Overheard during Software Freedom Day 2007, September 15th in Copenhagen, Denmark:
I don’t know much about Linux! And you’re an open source activist?
Category: Computere og Internet
Does this mean that I’m a musician…For clues that I have some way to go, look no further.
Welcome to ICT Mythbusters Episode One – who needs prequels, start your numbering scheme at one!
ICT Mythbusters is inspired by the great Discovery show Mythbusters
It’s also premiering a new concept in advertising that will revolutionise it:
Commercials that the host – in this case me – don’t make any money from, so click the banner and support the REAL Mythbusters, if you want to me support, send me some money ;-).
Was Bill Gates wrong?
A very famous quote from Bill Gates is:
640KB of RAM should be enough for everyone
Everybody has been laughing at that statement, but was he actually right?
I can access the web in high-fidelity from my Nintendo DS, and any modern phone with Java ME can run the Opera mini browser, and these phones rarely have more than 1MB of RAM. I’d say that approximately 4MB should be enough for everyone.
So Bill Gates was right, or? Why is it that he wasn’t? It’s of course because we’ve moved our storage to the server, as a college of mine was so friendly to point out – actually I think he was quite annoyed with me – but that’s only because he didn’t understand what I meant.
The desktop and portable computer is an anachronism, as I’ve written before, and we need to move ALL the storage to the server – where it belongs, and run only thin clients. VERY thin clients would actually suffice for something like 90+ percent of the worlds business users.
So yes my college is right, yes 640K isn’t enough for everyone, neither is 4MB, but how much is then?
And we’re talking server storage, to cater to the computing needs of the entire world, at the time, not considering the more than exponential growth we’re likely to se in the future.
Help me do the math, or should I just submit it to Jamie, Adam, Toby, Grant and the red-hot Kari.
LinuxParty – LinuxParty
LinuxParty kan måske blive sjovt i år
Da jeg skal til at “spise hundemad”, har jeg seriøst brug for hjælp, hvad mon der sker hvis man medbringer en “pristine” Vista maskine, og slipper nørderne løs med at gøre den til den sejeste Linux kværn i byen!
Jeg skal nok give et par omgange gutter!
Thomas Stabell » Blogarkiv » Man må ryste på hovedet…
Thomas rapporterer fra en håbløs hverdag, om sine kvaler med totalt misforstået IT sikkerhedspolitik, og det er desværre nogle misforståelser som er hverdag for de fleste i Danmark, og som de affinder sig med.
Her er hvordan Thomas indleder sin fremragende blog-post:
I ens hverdag bliver man udsat for mange sjove og til tider underlige hændelser. På min uddannelse har de fundet en række personer fra det ydre rum til at varetage skolens IT. Det betyder bla. at…
Og så kommer der en lang liste der burde være et wake-up call. “Det ydre rum”…LOL…Det er vist mere helvede 😉
Tag sagen i egen hånd – bliv “frihedskæmper”
Thomas: Mht. manglende trådløs adgang, så er løsningen er at smugle nogle trådlåse routere ind, og slutte dem til, det kan f.eks. være fra FON – der er INGEN der vil opdage det – jeg kigger gerne forbi og “glemmer” et par.
Det er faktisk en ide jeg har haft længe – at “bryde ind” hos firmaer og institutioner der ikke har WiFi, og efterlade trådløse routere. Der kan gå MEGET længe før de bliver opdaget, de kunne jo tro at du bare var på et nabo-netværk
Nægt herefter at anvende latterlige ting som Intranet, kopier i stedet informationen til steder der kan nås fra “Skyen”.
Fat mod Thomas
I dag er det Software Freedom Day. Spred ordet, og organiser et Team Århus til næste år.
Selv deltager jeg i København, hvor jeg vil være at finde på Amagertorv, ved Illums fra kl. 10:00 til 14:00.
Kig forbi og få en gratis Ubuntu CD, og en snak om det åbne og frie alternativ.
Jeg tvivler på at der er andre end mig der har en PowerPC version med – og dem fremstiller jeg selv, og min kære PowerBook – som sandsynligvis snart bliver en ren Ubuntu maskine – vil være at se.
I mellemtiden kan i nyde billederne fra sidste år, og jeps! Det er min PowerBook, nørderne havde ALDRIG set Ubuntu på en Mac, og de var pænt interesserede 😉
En god veninde, gjorde mig opmærksom på at Undervisningsministeriet har opbygget en hjemmeside, Min Kompetencemappe, eller REALkompetencer.
Hun sendte mig faktisk bare et link i en mail med emnet “se her…” og uden nogen som helst forklaring på hvad det var for en størrelse. Det er sådan hun er, og det kan vi godt lide 😉
Her er et klip fra hjemmesidens forside, som forklarer hvad det er der er tale om.
Min Kompetencemappe er et personligt redskab til alle, som ønsker at få overblik over hvad de kan og har lært gennem tidligere uddannelse, på jobbet og på højskole, aftenskole og i andre aktiviteter i fritiden. Mappen er udviklet af Undervisningsministeriet som en hjælp til, at du kan dokumentere og få anerkendt din realkompetence.
