Software

Windows 7 and Microsoft Security Essentials

It isn’t a Windows 7 launch party, but it’ll do for now.  I picked up a copy of 7 from the University tech store and ordered a new computer online for MrsDoF to put it on.  She’ll have an Intel Dual-Core, 2gb, 500gb, and Win7 for total cost about $290 including shipping and tax. 

She’s got XP now - we skipped Vista.  If she doesn’t like 7 then she’ll be learning Ubuntu. 

But assume she’ll like 7; anybody have any thoughts on Microsoft’s new “Security Essentials” suite?

Posted by George on 10/22/09 at 08:59 PM
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A major disagreement with F-Spot

Sometimes I’m a little (or a lot) slow-witted but there’s something I just don’t get: Why the hell can’t I rename photos in F-Spot? 

Could anyone explain it to me?  Is there some reason why I shouldn’t want to rename photos in F-Spot?  It’s the best-known photo management software for Linux, and yet it lacks what seems to me an extremely basic function.

I seem to remember a similar disagreement with Picasa. 

Posted by George on 07/11/09 at 09:57 PM
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Software installation in Linux is difficult

Suppose you want to play the game “Hearts” on your computer.  And suppose, like me, you were cheap and wanted to get it for free.  Lucas sent me a screenshot-by-screenshot comparison of the installation on a Linux machine vs. a Windows machine.  It’s a joke written by a popular operating system.  (Hint: Linux plays the straight man.)

And that’s congruent with my experience too.  At work I’m building four Windows platforms that we’ll Ghost out to hundreds of machines.  It’s time-consuming to ferret out all the Windows ‘annoyances’ and create a build anyone would want to use.

But this evening, I came home and decided to rebuild my Linux machine.  I booted off the CD, made a few choices, and went upstairs for dinner.  After the meal, I made a few more choices and wound up with a ready-to-use machine.  My total keyboard time investment?  About twenty minutes.  Try building a Windows machine in twenty minutes.

Posted by George on 07/02/09 at 10:11 PM
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Open Office saves the day

Y’know, jump drives aren’t totally reliable.  Their little bits go bad sometimes and the document you were working on becomes corrupted.*  This happened to a professor today, and several hours of his work was at stake.

Trying to retrace your steps from memory on a complex document that you are producing under deadline is no fun at all, and we have all been there.  I quickly copied the document to the desktop and tried opening it again.  Nope, Microsoft Word 2007 wanted nothing to do with it, not even with the “Repair” and “Recover” functions.  I opened it in Notepad++ and recovered at least most of the text, but the formatting was gone.

But I had one other trick up my sleeve.  Copying it to a network drive, I went back downstairs to the desktop computer in my office and opened it up in the Open Office word processor.  Almost all of the formatting was intact. I saved it again with a new filename and a .doc extension and emailed it back to the professor.

Not that it would work every time, but it’s worth a try. 

* (A couple strategies here.  First, “Save As” multiple versions of your documents as you go, like this: Mar09report_ver1.doc, mar09report_ver2.doc, and so on.  If the document is really important, copy to more than one drive - perhaps a jump drive and a network drive.  If it’s really, really important, burn it on a CD and take it offsite.  Also, every once in a while, burn the contents of your jump drive to a DVD, check that the copy is good, then reformat your jump drive and copy your files back onto it.  Keep the DVD as a backup.  And don’t use a jump drive for more than a year or so.)

Posted by George on 03/16/09 at 10:09 PM
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Ubuntu 8.1 impressions

I just installed Ubuntu 8.1 on my laptop, a Lenovo X40 with a P4 processor and 1.5 gigs of ram.  Short version: “Wow!”  It is smokin’ fast and kitchen-clean.  No hardware problems at all and it picked up wireless networks right away.  And Gimp 2.6 is quite an improvement, if for no other reason than they got rid of the dopey dog.  (Well, it’s faster too).

My home desktop machine is going to be upgraded, pronto.

Posted by George on 12/09/08 at 10:12 AM
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Coming soon: Google’s shiny new Chrome browser

Google is coming out with a new, open-source browser optimized for web applications.  Check out the introductory comic book.  I found that it loaded very slowly - you might try downloading the .pdf.

The semi-technical ‘comic book’ is drawn by Scott McCloud - I have a couple of his books on comic art.  I actually recognized his drawing style right away; how geeky is that?

This is actually big news.  Funny thing is, it would even benefit Microsoft if they know enough to take advantage of it.

Posted by George on 09/01/08 at 09:09 PM
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First look: Ubuntu 8.04

Previously I’d been using Xubuntu because Ubuntu didn’t seem to work very well for me.  But though it was amazingly fast, Xubuntu had problems.  Yesterday I downloaded Ubuntu 8.04 and installed it on my home machine.  After switching off the fancy gingerbread and trying it, I have a few observations below the fold.

Short version:  this one is a keeper.  If Microsoft could keep up steady improvement like this, they would be a celebrated global treasure instead of the icon of junk software that they are.  But they can’t, so here we are using Ubuntu.  And so far very favorably impressed.

