I apologize for the lack of blogging lately. I've been spending most of my time designing MySQL databases to pay the bills. I'll elaborate futher in the near future.

Until then, I couldn't allow this headline to go by without commenting, since I've been actively promoting it for so long.

Yesterday marked the final release date of GNOME 2.10, a great improvement over GNOME 2.8. I've been using the test releases from 2.9 for the past month.

Public opinion over at GnomeDesktop.org is mixed. Much like the spatial browsing, debate, love it or hate it. I find that spatial browsing makes more sense once you grow accustomed to it and allows for a much simpler interface. It can, however, become an encumberace with very deeply nested directories if you don't use it all the time.

The addition of the "Places" menu eliminates the need for mutiple click spatial browsing for most of your filesystem and cleans the desktop of cluttered shortcuts everywhere.

Totem, the new gtreamer media/dvd player ships officially now, so it often takes only a few clicks to get media files playing, and the HIG allows for previews in Nautilus.

This is an old point, but when combined with the work done over at Freedesktop.org the somewhat hard to define "Project Utopia" looks really solid.

Combined with support for Cairo, it looks like GNOME and GTK+ are really growing up.

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As a newly converted Debian/Ubuntu user, I've just now realized the glory that is APT. Using Synaptic, I've just upgraded to the latest Ubuntu release, known as Hoary Hedgehog.

Most notably included in Hoary is the latest development snapshot of Gnome 2.9, the beta preview of upcoming Gnome 2.10. I'm enjoying many of the new feature, including the new menu arrangements, new applets, seamlessly integrated Samba browsing, Gnome BitTorrent support, and the newest in the line of OpenOffice releases. It's all pretty impressive.

Ubuntu handles updates through a front-end to Synaptic called Update Manager, which makes it a front-end to a front-end to a front-end. (UM -> Synaptic -> apt-get) I'll have some more screenshots later, but for now, let's just say that I'm very pleased with the direction of this distro, even though it's not as "Have it your way." as Gentoo.

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Someone from Slashdot has been reading The Casimir Effect, if I had to judge from some of their latest headlines. (And the ensuing debate)

My expertise is somewhat limited to the technological and the scientific. I know that in the past Microsoft has exercised some severely anti competitive practices. These concern mainly Digital Research and OS/2, but Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/The-browser-that-won't-die is relevant. But some monopolistic firms also gave us the languages that we all know and love today. This is also why Dennis Ritchie can elicit the same response from me as a Grammy winner.

I'm not suggesting that C# isn't a powerful or useful language. Use of C# and related technologies may be the answer to the Java question. My question is this: anyone familiar with the now infamous "Halloween Documents" will recognize that this strategy smacks of a "decommoditization" of protocol. This removal/extension of "commodity protocols" is a strategy to deal with the "Linux problem" out of Microsoft's own internal documents. Can Microsoft, or any company without a strong record of community cooperation and contribution be trusted to provide the means for new software development? This is the same reason that I'm wary of Java, although it remains my language of choice. Sun has an excellent track record of developing software for cooperation. If Microsoft had that kind of a reputation, then of course I'd jump right on the C# bandwagon. As it stands, I'm still on the sidelines with Python and Ruby.

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I've reported on Storage and Sutra in the past. Now, Nat Friedman has posted some rather impressive flash demonstrations of Beagle, the bleeding edge search tool that utilizes D-BUS to communicate with supporting applications and the file system with ease.

Beagle itself is impressive and the tools that use the APIs are very usable. In one demo, Nat writes a command line program for searching using the Beagle API in just under two minutes. It's incredibly simple and powerful. You can take a look for yourself here.

Here's the thing, all of these applications are written using C#. That's right, with Mono and GTK#, these programs compile and run as if they were native on Linux and Gnome. This is nice, because C# is a very flexible and powerful language that runs quickly and cleanly. It even allows for run-time restrictions on variables, so if you know a variable will be used as a divisor, you can catch values of zero before it ever triggers a run-time exception.

All this is great, and while this technology has great potential, I have only a few questions or two. First of all, C# is a Microsoft language, and it ties in closely with much of the .NET framework. Now Mono is a great tool, but I have trouble believing that Microsoft is going to allow their language to drive this kind of Linux rapid application development. I know that we all have Microsoft to thank for XML, which is commonly used on Linux machines for everything from documents to configuration to interface design. I'm also aware that Microsoft has their own Open Source license that they unveiled at the previous Linux World Expo, and a few projects have already been released under it.

Does this mean that Microsoft plans to play nice with the Open Source Community and provide everyone with the tools to develop some robust cross-platform applications? Of course I'm skeptical, given their past actions. A patented framework in combination with a language that no coder with a pulse can resist seems like just the magic bullet MS has been looking for to sue the Open Source community into oblivion. A well-timed patent suit on a major application could bring Linux desktop development to a crawl.

