CodingExperiments.Com - Latest Comments

Re: A Look at Kwippy And an Interview with Kwippy’s CEO

pmgforever — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:30:06 -0000

Great interview.

Re: State of the GNU/Linux Desktop 2009 Part 1/4: Multimedia

josvazg — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:53:38 -0000

Thanks for this interesting explanation about Linux desktop capabilities.

I have been suffering the X.org/Intel drivers regressions (specially on my eee 901) and also the pulseaudio bugs. I hope they will fix them both by the end of the year so I don't have to feel envious of graphics/sound performance on my favourite OS compared to WinXp or Win7 on the same hardware!

And also for the sake of competition!
If Linux can deliver some good and cheap netbooks on ARM and Intel, Microsoft will have to lower their prices even on Win7... and everyone will win. We, the Linux users, will benefit from the adaptations and developments the vendors do "to fix" Linux for their systems and Windows users will benefit from lower Windows license prices. Maybe MAC users will benefit also from the hardware prices going down as well.

Re: Debunking Myths That Say Linux Won’t Reach the Desktop

MMike — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:14:02 -0000

I personally use Ubuntu linux as my choice at home, however my wife does not want to leave windows. While installing the same network printer on both systems, I noticed the windows version took about 10 minutes while the linux version took about 1.5. I also bring documents from home (linux) to work (winblows) and have never had a problem

Re: “Why Is It Special?” And Seven More Questions the Non-Technical Windows User Has about Linux

possible248 — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:22:08 -0000

You provide excellent advice for a newly-minted Linux enthusiast looking to make some quick money.

However, I am unsure whether most non-technical Windows users switching to Linux would actually bother to take all those steps. Really, the optimal solution is to buy a new computer with the savings from Linux included in the price.

Re: “Why Is It Special?” And Seven More Questions the Non-Technical Windows User Has about Linux

possible248 — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:20:24 -0000

Thank you. I have fixed the error.

Re: “Why Is It Special?” And Seven More Questions the Non-Technical Windows User Has about Linux

possible248 — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:19:31 -0000

While Linux Mint might seem like a better choice on paper, there are legal issues in some nations with some of the codecs that it ships with.

In addition, Linux Mint doesn't have the large community that Ubuntu has. This may not actually matter, considering that Linux Mint is an Ubuntu spinoff and Ubuntu tutorials and such ought to mostly work with Linux Mint. However, I still think that it would be better to stick with Mothership Ubuntu--yet hypocritically ignore Mothership Debian.

Re: “Why Is It Special?” And Seven More Questions the Non-Technical Windows User Has about Linux

shamil — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:51:09 -0000

"Question 4: If I install Linux on my computer that has Windows, I’m not actually saving any money. Why do I install Linux, then?"

Well, this individual should take the computer they bought with windows on it. Get the product key for the windows cd that came with the computer and sell the windows disc. Then format the disc and install any linux you like.

I do this everytime and i always find a buyer.

I save money, retards who don't think wont.

Re: “Why Is It Special?” And Seven More Questions the Non-Technical Windows User Has about Linux

me — Sun, 17 May 2009 21:06:19 -0000

Your "Dell Ubuntu" link http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.asp... points to a non-eistent page.

Re: “Why Is It Special?” And Seven More Questions the Non-Technical Windows User Has about Linux

Mich — Sun, 17 May 2009 04:01:01 -0000

Regarding your answer to Question 6: How do I choose a distribution of Linux?

If we really wanted to suggest a new user friendly distro, THE better answer should be Linux Mint as it comes with ALL the "evil" codecs that Ubuntu does not include by default :-D

That's what I did .... but to be frank, I used Debian :)

Re: Twitter Radio Show

Olivia — Sun, 03 May 2009 11:25:57 -0000

Sounds like an interesting idea and wish you success!

Re: They Just Never Learn; Google Docs Gives Yet Another Example of Why Cloud Computing Is Dangerous

possible248 — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:41:28 -0000

I disagree that Google knows nothing about security. The official response
from Google posits many of the complaints as features (Ex: Images are kept
after they are deleted so not to break references to the image elsewhere).

Regardless of whether it is a bug or feature, I do not trust Google Docs,
and do not think anybody else should.

That said, I would like to restate that GDocs and other places to store data
in the cloud (for free) are safe enough for data that isn't extremely
important.

In conclusion, I respect Google, but do not think users dhould store
important data there.

Re: They Just Never Learn; Google Docs Gives Yet Another Example of Why Cloud Computing Is Dangerous

leatherdonut — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:05:30 -0000

Because Google doesn't know shit about security?

Their Google Search Appliance has laughable security which I found multiple exploits for...

Re: They Just Never Learn; Google Docs Gives Yet Another Example of Why Cloud Computing Is Dangerous

possible248 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:35:21 -0000

I doubt that *anybody* at a shared hosting company can read your data. For
example, it would be quite suspicious for somebody working in the billing
department at the hosting company to be dealing with the servers.

Specific consumer wiki software may indeed be insecure, but I believe that
generally, when given more control to how one's data is stored, it would be
more secure than leaving your data at the mercy of somebody far away that
gives the user very little control.

To whether or not open source software projects have security teams, I
cannot say due to the varying structure of different open source development
teams. However, the fact that security flaws can be seen in the source code
is a good thing I think. It allows "the good side" a fairer playing field
with the malicious hackers because more developers can come to assist the
good side, which isn't usually the case with proprietary software
development.

