Running tests on Windows.

Hi all

I need a free tool for testing a GUI application. Something in lines with Mercury's WinRunner.
Does anyone knows something like that?

Thanks

Cellular Video Calls: reality that never happened?

Hi all

I recently started working for Comverse - the company supplies solutions for telephony providers, mainly cellular ones. Our product lies in the core of the operator's network and manages all or some of the services provided by the operator, such as Voice Mail, SMS, MMS, Video Calls, etc. Our system can provide a complete solution or integrate its parts with other available solutions in the market.

As I'm having an educational process now, I got an interesting thought during the studies. I got an insinuation from some of the cellular operators in last years, that video calls ability was the major drive behind the transition to fast networks, such as 3G, 3.5G and next generations. While it is true for some cases, I am not that sure that it is completely valuable.

Just think about it: would you perform a video call using the modern handset that has a video camera? Of course not - you'd have privacy issues right away. Do you really want the whole world to hear what you are saying? So what the point then in having fast network but not providing any type of service with it? Probably this is one of the reasons that cellular providers have problem: they have the infrastructure, but no services to monetize it. So everything else costs more to cover the losses. And this is something that I as consumer do not like.

I wonder why is it so in my locale that we do not have an unlimited connection cellular plans. We do have various packages, but they all are paid per minutes or MBs of data - just similar to what dial-ups used to be ages ago. It really would be great to have internet everywhere, and I think that cellular companies are not getting something here.

It's not that they make more money on pay per minute/byte basis. It's just me not buying the service at all while this is the payment scheme. So general users of this are business folks that gotta have an access to their email at all times. And even then, better options exist (we have WiFi hotspots almost everywhere now).

Just wonders of the world I guess.

Oh Gentoo, what had become of thee?

Dear friends

Yesterday was an important day for me. I stumbled into a very important issue, albeit small, which made me to come to the following decision: I am leaving Gentoo as a desktop platform.

It does not come as an easy decision. I've been using Gentoo and quasi-actively participating in the community for about 5 years. I have it installed currently on 3 out of 4 computers I have (the last one being mac mini, which I keep with Mac OS X). So why would I take this decision?

It all began with a one simple thing. You may have read my previous posts on various WINE installations, and I use some Windows applications with WINE. But recently Internet Explorer stopped working. I've tried to reinstall it (and it is easy in Gentoo, just as in any other Linux distribution with decent package manager), but to no avail.

Next step was slightly more complicated, but still quite simple: I've used VMWare to install complete Window XP environment. It worked fine for awhile, until I couldn't use VM images between different computers I have. It just stopped working. Besides that, the performance of VMWare on my AMD Athlon 1.8 with 1G of memory was, to say the least, appalling. Next came Innotek (now Sun) VirtualBox. This is the best emulation environment I could find to work on my computer. It works fine, and I use it for all my Windows-related projects.

But as a side effect of all installations, system began breaking. I started noticing various weird things, such as sudden applications freezing at times, etc. Couple of days ago, when there were no applications running, I've seen CPU usage at ~80%, I did what most Windows users do. I rebooted the machine.

And then, system just broke. System utilities seemed nowhere to be found. Some init scripts seemed to be incorrect, etc. I somehow fixed the situation by copying old versions from other projects, and updating the system. But now, GNOME has problems with graphics and themes, and most applets do not work and even do not exist. It just never ends, does it?

So, as a normal user of Gentoo, I went to emerge my world. I haven't done that for a couple of months, so there were almost 1G of updates waiting for me. I've downloaded all the packages, and began the emerge.

The thing that broke the last straw was a simple apache update. The system update failed because I had an old version. Not because compile didn't work. Just because it needed me to manually do something!! It redirected me to a Gentoo doc site, which has 2 lines of code that fixed the problem, and emerge now runs again.

Why in the heavens name wasn't this done automatically? Why did I loose half a day, during which my system could be updated? I lost this time because update procedure stopped. I had to fix the Apache configuration, so my GNOME desktop could continue updating. I understand that this specific issue with Apache may be serious, and that not many ordinary people run it on their computer, it still bugs me. I don't like it when I have to do this sort of manual intervention in update procedure.

So what is the problem here? Daniel Robbins created a Gentoo moto once: The goal of Gentoo is to design tools and systems that allow a user to do his or her work as pleasantly and efficiently as possible, as they see fit....If the tool forces the user to do things a particular way, then the tool is working against, rather than for, the user. (cited from Gentoo Philosophy)

The problem is that I spent too much time caring for the computer with Gentoo. I don't have that luxury anymore. There was time, when geeking with the machine and fixing problems was cool. Today, its a burden. I value time, and I only have 24 hours a day of it.

I believe that this may be one of the general problems with Gentoo. When it began, most folks using Linux were techies, who cared about all the bits on their computers. Gentoo fit very well in this community, so it flourished and became very popular. It provided tools that noone had (and used to compile anything manually anyway), and community of a good will and lot of friendship. It had the best documentation (and maybe still do) among brothers, and best team of engineers.

But nowadays, many users want word processor, web browser, email program and video player. They want it now, and not wait 20 minutes when compilation will finish. They don't care about technicalities. And as Gentoo haven't changed its nature, it doesn't fit for majority anymore. Sabayon anyone?

