Colin Charles Agenda

About five years ago, I worked on kiosk software. This seemed like the logical thing to do after working on Linux LiveCD’s. It was meant to be an information kiosk for tourists to use, and just short of building & deploying the thing in a production environment, the bid was lost (worst off kiosk, cost 4x more, but given to a bumi husband & wife team – the remnants of the produce can still be seen today).

A lot has changed in 5 years. Back then this was a Linux terminal with Firefox running the interface. It was locked down. This was long before I discovered WebConverger for kiosk software.

Today, iPad’s suffice as kiosks. Kids have iPad’s to appease them from the time they are young. The iPad replaced the TV. Babies get used to touch before they say their first words.

So an iPad interface to show off your hotel like at the Aloft Brussels Schumann? This is just brilliant. For the people that go to stay at Aloft’s (say the W isn’t available in that location), they are likely already used to using i-devices.

Interface matters and iOS is the benchmark. I’m not sure X Windows and a browser will suffice even though they are almost the same thing. I’m not even sure if future kiosks will have a physical keyboard (we planned on it, with a trackball). Now you touch, type using a virtual keyboard and don’t need a pointing device any longer except your finger.

I went to the European Parliament for a tour and they had these iPod Touch devices with NOUSGuide on them. NOUSGuide have some opensource software available if that matters. I really enjoyed touring and understanding more about the Parliament using the iPod Touch. Again, its the touch and the familiarity with iOS that matters. Back in the day you got audio guides that worked when you scanned a code, or entered a number – horrible interfaces but they worked. These i-devices however show you more, and you can interact with the media – its no longer just audio, but photos and videos.

Hotels offer business centres and while they are full-fledged PCs they usually run in kiosk mode. For a while, the InterContinental in Seoul offered loaner Samsung tablets (for obvious reasons). The Park Hyatt just across the road offers loaner iPad’s. Again, touch is taking over from being in a stodgy business centre.

Interesting trend to see Apple devices take over in all these markets. There is also a changing face in the way we interact with kiosk-like computing devices. The future is clearly looking very i-device based.

A while back I stated that paywalls aren’t bad. But they are downright annoying when it comes to sharing articles. It breaks the whole flow of the sharing economy – I like to tweet links to things that I find of interest, and when the other party can’t view it, it surely gets quite annoying.

Paywalls also start imposing IP inspection. Malaysiakini has done this and you are forced to re-login regularly. Its very annoying as it breaks the flow again and you’re now logging in, then being redirected. So it works like this: click on article, see logged out screen, click on login, then be re-directed to the article. By this time I’ve lost interest in reading.

Newspapers are read by a whole household. I know of offices reading a single newspaper. Heck, in the clubs that I frequent, probably a hundred people read the same newspaper in the sauna. Paywalls should ensure that the household is taken care of. 

What about the modern concept of a household? Father and mother living in the Philippines, daughter working in Malaysia and son working in Dubai? Isn’t this still a household? Paywalls like those for the FT/NYTimes seem to understand this (or are not taking action at the moment), but the Malaysiakini paywall slaps you with the crappy user interface above.

I want online media to succeed but broken paywalls aren’t going to cut it.

On my to-subscribe list is BizKini, which brings a Malaysiakini subscription to a ringgit a day. This is basically the same price you’ll pay for a newspaper in print! Is their reporting that much better that its worth all the pain of the above? I’m not so sure.

So besides a broken login UI, how does one improve sharing?

In the opensource world, we go and give talks for free. This is generally the consensus with regards to the tech world as well. You don’t pay for speakers. Some speakers have fees and you somehow negotiate with them to provide you a talk for free. Or you just don’t have them speak at your event (I know this from organising large events too).

But paying for speakers must be common. There are so many speaker bureaus out there.

Look at Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Now it seems that Timothy Geithner earned USD$400,000 for 3 speeches (seems his average is $100,000 per speech). Hillary Clinton charges USD$200,000 for a speech on average.

Clearly, I must be in the wrong industry.

