From Ubuntu to Linux Mint

Published on December 7, 2009 in Info Tech, Opinions and Solutions. 13 Comments Tags: , , .

[Gachie, Kenya]
WELL, IT’S OFFICIAL, I’m now a big fan of the amazing Linux distro called Linux Mint. You see, it’s based on the fabulous work that Ubuntu (which is based on Debian) has already done; that is, making Linux easy for the masses to use, install and manage — just like Windows XP (I hear Vista & Windows 7 are a “lengthy” nightmare to install).

My "sexy" Linux Mint 8 desktop

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.

My Linux Mint 8 desktop with the "Outlook killer" Evolution mail client

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.

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Google Voice: Free Calling Has Arrived

Published on December 1, 2009 in Info Tech and Solutions. 0 Comments Tags: , .

[Gachie, Kenya]
MY FAVOURITE WRITER on all things IT is always on the ball with his analysis on events that could change the landscape in this industry. I just wished more tech companies that fell on hard times over the past decade or 2 would’ve read John C. Dvorak’s timely and insightful articles. Here’s another excellent observation on why Google is always ahead of the curve in comparison to its competitors.

Google Voice: Free Calling Has Arrived

Take a peek at how Dvorak sees things that should be obvious to other important players in the telecom business:

Now that Google is behind the latest push for free calls, the whole process will likely be accelerated worldwide. Soon enough we’ll all be wondering why the whole process took so long, and why Google had to be behind it. Where was Microsoft? Or IBM? What about the almighty Apple? None of the CBG (Came Before Google) companies seem to have any telecom vision whatsoever.
Google entered the phone business with Android. The company saw Google Voice as the next logical step in the evolution of its it telephony business. There’s even a Google Voice Android app that gives Google phones a cost-cutting edge. Of all of the major players in the phone space—Nokia, Ericsson, Sony, Samsung, Apple, Motorola—only Google thought of this idea? Ericsson has been in the phone switch business and knew the writing was on the wall. What were they thinking? Nokia was working on all sorts of mesh-technologies, saw thing coming, and did nothing? {source}

For any one who has a PC and is looking for el cheapo phone rates, I urge you to take Google Voice for a spin.

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ComputerWorld: Ubuntu 9.10 Better Than Windows 7

Published on November 30, 2009 in Info Tech, Opinions and Solutions. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

[Gachie, Kenya]
I OWE A LOT to ComputerWorld back in my high school days and in the 1990s for really keeping me up to date on all the important IT developments back then. Boy, I almost forgot about them, but I was pleasantly surprised with this favourable analysis of Ubuntu Linux 9.10 (Karmic Koala) against Windows 7.

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?

ComputerWorld cover - December 1996

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.

ComputerWorld cover- May 1998

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.

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10 Important Linux Developments

Published on November 29, 2009 in Info Tech, Opinions and Solutions. 0 Comments Tags: .

[Gachie, Nairobi, Kenya]
NOW THAT I’VE become a Linux whore, I thought I’d share a really important post that highlights some key Linux developments courtesy of IBM’s DeveloperWorks website.

10 important Linux developments
everyone should know about

the Linux mascot, Tux, the penguin, is looking to uproot Windows installations -- everywhere!

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

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.

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Microsoft’s top coders prefer Old Skool

Published on November 28, 2009 in Info Tech. 0 Comments Tags: .

[Gachie, Kenya]
SOMETIMES WHEN YOU make things too difficult, and try to “advance” certain tried and true practices for the sake of “progress”, sh!t happens. I kind of feel that things have gotten so advanced when it comes to developing software that we’ve forgotten the old ways of doing things. In this case, some of Microsoft’s elite programmers have stated that they don’t fancy all the “UML-GUI-easy-as-pie” coding mantra that has come to dominate the computer industry. In other words, it holds them back. Check this out:

But during a revealing and often humorous panel discussion on the future of programming at last week’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft’s own superstar developers espoused their loyalty to old-school methods of coding software.
“I will fight you if you try to take away my text editor,” said Don Box, a Microsoft distinguished engineer.
“Do people want to draw pictures [to program]? Sure, I guess,” continued Box, who works on creating declarative languages and tools for Microsoft. “But if you grew up programming when I did, you did it in text. And I think we lose that at our peril.”
“Graphical programming environments are usable when they are useless, but unusable when they would be useful,” said Jeffrey Snover, another Microsoft distinguished engineer and creator of Microsoft’s PowerShell scripting tool for Windows. “When there are five things on the screen, you can burp that out [in text]. But when there are 500 things, [graphical programming] is completely unusable. You zoom in and zoom out and you lose all context. I think it’s just smokin’ dope.” {source}

Read more…

The Delphi C++ Builder 2009 IDE splash screen. Has development environments like this been a benefit or not?

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Ubuntu Linux rocks!!!

