sites' fault more than a linux thing.
• There was some extra work to get everything set up right.  This is no big deal; I'd have to do this with a new Windows install as well, and I was able to find a good tutorial to walk me through all the steps.  The problem is that tutorial was a lot harder to find than it should have been.
• Install time was way too long.  I'm not counting formatting or package selection here (that stuff is way ahead of windows), just the copy files and install part.   We're talking 2-3 hours.  Vista installs 8GB in 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.
• Boot time still has a way to go compared to Windows.  XP boots in 45 seconds, Linux takes about 3 minutes.
• Still no driver for my printer.  This is a bit surprising, since I have a Lexmark (IBM), and IBM is supposed to be such a strong linux supporter.
• I haven't been able to get DVD playback to work yet.  This isn't a huge deal as I'm unlikely to watch a DVD here when my TV and DVD player are just across the room, and I know there are a few extra challenges here since there copy protection to get around, but it would still be nice to be able to check this off my list.
• "Windows" key on the keyboard will not activate the start menu, but the context menu key works just fine.

E-mail and the web are fine in Linux, except that's where the most ongoing pain is.  I'd like to see a mouse driver capable of handling those extra buttons.

I do my development work in .Net 2.0, and mono isn't really a viable alternative yet.  I'm also very partial to Visual Studio 2005, though I haven't yet had a chance to try a recent KDevelop or equivalent.  However, I can see in the future wanting to do a cross-platform app, and I think a good way to do that would be to develop for mono work, with the idea that if it works in mono it's more likely to work in the real .Net rather than the other way around.

Open Office is fine for my own documents, but more of the time I have to work on one it's to give to someone else, meaning I need to be confident that it will look right in Microsoft Office, or be able to print it.  Here, to I can see a better situation on the horizon.  The new MS Office format should be easier for third parties to get right, and will help users to be more aware of multiple document formats and conversion issues.  It's also only a matter of time before I either need a new printer or a driver is available for my current one.

As for gaming, I'm a bit of an edge case.  More and more gamers and moving away from the PC to the console.  As I'm interested primarily in first person shooters and don't enjoy those on consoles, I will be a PC gamer for some time to come, and those will continue to be dominated by DirectX based games.   That means windows.  However, I spend too much time gaming.  I can see at some point in the future, if the other problems are resolved, determining to switch to linux and keeping windows around exclusively for games.  Then I would have the added barrier of needing to reboot my computer to play a game, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

For right now, when I sit at my computer I have several reasons to want to be in Windows, and few to want to be in Linux.  It's nice to see that things are improving, though.

I have a suspicion that this product already exists.  If so I'd like to hear about it.

What I'm looking for is a device that plugs into the audio out port of your computer (and/or a usb port).  It will transmit your music over a wireless connection to a matching device connected to your stereo in the next room.  It will feed the sound to your stereo via it's auxiliary input.  There will also be a remote control and software that allows the device attached to your computer to interface with iTunes, Windows Media Player, Rhapsody, Musicmatch, or any other music library on your computer that you set up and send information about that to the device on your stereo as well.  The remote will talk to the device attached to the stereo, which will also have an LCD screen just large enough to show the currently playing song and allow you to browse your music collection at the same time.  You will be able to use the remote to browse songs, artists, and playlists, and to build and save playlists, add or remove songs from your current playlist, and similar operations.  The remote should be able to be programmed to also control the volume, radio tuner, tape deck, and cd changer on the stereo.

Social Network websites are big.  You've got your MySpace, your FaceBook, your LiveJournal, and a slew of others.  They typically encompass a personal home page you can decorate with photos and such, a blog of some kind, and a links to your 'friends'.  The trick with the social network sites is that they can be very fickle.  What's popular today may not stay that way long.  They also aren't all that useful unless all your friends are on the same site, and you often have to keep a separate account at each site to keep up with friends on each of the different sites.  I gets annoying have to post information to several places so all your friends will see it.  It works in high school or college, where a certain site can become dominant at an individual school and therefore you only need to be a member at the one site. 

In fact, most of the users of these sites are still in school. They tend to not be as popular among adults.  I see an opportunity to capitalize on current sites weeknesses as the 'MySpace Generation' continues to grow.

