4th of July

To all Americans among you:

Happy 4th of July!!!

The new computer

Hi all

I've purchased a new computer couple of weeks ago. I made a research on my locale market, and found that I want the following configuration:

1. CPU: Intel Q9450
2. MB: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R
3. Memory: Mushkin CL4 4Gb
4. HD: Western Digital WD5001ABYS
5. Case: Antec Sonata Plus 550
6.  Graphics: Gigabyte GeForce 8500GT Silent 512Mb

All in all, it came in about $1630.
Currently, my main work requires me to work with lots of different Windows configurations. It lead me to use the following installation:

Main OS: CentOS 5.2 (updated 2 days ago) 64bit
Windows OS: XP machines in VirtualBox.

This configuration was chosen to provide as versatile environment as possible.

CentOS Linux was chosen as enterprise-grade OS, providing me as stable environment as possible.

It is a great, quite machine. I'm happy.

Firefox3 RC1

I cannot believe its happening to me.

I've updated to RC1 as expected by suggested update. Now the thing crashes on me almost constantly!!! Even in Gmail!

Anyone knows whats going on?

Beta 5 was so solid compared to RC....

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.

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.

:-)

Back from Italy

Hi all
I had a great time in Tuscany last week!! The trip was a present for my significant birthday date last Thursday.
It is also great to come home :-)

I have posted few photos from the trip, you're welcome to take a look here

La citta ideale

Hi all

I'm going to Tuscany in about a week, so I need as much information as possible - can anyone direct me to sources of "ideal city" architecture?

Thank you very much

The keys to a blog success

You all know how it is: you hear in the blogosphere about making money from blogging. Then you find and read thoroughly the major league: the Problogger.net and JohnChow.com; and then you make up your mind: "I'm going to do that too. If they can make it, so can I".

And then, you go and read Darren's list of newbies tips, and John's ebook. But you decide that you're not ready to pay for the blog yet - after all, you're just trying out, right? So, you sign on Blogger or Wordpress, just to save a $100, but you do register domain, because everyone agrees that it is the most important thing you should start with.

And then you start posting. At the beginning, you're on fire. Finding everything you can on the net, posting like a crazy. But, for some reason, stats do not go up. Then you say to yourself, "well, maybe no one really reads what I write", and you post less and less. And then, no one really reads your blog.

Such a state of things would probably describe most of new bloggers (and that would include myself as well). The idea of making money out of blog is very attractive, but many do not succeed at making enough for cup of coffee. Why is it so?

The main reason is that many newcomers start with the obsession over statistics and the idea of earning the same money that big shots do. They check visits every few hours, they check how much cents they've made out during those hours. They put many ads into the blog, and wait until money and readership would thrive. Big mistake!

So, here's the list of things required to make any blog successful:

1. Create an interesting content

That's it. Nothing more (at least at the beginning). Everything else is the result of this action number 1.

But there are more things that I'm doing for my blog:

1. Listen more to Darren from ProBlogger and John from John Chow. These guys apparently know what they're doing.
2. Less is more: that recent post on ProBlogger made by Skellie from AnyWired, is really a good one. I decided to post not more 4 technology-related posts a week, including posts regarding the process of building the blog itself. In addition, I removed some advertisers which didn't bring anything in a long while, and just made a bad impression for being there.
3. Stop caring about statistics. Don't check it every few minutes. Its a stressful action: you wait, it doesn't rise up, you panic, you loose motivation. Just stop doing it. In 10 minutes you checking for statistics, you could have an outline for a new post.

In a nutshell: if you want your blog to succeed, you have to build it. Blog is a content, not ads.

I only have to remember that myself :-)

The Working Platform - Computer In Appliance (TM)

I just read another nice post by Brian Profitt from Linux Today about the the idea of an appliance-like computer. And I have the possible candidate to answer Brian's question.

I recently understood that most of my "computer"-related work is either already done or can be moved to be totally online. Once the process is complete, it allows the following (or combination of them):

1. I'm totally online. I never loose my data because I have it online all the time. The only moment when its not there is that split of a second I loose my wireless connection and my data not uploaded yet. I can do my work (or entertainment) anywhere, anytime.
2. I'm totally "dead" without internet connection. My powerful computer has no use for me. I can't access anything. I can't do anything. I'm so addicted to being online, that I have problems figuring out what are computers for. Although my movies and music are local and with me, I have no wish to "consume" them - after all, I can't access my email (don't tell me its unrelated! It is. I am not addicted).
   

Then I've thought about it even more.