Ximian says that things will be okay, regardless of whether Microsoft feels like breaking .NET/Linux compatibility. I'm not saying that we shouldn't embrace and extend, but let's go through the legal info with the finest tooth comb possible to make sure that we don't all code a bunch of patent encumbered apps.

Microsoft could solve all these problems by making a real show of good faith like Apple did or in the same way IBM is doing.

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Okay. I know. Enough about the glories of Gnome.

But their new release cycle looks like it's finally paying off. It forces regular innovations while keeping the desktop stable and predictable. It was a great idea and I'd like to see the model move to other projects.

March 9'th, we can all expect the 2.10 release of Gnome to come flying from the gates with new features and some old stuff reworked. Until then, some of the ever vigilant Gnome beta testers have given us a preview of some of the new features, based on the latest 2.9 snapshot.

Here's the story.

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The Gnome guys are at it again, as Eric Raymond said, "A good programmer knows what to write, a great programmer knows what to rewrite (and reuse)."

Gnome hacker Seth Nickell (of Storage fame) announced on his blog that the new version of gnome-blog is ready for download. It sits in your panel and allows for quick and dirty blogging with minimal clicks. You can drag and drop images for insertion, and edited text is WYSIWYG.

Also, Mikael Hallendal has developed a clone of the Mac meta-launcher Quicksilver. It's a tool for both launching applications and organizing documents. I have yet to review this application, but it looks slick and I can't wait to try it out. I think the Mac guys hold the corner on usability and economy of user interface and I'd love to see Linux and Gnome take a lesson from Mac in that respect. For more info, check out the project's home page: it's called GNOME Launch Box.

This blog entry was written and posted over a VNC session.

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I never though I'd be saying it, but I've found a distro that can finally replace Fedora/Red Hat on my laptop in terms of simplicity and ease of use.

Everyone knows by now that I have a pretty strict law of laptop stability while taking my desktop off the bleeding edge of a cliff. Consequently, I'd been keeping my laptop on the trailing edge of the Fedora support cycle. But after moving to three, my Nvidia drivers were buggy, my wireless card was intermittent, Fluxbox was responding as quickly as KDE, and all the features of Gnome 2.8 were lost on the beefiness of the install.

I toyed with the idea of Debian, since its reputation is one of a two-headed tortise as far as upgrading and release cycles. I had also heard that their installer was somewhat maddening. After tossing around Mepis, Kanotix, and other Debian cheats, I found myself with an Ubuntu disc.

First of all, one disc! Aside from Gentoo, Knoppix, and Damn Small Linux, I can't think of a single complete distro that comes on one CD anymore. In fact, most full distros are up to DVD size media for install. My laptop's small hard drive was very appreciative.

So after backing up all my data, I took the leap and reformatted my hard drive. After ten minutes I was booting into Ubuntu with a working wireless card. I used the wireless card to download all the new software with a few clicks. The procedure was quick and painless, I almost forgot that I was using Debian.

Once I was inside and finished upgrading, I decided to put it to the test. My digital camera worked on the first try and importing my photos was only a one-click procedure. Project Utopia must be mainstream now, because from the time I plugged in my USB hard drive until the time that I was dragging files back and forth was a grand total of five seconds. That's right, five. Beat that, Windows. In fact, I believe that rivals Mac as far as usability goes.

The only hang-up I had was with Gstreamer, but it's catching up fast and it's a really solid design. Most of my trouble was due to meddling with patent encumbered codecs. I'll be ripping all my music with Ogg Vorbis now.

Overall, it's rare that a Linux distribution satisfies the hardcore Unix geeks and the UI fanatics. This one does it, simple and powerful, Ubuntu is my one-size-fits-all Linux distro of choice. Try it. Screenshots are on the way.

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In an effort to compete with NetBSD in the runs-on-everything category, some guys have already come out with a Linux distributiondesigned to run on the Nintendo DS. There are some really talented DS hackers out there, and the project looks like it's taking off.

In other unrelated news, I've had a little spare time, and I open-sourced my old MUD project from High School, and it's been approved by Sourceforge. It's called CISTOMS and it lives here. If you're one of the few LPC or MudOS driver hackers left in the world, shoot me an email and you can help me out!

By the way, I apologize for the recent post scarcity (clever pun, ha) and a big thanks to the readers who waited around for new stuff. An extra thanks to Action Stance, Sarah, Dave, and all the others who left feedback about the new design.

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Here I thought I'd be the only one still playing Doom 3 after Half-Life's release.

