Danny's Space

Lots of new things in Hardy. The world clock is simply amazing. It is what I needed. Firefox 3.0 comes pre-loaded with Hardy. I have not tried all the bells and whistle. All for free. Simply amazing really. If people can only try Linux maybe the world of computing will really mean the change we have been waiting for.

I bought two recordable cd's at a friendly CD-r king shop last week. I have to burn the new version of Ubuntu to one of these. I worry about not being able to download right on the day itself. If I go by experience, the Ubuntu servers will again be swamped and traffic will be horrible and slow. So I let April 24 go and started the download the next night at around 12:00am. I had to start the next day again. The download was faulty and I didn't want to gamble on a doubt for such an important download. I used mdsum5 to check the downloaded package on my desktop folder. It remained there for three days until I was sure of the cd burn. The cd burn went fine. Hardy booted and I chose to install it to my hard drive. I also opted to reorganize my hard drive and created another partition for the new Ubuntu version 8.04. Ofcourse the nagging question is what to do with the data and settings to make the migration as smooth as possible. I checked the \home folder because that...

If Microsoft doesn't want us to have XP sp3, there are alternative operating systems available for the desktop. I use Linux with Ubuntu flavor. I happily switched to Linux from Windows XP and I have few regrets and lots of fun learning the Linux way. The first thing I learned is the idea that computing is a community experience. The operating system is being maintained by a community of volunteers. In Ubuntu, these community is backed by a commercial entity which provides commercial support. Ubuntu just released their latest version of Linux last April 24. You can go to any Ubuntu or Linux forum and get answers for your concerns. Linux users must be the most accomodating people in the web.

The oldest living tree in the world was found in Sweden. Scientists said that its roots are 9,550 years old. You would not be impressed by the visible part of it but after using carbon dating techniques on the roots of this Swedish spruce, scientists say they have found the oldest living tree. This photo is from Leif Kullman of the University of Umea.

I said farewell last April 9 to the Prepaid Smart Sampaloc site. I am to begin my training at Parlance in Bel-Air Makati. I started my job at Smart Prepaid last April 2005 and I met a lot of dedicated people there. Since it was my first call center job, I learned a lot from the senior agents and my team leaders. I have several team leaders in the span of my stay there. I have Ms. Azel, Ms. Olga, Ms. Pau, Mr. Ron, Mr. Adonis and Mr. Zak Falmarin whose picture is on the right.

I read two interesting blogs today. One tells of the irrelevancy of the OS wars. The other is a news piece on the report of two Gartner researchers. The researchers made statements that Vista is no longer viable and consumer resistance to migration to the operating system is growing not decreasing. Furthermore, the rise of the ultramobile pc with its limited hardware options (due to functional perimeters), puts Vista out as an acceptable choice for an operating system. While Linux and OS X are being used in small portable devices (mobile phones, iphone) Vista is too big for the ultra portable laptops (eeepc, everex). What does these developments tell us average computer users? Keeping up with change and technology is stressful enough and you have to pick a path that has the least slope in its learning curve. Or anticipate which technology will emerge and jump on the bandwagon as soon as possible. Vista is out and Microsoft would not be able to come out with another operating syst...

I found a music website recommended to me by a friend. I had been listening to Seeqpod and Last.fm for a few months now. Last.fm in particular is giving my media player (rhythmbox) some hiccups during playback. I love Last.fm playlists and member preferences but rhythmbox and Last.fm don't play very well. Maybe it's my slow connection. I don't know. And so it was with some reservation that I clicked this link, http://finetune.com/. This is not a beta. The media player is quick and very responsive. I wonder, if I try to use this during high traffic, would it perform less brilliantly? I listened to my Michael Franks Radio as it gave me much pleasure. There's George Benson, James Taylor, Norah Jones and a track from the man himself, "The Lady Wants To Know". What if I could somehow listen to Finetune in Rhythmbox? That would be so fine.