mip's scan

The Linux User Interface

I've always been a fan of the open source movement.  One of the major stumbling blocks in my mind, for mass adoption of something link Linus is the user interface (UI).  It just isn't as elegant as end users want/need it to be.  In order to make in-roads on Windows and Apple, the UI in Linux needs some major overhauling in my opinion.

So why am I thinking/posting about this now?  Well, in my ongoing consumption of content on YouTube, I came across something last night that shows that UI enhancements are being worked on and tested / demonstrated.  I thought I'd share it with my readers. 
Enjoy.
mip

Open Source VoiP Not As Crazy As It Might Seem

After I wrote my piece on open source VoiP solutions a few people smirked and sneared at me asking if I was going to deploy it in the enterprise.  I'm not - yet.  But I stand by my prediction that open source VoiP will play a large role in future deployments of VoiP.  The reason is quite simple - cost.  Organizations will not want to be held hostage to the licensing schemes that proprietary systems will bring.   I had to smile to myself (and now here on my blog  :-)  )  when I read:

SHSU [Sam Houston State University] is in the process of moving its 6,000 students, faculty and staff off of Cisco CallManager IP PBXs and a legacy Nortel Meridian PBX over to Linux servers running Asterisk, which includes call processing, voicemail and PSTN gateway functionality. The driver for this project was cost, says Aaron Daniel, senior voice analyst at Sam Houston State University.

You see, the trend is already taking shape and companies looking to deploy VoiP would be foolish not to at least understand the open source alternatives and their potential fit within the organization, both today and tomorrow.

To read all about Sam Houston State University and their push on open source VoiP, just click here.

Open Source VoiP

I've been interested/fascinated/intrigued/learning about Voice over IP over the past number of months.  I've been assessing it as a viable business technology, looking at on-premise solutions and outsourced solutions.  From Cisco to Nortel, from Bell to Telus to OneConnect I've been thinknig about VoiP.  I've been experimenting and embracing it personally as well, using Skype coupled with a vTech phone system while being exposed to other home based options that a co-worker of mine is experimenting with from D-Link. 

In my opinion, it is all going VoiP - both in business and in the consumer space.  What I hadn't entertained all this time was an open source option to VoiP.  Does it sound scary?  I mean, if people can't make the leap from MS Office to an open source suite like OpenOffice for fear of it just "not working", can you imagine the huge leap that needs to be made to abandon the good old fashion for an open source solution?!?  I'm not saying it can be done, yet....but I think that all the VoiP vendors, as they push their wares on the market, people will find themselves locked into proprietary systems, a lot like Microsoft's Office suite.  Heck, the phones systems we already have lock us into proprietary systems, but I think businesses haven't carried because all systems basically did the same thing.  In the world of VoiP though, that changes, users are able to take their telephony in all new directions.  And with that they are going to want options and freedoms - not lock-ins.

Got An Old PC? Get Some New Storage

I devour storage.   I can never get enough storage.  You can never have enough storage.  More storage = goodness.

Are you picking up on my vibe.  With increased use of computers for storing music, podcasts, photos and video, storage is something I can't get enough of.  I try and centralize content and then access it over the network.  I do that with PCs and my Macs.  I have two 1TB LaCie drives as well attached to my Macs. 

Well I had an older Dell, about 9 years old now that had a 40GB and an 80GB hard drive in it.  It had Windows XP on it but it ran like a dog with only 512Mb of RAM.  During a Sunday evening house cleaning my wife said, "What are you going to do with this PC?"  It had been sitting in the garage for months, but the tech-guy in me just couldn't let it go.  I hummed and hawed a bit and she finally said "Just get rid of it if you can't use it." 

Backed into a corner, I got creative...what about turning this old PC into some network attached storage?  Having an additional 100GB or so of additional storage is always a good thing.  So what did I do?

Well it seems that Freespire has finally become available.  I spoke about Freespire in my April 26th, 2006 podcast and was looking forward to seeing this become available.  Check out this screenshot; it looks like a really nice implementation of Winspire, which is is a consumer friendly version of Linux.  If you've got a spare machine kicking around and you've wanted to trial Linux this is a good start.  I just finished putting it onto a spare I've got here and it installed flawsly and is nice and stable.

Freespire is a community-driven, Debian-based Linux distribution which legally supports (or has one-click access to support): MP3, DVD, Windows Media, QuickTime, Java, Flash, Real, ATI drivers, nVidia drivers, Adobe Acrobat Reader, proprietary WiFi drivers, fonts, and more.   

