OMG!!! You can crack into Apache!!! Oh, wait…

3/8/2010 – 10:30 am

Big news in the IT community this morning. Apparently, a security vulnerability has been discovered in Apache Web Server, the single-most used httpd server on the planet. According to the fellow who discovered the security hole:

…(b)y exploiting the module, an attacker could remotely gain system privileges that would compromise data security.

Those of you who follow these things know that Apache has long held the reputation of speed, high capability, scalability, and most importantly, solid security.

Oh, wait…apparently the Apache security hole exists in one of its many modules. Apache uses modules as a way of plugging capabilities into the base web server. This allows the server administrator to load only those features and capabilities the site needs.

The module in question is called mod_isapi. And what purpose does mod_isapi serve? According to Apache’s HTTPD server documentation,

…(t)his module implements the Internet Server extension API. It allows Internet Server extensions (e.g. ISAPI .dll modules) to be served by Apache for Windows, subject to the noted restrictions.

So, the vulnerability is exploitable only in Windows systems running Apache.

Only in Windows. I’m shocked, shocked to find that Windows is vulnerable to attack!

Well, shocked or not, here’s my question: why would anyone in their right mind want to run a Ferrari-like server application like Apache’s on a Yugo-like operating system like Windows anyway?

By joe | Posted in Geek | Comments (0)

Current links of interest (Geek department)

2/23/2010 – 5:34 pm

This isn’t a link aggregation site, but I saw a couple of tech-related items that might be of interest to some of you. This also enables me to post something without having to be creative. Heh.

  • Employment and the future are big issues in our current economic crisis, so any really information on the job frontier will interest many of you. Do you young ‘uns about to enter college want some advice on a secure future after graduation? Get a computer science degree.Now, for those of you terrified by the word “science,” let me unequivocally state that you don’t really need a desire to become a “scientist” to major in computer science. I was mediocre at any math above the level of trigonometry, and I struggled even passing most science courses, due to a lack of interest or the inability to memorize all the required terminology. While my attitude towards both has matured with age, I syill managed to carve out a nice career for myself in the IT world.

    The article has a slideshow of ten top-notch computer science universities. Take some other advice: you don’t need to attend M.I.T., Stanford or Carnegie-Mellon to get a very high-quality CS education. I’ll bet a good state university in your area has one you can afford, too. Go forth, computer and get a job. I’d recommend my alma mater, the University of North Florida, but I’m a bit embarrassed by the computer school’s lame web page.

  • No one likes to spend the money that software companies charge for their products. Considering the number of free and open source alternatives out there, it’s a wonder anyone does put up with the expense. Of course, the biggest culprit in this today is Microsoft. Don’t spend all that money (yes, even the “discounted” cost for students) on application suites like Microsoft Office when you can get something just as good for free: OpenOffice.

    Here’s a great site that give some advice on transitioning from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.

  • Finally, for those of you seriously considering making the plunge to Linux and dumping Windows for good, this article will explain how to get started getting Linux on your system, and what to expect after you do. Lots of good advice here.
By joe | Posted in Geek | Comments (0)

Why you need to make sure Mom doesn’t toss your comics out.

2/23/2010 – 8:24 am

Action Comics #1, image used via Wikipedia

An original copy of Action Comics #1, the comic that introduced Superman to the world, was recently sold in a private transaction. For one million bones.

I wonder what this kind of thing (and other valuable collectibles) would be worth if our Moms decided not to throw out all the stuff we had stashed in the attic. I owned three complete sets of the 1961 New York Yankees Topps baseball cards (including the one with the team picture) at one time, probably as late as 1964. I started that collection when I was six, and over the next couple of years, managed to obtain the rest of them from among non-Yankee fan friends, usually via trades of more current cards. I vaguely remember storing them somewhere in my house, but I have no idea whatever happened to them. I have to assume that Mom didn’t see the potential future value in such things, and out they went.

Either that, or my kid brother sold them for a bag of golf tees.

My only consolation is that owning three complete sets would have diluted the collector value of them to some degree.

Well, it’s not like I would have sold them for a million bucks anyway, right?

By joe | Posted in Culture | Comments (0)

Wear Black for Johnny Cash on Friday

2/22/2010 – 10:57 am

Johnny Cash, 1969, photographed by Joel Baldwin

I realize this is pretty much a commercial endeavor, but I still kind of like the idea.

This Friday, February 26, would have been the 78th birthday of Johnny Cash. No matter what your opinion of the current state of country music (or of the genre in general) might be, you can’t argue that Cash was one of the most important artists in American musical history. His influence touched every spectrum of American music. His importance in the foundation of rock and roll music is simply undeniable, as much as Elvis Presley, Joe Turner, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, or any of the other traditional rock cornerstones.

In the years prior to his death, Cash worked with record producer Rick Rubin (far better known for his work in rap and hip-hop) to produce a series of recordings for Rubin’s American Records and subsidiary Lost Highways labels that came to be referred to as the American Recordings. The series began in 1994 with American Recordings, a solo performance recorded in Cash’s living room, and culminated with the posthumous America V: A Hundred Highways, released three years after Cash’s 2003 death.

The final recording of the series, America VI: Ain’t No Grave, will be released by Lost Highway Recordings on Friday. As a tribute to Cash, the label is asking fans to wear all black on Friday, and to post sartorial photos of their wardrobe choices on a Facebook page set up for the occasion.

This is marketing at it’s finest and most modern: get people to wear black, show off for the world to see on the Internet and, hopefully, spend a few bucks on the new CD. I can’t fault the company for attempting such a blatant tie-in to bare-faced product marketing. Even if people just dress the part on Friday, there aren’t too many artists, living or dead, who deserve such a personal tribute.

Cash was certainly no saint in his life. But all one needs to do is listen to his recorded output in his final years, especially those in the later American series. I doubt you’ll find works by any American artist as reflective of life, death and redemption as Cash’s performances in those songs. Some of the music was his own, but much of it was his unique interpretations of other songwriters’ works, and the performances are both instructive and filled with power.

So wear black for Johnny on Friday. Salute something rare in America today — the legacy of a true artist.

By joe | Posted in Culture, Entertainment, Music | Comments (0)

Yes, George. I do.

2/19/2010 – 10:42 am

This is hysterical. The billboard was funny enough, but now you can wear the sentiment. I’m going shopping.

By joe | Posted in General | Comments (0)

If you have Windows 7, I’m sorry. You will be, too. Soon.

2/18/2010 – 4:26 pm

We Linux pests love reading crap like this. Anything I find that convinces me that Windows is evil is always welcome in the Attaboy world.

Consider this scenario: you’ve purchased a new laptop or computer, perhaps during the recent holidays. You’re happily humming along as it runs Windows 7. Occasionally, the system will inform you that some critical updates are ready, and for convenience, you simply have them installed automatically.

All of a sudden, one night, while your browsing the web or typing up a report, the wallpaper on your screen turns black. You also begin receiving a series of annoying nag screens from the system. Your copy of Windows 7, the screens claim, is pirated. You need to fix this, they say, or else your system will have many of its features disabled. Time to break out the credit card.

Think this won’t happen? Think again.

Don’t believe me. Read Lauren Weinstein’s blog entry on this (along with her historical articles on Windows Genuine Advantage, another anti-piracy tool).

As Ms. Weinstein states multiple times, no one should have an issue with Microsoft trying to protect its presence in the computing community by fighting the piracy of its products. But I see this “phoning home” idea of ratting on users to be a little too invasive. And you can bet that this will somehow get screwed up, as many perfectly legal and legitimate copies of Windows 7 are targeted as fakes.

Based on Ms. Weinstein’s article, getting caught in this little counterfeit-hunting web isn’t going to be fun if you get targeted, as most of the negative effects are not reversible. And once again, the innocent user is going to be considered guilty of something unless they can prove otherwise.

I’ve been railing for years about the fact that you can barely purchase a computer system from nearly all of the major vendors that doesn’t have Windows pre-installed. Not only are people practically forced to use Windows (by osmosis, mostly), but now they may become the victims of some kind of criminal manhunt, even when they’ve done nothing wrong.

I’m going to say it again: why would anyone in their right mind put up with this bullshit? Bad enough that Windows systems are routinely targets of malware attacks, but now you’re treated like Al Capone as well?

I am willing to bet that a large majority of average computer users could do what they needed to do just fine with an alternative like Linux. I’ll even recommend a distribution that would make nearly everyone happy: Linux Mint.

Mint is based on the ubiquitous Ubuntu, but with a slightly different philosophy. The Mint builders have included many of the “non-free” or proprietary items left off many other versions of Linux. By adding these extra things in during the initial installation, the user will have the same experiences they would expect from the standard Windows installation. For the most part, this means all the multimedia stuff works, because the proper video and audio codecs are in place already.

In other versions of Linux, these things are left out, in order to keep the distribution pristine and “free,” in accordance with the philosophy of free and open source software. Most distros make these items available for optional downloads and installations by the user. Mint just installs the stuff anyway.

I’ve been using Linux on my personal systems for many, many years, and I’ve found Mint to be a great, general purpose, everyday-use distribution that would provide everything the typical user needs: networking, web access tools, office suites, multimedia applications and tools for music and video, development tools and environments, along with repositories containing thousands of additional free software.

And nothing on the system will ever phone home and rat you out.

By joe | Posted in Linux | Comments (0)

Well, let’s just see…

2/18/2010 – 10:22 am

…how much activity I get now that I’ve been “away” for a year. I thought I’d take a crack at this, mostly because I was momentarily bored.

And now for the news…

In the continuing saga of EveryoneWhoUsesWindows vs. The Bad Guys, the Bad Guys appear to be winning again. The Zeus botnet Trojan, an analysis of which you can read here, appears to be responsible for some major system compromises.

According to this WSJ story, the Zeus Trojan has compromised a number of systems in both the business and government sectors.

Now, I’m not going to comment further other than to remind everyone that the major security hole that’s responsible for this is something familiar to everyone: Windows.

The failures of Microsoft to provide any comfort level regarding security in any version of Windows, going back to the dark ages of Windows 95, is well-documented. But the failure of business, government and individuals to find a proper approach to computer security is an even bigger problem. There’s no absolutely certain method of preventing attacks on computer networks or systems, no matter what platform you use.

But since the primary focus of these attacks seems to be on Windows systems, one has to wonder how long the victims will continue to allow themselves to be shot in the foot because of their choice of operating system.

yes, yes, I know, transitioning to another platform is expensive and time-consuming. Users don’t like change, and they might not “accept” a secure Linux distribution on the desktop. Well, they all had to learn Windows and its applications at some point, right? As much as people don’t like change, they also tend to be resilient and flexible when change is necessary.

Well, enough mind-stretching for now. I hope someone sees this.

By joe | Posted in Geek | Comments (0)

Shifting Directions. And Locations

2/4/2009 – 10:30 am

For a number of months, I’ve wrangled with my desire to keep this blog going. A family member commented on my lack of recent posts during Christmas vacation, which led me to consider whether I wanted to keep going.

I care a lot about the site’s content. Looking back at five years of posts, I can’t conceive of making this vanish into the ether. (My guess is that Google’s cache will prevent this as well).

I’m weary of discussing politics and culture. Attacking human stupidity is exhilarating, but blogging is at a stage where extended commentary on culture and politics adds to an increasingly obnoxious Internet noise level. I can’t expect others to care about anything I say if I don’t care or I’m just parroting others. This was never meant to be a creative writing assignment or a stepping stone to “greater” things…it’s a blog and it is what it is. I’ve recently worked hard on a post, just to stop ninety percent through, wondering if anyone really cares what I had to say.

Including me.

After some contemplation, I decided go in a different direction somewhere else rather than kill this. Other than my wife and my daughter, my earthly passions are sparked by a short list of material interests: technology, football, baseball, music, old movies, certain television, literature and cigars. I will be concentrating on my new site, Five Sided Geek, a place where I’ll comment on technology, since that’s what I’ve been doing for many years.

