Free Software and Technology

        Free software is code that is not encumbered by copyright or intellectual property rights. From the point of view of its creator, it is something he offers to the community without guarantee, for the community to use and to improve on. From the point of view of the community, it is free for use and for modification.

        It is indeed arguable that free software is superior to proprietary software. However the model being used by proprietary software leads to impractical situations. If I have a copy machine using a non-free code, I won't be able to modify the code to better suit my particular need. I would have to buy another one for this one utility and use the former for the rest, increasing my cost. If I happen to be a programmer I still can't modify the code because somebody else owns the copyright. If the non-free code is failing/showing a bug and I happen to be a programmer I cannot just modify the code, again because of copyright.

        Proprietary software is essentially a monopoly that is anti-progress and so impractical when applied to the software world. It is a yoke carried by all non-free software users. Now I don't believe that there is a direct correlation on quality and free software. What I do suggest is that the free open source model is better at delivering technology to solve our problems.

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Mailvelope, Encryption for Webmail

Encryption is the topic of week. I wrote about it in a related post here. While encryption is a very good idea, doing it and doing it every day as part of your work flow is another thing. My view is that if you're already using an email client then it is easier, simpler and more convenient to adopt encryption. That is not the case if you're using a webmail service. If you are using the browser to check, compose and send your email, what are your options? The answer is: it's complicated. Looking for a way to do encryption with Google Chrome and Gmail, I found this. I also read that Google just released code for email encryption as open source. But it's a long way to being used by end users. The extension for Google Chrome works fine if the recipient also uses Google Chrome. But I went ahead and check this on Evolution.

Donald Trump Is The 45th President of the United States

and he is preparing to move with his transition team into the Oval Office. His election is a shock to many political observers and the world in general. Donald Trump, the president-elect, ran against Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State and for many the most qualified candidate for the presidency in many years. This has led to many post election analysis of how this upset happened. The numbers of votes for each candidate and the comparisons with previous presidential elections point to the fact that the white vote for Mr. Trump is solid all throughout but the minority and black votes did not come for Mrs. Clinton. This is what happened in crucial States like Michigan and Florida. The Republicans kept Congress and the Senate. It is quite notable that Russia and in particular, Vladimir Putin, is happy that they are going to talk to Mr. Trump rather than Mrs. Clinton. It is also a ...

Webapps in Unity

So it has been 4 months since Ubuntu 14.04 came out. This is LTS and supported for 6 years by Canonical. The first mobile device with Ubuntu pre-installed is promised to come out later this year, 2014. It's time to check out how the apps perform so far. It is a good idea. I use Gmail and Twitter and Facebook. Why not a webapp in a desktop? So I start the Twitter and Gmail webapp. So far it has crashed my computer 6 times. Not a very good sign. On the other hand it does work but not as stable as opening them in Firefox. -- Use my PGP key if you want to encrypt your replies/messages to me. You are invited to also send me your PGP keys so we can communicate in private.

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