First of all, as they leave school and gain new friends and acquantences, the need to update several sites continues to expand.  So the new service, in addition to offering them their own blog and portal, will allow them to configure accounts from other networking sites.  Once configured, all posts will be duplicated at those sites (via screen scraping if necessary) and posts from their friends at those sites will appear on their friends page here.  In this way you have a one stop shop.  Use the service and you don't need to visit any of the others.

Secondly, as current users get older their networking needs change.  The service would have a 'family portal' option.  The members of your family can collaborate in new ways.  Share a calendar, keep track of finances, compile grocery lists and honey-do lists.   Have interfaces to family-oriented services such as a family Netflix queue.  Perhaps something like Google Docs & Spreadsheets as well.  Have private and public family photo archives.  Games for the younger kids and personal accounts (with blog, etc) for the older kids, where parents can review the posts.  In other words, a site that is just more useful for the whole family.

Let's call it MyBook or MultiSpace.  Either one sounds great to me.

I recently acquired a set of wireless headphones for use at work, and I want to share what happened when I first set them up to try them out.  I was still at home, and plugged the transmitter into an outlet controlled by a light switch without realizing it.  When I first put the headphones on there was no signal from the transmitter to find.  The new headphones work on the same band as many cordless phones and so I started picking up a phone conversation from one of my neighbors.  He was on a phone sex line, and the language was more than a little crude.  I'll say right now that I don't know which neighbor or which apartment, but it could not have been far away.  Also, as soon as there was power to the transmitter, even if it wasn't transmitting audio, I no longer pick up the offending phone.  It was still kind of shocking, and more than I want to know about any of my neighbors.  The headphones are at work now, and I don't think there are any cordless phones anywhere near here, so hopefully I won't do anymore inadvertent eavesdropping.

I've discovered an important fact!  DVD's and Video games are the perfect Christmas gift.  "Why" you ask?  I'll tell you.  Because they're easy to wrap!

To this point in my career as a parent I have not yet had to pay a babysitter.  We have always had grandparents and friends who are very eager at any chance watch our daughter.  But I was thinking today, what if that weren't the case?  Where would we go for a babysitter?  It occurred to me that our existing daycare would be an ideal resource for that kind of information.  The daycare could hire and vet 'sitters', or even teachers, and provide a good consistent place where a parent can find short-term child care in the evenings.

There are several advantages to this idea.  The child goes to an environment built for the purpose, rather than someone's home that may not be as child-friendly.  It's also a more familiar place for children that already attend there during they day, and may even allow the possibility of a parent not having to pick up the child until after the evening's event.  It allows the daycare to make more use of their facility, thus distributing that overhead among a larger group of people and therefore possibly lowering costs to families.  It also changes the ratio between the number of children and the number of adults needed to watch them, again possibly lowering costs to families.

FoxTrot as we know it is no more.

So I'm at my new job.  One of the changes is that I'm in a cube instead of an office, and therefore can't play music out loud.  There are a number of people here who use headphones, and I will join their ranks as soon as I remember to bring a set in. 

In the meantime I have an iPaq with a very small speaker that I can turn way down.  I mean way down, because my neighbors are all part of the team that does phone follow-up for the billing department.  I discovered that I can improve the experience somewhat by turning the volume up just a tad and placing the speaker against my body, so that it is muffled back to the original, safe level.  Much of the muffled sound travels through the body, and therefore my personal experience of the sound is much improved.

In fact, I think if I could make just a few simple improvements, this experience would be better than regular headphones.  Design a speaker that hangs around your neck and lays against your chest, with a casing designed to mesh well with your clothes so that more of the sound passes through the body, and I think I could turn up the volume just a little more for even better sound and more comfortable wearing.  This will also nullify the effect of headphones that result in not hearing anything else around you.  I understand that for many people that is the whole point of playing music, but not me.  I enjoy music for it's own sake.  It helps me think.  And I want to be able to partipate in an audible way in my environment.

So in summary-- I want a small speaker that hangs around your neck and lays flat against your chest (hmm, may need separate men's and women's models ;) ) that will have some logic built in to automatically keep the external volume at an acceptable level for the workplace while delivering maximum sound to the wearer, without the isolation effect and discomfort of headphones.

