Google? Froogle? Scroogle?

If you haven't already, read Scroogled, by Cory Doctorow. It's a short story about what would happen if Google got hold of all his data. it makes you think. It's a free PDF to download, but make sure you don't get the Spanish version.

Of Habits and Googles

Just thinking about Google and their phone making, i looked closely and saw this:


Google tried htc but Sense prevailed. They tried Samsung but when the touch was so Wiz they gave up and bought Motorola. Now they will be the Android people and that weird moto interface will be no more. or Google will try LG. Google will own the Hardware and software.

But for companies they have the habit problem:

Take off the h and a bit remains. take off the a and bit remains. Take off the b and it remains." The quote from some old English teacher.

Dependant on Dependancies? "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"

I think I have just found the best Package Management system ever. Probably. Definitely. And, as far as I'm concerned, even though I would rather get rid of the Packagement problems and have some sort of Mac-style App system, but with a Libs folder for all external libraries to go to, this is as good as package managers get. It's even got an awesome name.

...The world's best package manager ever, is.....

Pacman!!! from Arch Linux. I've been installing Arch (and am using it at the moment to write this post) and it's so simple to use

Like normal commands, options can be strung together, rather than Apt-get's way of making you either update, upgrade OR install, but not update and then install a new package.

To update the mirror list and upgrade to the latest packages, you simply run (as root) pacman -Syu

To install package foo, simply type pacman -S foo

It can also install package groups, so for example instead of having to install each dependency of gnome like sudo apt-get install gnome-system-monitor empathy empathy empathy-dbg... you just type pacman -S gnome and it asks you for the packages you want install (it displays a list)

Gary the Snail

Windows users are like snails. And so is Windows to be fair. It takes ages to do anything, and puts in features what happened ages ago, but the most snail-like thing I have found is this:

Back in the early 2000s and before that, we had the browser wars with Netscape Navigator, and Internet Explorer (4,5,6) and a few others. But, then it all ended and we now have FF and Chrome, and other stuff. But Windows users, with the release of Windows 7 have discovered the browser wars, and are fighting Chrome against IE.

That was so last decade, lads! keep up!

So, in 20 years time, when windows is Dead, it will be Linux vs MAC OSX, at the rate everything is moving in the proprietary world.

Hair, sorry, hare and tortoise, except the hare wins

Dyslexic, Illiterate, and utterly useless

Have u ever read the laptops for sale in the paper?
You get stuff like:
Dell 1.8 photoshop 2GB dual windows 15" silver
£99.99

I'm like oh dear at least put the right specs together!!!!!!!!!! a 1.8 photoshop? Dual windows? WTF? Get someone who knows what their putting in the ad to write it
Come on. Dual core 1.8Ghz Celeron, Windows Vista or something and 2GB RAM, 15" display. Ya Know. It makes my life hard, but at least they sell it for a ridiculously low price :)

"Package Managers...Why"

Right, a quote form Mike Saunders about package managers, and it applies to most of the Linux desktop in general. The problem, is the ongoing choice vs cohesion battle. We want competition for apps, and choice is always good; it means we end up with better quality software (well, sometimes, *ahem LIBREOFFICE-SLOW-STARTUP-TIMES*) and if not, we can change to another program. But, it ends up rather silly with Linux, because even though most of us accept multiple web browsers, email clients, word processors, even calculators and text editors, there has to be a line.

Sometimes this line is over-stepped, and we have multiple desktop environments, and shells within these environment (looking at you, Unity). This has got to the point where there is too much choice, and even distros which use the same package format use different package managers. Now, standardizing on these would be impossible (especially as the LSB have picked the wrong package format for a standard) so I propose a solution.

Have all the desktops, window managers, text editors, shells, compositors you want, but for packages have some single unified program to install them, so maybe the Ubuntu Software Center, or PackageKit, but it uses either Deb or RPM underneath. (Actually, maybe discount Ubuntu as it seems to be trying to become an open source Apple). Then, make a standard toolkit and theme format for dekstops (CSS and either QT or GTK). Now, all you need to do is to make an official Linux 2011, Linux 2012, where all the distros pool their resources into to create some super-uber desktop OS. All the normal Fedoras, *buntus, Debians, Gentoos and Crunchbangs happen underneath, but for newbies there is a proper 'official' standard to go to.

Have Gnome-shell, KWin with KDE4, Unity and Compiz, but make something that has a simple mode, an Advanced mode and can be used by anyone from Windows, through to OSX, through to Solaris or even FreeBSD

GIVE US SOMETHING TO INSTALL ON OUR PARENTS' LAPTOP AND THEY CAN USE STRAIGHT AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then Linux might be taken more seriously by manufacturers. And, give the user a default, but let them change it, let them choose Thunderbird or Postler over Evolution if they want, but make sure there is a default.

This little piggy went to the Market (and this piggy said "There's an app for that!")

Just been thinking about the Android Market and the App Store, and how they differ. I mean that the App Store only allows apps within very specific criteria, but the Market allows more variety of apps. However most people use the App Store because it's more recognized and because of the games on it. But there are bonuses for the market; the fact it allows more free apps and open source apps.

Also, as users of Cydia have found out, the iPhone uses Apt and the .deb packaging system for it's files. This is what major Linux distributions use and there might be a way of getting it to run on Android, therefore gaining access to the App Store... Provided you have an iTunes account. Or just dual-boot Android and iOS on an iPod or iPad.

Actually that's a good idea. A nice looking tablet in 4:3 format with App Store games and Android awesomeness.

"640k is enough for anybody" - Standards in web browsing and desktops

In years gone by the only way to get a stable browsing experience was to use Internet Explorer 4 on Windows an OS not even built for networking. Nowadays we have Firefox, Chrome and some element of cross-platform integration. But, there are still times when things don't work properly. Web Folders, or instance. Linux has support for WebDAV, but yet no amount or Naulitus, Firefox, or Command Line trickery can get a proper connection with my networked Web Folder from school. Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid. I have to use IE, or go on the HTML read-only view. Even a Mac can access some Web Folders, to some extent. Googel made a colution by imitating IE in Chrome (with an extension), but they don't actually imitate IE. It needs the browser installed, so it can run a n instance of it inside Chrome. And they then go and say the extension works with Linux.Er, no????

Another example is desktop ideas. Gnome now has 4 interfaces for its next version: Gnome Shell, Classic Gnome desktop, Unity 3D, and Unity 2D. It was bad enough with different desktops (Gnome, KDE, XFCE, ICceWM, etc) but now different shells within desktops? Utter madness. I say find something that the public can use and suits their ways of working, and if you don't like the desktop developers, customise it. People will change their desktop, but like something to work on. I had a single bottom panel, changed to a bottom panel with the dock on it, got rid of the panel, had 2 docks, and now have a top panel with Global menus, App Switcher (icons) and Window buttons. Madness. I don't mind different desktops and web browsers, that is what choice is for, but please, please, please, please PLEASE can we have some standards to join them together. :)

Notarant

Contrary to popular wishes, this is not another rant for our blog, but a status update. We are now broadening our site and have made a new domain where we will provide more, including a monthly podcast. The team has expanded, and now includes Cameron and Elliott, and drops Raf (for the main site anyway. Raf, you are still free to work on the blog)

LOADING BARS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate loading bars they don't always show the right info. and they annoy me for no good reason!!!