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Universal Tracker
2008-06-02 10:08:00
Hi AllMy friend started a new project for the Android platform: the universal tracker called "Unit".Cited his definition:Unit is a mobile application for tracking lists of owned, loaned and borrowed assets (such as books, CDs, DVDs or board games) using Android mobile platform.Here's a demo screenshot:He's currently looking for help developing the application, so if you like this, join him!!Thanks :-)
More About: Mobile , Universal , Gentoo , Tracker

Firefox3 RC1
2008-05-20 19:52:00
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....
More About: Firefox , Gentoo

Running tests on Windows.
2008-05-04 15:47:00
Hi allI need a free tool for testing a GUI application. Something in lines with Mercury's WinRunner.Does anyone knows something like that?Thanks
More About: Windows , Running , Tests , Gentoo

Cellular Video Calls: reality that never happened?
2008-04-27 17:06:00
Hi allI 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...
More About: Reality , Cellular

Oh Gentoo, what had become of thee?
2008-04-23 15:25:00
Dear friendsYesterday 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 ...
More About: Ubuntu , Cent , Red Hat

Linux on the desktop now!
2008-04-21 10:32:00
Hello allI 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 ...
More About: Desktop , Red Hat , Gentoo

My new computer
2008-04-13 13:10:00
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  Q9300Motherboard: 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, CL4Graphics: 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 dece...
More About: Computer

Back to the net
2008-03-25 12:49:00
Hi allI'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.:-)
More About: Back

Google Calendar offline
2008-03-13 17:59:00
I've just stumbled into this: I've tried to add something into my calendar, but got this:Google is down ????????Of course not, but it's fun anyways :-)
More About: Offline , Google Calendar , Calendar

Back from Italy
2008-03-11 16:09:00
Hi allI 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
More About: Italy , Back

Calling support have a negative impact on economy
2008-02-27 16:32:00
I've just read an interesting piece. It talks about the fact, that when consumers call support centers, in general, all vendors do charge for those calls. It makes an approximate $50M in costs for just basic support people need.That makes it quite intriguing information. The earlier business models of Open Source products were exactly like this - they were supposed to provide the product for free, and then charge for the support. And this would, or at least could, be a quite viable model.Just look at those Red Hat's and MySQL's - they're in pretty good shape, aren't they? Those companies worth millions and billions, and it seems to be working for them for quite awhile. I believe that charging for support might be a good business.On the other hand, if the consumer is in consideration, then it might not be that well. It actually adds a cost to the initial product price, and in effect it may take a substantial time and effort from customers to use his or her service (or device). B...
More About: Economy , Support , Calling , Negative

La citta ideale
2008-02-24 14:00:00
Hi allI'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
More About: Citta

The keys to a blog success
2008-02-21 16:03:00
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 Blog ger 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 (a...
More About: Success , Keys

Saas conference
2008-02-20 21:40:00
Hi allI was always wondering: how good SaaS model is? Quite good I guess. Here's the idea: you have some basic platform, such as browser. Then, you use it to run all sorts of applications (Gmail anyone?). Would that be the same thing? Would this model actually show us what SaaS idea is?I haven't really thought about it yet that much. I just know a lot of vendors are looking into this area, because it allows to keep applications local and deliver them on demand. So, each delivery would bring revenue. That's a nice model, if I understand it correctly.So, now there's a conference on the subject. SaaS Summit 2008 is a conference for all vendors in software as a service conference field. It will feature hundreds of executives from all kind of Web 2.0 vendors and companies, and will include many sessions where you could exchange knowledge and other sorts of information. The conference will include the following topics (cited):What has to be done and by whom to accelerate the growth of...
More About: Conference , SAAS

Looking for freelance projects
2008-02-18 09:09:00
Hi allAfter years of handling different systems and hardware including servers and storage and also considering the fact that I want to make my life better (and much more interesting) I would like to ask your help with finding freelance projects (those that can pay internationally).Currently I can do consulting for IT technology on all levels (design, requirements, building), implementing, integrations, customizations and optimizations of complex systems (except programming), blogging and technical writing (without proofing). I'll be thankful for any ideas and leads that you can give me.Last project I did was to build customized distribution based on Gentoo for small computer based on AMD Geode processor. The distribution comes on DVD (which is based on Gentoo LiveCD) and installs complete system on the computer. It will be available as an optional download.I will provide as much additional details and information as needed.Thanks in advance.
More About: Projects , Freelance

