In addition, the engineers from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pennsylvania (USA) deserve serious credit. If it wasn’t for their drilling equipment, those miners would still be languishing 700m below. One other thing. I was amazed at how the rescuers under-promised and over-delivered. We all thought the miners would be out around the beginning of December. Nope, these techies found the resolve to implement a strategy that has never been done before. And they carried it out like clockwork.

All I’m saying is that if these miners are going to be offered book deals, movie deals, free vacations, money and what not, please remember who SAVED whose ass.

But…
Now, regarding this whole ordeal, something else came to mind. WHY oh why does mankind react in such a helpful manner when and only WHEN really bad situations such as this occur? Here in Nairobi, I see so many homeless people as well as kids on the streets begging for food or money. Why can’t the government lend a helping hand? Oh yeah, what about the plight of Kenya’s 2007/2008 post-election violence IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons)?

By the way, how does the Chilean government respond to similar and LESS HEROIC issues? A perfect example is Haiti. WHY can’t we get some Chilean “rescue effort” willpower so that Haiti can get back on track? What’s holding things up? I know it’s not as glamourous as rescuing 33 trapped miners from the 700m depths of Mother Earth.

Oh well!

Related links:

• 25 miners free as Chile rescue goes off flawlessly
• Chilean miners’ rescue has global audience gripped
• Unknown minister Laurence Golborne now a star
• Chile and Haiti: A Tale of Two Earthquakes
• Clinton: Donors still holding out on Haiti pledges

Goodbye Acrobat Reader, Hello Foxit PDF Reader…
Well, thank goodness we live in a world where software development is an extremely competitive field. Folks, please say hello to an amazing PDF reader that does everything Acrobat does and a lot more. All you need to know is that it’ll open your PDF files without any fuss. You can even annotate your PDF documents and then re-save them.Ya don’t believe me? Well, take a peek at the screen shot below. You’ll see my edited text in blue. Try that in Acrobat Reader. Psst…you can’t do it!

It’s obvious that Foxit Reader is a well-crafted piece of software. My hats off to the company’s developers for keeping things on the “slim side” of things — if ya know what I mean. Heck, version 4.11 is only 6.8 MB and version 3 last year was like 3.6 MB. Acrobat Reader, you are hereby banished from my hard disk – forever!

Oh kool…they even have a version for Desktop Linux, Windows Mobile, Embedded Linux, Symbian, Windows CE & U3. Nice. And if you want to create your own PDF files without having to plunk down a pile of cash for Acrobat 9 Standard at $299, then you should take their $129 Foxit Phantom PDF Suite for a spin. I’m sure it’ll do a waay better job than that Adobe’s $299 app.

About the company behind Foxit Reader…

In 2004, Foxit launched its award winning product – Foxit Reader, a small and fast PDF document viewer with extremely easy-to-use features and Foxit’s best-selling desktop software – Foxit PDF Editor. With over 90 million Foxit Reader downloads worldwide, Foxit software has become a high quality, affordable and popular alternative to other PDF software tool suppliers. {source}

90 million downloads? Wow, I’m bloody impressed. Well folks, don’t say I didn’t warn you about the largess Adobe Acrobat Reader. Repent, and use Foxit Reader instead.

Other bloated applications

• iTunes (a 70 MB download in order to play “some” music & video files? WTF!?)
  - gimme Media Monkey, SongBird or WinAmp any day of the week!
• Microsoft Office 2010 (what, a 700 MB download?)
  - gimme the amazingly free Open Office any day of the week…only a 150 Meg download!
• HP Print Drivers (40 – 200 MB…like WTF!? I only wanna print a damn document!)
• Got a bloatware app you wanna share with me? Leave a comment!

