In his lecture Amir Shevet (MS representative in AP2008) talked about interoperability (with other OSes) and it's importance to Microsoft.
I asked two questions:
1. If it's so important for them then why don't they actively and officially support Mono.
2. Do they grantee that if I use Mono and .Net implementation for Mono, I won't get sued by MS later.
Some guy from the crowd (probably MS person) shouted at me that Microsoft is very active and working together with Miguel De Icaza very closely on Mono.
The second question remained unanswered. The main message I got from the MS lecture was "Lets see where we can work together and do it".
Later I saw Amir again in the hall and asked him to address the patents issues. He asked me for my business card and said that he'll get back to my after he'll ask the company lawyers. Stay tuned ...
I'll just point to this link regarding Mono, Miguel and SW patents.
In my eyes: Microsoft say they are open and they want to play nice for now (with Open Source community). But they'll probably never promise not to sue and play nice in the future.
To conclude what I learned: Nothing new under the sun.
Other amusing events during the MS lecture:
- Shachar Shemesh said the he read the rulls for participating in OpenUp (MS OSS competition) and that's it's not the right way to do it and pointed directly the problematic rulls. The MS crowd Guy shouted "Why can't you put a good word for a change" repeatedly, and claim that Shachar's is not providing any constructive criticizm although Shachar pointed the probelms specifically.
- Doron started talking about Microsoft conduct (I Think) and refused to be shushed.
- One Error popped during the lecture. Amir said it happed in his Ubuntu at home too and I said "sure it did , PowerPoint is a closed format".
- At some point during the lecture Amir got a package (the mandatory AP package game), and I remarked "be carefull, it's ticking!!". Later on Amir passed that package to me because it instructed him to give the package to the yougest Linux user (see previous post).
1.8.08
AP2008 Live Blogging #1 - The youngest participant ever
The youngest participant in August Penguin .. My son :)
12.6.08
Debian Weather
Is today a good day to for an 'apt-get upgrade'?
This site will tell you if you should expect a rain of broken packages or enjoy the warmth of the Apt.
Cool idea :)
This site will tell you if you should expect a rain of broken packages or enjoy the warmth of the Apt.
Cool idea :)
5.5.08
Israel Flag on Fyre - Wallpaper
3.5.08
Adding video files to your iPod video in Ubuntu
My brother got a new iPod Classic 80G(black) for his birthday.
He's been using Ubuntu for a little less than a year now and wanted to load some videos into his iPod.
Needless to say: Using an XP/Vista/OSX machine with iTunes installed was not an valid option for us. So we sat down and googled for solutions.
I'm Just documenting this for future use:
We followed the instructions in Ubuntu's iPod Video Encoding page.
I chose the easy way - using Mark Pilgrim's script which works great and it converted any format I had so far to iPod's M4A format.
Adding files using GTKPod "Add Files" button will load the resulting file into the iPod but I couldn't find a way to delete files. Deleting the video files seems to be possible only using Rhythmbox.
(I Should report a feature request for deleting video files in GTKPod)
To make life even more ridiculously easy I added a menu entry for it by adding 'nautilus-actions' package:
sudo apt-get install nautilus-actions
Then go to System->Preferences->Nautilus Action Configuration , add new item with the following details:
Label: Convert to iPod format
Path: /usr/bin/gnome-terminal
Parameters: -x /usr/local/bin/podencoder -o %d %M
Filenames: *.avi ; *.mpeg ; *.mpg ; *.gp3
Mimetypes: video/*
Works!
:)
He's been using Ubuntu for a little less than a year now and wanted to load some videos into his iPod.
Needless to say: Using an XP/Vista/OSX machine with iTunes installed was not an valid option for us. So we sat down and googled for solutions.
I'm Just documenting this for future use:
We followed the instructions in Ubuntu's iPod Video Encoding page.
I chose the easy way - using Mark Pilgrim's script which works great and it converted any format I had so far to iPod's M4A format.
Adding files using GTKPod "Add Files" button will load the resulting file into the iPod but I couldn't find a way to delete files. Deleting the video files seems to be possible only using Rhythmbox.
