Colin Charles Agenda

All in Melbourne, keep the evening of Thursday, 20 March 2008, free. Why? We’re having a Meetup Mashup, right here in Melbourne, Australia. This is the Sun and MySQL tour around the world!

Details:
Date: 20th March
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: RMIT University (Swanston St)
Room: 10.08.04

Contact Tristan on 0422 501 726 for directions to the venue. (or me, at 0412 593 292 if you have any questions, etc.)

After we’re done at RMIT, discussing the recent acquisition (you’re guaranteed to see Support Engineer Gary Pendergast, and me speak, and answer questions), we’ll head over to the bar nearby, and grab some grub. Its a great opportunity to come and get your questions answered!

Are you already part of the MySQL Meetup in Melbourne? If not, check out the Melbourne MySQL User Group.

P/S: To all those in Sydney, there are plans to have one possibly in early April. Interested? Why not drop me an email or leave a comment.

The Economist, is easily one of my favourite magazines out there. I occasionally buy a copy from the newsstand, but more often than not, get it free while I’m on a plane. I think the tipping point to subscription for me, happened today. Some articles I’d like to bring to your attention, with select quotes.

Malaysia’s election | The no-colour revolution

“In five states, including the most populous, the opposition will form the government. This is extremely good news for many reasons. The most basic is that democracies need a vibrant and credible opposition. Any party that stays in power for half a century is liable to show signs of complacency, arrogance and corruption, and UMNO is no exception.”

“Second, the election result is a victory for hope over fear. At times the government has used harsh laws against opponents.” It goes on to say, “the National Front has played on the fears evoked by the ghosts of 1969, when opposition advances at the polls were followed by bloody race riots. A vote for the opposition, went the none-too-subtle message, would risk bloodshed as the Malay majority took its revenge on
the minorities. Yet it was not only many ethnic-Chinese voters (about a quarter of the population) and, especially, disgruntled ethnic Indians
(about 8%) who deserted the National Front. Many Malays switched too.”

It wasn’t electoral suicide: “That is a third reason for optimism: communal tension may not be the tinderbox that Malaysia has for so long assumed it to be. If so, the result may herald new thinking about the institutionalised racism of the pro-Malay affirmative-action policies introduced after 1969. The opposition parties campaigned on a platform of “colour-blind” affirmative action–help for those who need it, not for a particular ethnic group.”

On the NEP? “Many seem to have recognised that the policy has become less a means for redistributing wealth to the disadvantaged than a vehicle for
corruption and cronyism.”

The Internet and Malaysian politics | The perils of modernity

“Even before election night, the internet had already played a big part in the vote. Malaysia has an unusual combination of high internet
penetration and pliant mainstream media. It is therefore fertile ground for cyber-politics. According to the government’s multimedia regulator,
3.9m of the country’s 28m people have dial-up internet subscriptions and 1.2m broadband. Some 60% of the population, it reckons, use the
internet. Even if that is an overestimate, the limitations of the mainstream media are enough to drive politics online.”

On why Dr. Mahathir did something useful: “Television hardly ever covers opposition rallies and speeches. But the online world is delightfully free. Anxious to make Malaysia a high-tech cyber-hub, the county’s former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, exempted websites from the annual licensing requirements that help keep print publications deferential. The 1998 Communications and Multimedia Act decreed that there would be no censorship of the internet.”

“Mr Pua thinks all parties underestimated the effects of “secondary access” to the internet, as news broken on the web–of opposition rallies, for example–was disseminated by word-of-mouth and mobile-phone text messages.””Most worrying for the government and the mainstream media, Malaysia is young. A new generation sees the internet as its primary news source.”

Malaysia’s election upset | Anwar overturns the apple cart

“After 22 years of rule by the abrasive and authoritarian Mahathir Mohamad, Mr Badawi was seen as more conciliatory and more committed to tackling corruption. He has indeed offered a less acerbic style. But few believe corruption has lessened. Instead, there has been a series of ugly scandals. And the high-flying Mr Khairy, Mr Badawi’s son-in-law (and a former intern at The Economist), has become what one observer calls a “walking, talking, boasting” symbol of nepotism.”

That’s a lesser known fact – Khairy Jamaluddin, was an intern at The Economist.

“M. Manoharan, an ethnic-Indian lawyer, was elected to the state assembly of Selangor, despite being detained without charge under the
Internal Security Act after a street protest last November. He was elected in a predominantly ethnic-Chinese constituency.”