Related links…

• Adobe ships another mega-patch for PDF Reader (ZDNet)
• 8 Alternatives to Bloated Adobe Acrobat v9.1
• Why Acrobat Reader is so bloated?
• Stop using Adobe Acrobat Reader (The Inquirer)
• A Free, MUCH Faster Alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader
• What is the best (worst) bloated software? (My Opera forum)
• Acrobat is a bloated hog, try a 1 mb PDF reader! (MozillaZine)

It’s accurate to say that the computer industry has a soft spot for AMD because they’ve really done a lot of innovating (K5, K6, Athlon, Opteron, Turion…) and pushing the envelope against Intel since the late 80s/early 90s starting with their fiery founder Jerry Sanders {is he still around?}

I’m all for AMD getting a piece of Apple’s pie. They deserve it and I’m rooting for them — ALWAYS. It’s not that I hate Intel per se. It’s just that they did some sneaky things back in the 90s to try to screw AMD. Ask former CEO Andy Grove (the “paranoid one”). If it were not for AMD, I’m positive the pace of new chip releases would have slowed to a crawl so that Intel could milk us dry. {Max “The IT pro”}

Mind you, I have mad respect for what Andy Grove accomplished at Intel from a manager’s point of view. But Jerry Sanders was the kinder, gentler leader.

Go AMD go!

Will Apple be the next SCO or the next Microsoft?

Once again, the ugly realm of patents rears its ugly head, threatening to stiffle or slow down competition…and innovation too. Is Apple right to sue HTC? Take a peek at this hotly commented ZD Net blog post and try to determine who’s in the wrong.

Here’s my take. I actually left the following comment over there:

If it’s true that no one else had these new iPhone-like ideas before it hit the market, then Apple should have the right to defend its patents. Did HTC coincidentally have the same idea for the touch screen? We’ll never know.
How does HTC prove this in a court of law. Very tricky. But what makes Apple “think” that a company like HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Google, Sony et al would not have invented the idea for a touch screen — sooner rather later? Again, very tricky stuff.
Patents suck in the scenario where 2 companies are developing similar technologies but 1 company applies for the patent before the other. That would be a bitter pill to swallow for the other company out in the cold. Wouldn’t it? {source}

Speaking of Microsoft, lawsuits like this reminds me of Microsoft’s legal department insinuating that the free open source Linux operating system has infringed on its numerous intellectual patents. In this situation, I think they’re just worried about free viable alternatives (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Linux Mint, Fedora et al) eating away at their Windows monopoly and putting the brakes on their multi-billion dollar profiteering.

Heck, I ditched Windows last year — for Linux — so maybe they have reason to be skeered too.

So I was peeking this ZDNet blog post on the prospect of a 64-bit version of Microsoft Office 2010. I’m like, “who cares?” Everyone’s running to install 64-bit versions of Vista or Windows 7 simply because they have Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD x86-64 chips. But, are they really getting any benefits if they’re still running 32-bit applications like Office 2007, Mozilla Firefox, Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player, iTunes et al? Hell no!

Actually, it’s hardware vendors that are “pushing” these 64-bit chips to home users — just like your medical doctor and Big Pharma pushing Chemotheraphy “treatment”  on poor hapless souls with cancer (especially now that we all know that pure Hemp Oil is a cure) because it’s a multi-billion dollar cash cow. Why? Profits, of course…and I understand that.

Show me the server goods…
Now, when it comes to server-based computing (mail/database/file servers, etc.), gimme 64-bits any day of the week. Anyhow, here’s my reply to the above blog post:

I’m more interested in 64-bit versions of MySQL, PostgreSQL, FirebirdSQL, SQLlite, etc. because this is the main area where you’ll see immediate benefits. Why? Because databases rule the world so if you are a company that has large data sets, then 64-bit RDBMS apps are the keys to your speedy success. I can also see 64-bits being advantageous in video/audio processing apps as well as large, complex information systems such as an Enterprise ERP app running on a server.
But Office 2010, Flash, and other desktop apps being 64-bits?? Not really important right now. {source}

Can you imagine running free 64-bit versions of Ubuntu Server Edition, FreeBSD, NetBSD, CentOS, OpenSolaris with free, powerful 64-bit apps like PostgreSQL, MySQL, Exim, Postfix, qmail, OpenERP, etc — and taking advantage of virtualization? Now, imagine if your system was decked out with an AMD Opteron 64-bit chip, 6 Gb RAM, and a RAID setup. Now here’s where some 64-bit “magic” will appear — right in front of your very eyes.

Happy 64-bit computing!