My focus will be on topics that will interest a general population, providing insight on concepts not so well-known outside tech circles. The site won’t be a techno-geek echo chamber of other tech sites. Who the hell needs that? Any comments on politics and culture will be related to some technical topic. Most of the time.

One topic I plan to hit regularly is the Linux operating system and it’s benefits to all computer users. I’ve written extensively about Linux in the past (maybe ranted is a better term), and I will continue to tout it as an alternative to the crap foisted upon an unsuspecting public by Microsoft and Apple. And I’ll give you sound reasons why.

The existing content here will remain and I’ll continue to link to it. I will closing comments on the old blog, so if you want to respond or question something, you’ll have to email me directly.

The single most popular post on this site was my brief essay praising the life of my 1986 Quasar microwave oven. I dropped that commentary here in 2005, and I continue to get comments on it, sometimes two or three in a week. I suppose the nice folks who visit and leave comments believe that this site is gathering place for Quasar microwave aficionados, an oasis where they can place requests for long-lost owner’s manuals or ask advice on replacement parts. I know of a source for neither, because I never had a need for either. My Quasar oven, by the way, has aged four years (now 22 total) since I wrote that and it shows no sign of quitting.

I hope those of you who have honored me with your regular visits will continue to stop by and visit the other site. Thanks for visiting and remember, as long as you draw a breath, the glass is always half full.

Cheers.

By joe | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Nice changes.

11/19/2008 – 5:22 pm

Here’s a list:

Joe Biden, in Congress for 30+ years, is Vice-President-elect.

Rahm Emanuel, former Clinton counsel and congressman, is the new Chief of Staff.

Eric Holder, who worked in the Clinton Justice Department, is the Attorney General-designate.

Gregory Craig, who served as Clinton’s impeachment lawyer and was one of the sharks primarily responsible for handing Elian Gonzalez back to fidel and the Worker’s Paradise, is now White House counsel.

Word is out that former Senator and America’s most boring public speaker, Tom Daschle, has been asked to lead Health and Human Services.

And, of course, there’s the big story that Mrs. Rodham is being vetted for the Secretary of State job. Bill Clinton has also agreed to be vetted fully, which seems odd; he served in the White House for eight inglorious years…what’s he been doing since then that requires “vetting”?

So, to all you Obama supporters who swallowed that Change mantra that he spouted for the past 18 months…where the hell is the change? Looks to me like we’re getting many of the Usual Suspects back on the Federal payroll. In fact, one or two more of these carefully-considered choices might give us the entire Clinton Administration again. And we all know how that worked out the first time, don’t we?

There is nothing different about this man and his policies. We’re about to embark on a minimum of four years of the most miserable government intrusion into our lives than we’ve experienced in the history of this nation. Thanks a lot, folks.

Well, I can’t say I’m all that surprised, especially when one considers that most of Obama’s lemmings didn’t know much about what they were voting for in the first place.

Bend over. Here it comes again.

By joe | Posted in Politics | Comments (3)

Why lower your standards?

10/23/2008 – 1:53 pm

I’ve kept pretty quiet about the current political circus this year because, frankly, the whole process is beginning to annoy me beyond words.

Every evening, I go down a long corridor to the fitness facility here to get in a workout. 18 large flat-screen TVs hang from the ceiling in the cardio room, so no matter what treadmill or step machine you choose, you have a good view of multiple networks. Unfortunately, all they show are cable news channels (Fox, CNN, Headline, MS-NBC), so the fare is a repetitive stream of the same stories, like a bad ballet of political coverage where each network has a turn at the lead role. Thankfully, the volume is off on the TVs (you have to plug your headphones into a box on the machines to hear the audio). I prefer to listen to loud, fast music, thanks very much.

Not hearing the coverage doesn’t mean not seeing it, however. Recently, the race issue seems to be getting increased focus on the political shows and news programs. The network seem to frame the subject in similar ways: ask a loaded question asking why some white people don’t support Obama and whether their ambivalence is due to the evil R-word. No, not Republican. Racism. Some seem to think they mean the same thing.

Everyone knew this would happen if Obama got the nomination, and now it’s starting to rear it’s disgusting, pimpled head. If you criticize Obama, you’re a racist. If you question his past associations, you’re a racist. If you confront him on his policies, you’re a racist. Today I learned that if you call him “socialist,” that’s code for “racist.” Hell, if you’re white and just not voting for the guy, you must be a racist, right?

I don’t believe this issue deserves discussion in today’s environment. Instead of focusing on the fact that a black man might be the next President, and on what a positive thing that is for our democratic system and our culture, some insist on looking under rocks for something bad. I also notice that it’s those who claim to be the most tolerant who are most critical of others on this matter. Yet those same beacons of tolerance have tried to turn a popular and ambitious Republican woman, someone with infinite potential in American politics, into some kind of caricature. You see, race and gender tolerance only apply if you’re not a conservative.

I’m also a realist. There are people in America who will not vote for a black candidate, no matter what the party affiliation or positions of that candidate might be. Animosity towards blacks and other minorities (and in some cases, Jews, Catholics, and migrants from the Northern states) has been part of some regional cultures for a long, long time, and the rise of Barak Obama isn’t going to change that. Until someone figures out how to legislate our thought process, people will believe what they want to believe.

Now it’s time to ease my way out onto that limb.

Personally, I can’t possibly vote for Barak Obama for president, not because of his race, but because I’m against every political policy for which he stands. What he plans to do as president (with his Democratically-controlled Congressional accomplices) represents everything I despise and fear in a government: more expansive and more expensive government, solutions that won’t work on problems that probably don’t exist, more spending, higher taxes, class warfare, protecting abortion and euthanasia as “choice,” and so on. You know the litany.

Let’s speculate for this discussion that most black Americans of voting age who do vote are going to vote for Obama (something supported by polling data, allegedly). Unfortunately, the Republican party, year-after-year, drops the ball on increasing their percentage of the black vote, mostly for really stupid reasons. The GOP hasn’t figured out that addressing black voters directly, especially about issues that matter to them — conservative issues, like the abortion scourge in their community, school choice (a big issue in inner-city areas) and taxes (black people pay them, too, you know) — can go a long way to increasing their support in the black community. Maybe just showing up would help reduce the alienation, you know?

Republican ineptness aside, let’s assume that most black voters will choose Obama, and that many, if not most, will vote for him not just because he’s a Democrat (as an outside observer would assume), but because he’s black. I’m not saying that’s the actual reason, but instincts tell me that his race is the unspoken reason with far more blacks, far greater a number than with whites who won’t vote for him because of his skin color.

I don’t personally have much of a problem with black citizens voting for a black candidate just because of his race. Please consider how blacks were treated in this country until very recently in our history. Consider also that as little as twenty-five years ago, the idea of a black man being this close to the Oval Office was incomprehensible. Therefore, if people of color wish to support a person of color for that reason, more power to them. I can almost hear a collective black American voice saying “it’s about time for us.” And I think most reasonable people will understand that reasoning.

Yes, in the strictest sense, one can argue that it’s “reverse racism”: if a white person says “I’m not voting for Obama because he’s black” or “I’m voting for McCain because he’s white,” that person may as well have said “I support the KKK.” But if a black person says the same things using Obama as the candidate, there’s not much of an outcry. Then again, one has to remember that white people weren’t kept from participating in mainstream American society, other than as indentured servants, for nearly 200 years of American history. Is the “reverse racist” attitude acceptable? In theory, no. Perhaps in another fifty or one hundred years, that attitude won’t be acceptable in American society no matter what color one is. Today, however, one can understand why it’s there.

Now, all that being said, here’s the big question:

Why Barak Obama?

I don’t mean this within a personality framework. There’s no question that the guy has a politician’s temperament, at least as long as there’s a teleprompter within eyesight. We all know the attributes: young, handsome, dynamic speaker, attractive spouse, beautiful kids, eloquent, etc. etc. But there are a million guys of various races and political beliefs that have all that. My question relates to the substance of the candidate and why you would support him for the most important office in the free world with the little qualifications that he really, truly has.

If there was a desire to nominate a black man for president, at least for the Democrats, couldn’t you come up with a more qualified candidate? Yeah, yeah, I know, how about Palin, she isn’t qualified to step in for McCain, blah, blah, blah. Well, that argument has been specious since she first appeared on the scene: she’s been elected to multiple offices and actually served in the capacities to which she was elected. She’s the governor of the largest state in the Union. Hell, getting elected mayor of Wasilla was a bigger political accomplishment than pretty much anything Obama has done.

And his lack of “experience” is not because he actually hasn’t been elected to any office. In reality, senators don’t do much management and spend most of their time debating things no one cares about and raising everyone’s taxes. But even Obama’s election to the U.S. Senate hasn’t resulted any real accomplishments. And Obama hasn’t exactly been a man of his word regarding his political future. Richard Baehr provides a concise summary of Obama’s twists and turns in this American Thinker piece. But putting aside his 2004 promise not to run for president, one can’t help but wonder about the lack of actual work he’s performed in the offices to which he was elected:

Barack Obama, since he first ran for office in 1996, has followed a pattern: he always looked-up for the next elected job to seek. One colleague from his Illinois State Senate days in Illinois said he saw “the positions he held as stepping stones to other things”

After election to the State Senate in 1996, Obama ran (and lost) a race for Congress in 2000 against incumbent Bobby Rush. In 2002, Obama began his run for the open US Senate seat in Illinois to be contested in 2004. In 2006, he began his run for President. In fact, for more than half of the time since he has held public office, Obama has been AWOL from the job to which he has been elected, instead campaigning for higher office. There must have been a “calling” which he heard. Or perhaps it is merely unbridled personal ambition.

It should have been no surprise when Obama broke his pledge to the voters of Illinois and ran for President. If Obama is elected, it will be a new experience for him to actually have to do the job for which he was elected, with no higher office available, at least in the temporal realm. Of course, he could begin his re-election campaign (and the fundraising for it), on Inauguration Day. It is hard to imagine, after all, that there may be a day soon with no Obama ads on TV or radio.

So what we appear to have in this man is someone who’s like that guy we all know, the guy who never finished his college degree and continues to enroll in classes, year after year, holding a career and a future at bay until he’s reached some state of educational nirvana. Obama seems to love running for office more than actually serving in the offices he wins. Perhaps this bodes well for us in case he does win in a couple of weeks; maybe he’ll be so busy with the next ambition (what’s next? Pope?) that he’ll be too preoccupied to actually do any real economic or political damage.

Again, I ask the question: why this guy? I’m talking specifically on a race component here (since everyone on the Left seems to believe that we on the Right have issues with his race). Of all the black politicians and leaders that could have been recruited to run for this office, why Barak Obama? Couldn’t the black community, if they were actively looking for a man or woman of color to run for the biggest office in the world, find anyone in their community more qualified?

I thought long and hard about the answer to that question. The first alternate I thought of was Colin Powell. I always believed that he wasn’t as Republican as people thought, and his specious arguments for his Obama endorsement this past weekend sounded shallow on their face. But since he was such an accomplished man and appeared to have appeal across political lines (you know, like the press used to say John McCain did), wouldn’t he have been the man for the job? Yes, I know he was urged to run a few years ago and that his wife was allegedly antagonistic to the idea. But General/Secretary Powell seems to be, on the surface at least, a man who would answer the call to duty for service to his nation again (you know, like the calls John McCain keeps answering). I suppose we were wrong about Powell in a number of ways, huh?

After Powell, I had a difficult time thinking of a black, Democratic politician of any substance that would get the overwhelming support of black Americans the way Obama has. Many of the ones I considered were certainly more politically accomplished than Obama, but none of them seemed to have the image chops the current candidate does. Many of them have some kind of baggage that would probably prevent them from serious consideration. Not that Barak Obama doesn’t have any baggage, but I’m afraid if I mention it here, I’ll be called a racist again.