Gentoo distro has proven over the years, that it will stay the way it is. And that's why it won't be back on my desktop soon.

So, Gentoo, stay on server.

Ubuntu, CentOS - my desktop is waiting.

Linux on the desktop now!

Hello all

I just read an article, where Novell's CEO says that Linux will not be on the consumer desktop in at least for another 3 years. And that made me think.

We, users of Linux and open source software, would be happy to see everyone using Linux. We use it every day ourselves. And we're happy with it. Dell is installing Ubuntu Linux on various models, and people are buying them, preferring this to installing it by themselves. IBM, Sun and other vendors provide Linux systems just as they do Windows-based ones. Isn't this a nice trend that shows readiness of an operating system and its acceptance by vendors?

With this trend, how can it be that Linux on the desktop will take another 3-4 years? And what does it mean exactly? Linux desktop share currently stands about 3-4% of total desktop installations. Another 3-4% goes to Apple Mac OS X installations, another similar share to other alternative operating systems (such as Free/Net/OpenBSD, BeOs, Haiku, OpenSolaris, etc).

But Windows OS is spanning over 90% of all desktop computers. So, my guess, that in 3-4 years Linux installations can get to say, 10%. Will this mean that it is "on the desktop"? What numbers it should show for CEOs and other similarly hierarchially placed people, compared to a Windows OS so they will consider it "there"?

I personally believe, that any tool that you use should server its purpose and serve it well. If it does not do what it is supposed to do, choose another tool. I recently began to believe that there's a place for Windows systems as well for Linux systems, but I am still open-source minded. Choosing Linux or Windows, or Mac or Solaris is purely business decision in many cases. If choosing Linux on the desktop provides me with the tool to do my job (or work, or fun and procrastinate) - that's fine. If Window does the same - that's fine too, I'll just go with cheaper solution in the long run.

All the tools I use in Windows (those that are not forced on me anyway) are open source - VirtualWin, vi, GIMP, Open Office, Firefox, Innotek VirtualBox, 7zip; and much more - and if I go to Linux I will use the same tools, so I don't have to re-teach myself each time I switch platform.

So for me Linux is really on the desktop for about 4 and half years already. I don't even use Window at home anymore. And yet, Novell's CEO thinks that it will take another 3-4. If that's what a CEO thinks, then no wonder that it is all about Novell Linux. Maybe they are hibernated and there's an alarm clock set into the 3-years distant perfect future.

I wonder where RedHat and Ubuntu will be by then.

Cheers.

Update: it seems I'm not the only one

My new computer

Hello folks!

It's been a bit more than 2 years since I have Serenity - an AMD Athlon machine. And it's time to grow further. So I've made my research, and I got planned a machine that will serve me for my modest needs for another 2-3 years.

As prices plummeted seriously lately, and since dollar is not what is used to be, I can get pretty decent machine for a buck. I don't play games, my main needs are VM running (even couple of machines at the same time), Photoshop/Gimp rendering (for pics like these). Here's my configuration of choice that I'm thinking to have:

CPU:  Intel  Q9300

Motherboard: I'd like to have an Abit IP35 Pro, but its availability seems limited in my locale. So I'd be happy for other suggestions.

Memory: Mushkin or Corsair, 4Gb, CL4

Graphics: any NVidia 256Mb PCIe will do.

HD: 7200rpm, 250Gb or any other that gives good price/size ratio.

DVD burner: we have LG's and NECs laying around here for ~$30, so its easy.

PSU: Zalman, Thermaltake or Antec. These are the decent ones we have in local market.

Case: something simple, but that can sustain my system

Please let me know what do you think about it, and I'd love an MB suggestion that plays nicely with Linux. My main intention is to run Xen or other VM, and run Linux and Window under it.

Another thing that some folks may not understand, is my attention to run it with Ubuntu. To tell you the truth, I'm still the Gentoo person, but it takes increasingly more and more time to just maintain my Gentoo-based Serenity, and its only updates. My rsync doesn't work, updates are slow and I got many errors while updating a lot, which requires an attention as it renders system unusable.

I understand that those may be very easy to fix, but as I've said - I don't have time to deal with it as I had before, so I'm going to try my luck with customized Ubuntu for a while. Besides, I like learning new things, with Gentoo I feel like I don't know what's up there. And I've always wanted to learn Ubuntu.

Gentoo star seems to have eclipsed lately, I think I might get to fixing it when I have time later on...

Cheers.

Back to the net

Hi all

I've been away for a long while and it feels now like a long vacation. I've done few nice things in a meanwhile, the major 2 being visit to Italy (Tuscany) and starting a new job.

So Italy - I had a great time visiting one of the most beautiful places in the world. We've been in Tuscany, where one of the best wine in the world is produced, and saw medieval cities built very long time ago. We also saw Renaissance structures, but most of all - we liked how the new integrates with the old, and how countryside is full of buildings built within last 5-10 years but look like they stood forever on those green hills.

And now I started a new job - I'm in intergration position in Comverse, working as subcontructor. My job would be packaging the company's products and integrating them into a complete offer, which mainly means a lot of perl/bash/Linux stuff, which in turn makes me very happy.

Have a nice day everyone.

:-)