Published on November 15, 2009 in Info Tech, Opinions and Solutions. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

[Gachie, Kenya]
NOW THAT I’VE abandoned Windows XP — I’m not really interested in Windows  7, and I wasn’t that stupid to give Vista a chance! — my computing life is so much more serene. Why? Because I’m running the latest FREE Ubuntu Linux (ver 9.10 – aka Karmic Koala) on a Toshiba L305 lappie. And ya know what? “Like Hell I’m going back to headaches a la Windoze. Nope, I’m done — for good.” I just have one thing to say to myself: “Max, you idiot!!! What took you sooo long? Moron!” :-(

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!!!

Max The IT Pro's Ubuntu Linux desktop with Windows XP running as a guest via VirtualBox

* Update *

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DJ Vibe & Victor Calderone on YouTube

Published on November 7, 2009 in Music, Parties and Videos. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

[Kiambu, Kenya]
WHY DO I LOVE Dark Progressive House so much? Well, it just gets you pumped up to the point that you have to dance. In addition, world class DJs like Victor Calderone and DJ Vibe are masters of this genre. I was doing a little YouTubing today, and decided to see what I’d find if I did a search on said genre. Lo and behold, I saw lots of video results…so I had to peek a few of them. Can you feel the pulsating progressive sounds in this video at the Shelborne Pool Party which is part of the 2008 Winter Music Conference festivities held in Miami, Florida? The fun really begins at the 20 second mark when the DJ literally changes gears — and revs up the BPMs (beats per minutes). Wicked!!!!

I just wished I was there to dance my behind off. I sooo miss that “dark proggy sound.” Let’s just say that you have to be “part of the scene” to appreciate these beats that DJ Vibe and Calderone are unleashing at the moment. By the way, when I came to Kenya, I brought my only “paid for” Resonate CD by Victor Calderone. Suffice to say, it magically disappeared out of my possession in less than a year. So much for sharing my passion for House music. :-)

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Beach Club Party – Quebec, Canada

Published on September 19, 2009 in Music and Parties. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

[Diani Beach, Kenya]
WELL, IT LOOKS like I missed yet another great party at Beach Club on September 6, 2009  just outside of Montreal, Quebec. Here, you’ll find amazing DJs playing all sorts of delicious EDM (Electronic Dance Music) beats…and the vibe is soooo RELAXED. I gotta give some credit to French Canadians: They know how to party – in sexy style!! Thanks for the pics Robbie…you lucky bastard! :-)

a kick-ass party at the famous Beach Club in Quebec, Canada on Sep6-2009

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Theo Stone Art Exhibit at Village Market

Published on September 15, 2009 in Africa and Opinions. 0 Comments Tags: , .

[Shimoni, Kenya]
That fabulous Greek-Ugandan-Kenyan artist — and a dear friend of mine — Theo Stone (aka Theodora Spyropoulos-Stone) is about to unveil some exciting artwork at the highly anticipated Village Market Art Exhibition between October 1 and the 10th. Don’t miss it! I’ve always said that Theo is the most versatile artist I’ve met on this continent…and probably even on Planet Earth. Could she be a space alien who came to earth to “creatively play” for a while? Who knows!

You can obtian more details at this link:

October 2009 Exhibition at Village Market

By the way, here’s a sample of Theo’s “out-of-this-world” creativity! I just wished I could afford her art. :-(

Peek her online gallery for more goodies! Enjoy!

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Yahoo does FREE POP3 & Forwarding

Published on September 10, 2009 in Info Tech and Opinions. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

[Shimoni, Kenya]
WOW, I’M totally shocked! Yahoo now offers UNLIMITED email storage, POP3 mail access or email forwarding (you can only choose 1 option) to an external address — for FREE. I just have one question for the kind pioneering (during the 90s) folks at Yahoo!: What took ya so fu*k!ng long??

R u kidding me? Yahoo! does FREE POP3 & email forwarding now?

Lead or get out of the way…
Google (via GMail) has been doing this like since the beginning of time. This is why, incidentally, Yahoo and HotMail (now Windows Live Mail and an annoying piece of Windows centric crapware) has lost so MANY users to the 20-steps-ahead GMail web app that’s oh so addictive. BTW, I like Yahoo’s new YMail.com addys. It has a nice ring to it. Yes, I know Yahoo offered these goodies “back then” for a $19.95 yearly premium. But how can you compete against FREE? Seriously! One other thing…I can tell a lot about a person by the email provider he/she keeps. If they’re with Yahoo or Hotmail, I know they’re behind the times and most likely are not risk takers with new technologies. That’s just a generalization though, which might get me into some hot water. Oh well!

The good ‘ole days…
Anyhow, I can’t really knock Yahoo too much since I lost my Internet virginity with them back when I was studying Computer Science. We frequently used the GAUL labs (Middlesex College building) with its expensive Sun Microsystems workstations running the powerful and sexy Solaris flavour of UNIX.  Boy, those were truly great times, and Yahoo’s innovative directory was my portal into Cyber Space. For that, I will always be grateful to Yahoo. I’m still kicking myself for not buying stock when they first went public. Oh well!

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Get Free POP/IMAP from GMail

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