We have an internet connection nowadays everywhere. I walk around my neighborhood and I catch easily 10 open WiFi spots. Many can check their email with 3G mobile phones, or even use them to connect to the "real" Internet. Many of those phones are good enough for Internet by themselves. WiMax is promised to come in couple of years give or take. So we have connectivity problem solved. That, probably, also solves me the "problem" with an Internet addiction usage. This means, I can work virtually everywhere anytime.

Now, what bothers me at this point, is the computer itself. I mainly use browser and email. I use simple editor for documents/blog writing. I am actually rewriting this post in vi. I use simple photo management application. I use somewhat more advanced pictures editing application. I use multimedia players.

These all are hardly resource intensive tasks. But my computer starts to crawl when I open more than 2 heavy applications at a time (which happens from time to time). Besides, when I'm thinking about installing applications and maintaining the computer, I wonder: why should I invest so much time in it?

So, I know what I want. I want a TV-like usability computer - something that just works. I want a "work" appliance. I want an appliance which is lite, small, convenient, has a long battery life, and fast and responsive. I want to know what it does and how it does it. I want to be able to customize it. I want my computing everywhere with me.

There's another possible use. I've wrote an essay on computing for grandmas. I think that an appliance computer can easily be used in those cases.

So, in one sentence - is there a future for appliance computing? I think that it might be.

Smoke on the water

Well, I have to post this. It is the best music video I've seen in a while.

Google drop

It was not expected.

For the last ~3 months I was undergoing interviews with Google to fill a position there. After the first 2 I got a very positive feedback, and went to another 2.

But yesterday I got a call that they've decided not to continue with me anymore.

This sucks.

Fashion Shots

Last Friday I was walking down the center of the city I live in, and suddenly I was approached by a girl. She said she's from one of the 3 main national newspapers, and that she would like to take a photo of me for the fashion article they are making. That's nice, isn't it? Me for the fashion photos....

She wrote the brand names of everything I wore that day (including my hand bag). I'll wait for photos now :-)

Hidden Cost of Enterprise Computing

I'm really fascinated sometimes how many people talk about Linux. This definitely includes your truly - we often talk with our emotions and with some sort of will to make to a headlines. It is not bad to be passionate about something, but it leads sometimes to overvaluing the issue on hand. I make such an error myself at times.

Take for example the article I just read. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from Datamation (IT Management publication) wrote an essay, in which he discusses the hidden costs of using Linux operating system. What he does though, is mixing quite a few things in one bag, and not the good way. He mixes the problems that home users might have and implementing them to enterprise users, which is wrong. There's quite different approach in enterprise IT departments to computing and infrastructure. Here are the things that author is quoting as "hidden costs", that are not reflected in "free" Linux:

1. Uncertainty
2. Time (whatever that means)
3. Support issues
4. Choosing the distribution to use is also depicted as the cost
   

While he's right on some points here and there, he seems to be missing to be consistent - and mainly he mixes enterprise problems with generic Linux issues. Here's what I'd think:

Uncertainty: while there are some problems with some hardware when using Linux, it is hardly an issue for an enterprise users. Home users may not have the required knowledge or expertise to check that hardware they want to buy or already posses is supported, but no enterprise IT professional will choose the combination of hardware and software that wouldn't work together. The hardware used in many enterprise companies is often limited to a few single vendors, which also limits the number of platforms needed to be supported. When choosing Linux to use in specific areas in IT, the person would test that it works, and if it doesn't - the product will not be purchased. That's just basics. For the sake of the example, if Windows system wouldn't answer the technological requirement (such as, say, an easy scripting platform), and Linux would, then Linux would be better technological choice.

Time: that's foolish argument. To install the operating system requires some level of knowledge in computing. If some home user have problems - that's one thing, but to consider that an IT personnel in enterprise would have difficulties with "installing" an operating system on production systems just seems very unlikely. Any software that is considered to be used, would be first tested and checked for any obvious problems. So getting something utterly problematic into the production cycle, seems very unprofessional and has nothing to do with Linux.

Support: that's probably the favorite issue of many journalists and will probably stay like that for awhile. Being exposed to different vendors and different suppliers and different support teams, I'm here to testify that there are good Linux support teams and terrible Microsoft support teams. And there are also vice versa. And there are bad "hardware support" vendors and good "hardware support" vendors. And the pitch of all this: it has nothing to do with the price paid for support, nor the openness or closeness of the product. It's just the result of getting good vendor or bad vendor.

