Instant Messaging

The first IM network that I happen to use was ICQ. Most of my friends were on ICQ, and the system was really good. The only bad thing about the system was that one had to remember an ID number. Then people began using MSN messenger. Mostly it was because it was already installed on the systems that most people were using. In the labs and such, one could generally not install ICQ because they had normal user accounts that could not install software. But MSN messenger was already installed and it was easy to start up a chat.

But I miss a feature from ICQ. That feature was offline messaging. As far as I remember one could leave messages for a person even if he was online. When he came online again, even if the first party was off line the server would deliver the messages he sent earlier, like email. I really miss that feature with MSN messenger. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. I cant wait to get of MSN though. I dont like it.

On another note, I tried out a console based client for MSN today called gtmess. I had been really running away from trying out one of these clients because the learning curve is higher. You have to read the documentation to learn what the various key combinations are and such, and I was'nt finding time for this. Though, I run across a lot of Linux systems and launching X takes time. I would rather just go online, chat, and then leave and it is much faster in console provided you have a client and you know how to use it. Today being Thanksgiving and all I gave gtmess a try, and it is quite a good client. Definitely going to install it on most systems.

linux 2.6.0-test11

I'm using Linux 2.6.0-test11, and it is definitely faster than the 2.4 versions of the kernel. The performance is definitely a lot better, and it may have to do with the pre-emptive kernel feature that is now present in 2.6. At least I think it is.

Will have to recompile though. Did not include the reiserfs support, so some of the partitions cannot be booted into. Also, the sound card drivers were'nt selected properly. I wonder what driver I have to use for the built in AC97 sound on the motherboard.

KDE

KDE has so much eye candy! Sweet!

Retailers Rise in Google Rankings as Rivals Cry Foul

I dont think this is google's fault. Any more than the Microsoft Operating System monoply is Microsofts fault. In general it is the peoples fault. They are the ones that become totally dependant on one vendor. And then they totally bitch about it. There was a noise some time ago about another engine called Teoma, which seemed pretty ok. It never caught on though. If it had, we would have to different search authorities. But, thats not how the world works. Once people find something that works they stick with it. In the OS world I was not one of these people. After DOS, I went to Linux, not windows. But, in the search world, I am still pretty much stuck with Google.

Oh... hmmm... Ummm... I almost forgot that Bloggers parent company is Google. Ummm...

Microsoft security whitepaper

POWER5, UltraSparc IV, and Efficeon: a look at three new processors

A Monocultural Alternative: The OpenCD

Even with this specific attention to paid prospective educational clients, adoption of The OpenCD at the institutional level remains an uphill battle. Most schools are immersed in a Windows monoculture. Despite widespread budgetary woes here in the U.S. and elsewhere, despite widespread virus and worm attacks on Windows-based products, and despite ever-increasing licensing fees from Microsoft, most schools will likely continue with this monoculture. Phil Harper, one of the lead developers of The OpenCD, stated that the reactions he typically receives from institutional IT departments toward free software "have always been a little less than enthusiastic". (Harper, personal communication, September 15 2003)

....

"A monoculture tends to be fragile because of its sameness. Perhaps more importantly, however, a monoculture is by nature slow to adapt, change and innovate--particularly in the case of the computer industry. What incentive is there to really innovate when your only competitor is yourself? All you need to do is make slow, incremental changes just often enough to assure a steady supply of upgrade revenue. The pace of genuine change slows to a crawl, and opportunities for dramatic quantum leaps in technology disappear. ...The chance of anything startling or groundbreaking happening is vanishingly small, and in fact, there's a very strong vested interest in not rocking the slow, comfortable boat." (Hoffman, 2001)

....

Internet Explorer is an unfortunate example that illustrates Hoffman's point. During the height of the browser wars, Microsoft made clear strides in innovating its way past Netscape. Features such as auto-fill forms, auto-complete urls, and on-the-fly text resizing made for a better overall browsing experience, and left Netscape Communicator looking like your father's Oldsmobile. However, since Microsoft effectively won the browser war, further development of innovative features in Internet Explorer have all but ceased. Tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, integrated Google searches, and cookie-blocking specific to advertising servers are all features common to modern browsers such as Mozilla, Opera, and Safari yet absent from Internet Explorer. Admittedly, there are several third-party options that would bring many of these features to Internet Explorer. However, with the possible exception of the Google Toolbar, the average web-surfer would be unlikely to take the time to research, evaluate, download, and install these add-ons.
A similar situation exists for Microsoft Office. In OpenOffice 1.1, users can save any file in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) or Macromedia's Flash format on-the-fly, without needing to have the full version of Adobe Acrobat or Macromedia Flash installed. To say that such features are convenient would be an understatement. Using OpenOffice, students could create a presentation, save it as a PDF, then put it online or send it to anyone via email, knowing that anyone with at least the freeware Acrobat Reader (recently renamed Adobe Reader) could access the file. The same applies for any file saved Flash format. The only software needed to access the file would be a web browser with the Flash plugin, as opposed to the full version of PowerPoint. While the free PowerPoint Player would also meet this need, there is no equivalent for Word or Excel files. With OpenOffice, this is not a problem. Additionally, Microsoft Office files are compatible with OpenOffice.

XML.com: Working with Bayesian Categorizers [Nov. 19, 2003]

XML.com: Working with Bayesian Categorizers [Nov. 19, 2003]

I've started using Spam Bayes Outlook plugin myself. Lets see how it goes. I have to now find a good spam plugin for Linux clients.

BlueCurve

I personally dont like using Redhat myself. This is mainly because I hate blue curve. It is too bland, and I hate the colors. Ofcourse it is easy to change the settings so that the theme is not used, but I still dont like using Redhat for some reason. The only problem is that I havent found a single distribution that could easily take its place. Slackware is the one that comes the closest so I use that. But still slackware has a very basic package management system. Before I began using slackware I did'nt even know that it had a package management system, which I later found out. pkgtool.

Lack of distributions

Since redhat has stopped support for its free distribution and does not plan to come up with a RedHat 10, we have started to look elsewhere for a distribution. And for the first time I have found that there aren't that many options for one to consider.

Mandrake seems to be in some financial trouble.
Suse just got bought out by Novel and we dont know whats gonna happen.
Debian is a totally different distribution from Redhat which would mean that the users would have to relearn everything. Plus it is not as easy to use as redhat was.
Slackware has the same problems as Debian, though they are a bit more severe in terms of hardship.
Knoppix is a good distribution that removes some of the problems from the original debian, but it is still not mature, and some machines I've tried it on have had stability problems.
Fedora is young and we dont know whats going to happen to it.

Personally I just love slackware. To me it is the best stable distribution, and it is easy to use. But I dont see any of my users, like professors manually editing config files. Hence, it is not an option at work. I've heard that the redhat enterprise workstation is for about $20, and it might even be cheaper. I dont know if that is per computer. But whatever it is, we might have to look at it. The main problem is probably that we would not want to purchase a boxed operating system. Though that might change considering that it is getting harder and harder to find a distribution that would suit our needs unless we buy support.

*BSD are not an option mainly because we dont know what kind of support they would have for applications like matlab, mathematica and labview or whatever else is being used on the machines here in the lab. We would rather stick to Linux for the moment.

"WinFS" Data Model

"WinFS" Data Model

MSDN Mini-Magazine: Code Name Indigo: A Guide to Developing and Running Connected Systems with Indigo

MSDN Mini-Magazine: Code Name Indigo: A Guide to Developing and Running Connected Systems with Indigo