There’s a long list of past and current black politicians who served or are serving in various offices. With a few exceptions, I can’t find a name that jumps out as someone who would have been a stronger “black candidate,” based on experience and policy alone.

Well, maybe there are. Michael Steele comes to mind. J.C. Watts is another. Gary Franks. Ken Blackwell. There are a number of black Americans who ran for political office unsuccessfully from outside politics, who had experience in other areas: Herman Cain. Lynn Swann. Roy Innis. Look them up. All men of accomplishment in their communities, in business, in sports and popular culture. There’s only one tine, itty-bitty problem…

They’re all Republicans or conservatives.

And as most of us know (and I’m sure all of these men know as well from experience), in modern American politics, if you’re a Republican and you’re black, you’re the victim of some kind of undiagnosed psychological derangement. A black Republican can’t be labeled “racist,” but you sure hear a lot of other terms being tossed their way. Uncle Tom. Oreo (Michael Steele actually had Oreo cookies thrown at him on some occasions). Names I prefer not to print here.

So perhaps the problem is not a lack of qualified, experience black candidates, but a lack of non-conservative black candidates. Look, I’d be the one with the derangement if I suggested that the Democrats nominate a Michael Steele or Ken Blackwell for national office. I doubt the Democrats would even offer that to Colin Powell, in spite of his recent, nobody-gives-a-damn endorsement of Obama, simply because he has the stink of two Republican administrations all over him. In fact, Powell might be seen as the black version of McCain: a man of great military accomplishment, served his country in high political office, has tried to “cross the aisle” on many issues. Sounds a lot like McCain, doesn’t it? Yeah, well, let’s see him get nominated for something, especially by the GOP. Just watch how quickly the other side and the media forgets about all that bravery, service and hands-across-the-water crap.

In the end, I suppose my question is at worst ludicrous and at best, amusingly rhetorical. But if visitors from another planet (or maybe just France) came here and observed the current political landscape, they might wonder about that without raising the specter of racism.

Look, see how far America has come from the days of slavery, when African people were considered less than fully human. Look how America has changed, especially in the southern states, from as little as 40 years ago, when black people couldn’t drink from the same fountains or sit at the same lunch counters as whites in some towns. Since those days, there have been highly successful and popular black men and woman in politics all over the nation, serving in many important, high-profile positions of great power. And now, there is a black American running for President of the United States.

Is he the best one you’ve got?

I won’t ask these questions of anyone, however. Hell, I’m white and a Republican and I’m voting for McCain. So I’m probably already a racist. Right?

By joe | Posted in General | Comments (2)

The Sadness of the Left

9/18/2008 – 4:34 pm

I laugh aloud heartily when I read the controversies manufactured by the most recent commentary from Fatimah Ali, a columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News or the Philadelphia Inquirer or whatever rag publishes her rants (they’re both at the same web site, so I can’t tell which is which). Ms. Ali has written some mildly incendiary columns in the past, but she really outdid herself with this offering on September 16.

In this column, she wrings her hands in despair over the reaction she received from this column, published earlier this month. The headline is innocuous enough. She’s a Black woman in an urban community, she dislikes the President and wants Obama to be elected. Big deal, right? Heh. No so fast…

The earlier column received extra attention when Matt Drudge posted a link to it at his site with the headline Philadelphia columnist warns if McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race war. Drudge will never be accused of holding back the hyperbole, but Ms. Ali welcomed it with this comment:

If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness – and hopelessness!

Wow. Depressed, deflated, soaring, homelessness, hopelessness! All in one sentence! Visitors from another galaxy might think the country was still under the wrath of the Great Depression, reading this tripe. Maybe that was Drudge’s point: hit back with the same hyperbole used in Ms. Ali’s limited-view claims that the country’s end is near. Or that we’re all pushing the iron balls down the muskets and getting ready to have it out.

In the follow-up column, Ms. Ali frets about the responses she received from some of the glittering minds who viewed her comments. After the Drudge link, some of the more excitable web sites probably picked up the story and spread it around. Now, this is a big country — far bigger than Ms. Ali’s narrow view of life in Philly — and within the borders of this big nation are all kinds of people, including those who consider the expression “race war” from the computer of a liberal, urban Black woman to be fighting words. I’m of the opinion that she has no grounds to complain about some of the responses she received, since she, as they say, opened the door. Did she really believe that she would be able to publish a comment like this and not get all kinds of crackpot responses from the out-from-under-the-rocks crowd?

In fairness, she does include one comment from a white reader who claims to be inspired by Obama. I would love to have been able to see all the responses she received, because I’ll bet there were far more moderate ones that she’s willing to admit. I’m talking about those who disagree with her points (as I do), but were able to critically comment without acting in a barbaric manner. As I’m attempting to do here.

One other irritating comment in the second column sharply defines Ms. Ali’s limited world view. She writes this:

Barack Obama’s candidacy has simply been the latest stage on which some of this antagonism plays out. I wonder about people like Larry Coltslinger, who said: “Our unemployment rate is as good, or better than it was after all eight years of Bill Clinton.”

Yet, like so many others, my family has to tough it out daily to get by. But we’re hardly alone. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 592,000 Americans lost their jobs last month. Many share a similar plight – middle-class families who’ve lost financial footing because of corporate greed.

Well, Ms. Ali, you should dig little deeper at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website, because even you would have seen that Larry is…well, he’s pretty much right on target. Here’s a nice handy chart of the annual unemployment rate going back about 60 years. This is the actual percentage of unemployed people 16 and over, with no seasonal adjustments. In other words, it’s a raw number. The numbers don’t take into account those who dropped out of the workforce because of school. The numbers aren’t tweaked by holiday or summer jobs. And they’re likely not taking into account the many “occupations” that the BLS doesn’t count as “employment,” such as running on Ebay business or software developers doing short-term freelance programming jobs.

Based on this chart, the numbers were higher at the end of the first two Clinton years, then began to drop significantly in 1995…the year after the “Contract With America” Congress was elected. That was when Bill Clinton caved and signed welfare reform, which enabled (or forced, based on your perspective) lots of people living on the dole to go out and get work. There was a bounce back up after 2001 and 2002, probably from the aftermath of 9/11 and its effect on the overall economy. But, our resilient country returned to its feet as the numbers fell again to historically low levels. I expect those numbers to bounce up again by the end of this year, but in the big picture, our nation’s unemployment rate is still at all-time lows.

Even if the annual rate rises to 5% this year, that’s still below the top of any year during the Clinton administration.

I would also like to challenge Ms. Ali to closely examine our unemployment rate with that of other industrialized nations. The Germans (8.4%) and the French (8.3%) would kill to have rates this low, and according to some, they’re superior to us in every way. You know that Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest nations in the world based on oil reserves, right? Did you know that the estimated unemployment rate among Saudi men is 13%, and could be as high as 25%?

Let’s also look at that 592,000 people Americans you referenced, along with the big picture, again. Based on Bureau of the Census calculations, there are currently about 305 million people in the United States. Back to the BLS, we find that the current employment situation stands at 145.5 million people employed (out of a workforce of nearly 155 million). That means that approximately 48% of the total population of this country is currently employed in some fashion.

592,000 people is 0.0040687285223367697594501718213058 of the working population. Let’s round that: that’s .0041 of the working population or four-tenths of one percent. Now, while those 592,000 lost jobs is certainly no cause for celebration, this number is no more stunning than any other periodic rise or fall in the unemployment figures. Some of these people will likely find new jobs; some will find different jobs in a new field; some may even go back to school to train for a new job. I’ll bet that some will retire early, and some will just take a little time off to regroup.

My question for Ms. Ali: how do you know that these are all “middle-class” people? Some of them could be upper-class, maybe even the so-called “super rich.” And how is this related to “corporate greed”? What corporate leadership is rubbing its hands with glee over the prospect of getting rid of its employees or putting people out of work? Who are all these evil people you liberal commentators keep talking about? I know a few people who own businesses, both large and small. Those folks believe it’s in the best interest of their success to keep their employees employed. As big and greedy as you might think these “corporations” are, they still need people to do their work for them. So, tell me, who are they? Where are they? Should we make all “corporations” go away? (You do know that a one-person business can be a corporation, right?) Who would everyone work for then?

The really sad thing isn’t that Ms. Ali is trying to convince people to vote for Obama, or that she’s angry at the narrow-minded bigots who sent her nasty mails. Voting for our choice is the right of all Americans, and no person should be the target of vitriol for expressing an opinion (no matter how wrong it is).

What’s sad is that Ms. Ali and people like her, of all races and religions beliefs and cultures, continue to look at this nation as, in her words, “a deflated and depressed country,” with “soaring crime, homelessness – and hopelessness!” I’m the last to deny that we have problems, but “deflated and depressed”? Consider for a moment that people in America officially classified as living in “poverty” (via a number set by the government) live better, more complete lives than people in most of the rest of the world who live in truly desperate poverty. On the continent Ms. Ali and other Black Americans consider their heritage, Africa, a significant percentage of the population literally have nothing, and literally no place to turn for anything. Their countries have been ravaged by disease, drought and the oppression of totalitarian dictators who prevent real aid and progress from reaching their people. These dictators either steal what’s meant for their people, or just eliminate the problem via civil conflicts and genocide. I’m not witnessing any theft of food products or ethnic cleansing by the Bush Administration, despite what you might think of those people.

Tell me the last time anyone in America literally starved to death because they couldn’t get food? Can you truly imagine a society in this country that would allow that to happen? Or the last time people were intentionally left to die because they were unable to get some kind of medical care?

Perhaps people don’t live as well as they believe they could; most people probably don’t make the kinds of incomes they desire, or have all the trappings of life they would enjoy. Maybe people wish they lived in a nicer place or drove a better car, or had a job that was both generous in compensation and satisfying in its work.

But the big difference between the United States of America and every place else in the world is that those people who really want those things can have them if they’re willing to work hard and make some sacrifices along the way. The fact that we live in this nation, with its opportunities, choices and resources, should be the primary source of our happiness and gratitude, something we should be celebrating, not the source of deflation and depression.

I’m sorry, I’m not willing to accept the notion that this is such a sad, terrible country. I’ve seen too many examples of people who have worked hard to succeed, who solve problems and who reach out to others. Tell me a story about a man who comes here from some war-ravaged nation to start a new life for his family, by working multiple and jobs while attending school — you know, the new American trying to find the American dream, and succeeding. Too many of those stories go untold, because the Fatimah Alis of the world are too busy pointing out what’s wrong with everything.

Sorry, I can’t be that depressed. I have too much life left to live. Life is too precious, too valuable and too joyful to view it through such a negative world view. Even when things are bad, I can’t help think of how good I have it.

Even if her guy loses, I’ll bet there are lots of positive ways she can contribute to her community in some manner, if for nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing she did something positive. Maybe instead of predicting race and culture wars, Ms. Ali could look to the future with some hope.

You know, hope. Barak Obama talks about it all the time. Sounds to me like the message isn’t getting through.

By joe | Posted in Politics | Comments (3)

So much for all that security.

9/16/2008 – 4:00 pm

I experienced an interesting situation last Friday night, even though I didn’t realize it until the next day. Something happened that made me question both the quality of airport security and the humanity of a fellow citizen.

Yesterday was Kelly’s and my 29th wedding anniversary. I was due home this weekend for the Jaguar-Bills game and we decided to celebrate on Saturday night with a nice dinner out.

Last weekend, I went gift shopping. I chose (with some suggestion assistance from Kel) a lovely Ralph Lauren gift box. The kit contained a large spray bottle of Lauren’s Romance cologne, along with tubes of Romance bath gel and body lotion. I loved the scent and knew it would smell terrific on Kel, so the decision was easy.