Choosing the distribution to use: that's not an issue for enterprise users at all. Almost all the time when you get the hardware from a hardware vendor, he'll either support specific distributions or all of them or none. So the choice would be primarily due to IT department taste. And to think that a choice would be done by people who don't know anything about Linux is again the signs of professionalism (or lack of one). Why do people think that sometimes, that there's no need in professional personnel?

There's more: as I'm looking for a job a the moment, I've been in contact with many hiring agencies. And the curious fact is that they say, that no IT department will take today someone who doesn't know Linux or Unix. Even if they have an MSCE certification!!! That's exactly the opposite situation of what was on the market 4 years ago. You see the trend here? IT departments even in Windows-only places want people who know Linux. That means, that enterprise is well aware of Linux as the contender on their infrastructure, and want to have the expertise in-house.

So here's the verdict: there's no Linux vendor that "hides" any of these "costs" in word "free". An enterprise which would like to purchase Linux solution, will go to big vendors such as Red Hat and Novell (and maybe Canonical one day), and buy the software with support, just as it would do with Microsoft or Mac solutions.

So, hidden costs? Not in the professional IT departments in enterprise.

Freakonomics

Hi all

I got a great book as a new years present. It is a "Freakonomics" book by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. It's a marvelous piece of work. The book (I got to about a 1/4) is easily read and fascinating. I like the way it causes me to rethink my attitude and understanding of information; and even more so the sources I get information from.

Levitt is a brilliant economist. He's one of the youngest people to receive an honorary John Bates Clark Medal (which is a kind of a Nobel Price for young economists). He says that's he's not a much of a mathematician, so likes to employ economy tools on other aspects of life. At the top of his list is "crime". He likes asking questions which seem unrelated, such as "What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?".

Maybe reading this book will help me to develop understanding regarding incentives for Gentoo developers and community. Who knows?

So far, the book is very interesting and easy to read an comprehend. So far - very recommended :-)

Hello to year 2008; 2007 resolutions

Hello all

A new year arrived, and with it all the new hopes of things we haven't got yet. I used a second to see what is it that I wanted a year ago. I written it on my old blog, and here's the list in the nutshell:

1. Learn Gentoo even more than I do now.
   
2. Pass Gentoo dev quiz. All of it. Not to become a developer, but to create a cause for my own learning.
   
3. Find alternative source of income. Blog/writing-based is preferred.
   
4. Get a better job or make the current one much better than it is.
   
5. Make Gentoo User Representatives a worthy project, so it will continue further on.
   
6. Visit Europe.
   

So, as for 1 - I do know Gentoo still, but it has changed a lot since the last year, and I'm not so sure it is as good as it used to be. On my laptop, emerge lately takes ages to just calculate dependencies. What the hell? It takes much less on other computers, but my laptop is in now way Pentium I - it's an AMD 1.8Ghz machine.

I haven't passed the Gentoo devs quiz as I lost the interest. Besides, many great folks left the project, and I do still keep in touch with some of them, so there's no much interest in Gentoo socially these days. There's even no Gentoo representation on FOSDEM this year. What's up with that?

I have found some sort of additional income, and that being freelancing for my friends and helping them with their product. While this is very nice, I'd prefer more projects to work on as a freelancer.

I left (I was fired) the job that I was working at, and started to work in other start-up which has gone bankrupt by now. So I'm looking for another job at the moment.

User Representatives in Gentoo is debunk and dead. There's no interest in the project whatsoever, but it still nice to retain the IRC/forums special status. I never used the power, but I get the respect from other people in real life.

I've been in Europe twice this year - once at FOSDEM (which was absolutely great) in Brussels, Belgium and once in Paris, France which was even better.

I have not written the book about Gentoo, as I'm not all that motivated to do so.

This year was actually very good and nice to me. There are some issues that didn't go as I'd like them to be, but they at least have begun, and I'm quite happy about that.

So, here's the list for this year (I guess making this one each year would be helpful).

• Make freelancing developed in a more regularly source of income. Hence, the projects I work on should increase in about tenfold. That would allow me some interesting personal developments.
  
• Get that specific hi-profile job I'm aiming at right now (and waiting for them to understand I'm the best pick).
  
• Visit Europe (seems hard at this point, but may come true when I get a job with abroad trips)
  
• Make this blog more professional and making a little more income that it does now. For that to happen, just one thing must be done - writing a good stuff. Using an outside help would be a good thing.
  

May your wishes this year come true and prove you are much more pessimistic in your expectations that they turn out to be in life.

Happy new year everyone.

Technorati : life

Happy new year!

Hi folks

As the time passes by, this year is too in my time zone. It's only few hours left, but I'll be definitely busy with family, so here my wishes to you all before I turn the computer off:

• Be you all more healthy next year.
• Be you all happier.
• Become richer.

