file under misc.

I upgraded both the home PC and work laptop to Ubunt 10.04 within the last 24 hours. The home PC is not quite finished yet as I have to muck around with the Nvidia drivers and get the GLX stuff working.

The laptop is 100% done and working fine. Some initial thoughts:

1. Some really nice improvements with the default fonts and rendering. Very smooth and professional.

2. The new version of Thunderbird is nice although the UI switch was quite a shock in some ways. I expect to appreciate it more once I stop looking for the old UI controls.

3. Some weirdness is happening with the keyboard and mouse. I suspect it's because of the USB KVM switch and the fact that I booted up undocked and then connected the docking station during login. Have to reboot and see if that fixes it.

4. My Oracle 11g client installation and TOra software still works! This is one of the first times I haven't had to reinstall/recompile these tools...

Overall, both upgrades went well. No data lost and no horrible surprises. Kudos to the Ubuntu / Kubuntu teams for a nice upgrade path.

Loading mentions Retweet

This is the kind of press release cloud computing needs to get me excited. Much more valuable than all the buzzword hype flowing around the Internet.

http://oppugn.us/posts/1271781380.html

Loading mentions Retweet

I'm spending the week in a training class at work.  The training is for some commercial e-commerce software we will be using for future development.

I enjoy technology training classes.  When the technology is solid, it's a great opportunity for thinking about new problem domains or looking at old problems from new directions.  If the technology falls short, it serves as a cautionary tale or insight into a area where a competitve solution might be able to gain marketshare.

It always reminds me of this passage from the Tao of Programming:

There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door:

``I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered.''

This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself.

When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found.

On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: ``I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better.'' So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail.

On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. ``Sir Thief,'' he said, ``I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?''

The man smiled. ``I am stealing ideas,'' he said.

Loading mentions Retweet