I packed Thursday night so I could leave directly from work on Friday afternoon. My goal for my weekend trips home is to pack light, taking only carry-on. I have a house full of clothing in Florida and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give these schmuck airlines any more money than I have to. (Props, however, to Southwestfor giving you two free checked-in bags). I squeezed everything into my roll-away bag, and wondered about bringing a cigar lighter home. I needed one down there and I’ve recently collected a few free ones from JR Cigars’ retail store in the city. I decided against it…my luck, they would see the lighter in its little box and make me toss it. The lighters were free, but I won’t toss one just to satisfy them. I’ll just use matches when I get home.

I’ve chosen to fly Southwest for the next few trips home, mainly because of the evil fare increases by US Airways. US Air is really convenient, because Reagan National Airport is about a fifteen-minute walk from the house where I’m staying in Arlington, and it’s three stops on the DC Metro to and from the Pentagon. But I did a little cost comparison and discovered that Southwest would charge me nearly $100 less for the same flight (including all the fees), non-stop to Jacksonville and back. The big difference would be that the flight down there would leave about an hour later then the comparable US Air flight. The return fligh would get me back to the area at the same approximate time.

The other major difference using Southwest: I’d have to fly from Baltimore-Washington International (BWI), about 40 miles up the road. But I had a choice regarding how to get up there as well.

I could drive, then pay about $10 per day to park. That would essentially wipe out about half of my fare savings, not to mention gas. Driving through rush hour traffic both ways was no picnic, something to which anyone who lives here can attest.

But there are two mass transit alternatives. I could take the DC Metro from the Pentagon to Union Station in the city, then grab the MARC commuter train up to BWI. There’s a stop a short distance from the airport, with free shuttles to the terminal. The Metro fare would be about 1.85 and the MARC fare is $6 one way.

I could also take the Metro Green Line to the Greenbelt, Maryland station (about $4), and grab a DC Metro bus to BWI for $3. The bus, unlike the MARC train, drops you off right outside the terminal.

The decision is one of balance. The MARC train doesn’t have the issue of traffic heading up to the airport. On the return trip, the Metro bus leaves more frequently then the MARC train. Since I arrive at BWI on Monday mornings after the peak of the regional rush hour, the bus ride to Greenbelt shouldn’t be too bad.

Anyway, I chose to take the MARC train up to the airport on Friday night. I’m now kicking myself for that decision, to some degree. When I arrived at Union Station, the place was as crowded as you would expect at 5:30 PM on a Friday evening. I purchased a ticket and headed over to the proper track to wait. Then the announcements began: the 6:05 train to Baltimore was running at least 30 minutes late. The 6:40 train to Baltimore was ten to fifteen minutes behind it, and would also be significantly delayed.

Somehow, I managed to squeeze onto that late 6:05 train and the trip northward began at about 7:10. When I arrived at the BWI MARC station at about 7:55, there wasn’t a terminal shuttle to be had, just a row of taxis waiting for the delayed train. I knew taking a cab to the terminal would screw up my cost-savings ratio a little, but my flight was at 8:40 and was the last one out that night. I had not been home in about a month. The cab would be worth the cost. We squeezed four people in, so the fare came to seven bucks, not too bad considering how quickly he hustled us to the terminal.

I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of a long security line (and BWI doesn’t take any preferred traveler cards yet), but I was fortunate there was no wait at the screening point at all, probably due to the later hour. I pulled the laptop from my bag, dropped my shoes and bag on the belt and waltzed through the metal detector. Five minutes later, I was on my way to the gate. The A-list passengers were just lining up to board, and the rest of the flight went without a hitch.

On Saturday morning, Kelly and I exchanged gifts. We agreed not to spend a lot (we want to take a cruise to Canada and Nova Scotia for our 30th), and we kept the bargain. Kelly gave me a Jaguars’ players game jersey with David Garrard’s name and number, the first player jersey I’ve ever owned in all my years as a football fan.

When she opened the box with the Lauren gift set, she was vary happy. She tried the cologne, which smelled wonderful on her, as I expected. Then she asked me the question of the weekend:

“How did you get this on the plane?”

At that moment, I was a bit stunned. I had no logical answer to the question. The bottle of perfume alone should have been enough for the TSA examiner to make me remove the package from my carry-on bag. The lotion tubes were apparently within the three-ounce limit, but that cologne bottle was much more than that. I also didn’t have it hidden in my bag in any way: the gift box was a little heavy, and it was wrapped in the pseudo-plastic bag they placed it in at Macy’s.

That I had this thing in violation of the rules never occurred to me. Even on the flight, I smelled the strong aroma of perfume near my seat. I worried that the bottle in my bag might have spilled or, worse, broken on the way, but all was well when I pulled the package from the suitcase and examined it on the plane. (The smell was from some woman passenger who apparently bathed in her perfume).

In discussing my good fortune of not getting “caught” with this illicit material in my bag, Kelly wondered if I would have missed my flight if they made me go to the ticket counter and check the bag. Fortunately, that counter is very close to the screening point, just about a two-minute walk, so I’m sure I could have checked the case and boarded in time. I might have been sitting in the middle or back of the plane with Southwest’s open seating, but I was going to get on that plane no matter what.

After this incident, I’m curious about something: I still can’t imagine that the lady sitting at the bag screener didn’t see the bottle in my case. Had the laptop still been in the case, that might have blocked it, but there wasn’t more than a layer of clothing between the upright side of the case and the gift box as it rolled through the x-ray machine. There were other oddly-shaped objects in the bag: the AC adapter for the laptop, the laptop battery (which I always remove before packing the computer), my medical pill boxes, my eyeglass and sunglass cases. Perhaps the screener saw all these objects in shadows on the screen and never got a good look at that perfume bottle. Maybe it was obstructed by something else.

Or maybe, just maybe, she knew I was hurrying for a flight and let it through, preventing me from having a last-minute hassle.

I’m not going to consider it as ineptness on the part of the screener. They have a thankless job, and most of them do it pretty well. We collectively complain about the degrading way we have to be examined prior to boarding an airplane, but, trust me, it could be a lot worse. There are restrictions in places like Israel that would make the typical American traveler blow like a pressure cooker. And their airports are protected by Israeli military personnel, carrying large, scary guns. There’s probably very little “terminal rage” at the airport in Tel Aviv.

Perhaps it was just the confluence of items in my bag, lying at a certain angle, just enough to make the screener think it was something innocuous.

Or, maybe, just maybe, she was being human. She was pretty close to the end of her shift, and she saw me hurrying for a flight. Maybe she just decided to cut a slightly-weary traveler a break and let me get home to see my wife and my daughter.

Yeah, I like that last one the best. That’s my story.

And I’m sticking to it.

By joe | Posted in Life | Comments (1)

Pentagon 9-11 Memorial Day

9/11/2008 – 11:27 am

I view my current job at the Pentagon with a certain sense of awe. As one walks around this building each day, one sees (and becomes) one of a few thousand people who routinely perform their jobs without thinking they’re anything special. But one can’t help feeling a sense of pride and privilege working here, for the historical surroundings if nothing else. The hallways are monuments to military history, and the very sight of the building on the nightly news gives me one of those “hey, that’s where I work” moments. I feel very fortunate to be here.

One really appreciates it on a day such as today. As I post this, the dedication ceremony for the Pentagon Memorial to September 11 is taking place on the other side of the building from where I sit. Job requirements prevented me from attending, but we can see the event taking place on televisions throughout the building. At 2:30 today, the Memorial will be open to Pentagon employees only, which gives us an opportunity to see the site before the official public opening. I am privileged to be one of the first to view this solemn site on this historic day.

The Memorial will officially open to the public tonight at 7:00 PM, and will remain open 24 hours a day thereafter.

I hope to post a couple of pictures later on, but they will have to be cell phone photos. Since I work in a secure area, I’m not permitted to bring any type of photographic device, cell phone or recording media into my work spaces. I could have brought my camera in and left it someplace in the building where it was permitted, but that would have been a major logistical issue for me. So, cell phone photos will have to do.

I should also mention that the solemnity of the day was tainted by a protest outside the building this morning. There’s a small grassy knoll at the entrance to the Pentagon outside the Metro station. This morning, people entering the building were assaulted by a group of pinheads from the Westboro Baptist Church. One of them was singing something, but I couldn’t hear it because I intentionally neglected to remove the earbuds from my MP3 player.

Ironically, as I walked past this group of idiots (who were protected by a flank of Pentagon police and generally ignored by most of the people entering the building), the song playing in my ears was Liar by the Screaming Orphans:

You turn your back another time
You tell me that I’m wasting life
You don’t know me at all

Don’t look me up and look me down
Don’t push me further under ground
‘Cause you’re a liar
Baby, you’re a liar

Amen and appropriate. I’ll post updates later after I visit the site.

Update #1

I made a feeble attempt to get the cell phone images off the chip and onto the laptop, but there were some issues, and then something happened – I crashed, hard. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the gym recently and my body is still getting adjusted to the additional strain I’m putting on it. So, by the time I get home some evenings, I’m pretty wiped, and last night was a good example. I don’t even remember getting into bed. The photos will be here sometime over the weekend. Hopefully.

I do want to say that the Memorial is truly beautiful. The bench-like markers representing the victims are arranged chronologically by age, beginning with the name of then-three-year-old Dana Falkenberg, who was murdered on board American flight 77 with her parents and her sister. Each bench has its own reflecting pool, which is lit after dark, and the name of the victim engraved on the front edge. Along the back of the Memorial, a wall rises from three inches to 71 inches, with one inch representing the age in years of the victims. The site faces the wall of the Pentagon which was struck by Flight 77. The benches representing the victims in the aircraft point towards the building, while those of the victims inside the Pentagon face away. There are young trees planted throughout the site, which will eventually grow and provide shade for visitors to the site.

The Washington Post has a nice “virtual memorial” interactive image that demonstrates and explains the features of the site.

The site officially opened to the general public last night.

If you’re touring the Washington D.C. area, you certainly have a slew of monuments and memorials to visit. Some reflect the pride we hold for our past leaders – Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. Some stand as icons to our form of government, including the White House and the Capitol.

Some sites honor those not-so-famous, the ordinary men or women who served the nation, including those who died for causes greater than themselves – the Vietnam Wall, the Iwo Jima Marine Memorial and Arlington Cemetery come to mind immediately.

This site reflects a different remembrance. We certainly have this place to honor the men and women working for the military services in the Pentagon, both uniformed and civilian, who became the first battlefield casualties in the War on Terror. The Pentagon Memorial also honors the innocent, the travelers who were visiting friends and family or conducting their personal business, who lived their lives the way Americans do, with the freedom to go where they wanted and to enjoy the fruits of their labors, as well the labor itself. They were drawn into this unknowingly and paid the highest price a human can, the same sacrifice we ask our military and first responders to possibly make every day.

This quiet place of honor it the least we can do for them.

By joe | Posted in Life, Stories | Comments Off

Linux-to-Vista: He convinced me. To stick.

9/10/2008 – 5:23 pm

The problem with commenting about articles on other tech websites is that one gets sucked into the vortex of one-tech-site-linking-to-another-tech-site, to the exclusion of many non-tech sites. What you wind up with then is a bunch of web sites patting one another on the back and providing referral links to boost hit stats.

Unfortunately for my few remaining visitors, this post is going to be tech-related, which may turn some of you off. But it’s my blog and I feel like jumping into this fray.

This column was posted this morning, and after reading it, I still can’t determine whether the author was joking or intentionally posting flame-bait to get Linux geeks like me fired up. I’m about to offer a few counter-comments to Mr. Zaharov-Reutt’s “why Vista is better than Linux” list. But unlike some of my fellow Linux fanboys who flamed the man in the article’s comments area with some really uncalled-for nastiness, I reply with all the respect people gave Don Corleone.