(I Should report a feature request for deleting video files in GTKPod)
To make life even more ridiculously easy I added a menu entry for it by adding 'nautilus-actions' package:
sudo apt-get install nautilus-actions
Then go to System->Preferences->Nautilus Action Configuration , add new item with the following details:
Label: Convert to iPod format
Path: /usr/bin/gnome-terminal
Parameters: -x /usr/local/bin/podencoder -o %d %M
Filenames: *.avi ; *.mpeg ; *.mpg ; *.gp3
Mimetypes: video/*
Works!
:)
25.4.08
Wife installs Ubuntu 8.04, /me goes to sleep
My wife has just finished installing Ubuntu 8.04 on her T61.
A few years ago I decided that I should not try to persuade friends/family to use Linux but I will tell them about the benefits if they show any interest. I think it should come from them - people should install it whenever (if) they are ready to do it.
My wife insisted to do it on her own. She's a pretty technical person and when it comes to computers - she knows her way around.
She did it on her own while I sat near by, waiting for that moment I'll have to come and help her install some drivers or fix something. After 20 minutes she had a working Ubuntu installation and I was still sitting at the same spot.
Connecting to the encrypted wireless network in our house was easy enough. The network connection wizard worked well (I remember that in 7.10 it was still very buggy).
First thing she wanted to do after installation is change the background with the ugly bird.
I gave her the gnome-arts and gnome-looks addresses and she found something she liked in a few minutes. The "set as background" from FireFox3 didn't work (BoOoOo!) so she saved to disk and set it as background.
Next thing she wanted to do - enlarge the font sizes because her screen is HiRes and the text is too small for her. She changed it in the Appearance Wizard (System->Preferences->Appearance). On the way, she changed the Font rendering to "Subpixel Smoothing (LCDs)" because she noticed it looks better.
I tried to tell he that changing the DPI might be the correct way but she didn't listen to me =\
She though the way she found was good enough.
She had a bad experience with Windows XP - when she changed the DPI in XP on her new laptop, some system fonts were not affected and some websites she visits regularly (like Walla.co.il) remained small looking. In XP eventually she found a solution that involved changing the DPI + adding an entry in the Windows Registry (WTF?) that makes Explorer7 resize all fonts. She was pleased with this solution but it took 3 days until she found it (after calling MS support for help which referred her to IBM support (because she has the OEM version) which knew nothing about the problem... sigh. Everybody just kept telling her to change the DPI and they had no knowledge of the registry fix for Explorer).
Now she was happy with the size of fonts in the system so she executed FireFox3 to see if the problem was solved - well , it wasn't. Walla.co.il was still displayed with small looking fonts. I said "it's probably caused by the web developers who are using px (pixel size) to set the font size". Then I told her to try the ctrl-'+' to enlarge the fonts. She though it wouldn't work because in Explorer7 it screwed up all the locations of objects on the web page and looked terrible.
Surprisingly (or not), on FireFox3 it looked great and Ctrl-'+' seems to scale up everything including pictures and other objects. Additionally, it seems like FF3 saves this size/scale setting automagically for each site. Cool.
Then my wife tried to watch some DivX video file using Totem Video Player. Totem popped-up the Automatic Codec Installation and after 2 minutes started playing the video. The display was a bit flickery while playing the file and I said she should try VLC and instructed her to run the Synaptic Package Manager (System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager). That was easy enough but didn't solve the problem. I went "hmm, something here is fishy, try to set Visual Effects from 'none' to 'normal' in the Appearance wizard". I wanted to see if she was able to see accelerated 3d graphics. She tried that and another window popped-up suggesting to install the propriety nvidia driver .. "hmm, the nvidia driver wasn't installed .. Oh my god, they made everything automatic!" I said. After another minute the driver was installed and after a reboot the Divx was playing smoothly.
Joy! "I'm totally useless here, my days as Linux Installation Guru are over.", I though to myself.
"I'll just go to sleep" I said.
Good night and Happy passover everybody!
A few years ago I decided that I should not try to persuade friends/family to use Linux but I will tell them about the benefits if they show any interest. I think it should come from them - people should install it whenever (if) they are ready to do it.
My wife insisted to do it on her own. She's a pretty technical person and when it comes to computers - she knows her way around.
She did it on her own while I sat near by, waiting for that moment I'll have to come and help her install some drivers or fix something. After 20 minutes she had a working Ubuntu installation and I was still sitting at the same spot.
