:: macnyt :: danmark :: OpenSource er en religion
Godt Carsten Levin! Et debatoplæg! Skal blive spændende at følge det, forventer nogle “rygmarvs reaktioner” fra “visse” (ikke mindst undertegnede ;-)).
Category: Technology
All about technology
Charlie: So lieutenant, where exactly were you?
Maverick: Well, we…
Goose: Thank you.
Maverick: Started up on a 6, when he pulled from the clouds, and then I moved in above him.
Charlie: Well, if you were directly above him, how could you see him?
Maverick: Because I was inverted.
Iceman: [coughs whilst saying] Bullshit.
Goose: No he was man, it was a really great move. He was inverted.
Charlie: You were in a 4g inverted dive with a MiG28?
Maverick: Yes ma’am.
Charlie: At what range?
Maverick: Um, about 2 meters.
Goose: It was actually about 1 and a half I think. It was 1 and a half, I’ve got a great Polaroid of it, and he’s right there, must be 1 and a half.
Maverick: Was a nice picture.
Goose: Thanks.
Charlie: Eh lieutenant, what were you doing there?
Goose: Communicating.
Maverick: Communicating. Keeping up foriegn relations. You know, giving him the bird!
Goose: [Charlie looks puzzled, so Goose clarifies] You know, the finger
[gestures apprpriately]
Charlie: Yes, I know the finger, Goose.
Goose: I-I’m sorry, I hate it when it does that, I’m sorry. Excuse me.
F.AY!!! Big up to Masta Ace, Alan Kay, Tim Berners-Lee, Richard Stallman, Ben Hammersley, R.V.B, H.H.B, E.T, D.M, M.E, G.L, M.J, O.H N.O, J.T.R, P.P, N.T.F, P.L.R.T, K.H.A.Y, N.B, J.H, T.C.N and all the revolutionaries I haven’t meet yet (well I haven’t actually met P.P., Alan Kay, Tim Berners-Lee and Richard Stallman…).
CodeWeavers has released CrossOver, the Windows compatibility layer based on the WINE Project for the Mac, and I finally got to test it today.
My expectations were low, since I struggled with the pure open source DARWINE Mac OS X port of WINE.
But…So far I’m impressed!
The first application I tried to install, Vig Foreningsprogram, installed without a hitch – I jumped a little in my seat when I saw the Windows Installer pop up, and that I could use Windows style directories.
So far it runs like a charm. This is exactly the class of applications, business apps, that should run without problems under CrossOver, and so far it looks very promising.
I know it’s a bad choice for first application to test, since I don’t really know it, but I have a motive.
Vig Foreningsprogram is a free, Danish developed software solution for administration of associations (foreninger) an important part of the Danish culture and democracy.
Vig Foreningsprogram has been developed for Windows only, but now it runs on Mac as well, and since it’s now “available” on other platforms, associations could have a choice besides Windows for their IT needs.
Here’s a list of applications I’d like see working.
- Internet Explorer 6 or 7 with Danske Bank
- Visual Studio .NET
If I could get these two applications running under Mac OS X, I could loose the Windows box entirely.
I’m putting in a pre-order for CrossOver Mac, forget about Parallels and Boot Camp, “it’s the end of the Redmond Tax as we know it” (humming a REM song).
dr.dk › Podcast › Radio › Dagens novelle
WOW! Danmarks Radio tager Podcasting seriøst!
Klassikere til øret
Fra 1.9. til 31.10. tilbyder DR podcasting af klassiske noveller fra hele verden. Hver dag sendes en ny fortælling; ialt 61 stk.
Fra Herman Bang til Guy de Maupassant. Fra Jeppe Aakjær til Anton Tjekhov. Fra noveller der er 10 minutter lange til nogle med en varighed på en time. Alt sammen gratis.
Jeg bukker og takker! Sådan DR!
I’m having some success in terms of business, right now, but Thursday I got carried away and went into serious nerd mode, after visiting a potential client that had a sweet Mac set-up, an entire professional sound studio.
