I have been considering purchasing some type of PDA (or "Palm Pilot") for a while now. The two main arguments against doing so are:
1. I don't travel much for work at all -- I'm usually in my office 5 days a week.
2. I don't want to spend the money.
I was visiting the local CVS drugstore the other day, and saw that they had something that looked like a PDA in the "Christmas gifts" aisle. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a very basic one -- offering calculator, phonebook, memo, and calendaring. The thing that caught my eye was the phrase "Synchronize with your PC". The price was an agreeable $9.99, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
Sure enough, it did come with a serial link cable and a CD-ROM with information management software. It doesn't synchronize with Outlook (which I was hoping), but the software is fast enough that I don't mind synching first thing in the morning when I get into work.
It's not fancy at all: no handwriting recognition, no colors, capital letters only, no light (it's hard to see at night), and a "beep" that I have yet to find out how to shut off. However, I have found it very useful for writing reminder notes to myself and keeping track of names and phone numbers/email addresses.
For $9.99, I have found a new pocket-sized best friend.
Microsoft has switched to a monthly "update summary" style for its product security notifications; they had previously done updates on a weekly "as needed" basis and issued one notification per problem.
Their claim is that this will make it easier to manage patches, since they will be issued at a regular intervals -- no more "wait and see" patching.
I believe it is just a way to cut down on the myriad of security notices sent to their mailing list. This way, they issue one mailing per month, instead of several, thereby hoping to eliminate the "I can't believe there's another new patch" frustration felt by Windows admins.
Now, the new vulnerabilities have potentially 3 or 4 weeks to brew on mailing lists and web forums before they are officially corrected by Microsoft (although they do seem willing to do emergency updates as necessary -- witness MS03-040, which arrived at about 1:00am on a Saturday).
Additionally, admins now have to evaluate multiple patches at a time, install them in test environments to check for compatibility/usability issues, and finally roll them out onto production machines. If these monthly updates contain more than one "critical" fix (such as the November 11 bulletin, which contains three), the time for evaluation and testing is further drawn out - OR - is rushed to completion without adequate testing.
Better patch management is not a viable security solution. I find that I am less and less likely to be interested in reading any of Microsoft's books on "how to write secure code".
I would like to see a web browser that would allow me to annotate web pages for my own use. I find that I am using the web for reference almost exclusively. In the "low-tech" world of newspapers, books, and magazines, we have the ability to fold page corners, highlight interesting text, scribble notes in the margins, and attach "sticky notes" to pages. So why should I lose that functionality in an online reference?
Here are some features I think would be useful:
This way, I can turn the web pages into much more of an active resource for research -- and can do away with multiple bookmark folders and text files saved in different directories on my hard drive.
I expect that we will eventually see technology that will let us do all of the above and more. And I am not in posession of the programming skill to even begin to think about how it could be done. I just wanted the record to show that I have what I think is a good idea, one that could fundamentally change the way we use the web.
Maybe you've seen lists or websites that enumerate the various cliches found in movies. Things like "hitting someone in the back of the shoulders will knock them out cold", or "the hero's best friend will be killed three days before retirement".
I have one that I've thought of, and haven't seen listed anywhere. So here it is:
Anytime someone is awakened by a clock radio, the radio will click on just in time for the announcer to say the day, time, temperature, and name of the city. Note that this happens at whatever time the alarm is set for.
"And a good morning to you, Pittsburgh. It's 7:13, thirteen minutes after seven on this fine Tuesday morning. The temperature outside a chilly 38 degrees...."
I don't think I've ever heard a DJ cram all that into one thought. I can understand the time and temperature, but how often do people forget what city they're in? And who sets their alarm for 7:13 anyway?
A related thought -- even though the analog clock radios (that display little pictures of the numbers) haven't been sold for several years, they can still be found in many bedrooms across the country.
A friend of mine hooked me up with a copy of Lindows 4.0. If you have not heard of Lindows, it is a highly tweaked-out distribution of Linux designed to appeal to the average (non-techie) home user. Wal-Mart has become the first reseller to offer computers for sale that come pre-loaded with Lindows (they also offer Lycoris and SuSE preloads).
I have some initial impressions after my first day with Lindows.