Once you’re done reading the amazing Economist, don’t hesitate to read the comments as well (that’s something you can’t get in the paper version of The Economist, eh?).

Technorati Tags: economist, malaysia, elections, NEP, Internet, freedom of speech

I thought I’d try to get OpenOffice.org going, and see if my presentations run well, on my new MacBook. It turns out, its just plagued with issues.

First up, OpenOffice.org 2.3.1, available on the porting site, will not allow you to run Base, or anything that requires Java. At least the message in red, tells all:

Please note that the Java features of OpenOffice.org are only available from OpenOffice.org 2.4 (more specifically milestone m237) and later. This means that the Wizards, Base and some other things are unavailable in 2.3.1 or earlier. All other functionality of OpenOffice.org remains on Leopard.

Now, after its downloaded, the install is easy. Drag to the Applications folder, and just double-click (it never was always this easy!). You at this stage will think that toggling Command+Option+a will allow you to go into full screen mode. You are very wrong.

X11 Preferences, allowing you to be in full screen mode

A little searching on the Apple X11 mailing lists, and I came across some gems from Ben Byer, an engineer in Apple’s CoreOS group. It seems that X11 is now based on Xorg as opposed to XFree86’s codebase. And during the rebasing, Ben realised that full screen support was broken and couldn’t fix it. The suggested fix? Find X11 from Tiger (not even on Apple’s site), or you don’t have full screen support.

I guess I’ll file a radar bug against it, but knowing my luck, it’ll be closed in no time, with a reference to a bug that I myself won’t be able to access. I can only hope that this is fixed soon. In the meantime, maybe I need to give OpenOffice.org Aqua a twirl, or even NeoOffice/J. If you’re interested in the history of X11 in OS X, don’t hesitate to read X11.app “pedigree”.

Bottom-line: If you’re reliant on OpenOffice.org on your Mac, you’ll find that making presentations using Leopard, is going to be problematic. And its not OpenOffice.org’s fault, its on Apple’s head.

Technorati Tags: openoffice.org, openoffice.org aqua, macosx, X11, full screen X11

The other day I was musing about how I’d buy a Mac, just to use Skitch, to Cris Pearson, on Twitter. Today, I did just that.

I woke up in the morning, seeing an SMS from Giuseppe, informing me that it would be ideal if I had bought a laptop. So I proceeded to calling up a store located a few blocks down (I’m lazy to drive into the city, its F1 weekend), and asked if there was a black MacBook in stock, and if I could get 4GB of RAM rather than the standard 2. Turns out, this was available, but there was only one unit left, so I asked for it to be held (this was at 10.40am). By 2pm, I had walked to the Apple store, and picked up my new, black Macbook.

What’s in it?
It sports a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with 4GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and the SuperDrive. Its black (there’s a AUD$150 premium added just for colour), but in the long run, I think it will prove worthy, as I won’t have to see the palm-rests looking nasty. That, and I chose to buy it in-store, rather than online, so it would have been harder to get the larger hard disk option.

I’m disappointed that the Apple Remote does not come with it (an extra $29), and there is no Mini-DVI to VGA/DVI adapter included (an extra $35). There was a time, we got everything we needed, in the box – now the MacBook by default, is useless for presentations.

What about the software?
I have been using OS X on and off for many years, and back in the day, if you had picked up an iBook, you’d have found useful software, like an encyclopedia, and games. If you grabbed a PowerBook, you’d have seen cool items like OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner (useful, as), and so on. MacBook Pro’s came with Comic Life. Nowadays, you get no additional 3rd party software.

I am pleased however, that X11 is installed by default in Leopard (this means that OpenOffice.org, will just work nowadays). To get the development tools though (XCode and friends), you still have to install it from the disc.

First Impressions
The keyboard is not hard to type with. In fact, it doesn’t take any getting used to, so I’m wondering why people are complaining. I don’t know if this is a change that has come about with Leopard and new laptops, but the F3 key now brings up the Expose, and the F4 key brings up the Dashboard Widgets. In fact, they even print it on the keyboard – highly nifty.

It weighs much lighter than my Dell 14″ Inspiron 640m. In fact, its a lot smaller, so once you’re used to carrying the tome, the MacBook seems really light.

