And maybe I was wrong...

Revisiting one of my favorite subjects: desktop Linux. It seems a company out West (RedSeven) is doing Linux (mostly) desktops to a premium market. If you must, you get a dual boot system -- for those people that just can't rid themselves of that last infect-o-matic application. Read more on LXer.com (of course! Where you gonna get the latest in Linux news ;)
--FeriCyde

Lawn-Mowers and Free Software

I used to own my own business as a kid, from age 13 or so to 19, I had the cemetery market cornered in my home town of Jamestown Missouri. I needed lawn mowers that could stand up to 8 to 10 hours in the Missouri heat, and in fairly short order, found that the typical off-the-shelf hardware of the day simply couldn't cut it (couldn't resist the pun, sorry). Lawn-boy had the best lawn mowers by far for what I was doing. They were little two-cycle jobbers that after RTFMing, I could take apart (down to the needle bearings, if I had to) and put back together. One thing for sure -- I couldn't wear them out.

And they stood up to the heat and the abuse of my someday computer-science-loving brother Dan. The latter was the main problem in the equation. Dan was kind of rough on the little buggers. It was mainly the lightweight magnesium decks and handles I needed, and lawn-boys of the day were kind of expensive. As a Kid, I didn't have the cash to keep buying new decks all the time. So I did what any decent self-respecting businessman would do: I went to garage sales. After a couple of sub-50 dollar purchases of Lawn-boys, I learned a valuable fact: I could have a couple of year-old used Lawn-boy on the cheap anytime I wanted practically. Why? Because most people that had them didn't read the manual.

They hated mixing the 2-cycle gas too, but that's a side issue. Mainly, they never spent the cash to tune them up. "This thing is warn out, you can have it for nothing." was a typical phrase. I ended the business with a garage full of parts, and I gave away spare lawnmowers to my dad and grandfather. I had processed quite a few of them -- more than I can count, most of them in good working order, for parts such as handles and decks. The main component, the engine, was typically next to new in condition, unless it had been run without oil (surprisingly few were).

The point was this: on almost every occasion, I brought the newly found Lawn-Boy home, changed the plug, points and condenser (this was the 70's, OK!?) and pulled the easy-to-pull (with two fingers, no less) starter rope. Rarely did any find not start on that pull, and run like a champ.

People were simply not tuning them up. They were so easy to pull-start (it was a feature), that people assumed after 50-100 pulls of the string with a bad set of points/plug/condenser that it was never going to start. Maybe yesterday it had started on say, the 49th pull. Today, it was "worn out". They inevitably bought a cheap lawn mower, pushed the "old" Lawn-Boy into the garage, and it became my next years garage sale find.

The cheap common variety lawn mowers came with hard to pull (two arms required) ropes. If after 4 or 5 pulls and a hernia operation, the thing wouldn't start, it was time for a tune-up.

So how in the heck does this relate to open source software? It's very similar, I believe, to the issues around why people have Windows PCs that they won't replace, even though they go through enormous pain on a daily basis attempting to get them to work. They don't believe there is something more elegant that might do the trick. They know this devil, and are more likely to scrap it regularly and purchase a similar model.

I know it sounds like a stretch, but I couldn't resist comparing the two -- the dynamics are far too similar to ignore.
--FeriCyde

Cat Check!

It's 3:00 AM in the morning -- do you know where all of your Cats are?

...

I wake up worried. Taking Sammy out last night for his usual pre-bedtime business, I can't remember hearing the kitchen screen door latch behind me (it's like that, I've caught Lenny out the door when we came back one time). Did it do the same thing last night, or not? Maybe (I think), Lenny has gotten out along with one of the other cats for some kind of midnight skulking run. Maybe not. Maybe he's out stealing a car or something.

I know cats don't easily steal cars, but Lenny has been capable of some surprising feats of ingenuity. I clear my head. Now I know I'm losing it. Lenny really isn't capable of such things, he's pretty dumb, even for a cat. Still, maybe he's out under the wheels of a car in the street.

Now there's what I'm worried about. It's time for a 3:00 AM cat-spot-check. Hopefully I can count on my brain being able to count in a groggy fog.

First stop, the kitchen. There's Mister -- stray, God-knows how old. Tenacious. A fighter in a gentleman's smoking jacket. Orange. Tabby. He wouldn't mind if I fed him right now, he let's me know. There are some cans of food on the table there. How he does this without talking escapes me. I skip the urge to feed him -- not just because I'm worried about the other cats. I skip the urge mainly because canned food makes me want to barf. Besides, Mister is in the kitchen, which means he's not out hot-wiring the neighbors Malibu or worse, checking the tread under the right front tire...

One down, 4 more to go. I turn on the kitchen light.

