Robin's Hood

I have belatedly installed the upgrade to the first release of Ubuntu NBR on my Dell Mini 10V and it is a major hit. It is more attractive, a bit like the way a Mac is more attractive than a PC. It installed the new Google Chrome beta with a single click of the .deb file just like Windows does with an .msi file (I am writing this in Chrome on my 10V). It is faster to connect the wifi. I can browse my NAS through the file explorer. It has a super high WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). I cannot find fault with it. It is as competent as Windows in every department with all the advantages of Linux, reliability, speed, compactness, cost.

"Road rage" occurs in part because you are surrounded by a metal cage and separated from the drivers around you by glass. The feeling of invulnerability I get from a car sometimes makes me behave in a way which I would never normally do. I wondered if the same psychology applied when using social software?

The open source community are sometimes their own worse enemy.

We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.

Ubuntu NBR seems like a very serviceable netbook OS which you can have right now. No need to wait for Android. No need to wait for Windows 7. Go ahead and jump in, the water's lovely.

Being a netbook addict I thought it was high time I tried Linux (again) on my latest arrival. I have seven netbooks scattered around the house and office which I use for my business and for my tech education. I have had Asus Eee PC's, a Samsung NC10, an MSI Wind, and two Dell Mini 9's. The Dell's shipped with Ubuntu 8.04 and the Asus' came with Xandros. I had a tough time accepting either OS so I ended up changing to Windows XP.

The latest addition to my stack of netbooks is the Dell Mini 10v. This arrived with Ubuntu 8.04 which I upgraded with the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (NBR) so I could play with it for a bit. I intended to install Windows XP just like all the others but I have had my mind changed. Here are my experiences.

First the Dell Mini 10v:

• It has a wonderful keyboard, bigger and more usable than all the others.
• The half-height SD Card slot means that you cannot easily extend the meagre 8gb SSD without an a card sticking out the side (I am sure the marketing team at Dell triumphed over the engineers on this one).
• The ultra bright screen is the best I have seen, but the reflecting glass can be annoying. I prefer a mat finish eventhough I know this makes me a bit uncool.

Now the Ubuntu NBR:

• I effortlessly installed it from a 1GB thumb drive.
• All devices were detected, sound, video, microphone, wifi without the need for additional downloaded drivers.
• The default sound volume was a little bit quiet but I rectified this by upping one of the sound channels.
• When I used the wifi for the first time it wanted to join the default keyring with a password which I had to enter every time I came out of standby, I soon got rid of that. This might be a bit beyond your average user.
  
• WAF: excellent, she opens it, the wifi connects, she uses Firefox to find what she wants, she closes it and puts it down again.
• I haven't tried printing yet but that problem is bound to come up at some point.
• NBR does not come with Skype and the Synaptic package manager does not show it.
• I had difficulty coming to grips with Synaptic package manager but the convenient Ubuntu 'Add/Remove' was a bit more friendly.
• I accidentally installed the swfdec Gnome Flash player instead of the Adobe one which caused problems on Youtube. I had to rectify that.

All in all NBR is proving to be a great experience and until I find something better I am sticking to it. Dell had already tested NBR before they launched the 10v (check out Doug Anson's video here) so they must have been hedging their bets. The shipped Ubuntu 8.04 which is starting to look a bit long in the tooth. A year is a long time in tech. The fixes in 9.04 make a much more polished experience than its predecessors. The anti-aliasing and improved wifi are the features which tip me over the edge. Come back in three month's time to see if I am still using it.

Android will supplant Windows. It will become the preeminent OS for phones, netbooks, laptops and desktops.

Google is full of very smart people. They have created a browser and bought an OS company in Android. If they had wanted to take over the desktop then they would have bought Microsoft wouldn't they? So why didn't they? Perhaps they didn't have enough cash. Or perhaps they decided that the future of Operating Systems is not like the current model of Windows, OSX and Linux.

Let me explain why.

Windows 7 will be as small and compact and efficient as Windows Xp so it can run on Atom chip netbooks, the fastest growing segment of the PC industry. Microsoft took a step 'back' because the market has spoken. During the development of Vista the market was going in the opposite direction. Faster chips and Moore's law. Until somebody woke up one morning and said, "I just don't need all this power to run Firefox".