What software is on it?
What I consider, essential software:

• AppZapper – removes unwanted tools, like GarageBand, and probably soon iPhoto. Free for 5 removals, so use it wisely
• Skitch – I’ve had a beta for a long time, and this software is just simply amazing. I cannot say enough things about it.
• Firefox – because I need to browse the web, sensibly
• XCode – I need my development tools
• XChat Aqua – to get on internal, and community based IRC channels
• Apple Mail – I’m trying this out, instead of Thunderbird, to see what all the hype is with this software. Current verdict is I’m hating it, but let me spend a bit more time with it (another post on Apple Mail sure to come soon)
• Skype – because VOIP and chat with that, is just so handy

What else will go on it, soon? OpenOffice.org, NetBeans, VirtualBox (I tried downloading it, but the Sun sanctioned download site, tells me “File Not Found” – disappointing, and no one on #vbox could help), and probably lots more.

Technorati Tags: macosx, leopard, macbook, hardware, skitch, appzapper, apple mail, laptop

At the top of my head now, Linux is hitting the mainstream desktop market, in many variants:

1. Xandros, on the ever popular Asus EeePC’s
2. Foresight Linux, on the new Shuttle KPC’s (USD$199), which are basically small form-factor desktops
3. Fedora, a modified variant anyway, running on the OLPC’s
4. gOS, a variant of Ubuntu, running on the gPC’s
5. Maemo, via scratchbox, on the Nokia n-series handhelds (n770, n800, n810, and presumably more in the future)
6. Ubuntu shipping on some Dell laptops, in select regions

I’m sure I’ve missed out some really amazing devices. But that’s not the point. Do you see a problem with the above?

Xandros, gOS, Ubuntu and Maemo run DPKG, using APT/DEB’s for package management. Fedora, uses RPM. Foresight uses their own Conary based system. OK, lets scratch the package manager woes, now noting that they’re all different. Let’s focus on the desktop environment.

Xandros is some form of KDE, locked down on the Asus. Foresight presumably ships with GNOME by default, as do the Ubuntu on Dell machines. The OLPC ships with Sugar (granted, its market is specific). gOS ships with XFce. Maemo uses GTK, but is remarkably different from a regular GNOME desktop. So now we’ve got different desktop environments too.

Should I then go into package managers? Or down to the nitty gritty, where the init scripts are in a different location? Or that they all use a different method to connect to a wireless network?

So what am I getting at? Complexity.

Not only from a users perspective (say, I go out and buy an Asus Eee PC because its so cheap, and I find Linux sufficient for my needs. Then I need a desktop, so I find the Shuttle KPC which is cheap. However, at this point, the interfaces are completely different, and I’m lost.) but also from a support perspective (Windows XP, Vista is down? I’ll just call my pimply 14 year old niece/nephew to fix it. Linux is down? Problematic? What do I do?).

Some of you are saying, they should be turning to their LUGs if they needed help. Sure, but LUG mailing lists aren’t the most friendly. Newbies can be blatantly told to RTFM.

Let’s then visit their local LPI certified candidate, who’s running a support business. Oh wait, he’s only certified against RPM’s and is clueless with DEBs or Conary. You get the drift…

My beef with all of this, is that there is no standard. There is the GNOME Mobile & Embedded initiative – good. There is the Ubuntu Mobile team – great. What are their aims? To standardise on something for the mobile platform (presumably, like the Eee PCs, the Nokia n-series tablet devices, etc.). Will they achieve it, without hardware vendor buy-in? Probably not.

There lies a problem with mainstream consumer hardware running Linux. Linux is getting friendlier, but all the distribution variants only serve to complicate things, for the end user.

What do you think, the free and open source community can do, to address these issues?

(remember, I didn’t even get into varying versions of shipped software and the problems that can face… or how some devices will come without basic MP3 or DivX decoding support (Fedora has vaguely fixed this with codeina/CodecBuddy, but the others haven’t caught on)… the list can go on)

Technorati Tags: linux, consumer hardware, xandros, foresight linux, asus eeepc, shuttle kpc, fedora, olpc, gOS, gPC, maemo, Ubuntu, dell, package management, desktop environment, gnome, complexity, support, lug, lpi, standards

One thing I’ve found limiting in Zimbra, is the fact that the hot backup is only available in the Network Edition (which costs money). I remember the pain in upgrading Zimbra, and it would have been great if there was a hot backup with an easy restore feature.

Now, they’re talking about voting for Hot Backups to be in the FOSS product. I suggest everyone using Zimbra, or thinking about using Zimbra, to write on the forum, or alternatively email them, so that hot backups make it into the Zimbra OSS edition. Trust me, it will come in handy when you’re upgrading.

Technorati Tags: zimbra, hot backups, oss edition, vote