Connecting to the encrypted wireless network in our house was easy enough. The network connection wizard worked well (I remember that in 7.10 it was still very buggy).
First thing she wanted to do after installation is change the background with the ugly bird.
I gave her the gnome-arts and gnome-looks addresses and she found something she liked in a few minutes. The "set as background" from FireFox3 didn't work (BoOoOo!) so she saved to disk and set it as background.
Next thing she wanted to do - enlarge the font sizes because her screen is HiRes and the text is too small for her. She changed it in the Appearance Wizard (System->Preferences->Appearance). On the way, she changed the Font rendering to "Subpixel Smoothing (LCDs)" because she noticed it looks better.
I tried to tell he that changing the DPI might be the correct way but she didn't listen to me =\
She though the way she found was good enough.
She had a bad experience with Windows XP - when she changed the DPI in XP on her new laptop, some system fonts were not affected and some websites she visits regularly (like Walla.co.il) remained small looking. In XP eventually she found a solution that involved changing the DPI + adding an entry in the Windows Registry (WTF?) that makes Explorer7 resize all fonts. She was pleased with this solution but it took 3 days until she found it (after calling MS support for help which referred her to IBM support (because she has the OEM version) which knew nothing about the problem... sigh. Everybody just kept telling her to change the DPI and they had no knowledge of the registry fix for Explorer).
Now she was happy with the size of fonts in the system so she executed FireFox3 to see if the problem was solved - well , it wasn't. Walla.co.il was still displayed with small looking fonts. I said "it's probably caused by the web developers who are using px (pixel size) to set the font size". Then I told her to try the ctrl-'+' to enlarge the fonts. She though it wouldn't work because in Explorer7 it screwed up all the locations of objects on the web page and looked terrible.
Surprisingly (or not), on FireFox3 it looked great and Ctrl-'+' seems to scale up everything including pictures and other objects. Additionally, it seems like FF3 saves this size/scale setting automagically for each site. Cool.
Then my wife tried to watch some DivX video file using Totem Video Player. Totem popped-up the Automatic Codec Installation and after 2 minutes started playing the video. The display was a bit flickery while playing the file and I said she should try VLC and instructed her to run the Synaptic Package Manager (System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager). That was easy enough but didn't solve the problem. I went "hmm, something here is fishy, try to set Visual Effects from 'none' to 'normal' in the Appearance wizard". I wanted to see if she was able to see accelerated 3d graphics. She tried that and another window popped-up suggesting to install the propriety nvidia driver .. "hmm, the nvidia driver wasn't installed .. Oh my god, they made everything automatic!" I said. After another minute the driver was installed and after a reboot the Divx was playing smoothly.
Joy! "I'm totally useless here, my days as Linux Installation Guru are over.", I though to myself.
"I'll just go to sleep" I said.
Good night and Happy passover everybody!
1.4.08
Hired by Microsoft, ditching Open Source for the real money
Edit : Please notice the date of the post :P
Yeah , You heard it. I was hired by the great Open Source company - Microsoft.
As you probably already know, Microsoft has changed it's evil ways by announcing the acquisition of the Open Source Community and started working with Open Source ... and I for one, welcome our new Monopolistic overlords.
As a result, a position for Open Source spokesman and coordinator was opened in Microsoft IL offices and I jumped on the opportunity.
In my new position at MS I am hoping to change things "from the inside".
The first task they gave me at the MS Office was to port all the trolling messages I wrote against Vista to other platforms.
Resistance is futile!
OMG!!! ponies !
.. and so on and so forth ...
Yeah , You heard it. I was hired by the great Open Source company - Microsoft.
As you probably already know, Microsoft has changed it's evil ways by announcing the acquisition of the Open Source Community and started working with Open Source ... and I for one, welcome our new Monopolistic overlords.
As a result, a position for Open Source spokesman and coordinator was opened in Microsoft IL offices and I jumped on the opportunity.
In my new position at MS I am hoping to change things "from the inside".
The first task they gave me at the MS Office was to port all the trolling messages I wrote against Vista to other platforms.
Resistance is futile!
OMG!!! ponies !
.. and so on and so forth ...
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