1. Vista is far more polished than Linux, and in general, things “just work” far better in Vista than they do in Linux.

This first item on his list reflects some of the vagueness Mr. Zaharov-Reutt injects much too frequently into his list. I’m trying to think of what, on my various Linux machines, doesn’t “just work.” On a day-to-day basis, I use a few programs more frequently on my Kubuntu 8.04-based laptop: Firefox, Quanta+, a terminal, OpenOffice, gftp, the Adept package manager. They all work all the time. They start, do what I want, and go away when I tell them.

I recently spent a few hours trying to get my nephew’s Vista Home-based laptop back on line. Trust me, things on that machine didn’t “just work.”

2. Vista has the widest software support, perhaps bested only by XP, for now. This includes the widest third-party software support, from commercial to free and open source software.

Based on what? What he sees on the shelf at Best Buy? I’m certain there are more Windows apps in general, but the last time I looked at my package manager on Linux, there were about 15,000 applications (I’m estimating, and that’s without libraries) available for my distribution (distro) alone. Give me a count of open-source apps available on Sourceforge and other FOSS distribution sites. My bet is that the numbers aren’t as far apart as he thinks.

And one other thing: I thought we were talking about how great Vista is? If XP has such better software support, why would I want to switch from XP to Vista?

4. Vista has the most advanced and widest range of security software available.

This one is pretty funny, both “ha-ha” funny and ironically funny.

Linux doesn’t require “security software.” The security built into the operating system has been enough to keep it from being the target of choice for malware, as Windows has been for the past 15 years. Yes, I can hear it now from the Windows dweebs: Linux doesn’t get attacked because most people run Windows. No, Linux doesn’t get attacked because the attackers know it’s difficult, if not impossible in many cases, to penetrate most Linux boxes. Millions of the world’s websites run on Linux servers with Apache. Few of them have ever been compromised to the degree that Windows servers have in recent years.

5. Vista has IE and Office, still the gold standards of Internet browsing and office work.

Linux (and Windows, for that matter) has Firefox and OpenOffice, which are pretty gold themselves. In addition to Opera, Konqueror, KOffice, and other lesser-known nuggets. Firefox, unlike IE, is based on accepted web standards, not a load of proprietary substance that can only be experienced with one browser. OpenOffice can open, edit and save nearly any Microsoft Office file you throw at it. That suite, too, uses open standards for its default file structure, so files can be easily shared among other systems and applications.

7. Vista has the best backup software and solutions for consumers.

Really? Name one. I worked in system administration for years and could barely find capable software to use on 16-tape autoloaders, at least not without breaking my department’s budget. Perhaps things have changed, but I’d still be interested. Name one. At least name one that “consumers” will use on a regular basis. Pay a visit to the computer forum on Craigslist or the Computers area on Yahoo! Answers some time. A day doesn’t go by where a dozen or so “consumers” ask for help with a crashed system, and admit to not having a backup of their personal data. You can’t even get most people to push copies of their files to external drives or memory sticks.

9. Vista is the easiest operating system to use.

More vagaries. Define “easiest”.

The last time I looked, you started Windows applications by clicking icons with a mouse. The last time I looked, you start Linux applications by clicking icons with a mouse. Most use the left mouse button to do this. Works the same in both systems. So where’s the difficulty?

11. Vista and Windows in general is what most businesses use, thus skills learned in Vista translate into the business world most easily.

Really? Why is it that Windows is “what most businesses use”? Could it be that the systems vendors have long had deals with Microsoft that practically require them to install a copy of Windows on nearly everything they sell?

Years ago, if you were buying computers, you bought servers with proprietary operating systems and desktop machines with DOS. Today, it’s rack servers and client machines with Windows. Try buying a computer, any computer, from a major vendor without an operating system (let alone with some version of Linux installed). Yes, I know some companies offer Linux machines (like Dell), but the major portion of their business is selling machines preloaded with Windows.

At one time, buying a machine with Windows made sense. There was no other real competitor out there, there was lots of Windows software, and the cost of Windows was buried in the cost of the system (you always pay for it, despite the fact that it seems to be “free”). Companies and consumers bit and eventually became entrenched in the world of Microsoft…hey, we make Windows, how about using Office, which we design specifically for Windows?…and now, years later, you have all this data, all these documents, all these applications that only work on Windows. Would most companies switch? Probably not.

I’m curious, however, about these “skills learned in Vista.” The only skill I saw that one needs to “learn” in Vista is patience, especially when the user has to verify that they really, really want to run that program they just attempted to start – every time they start something. (yes, fanboys, I know you can shut it off — why was it necessary in the first place?)

What are these other “skills”? Clicking a mouse? Typing characters on a keyboard? (Yes, Linux uses the same mouse and keyboard. Same letter arrangements and everything!). I’ve used Excel and OpenOffice Spreadsheet. You fill them out the same way, and nearly all the formulas and macros work the same way. If I open Word or OO Word Processor, I enter the characters the same way, format the text the same way, save files the same way.

Even the programming isn’t that different, at least at the base level. The major differences is coding for the GUI. But if you write code in Java, or do scripting in PHP or Perl, things are pretty much the same. Even if you wrote code in two different languages (say Java on Linux and C# on Windows), programming “skills” remain basically the same — you still have to use logic and planning, no matter what your code will do or what language you use.

Maybe that new Vista skill is “waiting.” I seem to recall, based on my recent adventures with the nephew’s laptop, that sitting around and “waiting” for Vista to do stuff was a new experience…or, at least one I hadn’t experienced since the day I first booted Windows NT.

17. Vista has the best compatibility with Windows Mobile smartphones (although, XP too).

Duh. The damn things run Windows. How are they supposed to be compatible with Linux anyway? By the way, I owned (until recently) a Palm Treo 650. Used the Palm OS on it, and was able to sync it to applications on Linux (like JPilot) just fine. I haven’t had the same experiences with my new Blackberry, but it doesn’t run Windows either. I’m patient – eventually, some smart people will build out an open source tool set that will allow me to do whatever I need on my Blackberry on Linux as easily as I can on Windows. I can backup and restore the Blackberry’s database from Linux. And I didn’t need to buy one of those superior backup tools mentioned above!

But saying a Windows-based phone works best with Windows is like saying baby formula works best when you feed it to a baby.

18. Vista has arguably the best and most advanced Media Center.

Really? Can it play FLAC and OGG files out of the box? I mean, without adding on any of those nasty open source libraries. By the way, ever heard of MythTV? I’ll bet if you buy a cheap or homebuilt system with no operating system installed, then get this, you can have a very nice “media center” up and running in no time. And all the software is free! Imagine…

19. Vista has the best Tablet PC experience, whether using a Tablet PC or an external graphics tablet.

I’ve worked in IT for a long time, and, yes, I know what Tablet PCs are, but what the hell is the “Tablet PC experience”? In my current job, I am literally surrounded by geeks, everything from system admins to network managers to developers to database admins to helpdesk staff…I’m talking literally thousands of people managing one of the biggest and most critical infrastructures in the nation…and I’ve never seen a single Tablet PC in use. Ever. By anyone. So, it’s a shame the “Tablet PC experience” isn’t as good on Linux, but who gives a shit?

20. Vista has the best “start menu”.

Boy, we’re reaching into the weeds now, aren’t we? Maybe Mr. Zaharov-Reutt needs to look at the “start menu” in KDE. Explain to me the difference in functionality and accessibility. I don’t think there’s anything really comparable in GNOME, so the argument seems moot. Last time I looked, to anything in either system, you clicked a button, clicked a category of applications, clicked the program you wanted. Maybe the “start menu” is dumbed down in Vista, but, again, what’s the issue?

21. Vista has the best UI, although this is subjective.

Duh again. Isn’t just about everything on your list subjective?

25. Vista can run Microsoft’s OneNote, which only XP can also claim.

This is funny. I had to look this up to find out what it was, and I use Windows at work every day (not my choice). Note-capture software that’s tied to a proprietary system and application suite. So what. I have a nice little application in KDE called Basket that can do pretty much the same thing as OneNote. Yes, it will run on any Linux system (you don’t need a full KDE install, just some libraries).

Besides, most of the Linux geeks I know still write stuff down in notebooks or compose notes on their cellphones/PDAs. Probably a whole lot less bloat, too.

26. Vista has the best “remote log-in” software choices.

Huh?

The Unix/Linux world has long had something called X Display Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP), which allows not only remote connections, but literally running the remote system’s entire desktop from your system. There have been security issues with XDMCP in recent years, but the *nix world dealt with that by adapting OpenSSH (another remote connection tool) to allow XDMCP “tunneling”, so the remote system could be accessed using encryption. There are a number of remote desktop clients available on Linux that allow the same connectivity to Windows systems allowed by tools such as Windows Terminal Services. Linux is just as capable of working with VPNs as Windows. I’m sure there are some I didn’t mention, but you get the idea.

27. Vista has the best suite of software freely built-into the OS, as part of the OS and not a third-party add-in (as with Ubuntu and its suite of otherwise quality third party add-ons).

Again, name it. Be specific, Alex. One thing you need to learn is that Ubuntu, while currently the most popular general Linux distribution, is not the only Linux distribution. Each different version of the system comes with various applications loaded by default. Some versions are designed for specific uses (servers, multimedia, development, security, forensics), and each one is going to come with a specific package of tools and apps.

Besides, if something you need doesn’t come with Windows, what do you do? Well, most people would automatically go out and buy an application. Other more technically-savvy users might find some open source alternative. Some might get some shareware application off the ‘Net and use that. With the exception of the open source choice, that app is going to cost the user something – money and time, for example – to get it up and running.

Let me use Ubuntu as an example of what we in the Linux world do: we fire up a package manager (Synaptic in GNOME systems, Adept on KDE boxes, or use apt-get from the command line), search for the application or tool we need, and click “install.” The program will be installed from a repository that houses the latest version, tested and packaged specifically for this version of Linux. Users can add repositories to the default list (also through the GUI tools) to provide additional software resources. The installation process handles all the required dependencies, too.

So, if a distribution doesn’t happen to have that matching item from Vista’s “suite of software”, you can usually add one in about 30 seconds.

By the way, I’d be interested in what those Vista applications in that “suite” are? Since I’m not that familiar with Vista as a user, I’ll have to use XP as a comparison. Let’s see, there’s Wordpad. Many Linux distros include OpenOffice, KOffice or Abiword, all of which are more powerful word processors. On my Kubuntu box, I found a calculator, a few text editors, all kinds of “control panel”-type tools…I mean, I’ll bet I could match Vista one-for-one on nearly everything they “give” you. Well, maybe not Paint…most distros include GIMP, which is closer to Photoshop anyway.

28. Vista has the best “taskbar”.

Let me ask you a question about that Vista taskbar. Does it still pop up that annoying message that there are “unused icons” on the screen? That message that won’t go away, no matter how times I click it? You know, I bought my daughter a new laptop about a year ago, and it came with Vista. I seem to recall that the taskbar was literally filled with a bunch of icons for crap she’ll never use, most of it partially-working demos of applications that just eat up resources (like the trial version of Norton anti-virus). Most Linux taskbars I’ve seen offer just a couple of items out-of-the-box: a clock, a network-connection status icon, maybe a battery monitor for a laptop. The really great thing is that the taskbar isn’t filled with shit I’ll never use or don’t want. And I can add things that I do want at any time.

I can also turn the taskbar off in Linux.

Nice try.

29. Vista has the most versions, although this isn’t a plus, Microsoft!

Okay, I don’t want to split hairs here, but have you visited Distrowatch recently, Alex? Look at the page…this is the “full stats” page which lists 350 different Linux distributions. Like Vista (which offers, what, four versions? Five? Six?), you can pick the version that best suits your needs (and each one is detailed on Distrowatch, too). You’re not stuck with the version that the vendor happened to install on your new PC or laptop. And if you want a better version, you don’t have to pay some outrageous upgrade price. In fact…you never have to play for Linux if you don’t want to! So multiple versions of Vista might be bad for you, but the Linux camp has choices.