I like to have choice in the OS's I use.  When I need to use Windows...I use it.  My preference is always OSX but there is a place for a Linux build like this.  And it's free so why not try it.  You could install it and then run Windows in VMware if needed.  If you'd like to download it, you can find that here.

CNN Launches Exchange

One of the things I find incredible is all the good user-generated content that is created in the forms of blogs, video blogs, and podcasts that is more interesting and/or entertaining that commercially created content.  I enjoy checking out new stuff created in YouTube or over on Google Video.  My iPod and PSP are filled with excellent podcasts and video casts ranging from technology to wine tasting. 

I think that mainstream media outlets are starting to realize this.  That's why CNN's Exchange wasn't a surprise to me, although I think it is a great forward thinking step by CNN.

CNN Exchange invites YOU to connect with the news: Share your stories, your pictures, your videos wherever you see the I-Report logo. Weigh in on the blogs. Click your way through QuickVotes and more.

I think that real web-successes such as the thousands of hours of video being downloaded at YouTube daily or runaway successes like Digg.com have made organizations like CNN realize that "open sourcing" the news to an extent is smart.  I believe the trend we are seeing will continue and that traditional media networks will find increasing competition from online content like Rocketboom or Channel 9.

You can see more about Exchange here.

An Extension for your Extensions?

You know me - I love Firefox and it's many many extensions.  There are so many extensions that once in place you can't live without them.  So what happens when you get a new PC or an additional PC?  The first thing I always do is download Firefox and then go get all my extensions.  It's a pain in the ass browser but it has to be done.  Nothing is more frustrating than lacking functionality from browser to browser.

Well a new extension will now make setting up a new instance of Firefox a snap.  Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE) and Compact Library Extension Organizer (CLEO) allows you to backup & create a single .xpi file that contains all your extensions, bookmarks, preferences and bookmarks.  Once you create this .xpi you can copy that to your new machine where you've downloaded and installed Firefox and easily apply your extensions, preferences and bookmarks.

For more info and downloads you can check them out here for FEBE and here for CLEO.

An extension for your extensions.
I love it.

Screen Grab - Another Great Firefox Extension

Why does Firefox bodyslam IE time and time again?  Because of all the great extensions that are written for it.  Ah the joys of being "open".

I came across this very useful extension called screen grab.  Because I take so many screen captures for blog posts I'm always grateful when someone come along and makes my life easier when it comes to capturing web pages. 

Screengrab saves entire webpages as images.

Just install it, make sure Java is configured (Java absolutely necessary), and right-click on a page.

You can save the entire page as an image (it scrolls around the page taking shots and stitches it together), just the visible portion, or the browser window.

I've been using this extension so much in the past few days that I can't imagine how I was browsing/capturing without it before.  Go get it!

Paint.NET

I love finding great open source applications.  Paint.NET was brought to my attention by my daughter who was using it the other evening to do some photo editing for a school project.  I podcasted about it a little here and a lot here.

What I really liked about this tool was just how robust it is.  I watched for 15-20 minutes the first evening as my daughter did some of her photo editing.  "It has layers dad," she said to me with an approving nod of the head.  "It does indeed," I replied with a chuckle but also giving a nod of approval.  If you click on the thumbnail image to the right you can see it has a nice clean interface with all kind of great tools available.  Another feature I uncovered last night while playing with this tool  on my own was the Unlimited History feature.

Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody changes their mind. To accommodate this, every action you perform on an image is recorded in the History window and may be undone. Once you've undone an action, you can also redo it. The length of the history is only limited by available disk space.

So for those of you out there that need and/or want to do some good photo editing, be sure to download Paint.NET and give it a try.  You won't be disappointed. 

If you do any interesting stuff in Paint.NET, email it to me and I'd be happy to show it off for you!

Linux iMac

You can file this under "Because You Can".  Seems that some folks have gotten Knoppix to  run on the new Intel iMacs.  I find it kind it cool in a geeky-tech-sort-of-way but don't think I'll do this to my new iMac.  I've got Linux running on other hardware so I have no desire to have it run on my iMac.  I love OS X.  What I do want though is virtualization.  So come on folks - give me a way to be in OS X, simply launch and window and have Linux running in that window! 

The other interesting thing is this - in under 2 months they gotten the iMac to dual-boot between OS X and Linux.  Can Windows be that far behind?

To check out the story/details/big screenshots, just click here.