I missed it stepping into the Kitchen -- I walked right over Jet. Jet -- black. Male. Spayed, yet somehow always attempting to hump things like blankets and other male cats in the household. Wild-eyed rat (another description of Jet, although I wouldn't rule rats out of the picture, if they emerge anywhere in this house, they're toast). Jet was sleeping on the step into the kitchen, and I walked right over him.

Two down, 3 more to go. I go back into the dining room. Lenny emerges, groggy, from under one of our covered chairs.

Lenny. Obese. Friendly. Afraid of his own shadow. This is the main reason I worry about him out on midnight car-stealing-or-tire-tread-checking runs. He's one of the few cats in the house with any kind of actual offensive gear. Lenny doesn't tend to claw things, so we left him with the front gear in-tact. He's not likely to claw much given the fact that when the decision if fight or flight, the former is always dropped for the latter.

For a fat guy, he's surprisingly quick -- and always the first one to blow outta the room at the slightest cause or hint of impending catastrophe. You know?, things like loud noises. Unexpected glass breakage. The dog breaking wind -- anything that might signal the end of the world, life as we know it, or impending cat-hair mussing. They all seem to have the same weight in his mind and the same effect on him. "Hey, it's worked so far"!, he seems to say. I suppress the urge to cough. If I cough now, Lenny might shoot out of the room and that would disturb the dogs' sleep.

Three down, 2 to go.

I go upstairs. Maybe one of the cats is in lurk-mode in Tim's old room. I find Squeak sitting in an easy chair.

Squeak. Version 1.0 naming had Squeak pegged for a "Lilly". Since holding her is akin to holding a ball of barbed wire that makes strange little high-pitched grunting noises, the name was dropped in favor of version 2.0 conventions. Squeak was the only thing that fit.

That's 4 out of 5. I go back downstairs when I'm sure Pretty-boy is not up there.

Pretty-boy is sitting groggy in the middle of the Living room floor looking disgusted. What am I doing up at 3 AM? Why must I disturb his sleep like this? Can I give him a back rub, at least? No? What kind of person am I?

Pretty-boy. Gray. Fluffy. The only cat that doesn't eat canned food in the house. Long-haired ... something. Pretty-boy (version 1.0 naming -- Starlight) gets the name from the fact that constant grooming and some kind of attention to detail project the persona of a guy that cannot have his fur mussed. Ever. Pretty-boy comes to me the most for attention in the house. I'm not sure why, but it makes me nervous. He's in the living room, which means he's not outside, which means that they're all present, and accounted for, which means I can get some sleep, finally. I go back to bed.

I dream of the police fishing my neighbors cat-wired Chevy out of a ditch somewhere. Lenny taking mug-shots at the local police station. Paw-prints in ink. The "you're allowed one phone call, pal" quote. The phone rings. It's the heat. My cat is in the slammer.

Okay, I did make that last part up. But the rest of it's true :) I swear.
--FeriCyde.

Translation

You gotta love Microsoft and their stupid funded studies. I find that some experience in journalism paints a completely different picture of what is being said:

I couldn't help but translate a bit. Here's an exerp from LXer.com:
"We believe there to be inaccuracies," Mark Cox, the leader of Red Hat's security response team.

Translation: These people are smoking crack. Tell them to back away from the pipe for a bit and let the smoke clear.
--FeriCyde

Tires on the Internet

Okay, you can order a ton of things off the web -- I usually buy electronic items via the Internet -- the selection is high, the ability to learn about the products fits the medium. For an experiment to contrast the power of the web over say, Circuit City help personnel, memorize some basic facts about an electronic device you are very familiar with -- then try and buy that exact same device, asking for help from local store staff. Depending upon the item, the results can be hilarious. Most tech sales people's advice is dwarfed by a good google search when it comes to learning about the future usability of an electronic device.

So I was blown away when I saw something just about as good for tires. Before I post that forum name, I'd like to use the service and see how it turns out, but from what I see, tires are another item kind of like electronics. Expensive, extremely technical -- and when you go to local help you come up with the human equivalent to /dev/null.

Some background: The tires on my late model Mustang GT -- stock OEM tires -- are over 150 bucks a piece, and most people are lucky to get 20k out of a set. The latest set would have netted me 60k, had the fine folks that maintain Ohio roadways simply done their job -- one bent rim, $400 bucks worth of tires, about a year ago, cost me dearly. One pair of the tires survived though, and that's the record -- something like 65 k on a pair of GoodYear Eagle GT ZR rated, 17" tires.

I never thought I'd see the day :)

I'll be back here after buying my first set of on-line tires only (Okay, I bought a set of take-off wheels and tire in 2002 for the beast, right off the web, but that's another story...
--FeriCyde

Oh the horror of added capability

Reading this horror story about adware (a type of virus that installs onto Windows PC -- is there anything else?) I couldn't help but wonder what a boatload of exploits we're going to see going forward. The problem with Windows is the enormous complexity -- there are likely billions of combinations of harmless protocols that can be exploited to do God knows what on a PC. Mere mortals aren't going to be able to know, that's for sure.