31. Vista has the best and easiest online driver finding mechanism.

Now, as a long-time Linux user, I can recall a time when finding “drivers” for some hardware could be a major pain in the ass. But that was only in the most extreme cases, because Linux, unlike Windows, doesn’t really use “drivers.” Most of the code needed to work with specific hardware is coded into modules, which, like drivers, are little chunks of code that hook to the kernel on startup and load when the hardware is detected by the kernel. The major difference between Linux and Windows is that the user (at least, the technically adept user) can install modules created outside the Linux kernel development community, or can directly modify the kernel to get certain things working.

In recent years, however, there’s been less of a need for users to have to try hacking their systems to get things working. The creators of the most popular distributions build generic kernels and include sets of modules that cover nearly everything the user needs to get their system going. And remember that repository system I spoke of earlier? All the major distributions utilize some kind of package management that enables even the most challenged users to find and install something for a specific hardware need.

Admittedly, there are still some issues with some hardware, including some wireless network adapters. One very popular wireless chipset maker simply refuses to provide technical data to volunteer developers so a real Linux driver can be created for their hardware. In spite of the fact that big hardware companies like Intel and AMD work with the Linux community, some companies still insist on keeping their technical source closed or unavailable. Unfortunately, this particular wi-fi hardware company makes chipsets for a wide variety of computer manufacturers, meaning their hardware is very common.

Yet, this lack of cooperation hasn’t stopped the Linux development community from finding a solution. By use of a tool called ndiswrapper, users stuck with this hardware can use it under Linux via the company’s own Windows drivers. This is just one example of how the community has rallied around the system and provided solutions to a seemingly-insurmountable issue. Show me where this happens in the Vista community. Or in the Windows community, period.

By the way, please stop propping up Vista’s driver compatibility. Ask anyone who used Vista immediately after its release about the hardware that no longer worked with their new operating system.

32. Vista has the best error reporting to help Microsoft squash bugs, and the best version of “Windows Update”.

Really? Can you tell me where this “error reporting” takes place. Is it part of Microsoft’s regular support? I guess that means it’s going to require my credit card, right? I’d like to know where this happens so I can send screen caps of BSOD messages or those old Dr. Watson memory dumps. I used to have a lot of them. Maybe it’s different in Vista.

As for the “best version” of “Windows Update,” this would make sense, since Linux isn’t Windows.

By the way, you do know how Linux gets updated, right? As soon as you get on line, most systems check for any new updates at their repositories (against what you have installed already…not crap you don’t care about). You get a notification (usually through a icon on that taskbar we discussed earlier) and you can nearly always install them in the background while you actually work on something else.

33. Vista has an SP1 that fixed a lot of earlier Vista issues, now in the past.

Linux doesn’t have service packs. Never has. Never need to, really. That update thing I mentioned above? That takes care of issues, one at a time, when they pop up. No need to wait a year for a service pack to fix massive piles of bugs, with the potential that the service pack is going to break the system. Small steps. I’ve been using one or another of the Ubuntu distros as a primary system for about three years now. I have never had an update break my system. Ever.

37. Vista has the best “System Restore”.

Good thing, too, since having to restore the system is a pretty common occurrence with nearly every version of Windows. Restoring an entire Linux system (except in the case of a severe hardware crash) is pretty much unheard of (well, maybe except for us nutcases who are always testing three or four new distros at the same time). Our systems don’t get hammered with crippling viruses and malware, and we tend to fix the specific problems when they come up, rather than just brute-forcing the issue away by “restoring” the system. And some distros have a “repair” function available on the installation CD. Pop it in, reboot, select repair.

Oh, by the way…does Microsoft provide Windows Vista on a LiveCD? You know, so you can boot it up independently of the installed system and try it out directly from the CD? So you can test your hardware for compatibility or fix an issue without bolluxing up your current installation?

I didn’t think so. I guess that nasty licensing issue always gets in the way, huh?

38. Vista is the most widely available commercial OS, and thus has the most support.

And Linux is the most “widely available” [sic] open source OS, thus is has the most support.

And nearly all that support is free, by the way.

39. Vista doesn’t turn you into a left-leaning, anti-capitalist socialist.

Neither does Linux.

I’ve been using it since 1993, and I’m still as much of a freedom-loving, flag-waving, pro-business conservative today as I was back then (read a few of the political posts on this blog if you want to verify my political status). Yeah, I know, we have Richard Stallman on our side of the aisle, but the Linux model fits the right-leaning, pro-capitalist business model very nicely. Linux encourages freedom: freedom to innovate, freedom to change something for one’s individual use, freedom to spread the word about a terrific system and all the great applications and tools that go with it. The “free beer” part of the equation is nice, too. But I make a pretty good living working primarily with open source tools (Apache, PHP, Perl, etc). I have to do a lot of it on Windows boxes, but I can get it done. And I work primarily for the military, another freedom-loving bunch.

40. Vista has Microsoft behind it!

Yiles. That explains why people using Vista are taking it up the…errr…in the shorts. Perhaps this is why Bill Gates wiggled his butt in that stupid commercial.

I didn’t touch on every one of Alex’s 40 points, or this would have been the longest blog post in history. But after reading the column and then responding, I still had the nagging feeling that he was intentionally tweaking the Linux crowd by the way he worded things in his piece.

Then I read some of the comments posted after the article, and some of a Alex’s responses. I have no doubt he’s a true believer. Yet some of his follow-up comments strike me as odd, too:

With the biggest market share…it’s undeniable that IE is the gold standard in Internet Browsing.

Well, sure, IE has the biggest market share, because Windows has the biggest market share. Isn’t that like saying the Chinese use more resources because they have the largest national population? No kidding.

If you want to use an alternative like Firefox or Opera, you have to go get it and install it. Yet, Alex can’t account for the fact that millions of Windows users have done just that. Considering how wonderful everything that comes with Vista is supposed to be, why would they do that?

Then there’s this:

As for standards compliance and IE, have you heard of IE8 beta 2, soon(ish) to be IE8 final?

Yes, I have, and I understand that it’s currently a memory-hogging, bloated hunk of crap. But it is a beta, so one can’t honestly judge it right now.

As for “standard compliance”…don’t you think it’s about time? I mean, since IE really took off with version 5, they’ve had more than a few chances (interim and major releases, that terrific “Windows Update” system) to make IE “standards compliant.”

The big question here, however, is what standards? Microsoft has attempted, for many years now, to be the one setting the standards by literally forcing people to have to use their browser to get any of their proprietary features working (Silverlight is the latest sparkling example). I have to wonder if the developers at Microsoft even know what “standards compliance” means.

I guess the jury is still out on that one.

In conclusion, this article is really nothing more than one Windows fanboy trying to spark a fire under the Linux fanboys (which I happily admit to being, myself). But, like some of the commenters, I have to wonder is Alex did a few Google/Yahoo searches, or took a closer look at a working Linux system beofre writing his “challenge” to his Linux-loving friends.

I’m also dismayed at some of the viciousness of a few of the commenters. Trying to win the Windows-vs-Linux argument doesn’t require attacking people personally or calling them crude names. You can make your argument without being an attack dog.

Especially when the other party is so completely wrong.

By joe | Posted in Geek | Comments (3)

Buy this free operating system now!

7/9/2008 – 12:11 pm

Picture this scenario:

You’re walking down the street in your neighborhood and you see a makeshift fruit stand on the corner. You stroll up and find a fellow with a whole lot of bananas. “I have banana trees at my house,” he says. “The trees were really bountiful this year, and I have more than I can eat. So, help yourself. I’m giving them away for free.”

You politely thank him, but you take none of the free bananas.

One week later, you’re in the grocery store with your spouse and you see a sale in the produce section. “Bananas from Costa Rica,” the sign states. “$2.99 per pound.” You turn to the spouse and say, “Look, honey, they have Costa Rican bananas on sale. Three bucks. I’ll get some.”

I’ll bet you’re thinking what idiot would pay three bucks for a pound of bananas when they could have had all they wanted for free?

That’s what I was thinking when I saw this item listed for sale at all Best Buy stores. That’s right, Linux fans, Best Buy is selling the Ubuntu Linux operating system in its stores and through its web site for twenty bucks.

They are selling, for twenty bucks, an operating system that anyone with an Internet connection can download for only the expense of the time online (Yes, yes, I know, people with dial-up can’t download this, it would take too long, blah, blah, blah…just keep reading).

For those folks who don’t want or can’t afford broadband service, or who don’t know anyone who can download the system for them, a visit to this page on the Ubuntu website will explain how you can request a free copy of Ubuntu to be sent to you. They explain that the shipping might take a while (depending on where it’s being shipped), but you’re not getting FedEx overnight shipping for free. This offer is free. As in free beer. This is a way to get a free operating system. As in freedom.

You can also “buy” a copy of Ubuntu (and practically any other Linux distribution) through one of the vendors listed on this page. In fact, I see two places that will “sell” you a copy of Ubuntu for $1.95 or $2.45, which leads me to believe that these folks are not in this for the profit. One of the vendors will also sell you a set of CDs with all the available Ubuntu software from the system’s repositories for about $30. Trust me, the copy of Ubuntu you purchase at Best Buy will not have the thousands of available items in the Ubuntu repositories for twenty bucks.

The maddening thing about this isn’t that someone is “selling” a version of Linux. Red Hat and Novell “sell” Linux. Heck, even Canonical, the company that distributes Ubuntu, “sells” Linux. But what’re they’re really “selling” is a service. They provide the system, as well as support and assistance, especially for business, government or other high-availability use. Companies and agencies that use these supported versions know the benefit of the open source model and its lack of confusing and expensive licensing. Yet they may not have the specific Linux expertise on staff to perform more than the basic administrative functions. That’s where the paid support comes in.

If you’re thinking that the various open source licenses (GPL, LGPL, etc.) prohibit the sale of free software, you’d be wrong. Anyone can sell a copy of Linux to anyone else for a profit. The key is that the buyer must receive all the source code used in the system and must be free to change it any way they like, among other conditions. Please note that for whatever Microsoft charges you for Windows (and it isn’t twenty bucks), you don’t get the source and you can’t change anything, except perhaps the desktop color and where you want the icons to sit.

I’m racking my brain trying to figure out why someone wouldn’t download this for free from the Internet, or order one from the distributor at no cost, or even ask a friend with broadband to do the download, but would walk into the local Best Buy and plunk down $20 for a copy.

Even worse is the fact that Best Buy optionally charges people $150 to have their Geek Squad team install Ubuntu on the customer’s computer. Now, I understand that some people may think this is difficult to install (it’s not, really), and it may be complicated by people who want to install it alongside Windows and dual boot between the two (also pretty automatic). But $150 to stick a disc in the CD drive and hit an “install” selection on a menu? But I’m biased: I wouldn’t let anyone from the Geek Squad pump gas into my truck.

Nevertheless, there are a number of reasons why someone would want to buy Ubuntu rather then download it. Some of them are “discussed” in this comments area on Slashdot. While I find some of the reasoning in some of those comments a bit silly, I must admit that I’m looking at this from the perspective of someone who has used Linux for a long time and thinks nothing of whatever technical challenges it might present the first-time user. Frankly, I see those challenges as no more complex or daunting that anything Windows can throw at you. Then again, most people don’t have to install Windows on their computers (at least not until the system is so infected with malware that it can no longer operate without being completely reinstalled from scratch).

I couldn’t help but laugh at one Slashdot comment, even though i don’t agree with the sentiment. The topic was the potential Ubuntu user unwilling or unable to download the system and burn it to their own CD for installation:

Given this hypothetical person who has no clue on how to download and burn something… Do you really think he’s magically gonna have a clue on how to install Ubuntu?????

Now that’s funny. But tossing your twenty bucks away is not.