Continued...

Posted by George on 08/23/08 at 11:48 AM
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Flashblock important in Xubuntu

I have not used Flashblock on Windows or Macintosh computers because Flash content seems to work well enough not to interfere with the browsing experience.  But - I don’t know why - it doesn’t seem to work well in Xubuntu, and particularly not on machines with 512 mb RAM.  (which could be a proxy for “older machines whose xfce video drivers ain’t so good) 

When you install Flash in the first place, use the “Flash plugin nonfree” in Synaptics package manager, then open Firefox and install the “Flashblock” plugin in the usual way.  Presto! Computer doesn’t slow to a crawl every time you visit ScienceBlogs or BBC.  And you can still click through to see YouTube content just fine.

Posted by George on 06/08/08 at 08:51 AM
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A Linux example

Thinking about Linux?  Here’s a real-world example.  Keep in mind I am NOT an expert with Linux, I’m a Windows guy.

I just installed Xubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad X40 laptop.  This is a high-durability, small-format laptop with P4 Centrino processor and 512 Ram, so from a system perspective it’s nothing special.  It has no CD-rom drive (too tiny), so I hooked up an external.

The configuration had been dual-boot Ubuntu/WindowsXP, and since Xubuntu is a bit leaner (faster) I wanted to change it.  I have three Linux partitions; /, /home, and /swap, plus one NTFS partition for Windows.  I plugged in a network cable for installation, though the laptop us generally used wireless afterward.

Rather than install over the top of Ubuntu (I wanted fresh pastry, not day-old) I replaced the existing / partition and ran the install using defaults.  In 15 minutes it was asking me a startling question that I have never seen before during a Linux install: would I like to import Windows accounts? 

It had looked in the NTFS partition and correctly identified all the Win accounts there, and offered to import them so the files and settings would be available in Linux.  Astounding.  No more “never the twain shall meet.”  I declined Windows file imports because, well, I fear change; but it’s a neat feature that I will try out on a test machine.

Xubuntu correctly identified all the hardware and set up the wireless, detecting my home network.  I used Update Manager to get all new security updates, which installed in 15 minutes with no attention from me.

Then I needed to pack in my favorite apps. Using the Synaptic package manager I marked Open Office (a full office suite comparable to Microsoft office), Open Office Draw (similar to Microsoft Publisher), Quanta Plus (an HTML editor), Flash Plugin, and XMMS player for installation.  Clicked “Apply” and went back to doing other stuff on my desktop computer for another 15 minutes until a little window popped up saying “Changes applied.” 

There. Now it’s ready to use again. Total investment of my attention, about a half-hour.  Total installation time, about an hour.

It takes about four hours to reinstall Windows on this same laptop, because all the drivers have to be set up manually, and the applications require swapping CD’s or installation from network drives. You have to watch for “stopper’ dialog boxes so you can’t really do other stuff during installs.  So I don’t reinstall Windows on a whim. 

Other than speed (considerably faster in Xubuntu than in Windows XP) both operating systems do pretty much the same things and work in similar ways.  Not identical. 

Posted by George on 05/29/08 at 05:14 AM
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More on Linux HTML editors

I’ve been playing with Bluefish for a while, just long enough to be irritated by a couple of its shortcomings.  It persists in using deprecated tags like i and b instead of em and strong.  It’s a bit difficult to customize, and the manual is HTML only.  If the program is going to be non-intuitive, I want a manual I can print and study.

Today I started playing with Quanta Plus.  Right off the bat it’s easier to customize and the workflow is a bit smoother.  It uses WW3C standard tags.  Very promising.  Except Bluefish had a friendlier icon to click on; it reminded me of one of the characters in Finding Nemo.  Otherwise, so far I like Q+ better.

Posted by George on 05/27/08 at 04:33 AM
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Xubuntu 8.04 on IBM ThinkPad T-21

You wouldn’t think an eight-year-old laptop would be good for much.  Its PIII processor and paltry 512mb of RAM, plus its puny 30 gig hard drive just don’t add up to a lot of firepower.  This wasn’t a problem until a month ago when a couple new Microsoft patches came out that just bogged it down.  Even a fresh build didn’t help.

But the IBM ThinkPad T-21 is just too good to throw out.  It was a maximally-engineered model with a carbon-fibre frame, a crisp, easy-typing keyboard, and a great screen topped with a titanium lid.  And it was cheap: it sold for three grand when it was new, but I bought for my son a couple years ago for one-tenth that much.

I tried Ubuntu on it but running Ubuntu is a young laptop’s game.  Ubuntu is intended to compete with Windows Vista and it’s really needs a P4 with a gig of ram to run well.  (Vista needs much more)  An older machine like this one needs a lighter, more stripped-down OS.  Then Webs05 sent me this email:

Xubuntu 8.04 is [great]!  There is no other way to put it! So far I am having super amazing results. And I am currently installing it on Katie’s laptop, which means they fixed A LOT of previous issues. Katie’s laptop is the old X23... Anyways, try it out. I am going to be writing a post soon.