They had their chance to listen a decade ago when people warned and warned. Now we're in the thick of it. I doubt very much Microsoft is going to get the world switched off of XP overnight.

But I've been wrong before. I guess time will tell *sigh*
--FeriCyde

Free and Broadcasting in Las Vegas

Second times a charm -- just was on the PC Chat Show (The Linux Zone) for the second time. It's real radio, in Phoenix, no less. I find that one of the problems being induced by licensing, the bleed-over of free software onto proprietary systems and so on -- it's hard to talk about Linux and Free Software without mentioning that it does wonders for proprietary systems.

There's probably an article in there somewhere.

Regardless, I did a stint of internet radio broadcasting for internet.com (now Jupiter Media) in 1999. Ziff Davis gave us a really nice square of floor space and we setup our booth and computers. It was strictly to market LinuxToday and the channels sites. It was co-branded for ZD and we had a blast. Dwight Johnson coordinated a bunch of interviews, I ran the technical side of things (no small matter -- shoutcast was a rather testy thing in those days) and Emmett (the) Plant did the DJ/Announcer/Interviewer gig.

And we lost a bundle. Yeah, excess bandwidth charges and all, it was a dismal failure -- even though we'd been given the floor space. But man was it a ton of fun.

The PC Chat Zone is a traditional radio show and I'm still getting my bearings on what to say -- it took me a bit to decide how internet commentary was done so I'm sure I can wrestle something interesting here too. We'll see. This show was about FireFox (thumbnail sketch) and what a great piece of code it's turned into.
--FeriCyde

Keep on talking...

And today's article, worked up this weekend, polished at 4:00 am this morning and finally posted to LXer.com sometime around 10:50 AM EST ... Is about what some community members thought about a Microsoft employee showing up at a Linux user group. You can read the article here. As usual, I had the typical problems keeping a straight face while writing it, so I put together another article that covers what not to say ;) when they show up.

Enjoy!
--FeriCyde

Sammy the Snake

Well, playing tug of war with your dog can be more enlightening than you would think.

Sammy and I were tugging away and I found that he would (on carpet no less), drop down low to the ground, and rather than dig in, he'd hang on for dear life, continue growling and tuck his front legs behind him like a high-diver going for maximum aerodynamics.

Here's some video footage of him doing this in the kitchen. Enjoy!
--FeriCyde

Video of the Yap-O-Matic

Sammy (Samson now the official name) on video here. It's a bit on the grainy, low quality side, but his crazy personality shows through. He's really a punkin'. Unfortunately, he's still only sleeping about 3/4 of the amount needed to restore sanity, which makes the current ride a bit rough.

Two articles in queue for LXer.com, just no time to finish at the moment.

And a couple of others for significant others...

Oh, and the usual joke articles for work. I finished two items over the weekend. Stuff I can't post to the web for professional reasons, but the usual insanity for anyone that knows me ;)
--FeriCyde

Oh Wow: Microsoft Anti-Spyware Tool Will Be Free

After reading this article and especially this quote:
"We've looked hard at the nature of this problem, and made a decision that this anti-spyware capability will become something that's available at no additional charge for Windows users-both the blocking capability, and the scanning and removal capabilities. Those are features we think should be available to protect every system," Gates said.

All I can say is Wow, so generous an offering by Microsoft. First, they create one of the most lax excuses for an operating system on the planet. Then, after letting the spyware problem fester for a few years, causing tons of people untold amounts of grief from stolen privacy to loss of the general usability of their machines -- after all of that, they come forward and say "I guess we'd better not charge you again."

Let me translate: "After we cost you so much in the past by our blundering about, I guess it would be a bad idea to charge you to clean up our mess at the same time -- especially when you consider that we've already plundered a lot in the past and now we're a company with several 10s of billions of dollars in the bank."

I think that kind of puts it in the right context...
--FeriCyde

Douglas Adams rides again (sort of)

The hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is about to make new rounds as a "new" movie! As a huge Douglas Adams fan, I can only hope that they haven't ruined it. What I've really wanted to see though is a Dirk Gently series -- the first book would make an awesome movie (even if they did try, without success, to make a Doctor Who episode out of it).

If you do get a chance to read this series though, I have to comment that Douglas really saved the best for last -- the final book "Mostly Harmless" stands alone as one of the best descriptions of quantum reality there is -- and it's funny as all hell to boot. It might take a few times through (read: multiple readings) to even make sense of what's going on. I know I laughed through it so much that I had to read it a second time so I could pick up the real plot line. It's a gas that he could create great science fiction and something hilarious at the same time.

And I miss him -- even though I never met the guy -- the world lost a dear soul when Douglas cashed out in 2001 :(

Guess I'll have to settle for this for now ;)
--FeriCyde

Maybe Microsoft Wants to Talk?