By joe | Posted in Geek | Comments (3)

Coffee Economics

7/7/2008 – 9:18 am

What never ceases to amaze me is the economic stupidity of the people in the richest, most advanced nation in the world.

Starbucks announced last week that they’re closing 600 of their over 6000 global stores due to “underperformance.” They’ll also lay off 12,000 employees in a cost-cutting measure.

My interest in this relates to the comments from the idiots in this feature story, which focuses on why some folks think Starbucks’ problems are a good thing.

I’ll sum it up for you. Nearly all the elitist snots who commented had the same general attitude: Starbucks is a big, bad corporation that used to be okay, but now we want to shop at the little neighborhood coffee shop, so we’re glad they’re going away. Closing 10% of your stores is not “going away,” it is simply a way to solidify the bottom line. In fact, I’ll bet the Starbucks’ shops near most of these people don’t close at all.

But their snotty attitude fascinates me, because it demonstrates a lack of economic knowledge far too common in Americans today. For example, take this comment:

“I’m so happy. I’m so not a Starbucks person,” said Melinda Vigliotti, sipping iced coffee at the Irving Farm Coffee House in New York. “I believe in supporting small businesses. Starbucks, bye-bye.”

“Amen,” chimed in Keith DiLauro, a local caterer. “They went too big, too fast.”

Wow, what deep thinking. First, what was stopping Melinda from buying her coffee at Irving Farm In the first place? Did the Starbucks folks hire local goons to force people into their stores as they attempted to shop elsewhere for their coffee? And Irving Farms must be having some success, since they’re open and competing with Starbucks, so what’s the problem, Melinda?

Second, what you and Keith fail to understand is that, if the local Starbucks closes, local people who live in your community will lose their jobs, which ripples through that community. I would bet if Irving Farms closed their doors, you’d probably be protesting the lack of coffee choices and the loss of opportunity for their employees, right? Just because you two insensitive clods don’t like Starbucks doesn’t mean a closing doesn’t affect someone else.

This attitude kills me, especially when it emerges from people who don’t see the big picture. I hear this in relation to Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, food chains, and big box home improvement places. If you don’t like these companies and you have a choice of where to shop, support the other store. No one holds a gun to your head and says “you must shop at this giant retail chain.”

I understand that in some places, the smaller stores are frequently forced to shut down because of the presence of the big chains. As unfortunate as this might be for some small businesses, that’s called competition, and it’s a part of business operations that every owner must face. The big chains can often (and do) keep prices down by buying cheaper and selling cheaper, with lower margins due to higher quantity of sales. If that’s the case, the small store needs to find other ways to overcome that disadvantage. Often, people will shop at a small business because they believe they get better quality or service. But if the economy is as bad as everyone in the media says it is, price is king. This can be unfortunate for small businesses, but that’s part of the supply-and-demand equation of the economic model.

Nevertheless, when a big chain shuts down a location, local people lose their jobs. To cheer the demise of that company’s location isn’t something those now-out-of-work folks wish to hear when they’re trying to determine their next move. Especially for a Starbucks location, which hires a lot of part-time folks, including students who can only work a few hours a week.

There are a couple of other points made in this story that smell funny to me. First of all, there’s this B.S.:

Starbucks fell victim to a rapid change in attitude, fueled by Internet bloggers complaining endlessly about everything from layoffs to its breakfast sandwiches, he said.

All the blogging in the world isn’t going to dramatically affect Starbucks’ bottom line. They are closing the locations because of the bottom line, and nothing else. They over extended their reach, misinterpreted the demand in the market, and like any other well-operated company (big or small) they are cutting costs to increase their bottom line. As a publicly-traded company, they have one very important group of people to which they must be responsible: their stockholders.

Then there’s this gem of a reason for the sudden success in the local coffee shop:

The environmental movement toward buying and appreciating locally grown products has helped neighborhood cafes and hurt the myriad look-a-like Starbucks stores, said Judy Ramberg, a consumer strategist at Iconoculture, a Minneapolis-based trend research company.

Lady, please. How many New York City-based “neighborhood cafes” are making their coffee based on “locally grown products”? The last time I looked, there were no coffee bean farms inside the five boroughs. Or anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere, from what I gather. And what does this have to do with the environment? Why does this paragraph sound like something someone made up for the sake of sounding “deep”?

Speaking of the stockholders, I’d love to know what kind of retirement plans the gleeful folks quoted in this story might have. I wonder if, in their mutual funds or 401Ks, any actually own Starbucks stock in the portfolio without even knowing it.

The smartest guy in the story is, naturally, the IT geek quoted at the end, a fellow who makes the most intelligent observation:

Not everyone felt strongly. “It’s just coffee,” said Marc Poulin, a systems administrator at Zibetto Espresso Bar in New York. “If I was an investor, I’d care.”

He may be drinking his coffee at another place, but at least he gets it. Shutting down a business might be okay for the look-down-their-noses, elitist snobs who drink their coffee elsewhere. But someone they don’t know nor care about is going to be hurt by this in some way.

Perhaps they ought to shut the hell up, sip their lattes and give thanks for how fortunate they are in their own lives.

By joe | Posted in Culture, Economics | Comments (3)

No “cabel” = smart Mom

6/25/2008 – 4:04 pm

A pair of sisters in Salt Lake City are angry about the high price of gas. No, not because Mom and Dad won’t take them anywhere. They’re angry because Mom decided to cut back on expenses, and one of the first things she eliminated was their cable TV service.

The girls took their complaints to the streets, and have been seen protesting the high gas prices that led to their loss of their favorite programs.

The story details the messages on the protest signs carried by the seven- and nine-year-old girls.

“All of my mom’s monny goes to the gas tank!” Pyper’s sign read. Sadie carried a sign asking drivers to honk to lower gas prices — adding that her mom had to cut “cabel.”

I’m sorry, folks, I’m sure many of you will find this a sweet or amusing tale. But I have to be a bit frightened when two kids their age haven’t figured out how to spell words are simple and common as “money” and “cable.”

I’d praise Mom for cutting the cable off…perhaps too much TV time is cause of their spelling deficiencies. But I also have to wonder why Mom would let them walk the streets with their signs before having a peek at a dictionary.

And, no, I don’t feel bad picking on the spelling issues of a seven- and nine-year-old kid. My Mom would have had my head.

By joe | Posted in Life | Comments Off

What’s in a Linux name?

6/24/2008 – 7:10 am

While posting something on a Linux forum the other day, a thought hit me. Another poster asked why millions of people use Windows, but fewer seem to want to use Linux, despite its ease of installation, available applications, security and zero-cost. The Linux user community discusses and argues this topic constantly, but I believe I finally hit on why Linux acceptance among the world’s everyday users has been…well…kind of slow.

Names.

Specifically, the names of the various Linux distributions.

I’m not talking about the name “Linux.” Since its inventor, Linux Torvalds, named it that back in 1991, even people who don’t inhabit the computer community have likely heard the name and vaguely know that it’s an operating system, or at least something that goes on a computer.

For those less informed about Linux, unlike Microsoft Windows, the system isn’t a monolithic in its “ownership” or control. The guts of Linux, called the kernel, is Torvald’s invention and ultimate responsibility, though he receives assistance from many other kernel maintainers and developers. What the user sees surrounding the kernel while using a Linux system are the graphical interface (GUI), applications, utilities, toys and other programs developed by other people and offered for use on the kernel for free. When a person or group of people combine the kernel, a GUI and other applications and package it into an installable system, they have developed a Linux distribution, or distro. All distros use the same Linux kernel (with some minor version differences), and more or less of the supporting cast, based on the purpose of the distro.

Some distros are designed as full desktop/laptop systems for everyday use, the way one might use Windows. Some are designed for servers and include tools like the Apache web server and the MySQL relational database. Some are designed as “small” distros, designed to run on older hardware with limited resources. One can even boot and run Linux from a USB thumb drive. Many modern desktop distros are also available in the LiveCD format, which allows the curious user to boot to the installation CD or DVD and test the system out live before installing it on a hard disk.

So, with all these choices and apparent ease of installation and use, why isn’t Linux a more frequently-considered option for all computer users?

I’m telling you (and all the distribution leaders) why: the names are stupid. No, they’re not the primary reason for a lack of wider acceptance. But they’re not helping.

For those of you who have never used Linux, think about this: when I say “Microsoft Windows,” you know immediately what I’m talking about, even if you rarely use a computer. If I say the word “Mac,” you likely don’t know that Apple’s computers run something called “OS X.” You do know that you get everything you need, just by buying a Mac desktop or laptop.

But when I say “Linux,” some people might know this as something used by their über-geek friends or that system admin guy who runs the server room at work.

Adding to this lack of knowledge is the confusion over the wide variety of available distributions. Most people don’t want to give a lot of thought to their operating system. They just want to turn on the computer, open a browser, check their mail, listen to a few songs or watch some video, or maybe write a term paper for school or work on that spreadsheet from the job.

Many people don’t realize how capable Linux is of doing all the things listed above. The free OpenOffice suite renders the need for Microsoft Office moot. The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) might not be the full-featured graphics application Adobe Photoshop is, but the average user can’t afford Photoshop anyway, and the GIMP (which is free) serves most photo manipulation needs. There are multiple web browsers available for Linux, including the popular Firefox and its brother mail program, Thunderbird. If you think of a task you do under Windows, it’s likely doable in Linux as well. For free.

I know that gamers will tell me the Windows environment is superior for PC-based games. Fine. There are solutions for that as well. Many people have success using Wine to provide the Windows game environment under Linux. And since Linux can easily be installed side-by-side with Windows in a dual-boot arrangement, one can switch to Windows in a moment if gaming is on the agenda.

In fact, here’s a list of Windows’ application equivalents included in one popular Linux distribution.

Let’s rehash the major advantage about Linux over Windows: security. While any capable Linux user knows to keep their system and home network secure, Linux simply is not susceptible to viruses, spyware, Trojans and other malware. Windows proponents make the argument that Windows is victimized by these things because Windows is far more popular and a bigger target. What they conveniently forget to tell you is that millions of Linux servers sit in the facilities of businesses all over the world, running as web, file and database servers, and are rarely, if ever, victimized by these maladies. The Linux security model, one which had been in the foundation of Unix-like systems for decades, doesn’t allow for easy access to the file system or for malicious users to get root access, preventing such attacks. Yes, Linux-targeted viruses do exist, some intentionally developed for testing against the system, but no such virus has ever caused an outbreak. Remember 2000’s worldwide ILOVEYOU virus attack? That virus, like nearly all others, attacked only Windows machines. Linux and its *nix brethren were immune.

By the way, when a security vulnerability in some Linux-related code is discovered, the patches to fix the issue are usually released and available to install within days, if not hours of the discovery. Do some research and find out how long some Windows security hold sat unfixed in recent years.

Most of the modern distributions use software packaging systems to provide application installations and updates. Most systems have some method of notifying the user when critical updates are available, and simple ways to download and install them, often with little user intervention. This is far different from the way things were years ago, when nearly all updating had to be done by hand. Plus the user has the option to not do an update, if they want to wait or believe it’s unnecessary.

Adding software is also a breeze in modern distributions. Most modern releases have on-line repositories which host every conceivable Linux application, tool, driver and library. Each distro’s repositories provide access to the same applications, the only differences being how the program is packaged and installed in that specific distribution. GUI tools allow the user to search for, select and install anything with a few mouse clicks.

So now what’s the issue? What is the beef with people who find Linux so scary, considering it can do all these things with such great ease?

The names. I’m telling you, it’s the names.

If you spend a few minutes at Distrowatch, the community “clearinghouse” for Linux and BSD distros, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Look at the current list of the most popular Linux distributions. Look at the names, and tell me, not knowing anything else about it, if you would just stick something with that moniker on your precious PC or laptop?