Jeg må indrømme at var skeptisk, kan en statsinstitution virkelig udvikle noget sådan, og findes der ikke masser af privatudviklede profilsider på Internettet?
Mobile Monday Denmark
I just rediscovered Mobile Monday – I’ll be lurking for a while (Jaiku is a great lurking tool ;-))
MobileMonday is a community of mobile professionals. The open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.
Last.fm – the online music community – is probably the KEWLest web-site on the planet – and now it’s even KEWLer, since they have a Jaiku channel.
In case you don’t know Jaiku, it’s a web application that makes it easy to follow your friends, and stay updated on your favourite topics and/or sites (if they have a channel that is). Services like Jaiku are often refereed to as “microblogging services”, and it’s somewhat similar to another web-application: Twitter.
In case you don’t know Last.fm – you’re not from this planet, but it’s a service that, based on your musical preference, helps you discover new music, events and friends. Last.fm also operates unlimited streaming “radio stations”, where the users determine the content, for instance based on the similarity of artists, you can for instance ask Last.fm to stream a radio-station similar to a specific artist.
Since I joined the #LastFM channel, I remembered that I one year ago added “Send job-application to Last.fm” to my to-do list – I feel that Last.fm thinks like I do, and they’re looking for lots of people, and it looks like a great place to work.
REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 4, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today released to the Web (RTW) Silverlight™ 1.0, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering richer user experiences on the Web. In addition, Microsoft will work with Novell Inc. to deliver Silverlight support for Linux, called Moonlight, and based on the project started on mono-project.com.
Silverlight significantly reduces development and deployment costs and provides enhanced Web audio and video streaming and playback using industry-leading Windows Media® Technologies. Microsoft unveiled new Silverlight customer experiences on “Entertainment Tonight,†HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment, and also launched the Silverlight Partner Initiative, a program designed to foster collaboration among solution providers, content delivery networks, tools vendors and design agencies.
“Our expectations for compelling, immersive experiences on the Web are increasing daily,†said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect. “With today’s release of Silverlight 1.0, we’re making it possible for developers and designers to deliver to individuals the kind of high-def experiences they crave by integrating data and services in rich and unique ways. Silverlight will further accelerate the growth in rich interactive applications by giving developers and designers new options for delivering great experiences that span the Web, PC, phone and other devices.â€
I think my jaw just hit the floor, this exceeds my wildest dreams – let’s hope that it’s not just that – and that it will materialise.
This is the validation that the Mono Project needed! Flash will now – finally – get serious competition – or rather a run for it’s money – from a company that understands, and listens to, developers (no “monkey dance” here – they just do!).
It’s WONDERFUL news. GO RAY OZZIE, Microsoft will be “insanely great” – unlike “another” company – that no longer has ANY interest in computers!!!
And guess what: I just started as a Microsoft developer again – seems that I got the timing right.
Get Silverlight 1.0 here (yes: it’s ALSO for the Mac)…
OH HAPPY DAY!!! I’m very happy, relieved and surprised: Microsoft Office Open XML (MSOOXML) has FAILED – yes that is F-A-I-L-E-D – to win approval at the vote in the International Organisation for Standardisation – ISO.
Microsoft is in “Neverland”, and sort of claims victory, and their official press release is titled “Strong Global Support for Open XML as It Enters Final Phase of ISO Standards Process” and the comment from the OOXML community site, OpenXML Community reads:
Results of this ballot:
* 87 countries participated in the process: 69 voted Yes or No (51 countries voted in favor*, 18 voted against) and 18 Abstained.
* 41 of 41 P members took part in the vote, meeting the 50% participation requirement for those members.
* Open XML received 53% (17 of 32) of the required two-thirds voting Yes or No, falling 5 short of this requirement (22 Yes votes out of 32 Yes or No votes would have met the requirement).
* Overall, 26% (18 of 69) of countries voted No, one vote over the threshold of no more than 25% of No votes (17 or fewer No votes out of 69 Yes or No votes would have met this requirement).Microsoft remains optimistic that Open XML will meet the above ISO/IEC requirements after the comments submitted by the National Bodies have been addressed during the upcoming ballot resolution period.
Notice the asterix (*), yes they snapped out of it, and realised what had actually happened:
* Note: 32 ISO members voted in favor of Open Document Format (ODF) 1.0 at the end of its process and 15 ISO members supported PDF/A-1 at the end of its process.
Groklaw helped doing the math for Microsoft:
Microsoft is, of course, counting P and O members in one bunch. The actual percentages go like this:
- P-Members voting: 17 in favor out of 32 = 53.12% (requirement >= 66.66%)
- Member bodies voting: 18 negative votes out of 69 = 26.08%
- Disapproved
“Return of the Jedi – RELOADED”: The Empire is under pressure, there’s going to be a sequel, stay tuned, we do indeed live in interesting times.
France has an interesting proposal: Simply merge ODF and MSOOXML
My take on this is:
Microsoft: Come to your senses! Admit defeat! Spare the world, and your shareholders the agony of this stupid format war and MOVE ON.
It’s really very simple Microsoft: Just document ALL your formats, including the old binary Office formats, and we can declare victory for humanity in this STUPID war.
More on format wars and “the Jedi of the Internet” from yours truly.