I'm going to do something a little unusual today and get myself into a little bit of trouble. *chuckle* *snort* Unusual indeed . . .This collection of words is a bit of a rant, I'm afraid. It's about what some call preaching to the choir or more specifically, not preaching to the choir. The Ubuntu Linux crowd prides itself on being a glowing example of the Free Software community at work. Actually, the Free Software community as a whole prides itself on being a model of the ultimate distribut...
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And that goes for Canonical and Ubuntu as well. Yeah, I'm talking to you too, so listen up. Picture this scenario . . .
Say you've got yourself a nice computer, be it tower, notebook, or whatever, and it has a dual core 64 bit chip. It's a pretty cool system and it came with Windows 7. After much hounding and friendly ribbing from your Linux-pushing friend, you decide you're going to load up Ubuntu. So you wander over to the Ubuntu desktop site to download your desktop Linux ISO where...
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When are you ever going to grow up?! Act your age!When you're a kid, all you want to do is grow up. When you get old enough to realize that being older isn't all it's cracked up to be, people invariably point out that you should start acting your age. I used to throw out the following argument as a retort. "But if I'm 24 now (later it was 30, 37, 42, and so on) and I act this way at 24, then by definition that's acting my age. Right?" I've been using that argument as long as peop...
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In the last couple of years, I find myself returning time and again to discussions about cloud computing, what it means, where it's going, and what the implications are for both business and end users. Meanwhile, many of you reading this have happily upgraded your Ubuntu Linux systems to release 10.04 (aka the Lucid Lynx) complete with what some argue is the best Linux desktop ever. I tend to run Kubuntu which essentially means that I'm using the KDE desktop instead of GNOME (though I do use...
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Surprise, surprise!Canonical and Skype appear to be setting us up for the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Recent updates to the Ubuntu partner repository now shows Skype as a supported package. It's all there in that magic word, partner. Skype is now a Canonical partner. Given how often I've complained about the lack of a credible open source VoIP client under Linux, this smells an awful lot like good news. Perhaps with Skype opening up to Open Source and Canonical, the days of the Linux...
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I'm going to start this Ubuntu-User blog entry with an apology combined with a bit of an explanation. I'm going to talk about Facebook. Yes, me too -- I'm sorry.You all know what Facebook is, of course.With nearly 3 out of ever 4 intelligent beings in the known universe having their own Facebook page, it's a social networking behemoth. Facebook is so cool and so popular, everyone has either done it, is doing it, or plans on doing it. But a cursory scan of the news will tell you that it's not...
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Okay, I might be exaggerating about the whole betrayal and murder thing. But this story is about FOSS in Calgary. And it is about COSSFEST 2010. We did, however, kill a few beer. Does that count? And we did have a panel about the death of somebody . . . or something. Muah hah hah!Sorry, I'll...
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Hello, everyone. My name is Marcel and I'm a technology addict.I stand before you today, naked (figuratively speaking, of course), laying my deepest, darkest, secrets out for all to see. You see, I love technology. All kinds of technology. Computers. Televisions. Cars. Smart phones. Computer programs. Airplanes. Linux distributions. Keychains with tiny screens to display family photos. Bluetooth headsets. Satellites. Video games. Coffee makers. Spaceships. Remote controlled toy helicopters. H...
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Last time I wrote about the goings on surrounding Planet *buntu, I went on about one of my favorite topics; open formats and the future of information. By information, I mean content in all its wondrous forms, from plain text, to Web content, to music, to video, and to everything in between. Sadly, I find myself wanting to rant again on this topic even if it means laying into one of my favorite corporations. So I decided to start with something positive and friendly; something of beauty to pr...
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What can I say? It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Not just for me, but for the world in general. Well, not in general, but certainly on some fronts on which I find fascinating and, not surprisingly, I have an opinion. First off, if you wander off into the wilds of planet *buntu, you may notice an increasingly Lucid Lynx prowling around. Be warned, however, that this Lynx is an Alpha and unless you're the sort of person who likes to mess with Alphas, you might want to steer clear until this...
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