As I compose this (sorry, I didn’t intend for it to go on like this), these are the top ten Linux distributions by popularity (based on the number of hits for that distro on the site):

  1. Ubuntu
  2. openSUSE
  3. Fedora
  4. Mint
  5. PCLinuxOS
  6. Mandriva
  7. Debian
  8. Dreamlinux
  9. Sabayon
  10. Damn Small Linux

Numbers 5, 8 and 10 have relatively “normal” names. PCLinuxOS actually describes exactly what it is (you install it on a PC, it’s Linux, and it’s an operating system. Pretty succinct). The name doesn’t exactly roll easily off the tongue. But I believe that Ubuntu is the silliest name for a system, ever, in spite of how incredible the distro really is. Even worse, I use their Xubuntu variation (called that because it’s default desktop GUI is the Xfce window manager). Do you know what kind of looks I get from people when we discuss this?

Non-Linux-using acquaintance: So, what version of Windows are you using? Have you upgraded to Vista or are you still using XP?

Me (trying not to snicker at the “Vista is an upgrade from XP” suggestion): Neither. I don’t use Windows at all. I’ve been a Linux-only user for a long time.

NLUA: Really? I’ve heard of Linux, but I’m not so sure about it. I heard there are too many different versions to decide from. Which one are you using?

Me (swallowing hard): I use Xubuntu.

NLUA: (Stares blankly at me, not sure what to ask next).

People, it’s time to face facts. All of us want to see Linux increase its user base among the average, everyday users. For some, it’s out of a deep hatred for Windows. For others (myself included), it’s just the desire for a safe, capable system that’s low cost (free is as low as one can go) and allows me to choose how I want things to be configured and what window environment I can use, among other things. My major desire is a clean, capable development platform. I get that with Linux, in ways I can’t with Windows. I want to share thet feeling of freedom with lots of people.

In order to grow the family of Linux users around the world, the distro maintainers are going to have to seriously consider renaming their distributions with something easier to pronounce, easier to remember, and with a name that sounds like something you put on a computer. The word ubuntu translates into something about sharing and harmony with all that nature has created. That’s a very nice, hands-across-the-water, let’s-all-sing-Kumbya-around-the-campfire attitude.

But, for God’s sake, we’re talking about a computer operating system here, OK? God didn’t invent this thing, humans did, using the intelligence that God granted us. Same thing with the personal computer and the laptop and the PDA. I don’t want to be reminded to love my fellow man when I flip on my HP Pavilion. I want to be able to check my effin’ email.

Besides, there is already an existing organization called Ubuntu, a organization of “civil society networks.” This group is, based on their website, performing the kind of work you would expect from a group with a name like “Ubuntu.” Here’s the problem: since Canonical named their distribution Ubuntu, how many visitors to the original Ubuntu site now go past it in order to get to the operating system site? I can see the typical person typing “ubunutu.org” into their browser and seeing the site with the hungry woman reaching for the ear of corn. “Huh? Starving people? Human rights? Where’s the ISO downloads page?”

To make things worse, the Canonical folks have allowed branches to grow from their original Ubuntu version with even sillier names. I mentioned my preferred Xubuntu already. There’s a version that uses the KDE desktop as the default, called Kubuntu. And there’s an educational version targeted to kids and schools, called Edubuntu. And there’s the completely free/open source version called Gobuntu.

The others aren’t much better. OpenSuSE can be pronounced “open SU-SAY” or “open SU-SEE” or just “open SUZ”. Again, how does this relate to an operating system? SuSE, the “commercial” version of the system, is maintained and supported for the enterprise by Novell. Yes, the same Novell that developed and supported Netware, one of the biggest and most popular network operating systems ever developed. When one says “Netware,” one immediately thinks of computers, servers and networks, right? “SuSE” sounds like the name of a character in a bad teenage drama.

“Fedora” is a hat. Yes, we geeks know it’s the free version of Red Hat Linux. But how many people know what “Red Hat” is, and how many will get the clever use of “Fedora”?

“Mint” is a candy.

Mandriva used to be called “Mandrake.” At least “Mandrake” has connotations of “magic,” something geeky and mildly related to computers (they all work with some kind of magic, right?). But what the hell is a “mandriva”?

Now, I could go on with Debian and Sabayon and others on the Distrowatch list, but I believe you get the point.

Many of the Linux distributions are packaged and maintained by small groups of people, and sometimes even just one person, going it alone. Patrick Volkerding, the creator of the Slackware distribution, has managed his organization pretty much alone for years, and Slackware remains a popular version of Linux. And through the years, Slackware hasn’t aimed at the Windows-desktop-replacement crowd. In fact, someone uninitiated with Linux would find Slackware an intimidating version from which to learn anything.

So, the opportunity for widespread Linux acceptance now lies before Ubuntu, openSuSe, Mandriva, and all the other versions targeted to the everyday user. But they need to seriously think about a new approach to attracting users, and that begins with naming their product something relevant and memorable. No, I won’t offer any suggestions, since this is something they need to discuss and figure out for themselves.

But if they want to understand why the numbers aren’t rising dramatically, they should try a little experiment. Go out onto the busiest street corner in any city. Stop people and ask them if they use a computer regularly. Take the first ten who say yes and ask them if they know what “Windows” is. My guess is that nine of them will get it pretty close. Then ask them if they know what Ubuntu Linux is. I’m guessing you might get one or two, and even they won’t be right about exactly what it is.

I’m telling you: it all in the name.

By joe | Posted in Geek | Comments (2)

Chuck will get your gas for you. Or he’ll roundhouse kick you.

6/11/2008 – 12:21 pm

I saw a clip on Fox news this morning starring Chuck Norris. They dragged the poor guy out of bed to talk about some campaign he’s doing with World Net Daily to get Congress to approve oil drilling off the coast and in ANWAR. I’m all for this, as are many people who buy gas today. Hell, I don’t really care if it brings the price down all that much (does anything ever drop in price?), but it would be nice to get the Middle East oil monkey off our backs.

But I don’t think we really need to have a big campaign with bumper stickers and e-mails to Congress. I mean, we’ve got effin’ Chuck Norris working on this, fer Chrissakes. In honor of America’s fittest and coolest action hero, here’s a slew of Chuck facts to remind everyone of how he will take care of everything:

  • If you’re driving your car with Chuck and you pull into a gas station to fill up, just stay in the car. Chuck just has to stare at the pump, and the gas will end up in your tank out of fear.
  • Chuck’s car never runs out of gas. The first time the gas gage needle moved from “F”, Chuck raised his leg to give it a roundhouse kick. The engine hasn’t used a drop of gas since then.
  • There’s a new car the auto companies are building for Chuck. The car doesn’t require a key to start it. Chuck just looks at it and it runs until he says “stop.”
  • When Chuck drives somewhere, the wheels of his vehicle don’t move it along the road. The vehicle remains still and the Earth moves underneath it.
  • Chuck Norris never has to change the oil in his car. The oil is too scared to break down from brand new.
  • Chuck doesn’t need to follow environmental laws when it comes to his car. He is environmental law.
  • Chuck Norris once tried driving a Mini Cooper. He thought it was too small and he gave it a roundhouse kick. Now it’s a Hummer.
  • Chuck Norris doesn’t get stuck in traffic. Traffic gets stuck behind Chuck Norris.

Now go get that oil. And post a fuel-related Chuck fact of your own.

By joe | Posted in Humor | Comments Off

In Jersey? What exit?

5/27/2008 – 1:41 pm

While reading this American Thinker column lamenting the quality of today’s English writing, I was reminded of something I saw this weekend while driving up to New York. I was pretty shocked at first, thinking what I saw might have been an aberration. But I was wrong.

If you travel along the length of New Jersey Turnpike, you pass 12 service areas. The areas provide food, coffee, snacks, rest rooms, souvenirs, gas and oil, and emergency services. The twelve areas are managed by the Turnpike authority and all are named after famous residents of New Jersey. Some are familiar (Vince Lombardi, Thomas Edison, Woodrow Wilson), and some might not be that familiar to many people (Richard Stockton, Molly Pitcher, John Fenwick). No matter what your level of familiarity with these famous Jerseyeans, you can actually learn about their lives and accomplishments at the service areas that bear their names.

Well, maybe.

On Friday evening, I was driving northbound on the Turnpike and decided to stop, grab a quick bite and gas up. The subsidized gas on the Turnpike was $3.72 for a gallon of regular, pretty good considering it’s $4.15 on Long Island and over $3.85 in Virginia. I fueled up, parked and strolled into the main building for a bathroom and snack stop.

On the way out, I noticed a display on the wall at the entrance of the rest area. The display included artistic renderings and biographical information on James Fenimore Cooper, for whom the service area was named. Anyone who’s attended high school in most of America is familiar with at least one of Cooper’s works, most likely The Deerslayer or his most famous work, The Last Of The Mohicans. I was forced by assignment to read The Deerslayer in high school; I tend to agree with Twain’s assessment of Cooper’s work as a lot of hot air.

Nonetheless, he was a popular and widely-read artist in his lifetime, and the folks of New Jersey deemed him an important enough historical figure to honor by naming this service area after him.

Now, here’s where the problem started. The display seemed professionally constructed and mounted behind glass, as one would with a valuable painting or sentimental photograph. The images and text were framed by an attractive matting. I stopped to read the brief biography of Cooper, and was floored by just how terribly it was written. The grammar and construction of the piece was so bad, I had to wonder if someone in the state agency that runs these places asked his kid to toss something together on the computer after dinner, then failed to proofread it.

I really sorry I didn’t think of writing the text down or taking a snapshot of it with my cell phone camera. Based on what I recall, I know that the text included a number of incomplete sentences, some which could have been fixed with proper use of punctuation. Something along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing here):

James Fenimore Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey. On September 15, 1789 until he relocated to Westchester, New York.

The final sentence contained what had to be the most egregious error in the text (again, paraphrasing some of the content):

Cooper settled in Cooperstown, New York. Were he died on September 14, 1851…

The narrative’s poor quality reminded me of the essays I used to direct my students to write when I was a high school English teaching intern back in 1990. The horrible quality of the text was something I would usually see on a first or second draft, and these errors and misuses of the language would nearly always be corrected before they submitted their final versions. I can’t understand how a state agency could allow such a poor example of the English language be used in a public display that provides travelers with historical information. What are people not from New Jersey thinking when they read this mess? Can they be wondering, as I did, whether this reflects badly on the state’s education system?

I walked away in disbelief and hoped that this was that aberration I considered earlier.

Then I made the return trip back yesterday. Kelly was with me this time, and we were heading back to Norther Virginia, from where she would fly home to Jacksonville. We stopped at the Walt Whitman service area on the southbound Turnpike, and sure enough, I saw very much the same thing in the historical text about Whitman. This one wasn’t as horribly constructed as the one on Cooper, but it seemed to be created by the same hand, as the errors were very similar. I found it ironic that such poorly written English was used to describe one of America’s literary geniuses, one of the most admired men of letters in the nation’s history.

The Garden State has been the butt of a lot of jokes over the years, especially from the smart alecks living across the river in New York. One quote allegedly attributed to Ben Franklin:

New Jersey is like a beer barrel, tapped at both ends, with all the live beer running into Philadelphia and New York.

And, of course, you know you’re from Jersey if:

You know that ACME is an actual store, not just a Warner Bros. creation.

or:

You know that it’s called “Great Adventure”, not “Six Flags.”

The fact is, New Jersey is not all swamps, oil tanks, malls and toll roads. The state has some of the loveliest rural country in the Northeast, especially the horse farms located in the southern and central part of the state.

But, most people traveling north or south on the New Jersey Turnpike won’t see that part of the state. They’ll see historical information about the state’s favorite sons and daughters written in a manner that would be disgraceful in any tenth-grade English class. That’s a real shame.

(Thanks to this site for the New Jersey humor).

By joe | Posted in Commentary, Life | Comments (2)