E-Dribble

I happened across an incredibly entertaining Dell support page designed to help the consumer that can’t decide between Windows and Ubuntu.  Basically, you choose Windows if you have any Windows software and you are to use Ubuntu if you don’t want to use Windows.

Although there’s an incredible number of symptoms of Linux’s lack of popularity, I think it mostly comes down to a single main cause; it’s very hard to take Linux seriously.  Self-appointed spokepersons that wear robes, act like the world’s largest emo and have an incredible God complex, companies that mock more than promote Linux(use this if you don’t want to use Windows???  Really?) and rabid fans that ostracise the whole community in the process of telling the world how great their OS are all things that combine to make one big pot of laughing stock.

To be honest, I don’t have a very good relationship with Linux myself, in part because of the community tasked with promoting it.  I grow tired of the blind allegiance that many harbour and I find it very hard to ignore the actions of people like Richard Stallman.  I just want an operating system that works and while Linux is a pretty great operating system, to act like it doesn’t have any shortcomings is akin to acting like Mr. Stallman is a sane person. Just like any other operating system in the world, it has plenty it can improve upon.

As for Mr. Stallman, if he gets any more emo, then we won’t have to worry about him at all.

From Techdrivein.com:

Top Six Google Chrome Extensions for a Much Secure Browsing Experience

At first, I thought he forgot a word there, but after looking at his suggestions, I’m more inclined to believe that he couldn’t decide between “Much the same Secure Browsing” or “Much false sense that you are Secure Browsing”

Here’s his suggestions for protecting yourself from the villains that reside on the web:

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I’m no longer using linux for my day to day stuff, so I don’t have any tentativeness concerning upgrading whatever linux install is on the computer partition that I’m not using.  In the case of my laptop, it’s Ubuntu.  I had read that they had released the beta of 10 and since I could care less if the install was unusable after the upgrade, I upgraded from 9.

I have used it for a couple hours and no matter how much I explored, I can only find one change between the old and new.  This change, however, will alter the landscape of linux computing.  Years from now, after every distribution, in all OS camps have followed in Ubuntu’s steps, the four of you that read this will remember my heralding of a new era.

So what’s the change?  What incredible insight did Mark Shuttleworth have that is sure to forever change the way we compute? (continue reading…)

I’m speaking, of course, about forms.  I’ve written in the past about my attempts to build a bot proof and spam resistant form.  I use the two terms independently because they are two very different things.  Even if you block bots, you’ve not necessarily stopped the humans that post to test the forms as well as posting actual spam. If you’ve built the form correctly, it’s actually impossible to completely block spam.  A human posting spam is indistinguishable from a human using your form for legitimate purposes.  Well, aside from the fact that they’re stupid.  And evil.

I digress.  Let’s get to the form bits.  In my past posts, I’ve spoken about broad concepts that have worked for me.  This time, I’m going to provide the actual code I’m using.    With my latest change of checking for a valid MX record, I’ve completely stopped spam on the form that I’m using this on for over a month.

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In the case of Firefox, it seems to be a case of diminishing returns.

Let me just say before starting this that I love Firefox.  The ridiculously large number of addons are the biggest draw for me with standards compliance coming in at a close second.  Recently though, the ballooning of the browser has been getting in the way of my productivity.  It’s become fucking slow, for one.  The browser is beginning to take as long to start as the operating system itself.  Secondly, I’ve started having problems with flash inside the browser.  Other browsers are using the same flash plugin without issue, so I have to assume that it’s Firefox botching the implementation of it.

As often happens with me, I began grazing upon browsers in search of greener pastures.  Almost always, this ends up with me back at the application I started with, but this time may be different.

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Thanks to the guys at the linux forum(note: I wouldn’t consider visiting linuxforums.org without adblock and noscript), I bring you the latest dipshit patent maneuver by Microft: Microsoft patents sudo.

I won’t bother regurgitating any of the links to prior art.  You can find hundreds of them over at the Groklaw site.  I just wanted to post for the people who don’t understand why it’s becoming increasingly hard to take Microsoft seriously as a software “developer”.

They came into existence riding on the coattails of other people’s work.  Over the years, you would have thought they could have hired enough competent developers to come up with something of their own to stand on.  It seems though that they are still trying their damnedest to keep and gain users by simply absorbing intellectual property they can buy and shutting down those they can’t through lawsuits.

I guess we’re supposed to be surprised.

The house parties have fizzled out and the paid advertisements in the form of reviews has come and gone. That’s right, Windows 7 has been released.  So what does everyone think? Well, if you’re looking for a calm and unbiased response, don’t ask these guys.

A growing number of people are getting locked into an endless reboot loop during upgrade, destroying their Vista installs and leaving them with no OS.

Woops.

Microsoft must be working day and night to try to resolve this issue, right? From TFA:

According to Microsoft’s head of support, however, the endless reboot problem isn’t on the company’s top list of concerns. “It’s very early in the process,” said Ben Bennett, the director of Microsoft’s Windows consumer global support group, in an interview Monday afternoon. “In terms of the top issues of customers who choose to upgrade, the XP-to-Windows 7 [upgrade] is up there on the list for lots of reasons. The netbook upgrade scenario — how do I upgrade my netbook to Windows 7 — is also a big one. And another is, ‘Where are my applications?’ after people have upgraded. They wonder what happened to e-mail and photo editing, for example. Those are the top issues so far.”

So, they’re more concerned with those upgrading from XP to 7.  Well, that makes sense.  I’m sure that was their plan all along.

At least I got to keep the paper hats and confetti.

The Gartner Symposium, a large gathering of people stating the obvious for other people that need to hear in a location other than the office water cooler must be hurting for numbers.  How bad are they hurting?  Well, they’re advertising that they’re giving a free copy of Windows 7 to all people that come to the conference.

The cost of attending the conference? $3,695.00.

So we’re clear, Gartner, the entity that wants you to look to them for cutting edge trends and intelligent discussion concerning all things technological, hopes that you believe that if you pay almost four thousand dollars to attend their conference, the copy of Windows 7 you receive will be free.

In fairness, if there’s anyone that will believe they’re receiving a free copy of Windows 7, it’s the very type of person that would pay four thousand dollars to listen to these blowhards.

I settled on Ubuntu for my first attempt at linux on the new machine.  To end the suspense, I’ll just say that everything is working as it should and MY GOD, THIS COMPUTER IS FAST!

After getting everything installed, set up and tested, I moved over all the important stuff in my home directory and replaced the old work machine.  Then I got to reflect upon the install.  I can say that I still would never think of handing a linux disk to a Windows user and telling them to try it as their OS.  At the same time, I’m astounded at how far linux has come in regards to the desktop.  Here’s the highs and lows:

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Yesterday, I pulled the plug on my open source script effort.  I had provided php scripts free of charge for more than four years.  For years I helped people that didn’t know how to find their server path, ending all my posts with a smiley.  In exchange for the hundreds of hours of development coupled with the hours of troubleshooting and install assistance, I merely exposed the visitors to a donation button on the left side of the page.  I figured that with the number of people downloading the script, I would surely have a few people that felt compelled to thank me via the most common method, that being bucks.  Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

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