Wordpress constantly gets hacked due to poor security practices on
self-hosted installations. Now, while this seems like a flaw in my
suggestion on how users should store and collaborate on data. Shared hosts
have tools to autoinstall wikis (and Wordpress) with some security
practices, such as setting the proper file permissions, followed right out
of the box.

Ultimately, total security is not achievable, but I think that there are far
safer alternatives to the cloud.

Re: They Just Never Learn; Google Docs Gives Yet Another Example of Why Cloud Computing Is Dangerous

possible248 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:17:11 -0000

Matt Cutts? A delight to see you on my blog. I am actually a fan of yours.
:)

Thank you for posting the link to the Google Docs blog. I haven't touched
Google Reader in ages, and wouldn't have ended up seeing it until much
later.

I read the post, and now that I have seen the issue from Google's eyes, I
still think there is some potential for abuse. Hopefully, such potential
should noe be minimized because of widespread knowledge of the issue.

In addition, I see it was terribly unwise for me to have published a blog
post about this issue the day after Google published an official reply.
Regardless, I still stand by my Stallman-esque opinion of cloud computing,
and still distrust Google Docs for more than simple notes.

Thank you for commenting, and I will update the main post to reflect this
information when I find a computer larger than a smartphone.

Re: They Just Never Learn; Google Docs Gives Yet Another Example of Why Cloud Computing Is Dangerous

Richard Cunningham — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:56:39 -0000

It's bad that Google has flaws like this, and I'm glad someone brought these design/usability flaws to everyone's attention, which means it's more likely to be fixed.

When comparing to desktop security or self-hosted clouds, I think the reality is that most people who administer those things have little idea of security. If you consider a given virus may affect millions of Windows machines, botnets regularly control millions of machines and so on. Even if someone maintaining a in-house cloud system is pretty good at security, what happens if something crops up while they are on holiday, long-term sick or quit. If then you require 2+ people to admin the cloud, then surely the main beneficiaries of the cloud are mostly too small to support this type of effort (if they weren't already at one full-time person).

Whilst for some users they can do this in house better, I expect for the majority of users, the biggest flaw google docs has is the user choosing a weak password and/or writing down somewhere.

Re: They Just Never Learn; Google Docs Gives Yet Another Example of Why Cloud Computing Is Dangerous

feint — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:03:45 -0000

Everyday people lose sensitive data to hackers - I feel my data is more secure in the cloud. On shared hosting account your data is less secure - being able to be read not just by the adiministrator but by anybody working at that hosting company - do you really know your host! Further more, consumer wiki software is filled with security flaws - (i am constantly having to patch mediatemple).

I trust the Google engineers over my hosting provider and of course they have security team - the open source guys don't - open source flaws are public knowledge (Wordpress gets constantly hacked)

Re: They Just Never Learn; Google Docs Gives Yet Another Example of Why Cloud Computing Is Dangerous

MattCutts — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:31:20 -0000

If you haven't seen it, the Google Docs Blog just posted their reply: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2009/03/just-to-...

Re: Which Linux Distributions Are Dying?

Rob — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:37:37 -0000

Hey, This is just the sort of thing I have been looking at. I've compared closely the rise of Ubuntu, the progress of Fedora, and the browser wars... all how they compare on Google Trends.

I've posted an article about my results. See the article here:
http://linuxsoftwareblog.com/blog/?p=115

thanks

Re: Why Linux Users Should Try Ubuntu First

possible248 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:04:53 -0000

Well, this post equally applies to all Ubuntu flavors, and I also don't happen to be a GNOME fanatic myself.

Yes, popularity is pretty much the main reason my post states that one should use Ubuntu.

While Debian has large repositories, huge community, and so forth, Ubuntu is preferable for technical reasons which this blog post did not cover.

Re: Why Linux Users Should Try Ubuntu First

Chris Benseler — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:51:25 -0000

I agree with u @possible248; Ubuntu is (one of) the most friendly distros and one of the best ways to get into the linux world (for those who come from Windows platform).

Re: Python, Javascript, And PHP as Languages for Beginners

FudgeMan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:06:47 -0000

I had a look and Karrigell and was very impressed! Why does it seem to be so unknown?

Re: Why Linux Users Should Try Ubuntu First

devnet — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:34:11 -0000

so really, what it boils down to in this post is that you are saying popularity is the key. Because debian has a HUGE community, no problems with dependencies, a huge wealth of repositories, and excellent documentation available.

Honestly though, I find that Gnome is not the first choice for new users coming into Linux the first time. I'm afraid you're looking at what YOU think a user should be concerned with but not actually what the user IS concerned with.

Re: Why Linux Users Should Try Ubuntu First

possible248 — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:23:25 -0000

But those tweaks, regardless of how useful they are, usually are not basic configuration. In the case of Ubuntu, a lot is missing in the area of configuration.

Re: Why Linux Users Should Try Ubuntu First

possible248 — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:01:30 -0000

Well, hardcore Linux geeks usually do not like Ubuntu because of all the features, which they see as just bloat.

Ubuntu is also slightly less-adapted to geeky things, such as software development and compiling software. With Slackware, the choice of the geeks (like fellow CodingExperiments blogger i80and), you get all the development packages of the software installed on your system, making compiling far easier.

However, Ubuntu is still Linux, and for those hardcore geeks, like me, that can swallow a little bit of perceived software bloat, it's a good choice.

Re: Why Linux Users Should Try Ubuntu First

possible248 — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:13:40 -0000

Oh, dear.

Thank you, VFan, for pointing that out. I usually credit people for their work.

I believe this is from a photoshoot sponsored by Ubuntu.