A Dell Mini 9 is completely silent. It has more in common with a mobile phone than a desktop computer.

• The Atom chip does not consumes a lot of power (no more than 2.5Watts)
• it will compete with the ARM chip when Intel start fabricating 32nm.
  

When Asus start making an Android netbook with an Atom chip and 12 hours battery life and the tools to do your job and no license to pay to Microsoft for Windows 7 then you will have something genuinely new. But why stop there. Who said you need more than a browser and a basic office suite to do your job on a desktop?

Android is community lead, with the backing of one of the world's most cash rich companies. This combination will ensure that Android is reliable and easy to use. Google ensures that it will get continual financial support. Who do you think paid for Firefox after all?

If you don't believe me then all you have to do is this. Close your eyes. Remember for a second that Linux powers most of the world's routers. Linux powers most of the world's web sites. KDE and Gnome try and almost succeed to compete with Windows, arguably the world's most ubiquitous piece of software. The battle for the desktop is only a battle in the eyes of Microsoft and Apple. Most people don't care. If Android comes along and does the job for 100 USD less then people will go for it. Firefox will soon become the world's most popular browser if you split IE6 and IE7 apart. Google funded Mozilla for the most part. Google have a track record of staying the distance and they are backing Android. Now open your eyes. See what I mean?

Well I am into my fifth year of blogging kinda. I do all sorts of other things too in the social software space but blogging has been with me since the beginning.

Yes, this is my fifth year of blogging. Wil Wheaton has been blogging for over 9 years. Leo Laporte is in his 8th year. My first blog posting was back in 2005 which puts me into my 5th year (if you include 2005 itself). It is nothing to be proud of particularly but I thought I would mention it anyway :-)

Dubai is emblematic of the risk taking speculation which characterises the philosophy at the heart of the global financial collapse. They may have had very little directly to do with the problems, yet they embody everything on which the crisis was created. Hedonists. Inefficient living. Profligate consumption. Property speculation with no day job.

The higher they climb, the farther they fall. The problem is that they are falling back into the British benefit system, schools, hospitals, police protection, all the things we pay for and all the things they didn't.

I have just read in The London Times that up to twenty cars per day are being abandoned at Dubai's airport by fleeing ex-pats. It is illegal to bounce a cheque punishable by prison under Sharia law and these ex-pats are understandably nervous. Nervous enough to abandon their vehicles at the airport in some sort of guilt trip payback to the Government.

Dubai has no oil. Abu Dhabi does. It has bailed out Dubai's failing banks into a 'state-owned entity'. This act was designed to restore confidence in a failing system. Dubai is in trouble and its wealthy immigrants are leaving it like rats deserting a sinking ship.

Is this Black Monday? Does the collapse of the British banking sector start here? What else is going to happen today?

I grabbed this screen image from Google Finance this afternoon of the top 5 losing stocks today. I was appalled to to see four British banks in this list. Even by the standards of the crazy credit crunch these figures show that today is a dark, dark day.

I am not too worried by this though perhaps I should be. I don't have a lot of cash or stocks so my theory is that I will not suffer too much. However I was planning on having some money at some point in the future so I am taking an interest.

After the 'New Win' in the 'Federal Sector' things went downhill at MPC.....

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The time is now right for corporations to start using Google Apps. Cut costs and simplify your IT all at the same time.

I read last month that 1.5 Million Australian students are dumping Outlook/Exchange for Gmail. I also saw this week that the venerable British newspaper the Telegraph is swapping Microsoft for Google for its 1400 users. Is this a tipping point? It is a tough business climate out there. As well as server-virtualisation and server-reduction, maybe now is the time for application-virtualisation and application-reduction. Is Microsoft's monopoly coming to an end? I only use 10% of the functionality in Microsoft Office so Google Apps suits me fine. I use it on my corporate website yellowconsulting.co.uk and because I am a knowledge worker, using my knowledge is how I make money. So if I am worrying about whether my infrastructure is up to the job then I am not making money.

Microsoft Office is successful due to its heroin selling model. Low barrier to entry, but once you start using it, it is difficult to stop. It is hard enough for me to persuade my wife to use something else (which I have now done) so I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a company like the Telegraph to do so.

I salute the Australian education board and the Telegraph for their brave move. There will be a lot of corporates watching closely to see how the move goes. I have been a user of Gmail and GCalendar since the first day they came out. I have not been dissappointed and I am sure you will not be either.