Fedora Kickstart installations
2008-02-17 17:40:00
Hi allI'm writing this in a hope that someone knows the issue.I'm creating a spin with Revisor (spin of Fedora 8) and while I'm including the kickstart file, the installation doesn't seem to perform the "post" part. What am I doing wrong?Thanks a bunch...
More About: Installations

Commercial Ubuntu
2008-02-15 07:01:00
Hi allI just read a post by Bruce Byfield, where he raises an interesting question: after the fact that Canonical will try and offer commercial software from a specific repository, would anyone use it? And if not, could it alienate other users of Ubuntu from using the distribution at all?He continues to argue for a whole 2-pages-long article for something that I don't even think exist. His main point is that this idea of commercial repositories has been tried out before and it didn't work. Why try now? After all, it's just a matter of time until something else will replace our current software:A download service might find a temporary niche in offering software for which no free equivalent exists. For instance, despite recent improvements in apps like Kooka and Tesseract, someone who regularly needed to convert scanned text to a usable format might welcome a GNU/Linux version of OmniPage. The trouble is, given the speed with which free software is developing, such a market would ...
More About: Commercial

Web hosting search
2008-02-15 06:11:00
OK, so now probably everyone knows that I'm looking for a hosting. I am talking about this for a long time already. So, while browsing the space I come over to interesting site - web hosting choice, which allow you to find a host service using your own search parameters.So for example, I want a host with a decent amount of space (at least 1 G), decent amount of month transfer (at least 1000 G) and low price (say, for the sake of the argument, not higher than $10 a month). I entered those parameters into a search box on the main page, and viola! I got a list of host providers that answer those search parameters.I'm going to dig a bit more in this, as I've already have found a problem: HostGator, which is first-ranked and featured provider on main site, seems to provide installation of Wordpress 1.0, which is by no means acceptable.Just wanted to let you know, as it seems a bit promising.
More About: Hosting , Web Hosting , Search

zRaven in Linux review
2008-02-09 19:00:00
Dear allI've been contacted by the Zoundry, developers of Zoundry Writer and got notified that they've got zRaven into beta, so I might try it and run in Linux . Here's the quote:Please note that Zoundry Blog Writer has finally be deprecated and replaced with a new version called Raven.We're really striving to make it the best product we can, so we'd love it if anyone interested could give it a try and give us some feedback. Raven just went into public Beta testing this week.We haven't tried getting Raven to work under Linux, so obviously your mileage may vary. However, I do think we have done a much better job with the UI this time around. :) Let us know what you think.This is very cool to be contacted by them, so here we go. I've decided to play around with a new release. But I have to give the following notion: I've tryed zRaven before. When I performed a research about different blog editors for Linux, I've even tested some of them in Windows first, using VMWare image. ...
More About: Review , Gentoo

Totally Free Wordpress Hosting
2008-02-05 16:54:00
For anyone who tries to be a blogger or create some sort of information resource, the most important issue is always with high quality of the blog or site. It relates both to design and content. It takes awhile until the design makes you happy, and it can also take few iterations until you're happy with the posts.You create the post, and proofreading it, and post as draft, and reading it again. Then you fix few things, post it online. And then you find that you're not so happy with some phrases, and you change them and post again...it takes awhile until you're totally happy. All these back and forth iterations are not always convenient - you may have a bad connection. Or you have a hosting with limited bandwidth. Or you're not sure, or anything else. Or, maybe, you'd like to see how it would look like without actually posting.Or, you're just like me. I've posted few times already that I'm thinking about moving my blog to Wordpress . I want to try Wordpress and see how it look...
More About: Hosting , Free

EEE PC is hottiest and sexiest than ever
2008-02-04 10:26:00
The issue of an EEE PC has been already written over many many times. I wrote a comparison of the laptop to an Amazon's Kindle. There also was a news post about schools being purchasing those laptops and then Ars Technica published their own review and reinforced my opinion.Now, I think the laptop has riched even the business niche. I hear that a lot of people who need a laptop on the road to read and respond to emails, to have a Skype calls and browse the web are very keen to test and use this device. After all, its price at ~$400, and weight ~1kg, are very attractive points. Added to that the fact, that this is a fully functional laptop with a decent hardware specifications, make a really attractive deal.I just read an article by James Maguire at Datamation. I like the following saying by the author:Unlike Apple, though, Asus will never have to fork over a rebate to customers who bought as soon as the doors opened, then suffered buyer's remorse when the price inevitably fell. In...