I connected my PowerBook to the network, and minutes later I was streaming my newly purchased Clotaire K album over iTunes to the studio monitors.
It’s so great to meet other dedicated Mac users, it’s more like a brotherhood.
I really want to go out and get my self a MIDI keyboard now.
The interesting thing was that I was lugging my Mac mini with me, wanting to suggest that my customer get one to use as a file server, I had no idea that they already had two Macs.
This customer is ripe for switching. The Macs are used in the music studios, but all the other pcs they have are Windows based, a classical example of the popular belief that Macs are only good for creative work. My strategy will be to start switching them away from using Outlook.
After showing the studio guy Chicken of the VNC and the VNC support build into Mac OS X Tiger, he went out and activated it on their other Mac and lo and behold it showed up in Bonjour.
Activating the VNC server in Mac OS X is really, really simple:
Systempreferences/Sharing/Apple Remote Desktop. Choose “Accesscontorl” and “Allow VNC clients to control the screen”. Remember to protect the VNC server with a password, and to activate the users that should be allowed to use VNC.
I also showed him our macwiki development site, and he was quite impressed, I even updated the site with some information, for instance he pointed me to the Danish communities for sound professionals Lydmaskinen and logicforum.dk, and the free iCal hosting service iCalX.
But so far I’ve gotten two paying customers that use Macs this year, not bad.
Unfortunately being in “Mac nerd mode” like that can have some serious side-effects on me, check the categories for this post for hints…
You can get carried away by the love for the platform, and it actually resulted in “some fallout” later that night. Luckily I took a “chill-pill” (too late maybe – I’m so sorry that I might have hurt someone in the process – but I feel that I’m in control of my life, unlike last year).
Hands-on with the Sony Mylo – Engadget
Engadget has gotten their hands on a Sony mylo, and it looks quite cool.
But this feature is probably more annoying than useful…
Kirk to Enterprise, I’ve lost my rave light. Can you please beam down a Mylo? The purple-blue Wi-Fi light pulses when you’re connected to a hotspot.
However: KEWL! Where can I get one?
Computerworld – Politikere fristede af OpenDocument
Rambøll er barslet med en rapport der forsøger at estimere omkostningerne ved at indføre Office Open XML og Open Document Format i centraladministrationen.
Link til rapporten: Estimering af omkostningerne ved indføre Office Open XML og Open Document Format i centraladministrationen
Citat fra Computerworlds artikel.
Flere partier ser positivt på mulighederne for at hente millioner i besparelser ved at fravælge Microsofts kontorpakke i det offentlige. Det sker dagen før regeringen præsenterer et forslag til finansloven for 2007.
Først vil jeg bemærke at det er en klassisk fejl at fokusere på økonomiske besparelser når der skal indføres åbne standarder, det er ikke kun derfor man skal indføre dem, selv om det da også er et godt argument – men “the beer isn’t free!” husk det nu!
Derudover er det underligt at det ikke fremgår hvem der er opdragsgiveren i selve rapporten, det er jo næppe noget Rambøll har lavet gratis (sådan plejer de ikke at arbejde). Men det fremgår af Computerworld at det er OSL (Foreningen af Open Source Leverandører) der står bag.
Som sådan fremstår rapporten desværre som bestillingsarbejde.
Personligt syntes jeg det er visionsløst kun at foretage en sammenligning mellem to stort set identiske teknologier, der fundamentalt er baseret på forældet teknologi, hvor man i alt for høj grad blander indhold og layout. Der burde skiftes til en centraliseret model, så vi kan slippe af med den latterlige anakronisme, desktop computeren, og begynde at anvende tynde klienter.
Der er rigeligt med open source software der kunne anvendes til formålet, f.eks. MediaWiki.
Den største udfordring er, i øvrigt, alle de egenudviklede Excel makroer, samt de indlejerede binære formater, der findes overalt.
Når det er sagt så håber jeg at politikerne, med denne rapport i hånden, kan se at de ihvertfald skal springe opgraderingen til Microsoft Office 2007 over.
Det skal ganske enkelt forbydes central administrationen at opgradere til Microsoft Office 2007, og der skal laves standarder for hvordan man undgår de kompatibilitets problemer der altid vil plage os.