Today is General Election Day here in the US.  To celebrate, in addition to voting, I decided to post what I would do if I were to run for President with the support of one of the major parties. 

I would run on a "small government" platform.  When meeting with my campaign manager to plan our strategy, we'd do everything as normal and get our budget all ready.  Then, as soon as we've secured our $75 million in government campaign funds (that is the way it's done here) I would tell my manager to cut everything by 1/3:  1/3 less TV ads, 1/3 fewer bumper stickers and lawn signs printed, etc.  I might keep all of my 'get out the vote' effort and volunteer management, but I'd make up for it elsewhere.  I'd donate $25million of my campaign money that I saved to charity.  The ads I did run would say that I'm committed to running a leaner, more efficient government, and if you don't believe me just look at how I run the campaign. 

I'd have another set of ads that would show my home (currently a 2 bedroom apartment), and then show my opponents home, and his Washington residence, and his summer home, as most national politicians have residences in their home state, Washington DC, and a third vacation residence.  There are very few congress persons who are not what normal Americans would consider 'rich'.  The idea would be to insinuate that my opponent is out of touch with the little guy, and doesn't know how to live on a tight budget.

My message would be that I would veto any bill with excess pork, no matter how innocuous it may seem.  With each veto (and there would be a lot) I would resubmit the bill to congress with the offending pieces removed.  This would be accompanied by publicity explaining exactly what was in the bill that I wanted to veto it, along with naming the congress person who added the pork.  I'd have a very tough first year, as congress would almost certainly fail to pass an acceptable budget, but things would turn around once they realize that I mean business.

This weekend I saw Flags of Our Fathers.  Be warned: though I try to avoid any outright spoilers, if you intend to see this movie you may not want to read farther.  A quick description is that Flags of Our Fathers is to Iwo Jima what Saving Private Ryan is to D-Day.  I found the movie to be very disjointed.  It would jerk between scenes in a way that made it very hard to follow certain elements of the story, but it nevertheless turned out to be a very moving show.  I had to write about it because something very odd happened when the movie ended.  When the credits started rolling, no one in the theater moved.  No one spoke.  We all sat there as it showed still photos taken during the battle (usually removed from the action) next to the credits.  It was a few moments of respect for those who gave their lives for us and, as the movie puts it, for their friends.

This movie is about several things, but it only tells one story.  That is the story of the picture of the 2nd US flag planted at Iwo Jima, and the people in it.  A picture so many have seen and is now ensclupted at the World War II memorial.  It follows the lives, and in several cases, deaths, of the people in the picture during the time just before and the weeks afterward.

The movie is about war, and it's total uglyness.  Make no mistake:  the movie shows you battle, but mostly in short pieces and what you see isn't pretty.

It is about heroes.  It is not about heriosm (doing heroic things).  The characters find themselves paraded around the country for doing actually very little, while they know their friends are suffering.  It is ironic, because the movie goes to great lengths to show the emotional toll this takes and you are not supposed to like the people (the government) that puts them in this situation, but when you think about it there is no better way for them to help their friends than to ensure that the government has the means to supply them with good food, ammunition, and other supplies.  I would define a hero as someone who is willing to stand up for his fellows when no one else will or can.  For that, they are heroes.

It is also about the government, and how it used and manipulated people.  This is the one part of the movie I didn't like.  There is an implication in the movie that several people (the mother, the public) had a right to know certain facts, and the government did great wrong by not revealing them.  I got to thinking- how would things have changed if the truth had been publicized as soon as it was known?  And given the potential change in outcome, would the public really have wanted know, even if it did have the right to the information?  Who gets to decide on this kind of situation?  I mentioned earlier that you aren't really supposed to like the government in this movie.  No one never outright says anything, but the message is clear.  Mistakes were made, if the history shown by the movie is accurate.  No question there.  But I think the implication that a person or group is evil, based on what were ultimately judgement calls is not right either.  People did what they felt they had to do.

In the end, can I recommend this movie or not?  I must again compare it to Saving Private Ryan.  If you thought that movie was worthwhile you will probably feel the same here, for many of the same reason.  If you are considering seeing this movie I would perhaps make one suggestion.  The of this writing is October 30, 2006.  A week from Saturday will be November 11.  This would be an excellent way to spend a Veteran's Day Saturday afternoon.