Open Sourced Microsoft
2008-02-03 08:34:00
I've noticed lately, that I've been commenting Brian Proffitt's posts a lot. Well, I do so because I think he's a great journalist and makes valid points in technology, as a contrast to many others who seem to be completely ignorant on the issues they write about.This time Brian is trying to explain the Open Source strategy Microsoft has. Here's the main quote I think:... if you use open source technology and contribute to it for others to use, you potentially could help make your competitors stronger. And if your failed marketing campaign just happens to send more business to our opponent... in this situation, that might not be a clear loss, because it could also change a government's perception of Redmond being unfair.....I will admit that this may be a reach. But I also think, with Microsoft's ongoing legal woes and the threat of the LAMP space forever closed to them using their traditional business practices, this whole notion of competing with open source on open source ...

Copycat and cheating in journalism
2008-01-28 14:49:00
Dear reader,It happens that I read similar articles sometimes. It happens in any field - when you do your research, you encounter similar materials, and similar information. But, at least in my own experience, almost all of sources I find are genuinely original, with each and one of then trying to get to its own point.But not today I guess, not always. Random reading got me to these 2 articles: A free guide to Free Software supporters and Are you a Slasher, Basher, Butcher or Pusher? These are 2 great examples of seemingly respectful sites that in a very insulting way try to explain who are the people behind open source projects. And that's an addition to a fact that both of them seem to be posted by the same author but in different versions - one for a nicely talking business people and the other for the dirty talking hacking people.The latter post might have been a joke, but I still don't think that many people like to be "classified" as stereotypes, besides the fact that all th...
More About: Journalism , Cheating , Copycat

The most useless 5-items list for Digg and Ubuntu users
2008-01-27 22:00:00
Well, here we go. 5 items list that is completely useless:1. It is for Digg users (first and foremost)2. It is also for Ubuntu users (I like Ubuntu)3. It has absolutely no content here (like most of these lists)4. It has 5 items in it.5. Who do I have to read other people useless lists?
More About: List , Items , Useless

The Working Platform - Computer In Appliance (TM)
2008-01-27 20:58:00
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):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.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 t...
More About: Computer , Working , Platform , Appliance

Computer for gradma and world domination
2008-01-27 15:07:00
This entry was inspired by an old entry in Linux, and its a revisited from previously written article of mine.There are topics that have been "refurbished" at least once per few weeks, which are the use of small computers as appliances and usage of computers by senior citizens . The major points of those are twofold (although highly interconnected). Those points are being:Whether my {favorite non-technical member of the family} can easily use computer?Is Linux ready for desktop?Please allow me to explain, why those 2 are interconnected.Well, the first one is well understood. In last 15 or so years, computers transformed from geaky toy to a "in any home" appliance. We do many of day to day tasks with it: We send and read our mail. We read, see and listen to a news. We listen to a music/radio. We watch movies (and sometimes TV). We record music, speech and TV. We play. We talk.So, if my grandma can operate a TV/VCR, why can't she operate a computer system? Of course she can. In the m...
More About: World , Computer , Domination

Pushing Gentoo forward
2008-01-23 08:53:00
Hi allBeing part of a Gentoo community (and I am after all an ex-User Representative. The "ex" part in it is because the project is debunk and no longer exists), it hurts me to see my favorite Linux distribution getting to the point of no return. Like, the Tipping Point in reverse: after this point nothing can be done to stop its destruction.I'm not pessimistic person in general. I'm just an outside (and a little inside) observer, who wishes all the best but can't really affect anything. I just read Brian Proffit's support call for Daniel Robbins' offer to step as the leader of Gentoo's legal affairs again. I am gladly joining the call, because I think Gentoo is in position where it needs leadership.Gentoo was founded by Daniel, who left it in 2005 for personal reasons. This act may be seen as treason by some, or a happy occasion by others. It doesn't matter though, because for awhile Gentoo was a thriving community and had an inertia of speeding mass to move it forward. But ...
More About: Forward

Smoke on the water
2008-01-23 07:11:00
Well, I have to post this. It is the best music video I've seen in a while.
More About: Smoke , Water

Google drop
2008-01-22 14:00:00
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.
More About: Drop

MacBook Air: not impressed
2008-01-16 08:26:00
Well, now everyone already knows about the Mac Book Air. I've seen the pictures, and to tell you to truth - I'm not impressed.Yes, its thin. Probably light. But it looks breakable. It's expensive. It has slow hard drive.And design? I'm not sure yet I like it either.So, we'll have to wait and see. I thought I could get a new laptop and waited until January. Now I think I lost some time.
More About: Apple , Macbook , Gentoo