And, using the words from the movie, "Let the best of you past, be the worst of your future".

Happy new year 2008 everyone! See you next year.

10 beautiful female hackers in the movies

I've read the famous post on Drivl and even dugg it on the Digg.

But I think that female characters got little to no attention at all there. So, with the help of mighty commenters, I've made my own list of female hackers in movies. Its hard to classify women, of course, so the specific order may vary in other classifications.

8. The Puppet Master, Ghost in the shell (1995)




Presumably female. Takes place 10 as she's not even real human, although quite pretty by inception.







7. Chloe O'Brain, 24 Series



Not very social, but very skilled computer scientist. Was able to hack the kernel of CTU-own government agency system to stop the malicious software from spreading.







6. Chloe Sullivan, Smallville series



Very social. In love with Superboy. Although she's just a journalist, she seems to able to hack any system in the world. From her personal computer.










5. Angela Bennet, The Net (1995)


Sandra Bullock.














4. Mystique, X-Men series



She can get anywhere and hack any system. Literally.













3. Rachel Gibson , Alias series

In one episode we see that she can break the code of some specific security system in seconds with an algorithm she developed. When asked by Sidney how she did it, she responded "every professional has her secrets".


2. Kate Libby aka Acid Burn, Hackers (1995)


Angelina Jolie















1. Trinity, Matrix series






The best shown hack in the history of movies.














But unfortunately, as everyone can count I got only to 8. I need help people! Don't let your favorite female hacker to vanish unrecognized!!! I need 2 more to finish the list.

Any help is appreciated!
Thanks a bunch

Make money by blogging

Dear reader,

I've been using computers since I was 9, and that makes a little more than 20 years in total. I've been internet junkie for as long as I got my first broadband connection 10 years ago. But what I've been unable to do is to earn any considerable amount of money doing so. That's why I decided to change this blog a little bit, which potentially should help me build an additional source of income.

I was reading so many blogs for the last year, where authors explain how they make money, that it seems so easy to do. It's not - when I try to do the same on my own blogs, it just provides me with pale $0.01 of income on a good day.

So I made a decision. I am going to read and research on every source I can find regarding what can I do with my blog. And this is what this blog will be about. I will build this blog with 2 types of content: a Linux and technology related as it has been until now (and especially my take on Linux/Technology and its effects on society and enterprise computing), but also with the explanations about creating it. I will post each step I will perform to making this blog a one with more income than 1 cent a day.

First step is already done - I moved this blog to a new domain (not Blogger), while still leaving it working on Blogger's platform. Feedburner feed was updated with a new domain, and other services are up to be so as well. The next step would be to make enough money to pay for hosting and then move to a hosting with Wordpress. At the moment I'm looking at Bluehost as the most favorable by Wordpress Hosting, but this definitely could change (hosting I'm aiming to is ~$7 a month, so I would need about $80 now).

So please wish me luck :-) (and buck).

Any comments, suggestions and feedback are welcome at any time.

Accounting Web 2.0

I have another blog of mine, where I express more targeted opinions. I said there once, that I intend to find a way for additional income, such as from blogging. While the bloggins thing is not going that well as I would like it to be, I have few friends which I help with their projects, and for that I'm getting some money. It is a sort of system consulting and integration help. I help them specifically with creating a little customized Linux distribution. But this doesn't come easy. To save on the taxes, I've opened my own business, so I'm independent now :-). Now, the only thing I have to deal with, is of course taxation authorities.

According to the law, I have to prepay the income tax and insurance tax on a regular (bi-monthly) basis. But, well, I tend to forget. Besides, will all the receipts and invoices, I can loose myself. I was trying to find all sorts of different reminders, to-do lists, apps and what not.

In this post I review a web app from LessAccounting - LessAccounting.com

This specific application is a recent Web 2.0 app. It's developed in Ruby using Ruby on Rails development platform (which I personally know almost nothing about yet, but drool over it each time I see apps developed using it). It is intended to list everything you need whilemanaging small business (like I have), including but not limited to:

• Invoices
• Proposals
• Deposits
• Expenses
• Funds transferring, etc.

A fast walk-through on the site:

The main site is very cool and intuitive, and I like the color theme. I also took a look at the main site, LessEverything, which I liked even better. It shows everyhting one need to know what is it about and what it is for, and explains a bit about the company. I like they like Mac laptops (17" each), because I like them too :-) (Yea, I might not be objective on that).

The registration was very easy. It took me about 3 minutes to get registered and be logged in.