Her er et par forslag til retningslinier, stjæl gerne ideerne kære politikere:
- Der må ikke anvendes indlejrede dokumenter og/eller grafik, alt skal være henvisninger
- Det skal sikres at henvisninger ikke bliver brudt gennem en PURL (persistent URL) system
- Alt skal kunne nås gennem URLer og kunne vises i en standard browser uden behov for ekstra programmer (der skal altid findes en XHTML version af et dokument)
- Programmering (læs Excel udvikling) skal “godkendes” af en central IT funktion, så man undgår “ad-hoceriet”
- Der skal laves et centralt erfarings udvekslings fællesskab, så løsninger kan deles, dette for at undgå at den centrale godkendelse af “programmering” bliver for stiv
- Så lidt layout som muligt
- Dokumenter skal være struktureret ensartet, stærk brug af “outline” og “levels”
Har I flere ideer?
Microsoft’s Zune aims to be social butterfly | CNET News.com
CNET (and the rest of the web), is filled with details about Microsofts Zune soon to be released portable digital media player.
The information has been made available due to a FCC filing.
Some of the details are interesting. Here’s a quote from the CNET article.
Zune owners can act as their own DJ, sending streaming music content to up to four other devices, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission . With the device’s wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as “promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists,” according to the filing, made public Thursday.
I think this is a killer feature, and it sounds exactly like some of the ideas I’ve had previously.
But will people actually use it? Bluetooth hasn’t emerged as a social technology, in my experience very few people actually enable Bluetooth except for use with wireless headsets.
I envision that I can surf the local wireless “radios”, listening in to what people in the near proximity is listening to, without their knowledge.
Unfortunately I think that Zune will come with major security features, making it impossible to surf the airwaves freely.
I hope that the specifications for this wireless technology will be open, so that it can find it’s way into other consumer products, I’d love to be able to hook my player up to a stereo without the need for cables.
I actually expected Apple to be first to market with something like this, but when they join in, I definitely expect that they will come up with a solution, that is easier to use than anything Microsoft can come up with. Something that is as simple to use as shared music in iTunes is what I want, actually that’s exactly what I want!
Elliot Swan | Custom Flickr Badge API Documentation
Elliot Swan has posted a nice little guide to how you can customise the Flickr HTML badges.
I was getting seriousily lost in the Flickr documentation before I decided to do a FGI not filtered by site:flickr.com! Flickr is filled with support questions, but where’s the beef!
Well look no further…
Since Writely was acquired by Google earlier this year, it has been closed for new sign-ups.
Having finished moving to the Google infrastructure, Writely has just reeoped and is again accepting new sign-ups.
So what’s the fuzz about.
Writely is a web-based Word processor, that allows for online collaboration on documents, and it supports uploads in a number of file-formats. It did however fail accepting my first attempt at an upload, of what I consider a very simple document, somewhat disappointing, but I’ve written Writely support.
It’s somewhat annoying that Writely suggested that I send feedback along with the “offending” document using an e-mail address link, only to receive an e-mail, telling me that this method of providing feedback had been closed.
With Writely again open for sign-ups, and with the Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Spreadsheet and Google Calendar offerings in place, Google is getting ready to join the “office productivity tool wars”, all that I’m really missing is a decent address-book.
But you know what I really miss? A true NFS, a Networking File System.
The NFS should:
- Easily plug into any application (e.g. OS level support)
- Automatically detect if I’m connected to the network, performing continous background uploads if I’m online, otherwise it should save to my local disk
- Make it possible to work on the documents online using a standard browser
- Allow for both on- and offline collaboration “wikistyle”
- Be highly secure
- Last, but not least, be standards based
Right now everybody is reinventing the wheel, building their own custom filesystems, due to the lack of a true NFS.
Is there a true NFS on the market, that would meet my specification? I have no idea, but I doubt it very much. YouOS is a promising idea, but not ready for prime-time, and it’s not exactly standards based, attempting to provide an online version of a closed OS.