Installation
Lindows uses a bootable CD for installation -- this has become fairly standard practice for OS installations. The online documentation does not mention the ability to use a boot disk; something to consider for folks who may be interested in installing Lindows on a PC whose BIOS does not support booting from CD.
There are two options for installation: Takeover and Advanced. Takeover uses the entire hard drive for Lindows; it will format the drive and set up its own partitions. Advanced allows you to select a partition for installation. It does not seem to offer the ability to configure your own partitions, so you will need to use third-party software to do so if you do not have a spare partition available.
I selected the Takeover option, and was prompted for a machine name and a root password. Once I entered those bits of information, the installation ran on its own -- no other options are available.
First Boot
Since my friend had indicated that video support is one of the weak areas of Lindows, I was happy to discover that Lindows had correctly identified my video hardware to the point of allowing 1024x768 screen resolution and up to 24 bit color. I immediately recognized the KDE startup screen, and within a minute I was taken directly to a desktop populated with common "getting started" types of icons.
The default user configuration is to always sign on as root (though Lindows calls that account "Administrator"). This can have both good and bad residual effects, but overall I think it is reasonable to do so -- in this way, things like installing new programs and changing settings are immediately available to the user.
Using Lindows
Lindows uses the highly-acclaimed "Click 'N Run" utility to install applications and utilities. As nearly as I can figure, this is just an enhanced package management system. Trying to use CNR was my first snag with Lindows -- I got the status message "Disconnected / Can not find Lindows.com". I was also unable to browse to the default page of www.lindows.com, though other pages on that site loaded okay. Other web pages loaded fine, and DNS resolution did resolve lindows.com to a valid IP address... so I'm still stumped by this one.
In general, Lindows looks and functions pretty much like any other KDE desktop. The default web browser is a customized version of Mozilla, and the default mail client is a customized version of Mozilla Mail. There are no virtual desktops enabled by default, though you can enable them as you normally would.
Being a "best practice" type of guy, I found the user manager and promptly set myself up with a non-root signon. Upon restarting, I was presented with a standard logon box that allowed me to select "Administrator" (root) or my own signon. Signing on as my non-root account went fine -- though Click N Run is set to start by default and prompts for the root password. This may confuse a novice; if, however, someone is at a level where they understand setting up a new user, then it may not be an issue.
Another snag I came across was when I attempted to build an application from source. I'm familiar enough with the "configure / make / make install" process to handle minor bumps along the way. However, I discovered very soon after my first ./configure statement that this was not going to be as easy as I had thought. Yes, the dreaded "no suitable C compiler found" response.
Not installing the development utilities on a home-use workstation makes sense on one level (Lycoris does this as well) -- since Lindows is geared towards non-geek types, there would be no real need for any kind of compilers or utilities for programming. However, since my Click N Run was broken, I was unable to get the development utilities installed. I have since found out that there is a "Developer" version of Lindows that comes with the standard compiler tools already installed; this will probably be the version I install the next time around.
Wrap Up
Lindows looks good, and I will say that it is about the easiest install and initial setup that I have ever seen on Linux. They offer a "live" version of Lindows that runs off a standard CD-ROM, which is an even quicker way to get up and running -- it's also a good way to test hardware compatibility with Lindows to make sure that video, sound, and network hardware will be supported.
I have heard that Lindows will run Microsoft Office and some other Windows applications seamlessly -- I have not yet had the chance to test that claim, but it is definitely on my list.
One of the things I like most about Linux is that there are tons of distributions available, which ensures that everyone has the opportunity to find one that they like best. Is Lindows my new favorite? Probably not. Would I recommend it above all others? It depends. Is this blog entry getting entirely too long and cumbersome? Absolutely.
So try it out if you get the chance. It may be the frontrunner as an alternative to a Windows desktop.
Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody ever DOES anything about it.
For the past few days, I'd been wondering about the etymology of the word "cobweb". It is often used interchangeably with "spider web", and I never really gave it a thought.
However, I know what a spider is. But what is a "cob"? Is that like corn on the cob? Cobb Salad?
One of my favorite websites, Dictionary.com, provided the answer. As it turns out, a "cobweb" and a "spider web" are indeed identical. The Middle English word for spider was "coppe" (coming from the Old English words for "poison" and "head"). So "coppeweb" gave us our current "cobweb".