This is a followup to my early post a month ago titled: MariaDB replaces MySQL in RHEL 7 (lots of stuff in the comments). It’s clear that MariaDB’s role is in Software Collections, which is new in RHEL.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes Red Hat will switch from Oracle MySQL to MariaDB, reports.

Sean Michael Kerner has a video (and writeup) with Denise Dumas, RHEL team leader, who talks about Software Collections, MariaDB, and how we’re all friendly (Red Hat + SkySQL + MariaDB). There will be 3 years of support for Software Collections. Indemnification applies as always, its just support cycle per collection is reduced. New MySQL ships in Software Collections too. Its available for 6.4/6.5 (probably as a GA as its beta now), and will be in RHEL7 too.

Also, if you’re using OpenShift, there is now a new cartridge: the OpenShift MariaDB Cartridge.

Today I killed Dropbox and Copy, then I killed Skype, turned the WiFi off, and my 13″ MacBook Air was getting about 6.5 hours worth of battery life. This is very close to the 7 hours that Apple claims will work (though they do say 7 hours of wireless usage). Chrome, Firefox had tabs running, I was working in Mail and Terminal a lot, as well as Keynote (with 15 apps running when i mac+tab)

So what’s missing is battery profiles.

When plugged in, CrashPlan, Dropbox, Copy, etc. run.

When on the battery, CrashPlan, Dropbox, Copy, Time Machine, etc. stop running.

When on the battery with no WiFi, maybe Evernote sync stops, Google Drive stops, etc.

This app should make sure its all configurable.

Why hasn’t this appeared yet?

Maybe OS X Mavericks will rock in this sense since the CPU usage is only for the current running app, not those background running apps.

I’m willing to bet this kind of app makes sense even on Linux and Windows. We’re using apps that increasingly sync to the network. Some are badly behaved.

Road warriors need better solutions. And I bet they’d pay for it.

Seth Vidal meant a lot to many people. He touched lives without even meeting people in the flesh. I’m lucky to have met and worked with a great man. 

I met Seth on IRC, affectionately known as skvidal sometime in 2002/2003. We worked on The Fedora Project while we were both outsiders (i.e. non-Red Hat employees). He was a sysadmin at Duke University back then.

Seth was funny, charming, and very welcoming. He always offered great advice and provided good direction. He was a leader without seeking a position. He was a great mentor. When times got tough, it was private chats with Seth (and a select few) that made me continue. Volunteering is tough, and in the opensource world there are plenty of egos to deal with; Seth came with no ego, no airs, and was always down-to-earth and an awesome chap to make sure that the bad things would soon pass.

We had many conversations from IRC, to private mailing lists, to in-person meetings. It probably happened at the very first FUDCon in Boston (a time that Boston was quite snowed in). We met, chatted, and I’ll never forget all the amazing people who organised it because I was underage in the USA then, and couldn’t legally drink – workarounds were found. I met Seth’s partner as well. The early days of the Fedora Project, we were all like family.

Over time, families grow and tend to move on. The Fedora Project grew by leaps and bounds. I moved on to work on other things, leaving me less time to work on Fedora. 

With Seth however, we were always connected. He would occasionally drop a comment on Flickr. With the advent of Google Plus, Seth and I chatted more. Sometimes he’d surprise me with a reply on Twitter.

Two weeks ago, we lamented on a Google Hangout how we hadn’t seen each other, in the flesh, for quite some time. We decided to rectify it at Flock in August.

One month to the date, right before boarding a plane from Frankfurt to Sao Paulo, I find out that Seth was killed in a hit-and-run while biking. A horrid way to go for someone who was only 36, filled with so much potential and a very bright future. I read the note that Red Hat posted, and I’d encourage all to read it. It will only bring tears to your eyes.

Its sad to note that his warm welcome and mentorship will not be felt by new contributors. It’s sad to know I’ve lost a friend. It’s sad to note that I never told him how much his mentorship and chats meant to me. Whenever I run yum, I am forever going to remember Seth, and what he meant to me.