Well that’s interesting because the ThinkPad X-23 is a smaller but otherwise very similar machine as far as the operating system is concerned.  And I did try it out, splitting the HD into two primary partitions and putting the /home in the second partition, with / and /swap in the first partition.  It works great, it’s reasonably fast, it suspends well, and the wireless works fine.  It even set up the Broadcom 54g wireless card with no problem. 

Xubuntu is Ubuntu without all the gingerbread; it doesn’t waste CPU cycles trying to be pretty.  And it works: this old laptop has a new lease on life.  I’m putting a new battery in it and giving it back to my son.

One little thing though: do you suppose the Ubuntu people could quite naming their releases things like “Feisty Fawn” and “Gutsy Gibbon”?  It just sounds kind of Disney, like a character on one of their “video-only” kids’ movie releases.  Couldn’t they call it something cool like “Great White” or “Leopard”?  Oh wait, that one’s taken…

Posted by George on 04/28/08 at 09:38 PM
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Facebook wants to be the next Microsoft

...at least in the respect of “Non standards-compliant, increasingly bloated, complex, and irrelevant”.  Not surprising since Microsoft owns a small chunk of Facebook.  Could 1.6% ownership be enough influence to steer them away from the emerging OpenSocial standard?

“Facebook is a supporter of open source and sees value in any contributions the foundation may make to the industry. Facebook is not joining this foundation, but the company remains focused on advancing Facebook Platform to benefit the developer community and help users communicate and share information more efficiently… Facebook will continue to work with other trusted partners to explore new initiatives around data portability,” Facebook’s spokesperson said.

Bblbbitt!  Yeah, a “new initiative” about every 11 months, with no connection to the previous ones.  In other words, “When we say; ‘data portability’ we mean ‘frustrating divisions between our product and enormous chunks of the market as a whole’”.  Seriously.  If you work with Microsoft software you know that it isn’t even compatible with itself over more than two iterations. I can open a Word 6.0 file on my Linux machine more easily than I can on my Windows box.

Posted by George on 03/28/08 at 05:59 AM
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OK, Dreamweaver is officially pissing me off

I’m trying to insert some level-specific style information into the header of a .dwt, right?  And Dreamweaver is not letting me.  I have spent the last two and a half hours wrestling with this finely engineered piece of bloated crap software, reading online documentation and trying everything under the sun in the hopes that it will let me put 54 damn characters into a frakkin’ template. 

I would prefer to complete this simple task in about one minute in a code editor like BlueFish or Notepad++.  But DW is our standard, and I need to be fluent with it.  I am tired of being a dope with an important piece of software that everyone here uses. Besides if I get hit by a truck, it’s important the work I leave behind meet institutional standards. 

Anyone know any secret incantations to make Dreamweaver CS3 listen to simple instructions?


Updates:

  • The normal procedure is to open the Assets panel, select the template in question, and click on the “edit” button at the bottom.  But this did not work with the template that prompted this post.  It appears the template has to be created from the higher-level template using the “Nested Templates” function to make a template you can actually, uh, edit. This aspect was less than crystal clear from the documentation to say the least.
  • And my biggest problem with these omnibus Swiss-Army-Knife programs is they make for sloppy, disorganized code and even worse file management.  It’ll make sure something ends up on the web but it can’t think about taxonomy, etc.

Posted by George on 03/19/08 at 04:21 PM
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Linux-alicious

On Sunday I set up an Ubuntu system for my son to use while he visits over holiday (it will be a step down for him but better than no computer).  But for all its well-intentioned interface smoovieness, Ubuntu is a bit bloated.  If you want quick and clean, (above all quick)  there are distros that have all the extra baggage pre-removed. Geekalicious goodies from InformationWeek Daily:

  1. Five tiny Linux distros that pack a punch
  2. 7 Reasons why Linux won’t succeed on the Desktop.  I had read this one before and it makes some great points.
  3. Why Linux will succeed on the desktop.  This one unintentionally illustrates a couple points from number 2, but opens a new thought: KDE4.  Though it is still in beta, I am definitely going to have to look into that some more.  But it won’t be for machines that would use the tiny distros.  The developers clearly have the Mac in mind.  Anyway the author believes Gnome needs to go away for Linux to succeed.

Unfortunately one great opportunity for Linux is the utter failure of Vista.  I would rather not see Linux succeed the lazy way, by default.

Posted by George on 11/20/07 at 07:48 AM
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But at least the interface is pretty

I get email, lots of it.  Chopping through the uncontrolled undergrowth in my inbox, Outlook informs me that I have 224 unread messages.  They’re probably mostly spam but I’d like to flip through them anyway.  So I set up a “Read” column icon in the message sorting pane and clicked on it.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.  Hey Micro$oft, do you think you could pull a couple young geniuses off the program to innovationalize transparent animated title bar interfaces, and get them to fix basic functionality? 

Posted by George on 11/12/07 at 09:17 AM
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