Related links

• The Lifehacker Guide to 64-bit vs. 32-bit Operating Systems
• Windows 7: 64 bit vs 32 bit?
• Gaming In 64-Bit: Tom’s Tests, Microsoft Weighs In
• Should your gaming computer be 64-bit?
• 64 bit FreeBSD 7 – Stable enough?
• AMD vs. Intel: 64-bit Windows Dual-Core Shootout
• The List of 64-bit Games
• XenServer 4.1 and 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machines
• Making Dual Core More Affordable: Athlon 64 x2 3800+
• 64-bit computing: Co-existing in a 32-bit world
• Small Community Cancer Cure Crushed by Big Pharma
• YouTube: “RUN FROM THE CURE – The Rick Simpson Story (Part 1 of 7)”
• How to Make Your Own Medicinal Hemp Oil
• Parlez-vous Cannabinoids?
• Czech Govt Allows 5 Cannabis Plants For Personal Use From 2010

Great Linux desktops a plenty…
Yes, we know Linux has been a huge success on the server side of things. But thanks to free sexy desktop user interface projects such as KDE and GNOME — as well as Xfce and Fluxbox for older PCs — Linux looks just as good (or better) than XP, Vista, Mac OS X or Windows 7. And things are getting better each and every day.

As a result, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, PCLinuxOS, OpenSUSE, SimplyMEPIS, Puppy Linux (great for old desktops and laptops that run XP slooowly!) and other distros are stepping up to the plate with fabulous desktop solutions for the home or office user. Anyhow, I expect to see some great developments from KDE (4.x) and GNOME (version 3.0) in 2010 that will make more users abandon Windows for good.

Related links

• Raiden’s Realm – Review: Linux Mint 8
• From Ubuntu to Linux Mint
• My Ubuntu Linux desktop before I moved to Linux Mint
• Ubuntu Linux rocks!!!
• GNOME desktop screenshots via Google Image Search
• ComputerWorld: Ubuntu 9.10 Better Than Windows
• Choosing a desktop Linux distro (2006 article at DesktopLinux.com)

So, you can look at Linux Mint as a more polished (take a peek at my Mint 8 desktop above!) and kinder, gentler version of Ubuntu that simply does EVERYTHING right out of the box, like:

• Playing any video or music format (DivX, Windows Media Audio/Video, Ogg, and tons more that I didn’t know existed).
• Detecting your Nokia celly so you can connect to the Internet with it (on XP you have to download Nokia PC Suite to do this!).
• Detecting all of your hardware and installing the proper drivers during the install process without you even noticing.
• Setting up Flash in Mozilla Firefox right off the bat.
• Ditto for Java!
• Plus lots of other “little” things that make you say, “Wow!”

Suffice to say, I heart Linux Mint. Really. Things just work on my laptop — or on any other old or new system that I’ve test driven it on. Ya don’t believe me? Well, take a peek at the following screen shot where I’m running the ever popular (and FREE) Evolution email client that was given to the community by Novell. It can connect to my GMail via IMAP or POP3 — and it’s sooo slick. By the way, it’s touted as an Outlook killer in every way — except for all those annoying Outlook bugs. Well, you know deal when you’re using Microsoft products. Oh, Evolution can even connect to a Microsoft Exchange mail server, too.

Of course I do this to show peeps down here that Linux Mint is a better alternative to Windows from this point of view:

• Your system is responsive and runs fast since it’s not saddled with layers and layers of archaic, proprietary Windows “technologies” that have, unfortunately, become a nightmare (or headache) for Microsoft in order to maintain backward compatibility — ie. millions and millions of lines of bloated Windows programming code going back to Windows 3.1, 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista and now Windows 7. I truly feel sorry for Microsoft on that note! Have you ever wondered why Windows XP, Vista or 7 takes up so much damn hard disk space?
• No chance in Hell of catching a virus, trojan, or worm that’s so prevalent on the Windows “platform”. I really believe Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky, Esset, Trend Micro, Panda, Grisoft and other well known Windows antivirus software companies just love the insecurity that’s built into the Windows architecture starting from the late 1980s to the present — all the way to the bank. If they had to depend on Linux, OS X, or a popular BSD Unix variant like NetBSD, FreeBSD, or OpenBSD, they’d all go out of business. No sh!t.
• Easy system updates and software installation thanks to its remarkable Debian lineage.