I have recently been a victim of identity fraud. Someone has successfully applied for credit in my name at UK retailer Littlewoods. The first I knew about it was when some Wii peripherals arrived at my house. I phoned them and it turned out that two weeks previously I had set up a 1000 GBP line of credit with them and this was my first delivery. I cancelled the account.

The bad: they gave an account to someone who applied through the Internet and shipped the goods without me signing any kind of credit agreement with them.

The good: their fraud department dealt with the issue very professionally and signed me up with CIFAS (see below) who will protect me from now on from this sort of thing.

I have signed up with Experian to make sure they haven't applied for any other credit in my name but if you are a fraudster reading this, or even the actual fraudster who did this, please do yourself a favour and use your considerable resourcefulness to get a legitimate job which will benefit the UK economy and might make you feel better about yourself.

Welcome to CIFAS Online - CIFAS Online: "CIFAS is the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service with 270 Members spread across banking, credit cards, asset finance, retail credit, mail order, insurance, savings and investments, telecommunications, factoring, and share dealing."

I attended a teleconference today with John Powell, John Newton and Denis Dorval. This was hosted at BigCo by Matthew Langham who runs the Open Source Community of Interest there. John Powell gave an excellent presentation covering Open Source : Myth & Reality, the Business Side of Open Source, and Outlook for the future. It was very interesting but things really got going during the Q&A. The two John's are really big hitters from the world of document and content management and their acumen really came through. I asked some questions about how BigCo might trust open source companies like Alfresco to still be around in 5 year's time and they gave excellent answers. We discussed vTiger and Interbase (remember them?). Rick Pittard asked some great questions as usual.

I have been a big fan of Matt Assay for some time. He is a regular guest on Open Season which is one of the excellent podcasts produced by Radio Reg (register.co.uk). Unfortunately he was not present today. Alfresco must really be interested in establishing a relationship with BigCo. On today's performance they stand a very good chance. Impressed!

Alfresco People - Open Source Content & Document Management Industry: "Alfresco People"

I met with Ross Mayfield last night at the All-Bar-One near Tower Bridge on the South Bank of the river Thames last night. I was invited along by my friends at Headshift and I was struck by what a good combination Headshift and Socialtext make. I'm sure Lee Bryant would disagree with my assessment but I have thought for a long time that Headshift are a bit too locked into Atlassian Confluence and that greater ties with other software vendors would be good for them. When I was at PA Consulting we prided ourself on our independence and went to great lengths to remain technology neutral, courting and rejecting the advances of vendors in equal measure.

I also met for the first time fellow PA alumni Lars Plougmann who, even though he is Danish, knows the word 'blunderbuss'. Respeck.

From now on please take notice that I shall be changing my name by deed poll to Justin Credible.

Worst bad name announced - Web User News: "In an internet contest to find the worst bad name run by the New York Times, Miss Knipl came out on top of a list that included Chastity Beltz, Wrigley Fields and Justin Credible."

I have been working with Amazon EC2 for two years now managing development projects which have been deployed there. I have had a wonderful experience and I won't go back to the old way of doing it unless someone holds a gun to my head. I was excited to see Google enter the space but closer inspection of there service shows some constraints which might make it less useful to me.

How Google's App Engine stacks up with Amazon's EC2 | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com: "Dion Hinchcliffe at ZDNet compares Amazon's approach to providing infrastructure services to Google's. He found that Amazon's set of services is more flexible but not as integrated as Google's App Engine."

"Never ceases to amaze me how much this country suffers when it is been snowing. We had just a few centimeters of snow yesterday and it was big fun for me and the family it brought the infrastructure to it's knee. My wife was flying to Spain and she was delayed by 8 hrs because of a few flakes of snow."

spoken through SpinVox

My son has been watching Tron a lot recently (or 'Tong' as he calls it) and this is his favourite scene. Perfect Youtube relaxation but you can't help feeling these guys have just too much time on their hands :-)

Tron's Classic Light Cycle Scene 'Sweded' | The Underwire from Wired.com: "Here, French filmmaker Freres-Hueon tackles the light cycle sequence in Tron, the '82 sci-fi cult classic that follows the adventures of a computer programmer who gets digitized by a laser."