But no, of course not. Those sly foxes at Transgaming developed support for Half-Life 2 without telling me. Now I'm free to spend more money on this game.

I'll be sure to review this masterpiece in a Linux envrionment as soon as I get the chance.

By the way, I haven't vanished. I'm cooking up something that actually takes real research, so hang on and don't go anywhere.

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I'm bringing my somewhat political bent to a close this week, with a return to some more tech-centric reporting. I'll start with two new pieces of Gnome development that I've been waiting for since I've been using computers.

I was investigating some applet-style blogging software that integrates with Gnome when I discovered Storage and the Sutra system. This is similar in design to the scrapped WinFS/OFS except the metadata is handled outside the realm of the filesystem, in an isolated layer of code. WinFS/OFS was part of Cairo and was slated to make its first appearance in Windows 2000, and then was pushed back to become a part of Longhorn and whatever the next Windows release will be. They've since pushed the project back further, and it's debatable whether or not we'll see this in 2006 with the next Windows.

In any case, what does this technology mean? Well, combining a metadata database with the filesystem with a natural language parser means that you can do effective contextual filesystem searching quickly and easily without much extra effort. For me this means something like typing in "open the blog entry that I started last night before I played Doom" or "play all the Maroon 5 songs on my computer" or "show me the bloggerfest pictures from my first memory card" or "open all emails related to the last SLUG thread" or something else along those lines.

For those of you who aren't impressed as it is, may be more impressed that this technology could be ready for the next round of Gnome development. We could see this on the Gnome desktop in six months to a year. FootNotes is reporting today that the development branch is active again. So around the time I'm having my next birthday we should be seeing Gnome 2.10 out for the public. This is one of the nice things about Gnome, one can generally count on a release every six months regardless of chaos in the so-called real world, presidential elections and the like. With regular slushy and hard freezes, it's amusing to follow the roadmaps to each new Gnome release.

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Newsforge has a lighthearted article today about what your Linux distribution has to say about you. What does my distro say about me?

If John Wayne had been a Linux user, he would have used Gentoo. Gentoo users are pioneers, people who like to live close to the metal, and don't mind hurting themselves on sharp objects. Some feel that Gentoo users are simply lazy louts who always want to have a ready excuse for why they are not doing constructive things with their computer, other than compiling or recompiling the latest kernel, app, or hapless passerby. The official Gentoo motto is, "If it moves, compile it."

Yes. I realize that this is particularly funny considering this article.

Early voting is great, by the way. While everyone else scrambles to get to their polling place, I get to sit back and watch the action unfold. If you're a canvasser, come to my house, I'm handing out morale boosts.

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Last Wednesday, I was the guest presenter again at the USF MIS Society's meeting. I was covering the basics of Linux system administration and what to expect from your first encounter with Linux. They billed me as a Linux guru.

I was introduced to Linux incrementally, installing it first on a test server and development machine, playing around to get the swing of it, and then upgrading to my laptop, and finally moving to an entirely Linux computer with my desktop.

This is a good way to get started using Linux, especially if you have a spare computer lying around. If not, it could be a bit harder. What I usually ask people who ask me how to go about setting up their first Linux system is what they actually use their computer for. The majority of people that I talk to will answer, "Well, I play a few games, I watch the occasional movie, I communicate, browse the Internet, do a little shopping, and other than that it's basically just a productivity tool."

With the exception of high-end multimedia, digital remastering, and desktop publishing, most applications have an open source alternative that will get the job done rather quickly and relatively easily.

If you're interested in moving to Linux on your desktop, first make a list of the items you use on your computer that you use regularly or couldn't live without. For me, these items were as follows:

• A C compiler
• A Java compiler
• A DVD Player
• A ripper and MP3/OGG/FLAC player
• Collaboration Groupware
• A good HTML/CSS editor
• A good Integrated Development Environment
• Some desktop eye-candy, so I can work without getting bored
• An AIM clone
• At least two major games, to kill time

You tend to find more as you get started, and as you find out more about the available open source software, you'll find uses for your computer you never realized before. At times I configure my desktop to run exclusively as a scratching/spinning/mixing station with digital music. I've even considered attaching part of an old mouse to a turntable and making a USB turntable to do some digital mixing.

In any case, start with something easy, like Knoppix or Morphix, that you can play around with without sacrificing your hard drive. From there, Mepis, Xandros, or Linspire are good options to get your feet wet. If you're really in the mood to jump in, try a Red Hat based distribution; Fedora Core or Tao Linux are good options. And if you've already used something along those lines for a while, take a deep breath and move to something even more involved, like LFS, Gentoo, or Slackware. I recommend Gentoo.

For those interested, I'm putting the slides up here

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