Related links

• Raiden’s Realm – Review: Linux Mint 8
• Reviews for Linux Mint (from DistroStuff)
• Linux Mint Raises the User-Friendliness Bar
• Linux Mint Review: Fantastic Distro!
• Linux Mint 6 Felicia Review : It Must Be Christmas
• My Ubuntu Linux desktop before I moved to Linux Mint
• Ubuntu Linux rocks!!!
• GNOME desktop screenshots via Google Image Search

5 Reasons why Ubuntu 9.10 is better than Windows 7

Wow, there are 263 comments in response to the article so far. No doubt some addicted Windoze (er Windows) users are going to try to make Linux look bad. But Linux cheerleaders don’t sit on the sidelines any more. They’ll defend their OS of choice until Hell freezes over (not gonna happen with this global warming thingy going on).

So, what’s your take?

Remembering the good ol’ days…
By reading ComputerWorld religiously, I was able to keep abreast of the latest trends with regards to: DB2, Informix, IBI’s PC-FOCUS 4GL, COBOL (gasp!), PowerBuilder, Oracle, VAX/VMS, Windows (unfortunately), Sybase, Unix, Texas Instruments IEF (Information Engineering Facility), Cognos PowerHouse, Lotus’ bad mis-steps with 1-2-3, DEC’s powerful Alpha AXP chip et al. Heck, this magazine used to magically disappear — for a few days or permanently — whenever I visited someone’s IT shop. After all, they weren’t that serious about IT I thought; it’s just that it was “the IT magazine” you had to have in your office if you wanted to look good. BTW, Byte, PC /Computing, and PC Magazine kept me up to date in the DOS/Windows era of computing and all the battles for market dominance between Intel/AMD, and Borland/Microsoft. ComputerWorld on the other hand was more for CIOs and high-end IT decision makers.

A new Information era…
Today, I don’t even read the above magazines in print any more. Thanks to the Internet, I get my full dose of IT news by visiting sites like Linux.com, DesktopLinux.com, LinuxPlanet.com, ZDNet.com, OSNews.com, Oreilly.com, CNet.com, ServerWatch.com, Internet.com along with the granddaddy of all FREE Open Source Software projects, SourceForge.net.

10 important Linux developments
everyone should know about

Are you looking for an amazing Linux Desktop experience? Well, I highly recommend the latest releases of the following FREE Linux distros:

• Linux Mint
• PCLinuxOS
• OpenSUSE
• Mandriva
• SimplyMEPIS
• Ubuntu Linux

To conclude, you simply can’t go wrong using one of the highly acclaimed Linux distributions listed above. Just download the .iso file, burn it to a blank CD, and reboot your PC. In my opinion, they all put Windows XP and Vista to shame.

Ubuntu 9.10 Feature Tour

Now, I can’t live one second without my fabulous and FREE IrfanView graphics app from my good Net pal, Irfan Skiljan, all the way from former Yugoslavia. He’s such a kool dude who now resides in Austria. Anyhow, he was way ahead of his time back around the mid 1990s when he developed what was then a landmark program. I’ve been using it for about 10 years now.

IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support. One of the first graphic viewers WORLDWIDE with Multipage TIF support. The first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple ICO support. {source}

The only problem I have with Irfan is that his addictive program only works on Windows. Doh!!! No worries though. Thanks to Sun Microsystems’ unbelievable FREE VirtualBox application, I can run Windows, various flavours of BSD Unix (ie. FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD), various Linux distros, and more as though they were installed on separate computers — all on my laptop. This, folks, is called virtualization and in this particular market, big names like VMWare, Parallels Desktop, Xen and others reign supreme. But VirtualBox holds it own against all of them. And did I mention its FREE, FREE, FREE? Heck, it seems like the best things in computing these days are FREE.

With my dual core Pentium processors, I can run XP via VirutalBox inside the protective confines of Ubuntu Linux and NOT ever have to worry about all the crap that goes with running XP on a standalone machine. Now, if I “catch” a nasty virus on my USB flash drive, no worries. I merely insert it on the Linux side in the Nautilus file explorer and delete em. Try that on Windoze!

Screenshot
Take a peek at my Ubuntu Linux desktop (as the host operating system) running Windows XP (as a guest operating system). You see, XP is just another program. I can suspend it and restart it later or take a snapshot for backup purposes. I’m loving this!!!

* Update *

• Well, I’ve moved from Ubuntu to the amazing Linux Mint distro which is simply a more “polished” version of Ubuntu. I’m lovin’ it! (13 comments so far)