Wow, it has really been a long time since my last post; three months. A lot has happened since then and I am excited for the changes that are on the way. I mean, the editor-in-chief of 2600 is coming out with a new book, Firefox 3 was released a little while ago, Microsoft has dropped full support for XP... I mean a bunch of things are changing. It's crazy.
First and foremost, Emmanuel Goldstein, who is the Editor-in-Chief for 2600: The Hacker Quarterly magazine has written a book. It is called, The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey and it basically tells the story of the evolution of technology, the Internet, computer related laws, and hacking by way of the articles that have been printed in the magazine in chronological order from the magazines inception in 1984. It comes out later this month, and I am really super excited about it. I will definitely be picking it up before I go on vacation.
So Firefox 3 was released a couple weeks ago, and of course I have updated to it and I must say that it is definitely the best version of the great browser to date. With a reported 15,000 security and performance updates, it is advertised as the fastest and most secure Firefox yet, and so far, it is proving to be so. The folks over at Mozilla decided to hold a “Download Day” to see if they can set a Guinness Book World Record for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period. I helped out in this number by downloading the application three times that day; once for me, once for my work computer, and once for my girlfriends computer at home. The final number was over 8 million downloads in a 24 hours. Which is awesome. I think IE just lost some market usage. The world becomes a better place as more and more people move from Microsoft to open source options.
So a few weeks ago, I was talking with my girlfriend about possibly switching her over to Ubuntu Linux. She is very reluctant because she is afraid of the unknown. I told her that Ubuntu could do everything she would need it to do. So, I asked her if I could see if I could get Ubuntu setup with everything that she would need from it. She said yes, but that even if I do show her that it can, she would not guarantee that she would actually allow me to install it on her laptop. Oh well, one can dream. But I am getting it to work how she would need it to, which is good. So maybe she will let me install it on her laptop; we shall see. I mean, everything is already in place.
I was really surprised to see that Ubuntu natively supports and recognizes the Apple iPod. It has a great default application to add and manage music on the iPod, Rythmbox, which in almost every aspect, is just a Linux clone of iTunes. The only things it cannot do is access the iTunes music store, or access any firmware updates that Apple may have released for your version of the iPod. However, it does automatically download the album art work for any albums you have, and there is another iPod application you can download, GtkPod, that can automatically delete any duplicate music it finds on your iPod. The only thing I really gotta get working now, is Office in Wine. I think if I can get that working in Ubuntu, she would be convinced to make the switch. Gotta keep at it though.
Finally, in other news, Microsoft, has finally stopped allowing PC manufacturers such as Dell, HP, and Gateway, from selling OEM versions of Windows XP to customers. As I am sure everyone already knows, Vista was released last year. What you might not know, is that it had a lot of problems when it was first released, and because it was to terrible, and demand from not only home consumers, but also businesses, was so high for Windows XP licenses rather than Vista ones, Microsoft allowed manufacturers to continue to offer laptops and desktops preinstalled with Windows XP. Well, Microsoft finally pulled the plug on this, and now the manufacturers are only limited to installing XP by default on the micro PC's – those PC's that are extremely small, with not a lot of RAM or HDD – that have begun to be really popular in the last few months. While I can initially understand this from a business prospective, I can't help but think that this is really such a damaging move for Microsoft to make. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am happy about it, but how can it be that Ballmer is continuing to make these mistakes? It has been almost a year and a half since Vista's release, and people and businesses are STILL opting to purchase Windows XP machines over Vista ones. Why would Microsoft think that it is safe to stop allowing manufacturers to sell them? Makes no sense to me whatsoever. Oh well; hopefully they will continue to make these mistakes and Linux can take over.
I will be moving soon, so I really don't know how often I will be able to update the site for the next few weeks, but I will try to be on here from time to time. I will definitely be updating on the whole girlfriend running Ubuntu, though.