Let's start off with some questions that may have answers that are harder than you would expect: "In general, how do you react to outsiders that offer to present at your Linux User Group (LUG)?" "What about commercial interests presenting to your LUG?" "What would you do if a Microsoft employee showed up at your LUG?" "If you allowed a Microsoft employee to present, just what kind of topics would you allow? Now for the really tricky part: The questions, especially that last one, aren't hypothetical.

Read the rest at LXer.com

Monday Will be an Interesting Day

All I can say is to check LXer.com for an interesting article.

Linux's Security Butt Says Old Mayo Jar Safer Than Windows

Linux Security Butt Paul Ferris opined at a press event in Cleveland Ohio that an old Mayo Jar with the right seal is more secure than a Windows box with an Internet connection. "I've seen it written many times that an old Mayo Jar, kept sealed on my back porch is safer than Windows. Especially after I write it a few times clearly. It's important to write clearly, because my handwriting isn't what it used to be." explained Ferris.

"I know it goes against conventional wisdom that an old Mayo jar would be secure and all", he continued, "But that's just the way it is." He then made a bunch of flatulating noises and clucked like a chicken.

Reporters were somewhat skeptical about the claims.

"Who are you going to trust? My word or your lying eyes?" He then stumbled about the room a bit and continued: "My Mayo jar is so secure -- just look at the seal on this baby!" He then held up the jar for all to see, opened it and took a swig from it. The jar appeared to contain some sort of clear liquid. Some questioned the digital storage capacity of the "device".

"It can hold TeraBytes of ... stuff." He explained after much stammering and slurring. He then fainted. A couple of the reporters sampled the contents and claimed it contained some sort of refined grain alcohol.

Questions about alleged attacks on Ferris' new security device were obviously left unanswered, which is a crying shame.

Any resemblance to this article referenced on LXer.com (a true Linux community web site) is purely an accident, of course.
--FeriCyde

We're holding in there ...

The pooch has been slowly getting potty trained. /dev/son came by for the night and took over so Lisa and I could get some sleep for a change. It's been rather difficult as either Lisa or myself would lose a nights sleep on yard duty.

Unlike our previous dog (A boxer), this one is extremely vocal. I guess it's a trait of Samoyeds (very endearing, by the way, it's not like I'm complaining). We're very blessed.
--FeriCyde

Future Linux Game Eval Morphs

The new format is a virus warning. See this piece I submitted to LXer.com for more. It's a new variation on an old theme. What are "viruses" in fact are trends in the news industry and Linux space, cast as malicious programs that are attempting to "infect" you PC.

The inspiration for my future Linux game and virus stuff was Arlan Leviton -- he used to write for Ziff Davis's computer Shopper, back when the thing would double as a weapon. Arlan was the sole reason I kept my subscription, and when he quit writing for them, I canceled my subscription, as the publication had marginal value as a resource for hardware at that moment in time.
--FeriCyde

Samson

Well, the pooch gets named Samson. Sammy. "The Yap-o-Matic" is the non-official title for now ;) Jet has been seen in full lurk/charge mode on the pup, which drew a last minute abort and diversion in course down the hallway. The mental picture I had of what Jet was probably thinking was "Abort! Abort Mission! Strange object does not respond to normal posturing commands!". The sad thing is the dog is constantly trying to play with Jet (and squeak). *sigh* they just don't speak the same gaming protocol.

Anyway, he's survived over a week here -- but we're another story. I get maybe 2 hours of un-interrupted sleep a night. Lisa and I have been swapping night duty with the dog and it's taken its toll.

But he's worth it :-)
--FeriCyde

The little guy

Well, he's a handful to manage, but worth it. Stole my heart, the little rascal.

Click on the image to see a bigger version. He's not doing bad in the potty training area, and 3 of the 5 cats have decided that he's not going to kill them, so that settles it -- he's voted in :)

Next comes training him to pull a sled, which we're probably going to need here shortly if the Winters get any crazier!
--FeriCyde

Ranger Rick Redux

Tired of Microsoft's pointlessly stupid marketing tactics? Tired of executives and marketing shills spouting things that general public would laugh at?

Microsoft Security -- isn't that a contradiction in terms? Well, not if you're an executive, and that's the only product your company has to offer.

What you do, if you're of that mind-set, might be comical if the damage wasn't so intense (billions of dollars lost every year to Microsoft's careless lack of security concepts in their operating systems).

Here's my take at LXer.com.

Instead of being tired of it, I ran the thing through a reverse marketing mind-set. That's where you take the believable lies about Microsoft products, and make them into truths about Linux. Bonus points are awarded for truths that are funny at the same time.

Some things never change. Maybe they need another "myth" to debunk -- how about that one about the sun setting in the West...
--FeriCyde