Disqus - Latest Comments for ehjones

Re: Something Cool

jkuramot — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:50:06 -0000

Some home design stuff that's way out of date and doesn't render very well natively. So, you can bet it would be even worse on a VM. I'm not prepared to deal with the repercussions, i.e. throw away effort and just have to go back to XP. The machine isn't very quick either. It's a lose-lose for me.

Re: Something Cool

ehjones — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:26:08 -0000

What really heavy graphics stuff? I run stuff like Blender and Ogre3D based apps without any problems.

The only things I can't run (or find a replacement for) are my Logitech Harmony remote-control programming software and Oracle's web-conf. Pytrainer isn't great, and took some persuading before it talked to my Garmin GPS watch, but it'll do for now.

I did have it happily installed on an 8GB USB stick. Right up until I lost the stick! 2.5" hard-drives are harder to lose!

Re: Social Observations, OraTweet Edition

jkuramot — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:44:29 -0000

There's definitely overlap with IM and group chat, but what I like about Twitter is its asynchronous nature. You don't expect immediate responses, which is born of Twitter's original use as a micro-blogging tool.

Another difference: RSS allows you to eavesdrop on a stream without participating, making it a good status collecting application.

It definitely has useful applications inside the firewall, and I'm sure someone will come up with new ways to use it, e.g. as a bot like Firebot.

Re: Something Cool

jkuramot — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:35:25 -0000

I've thought about reimaging my wife's desktop, but she has some software that wouldn't work and would perform like a dog over VM, really heavy graphics stuff.

I like the portable O/S. I may have to give that a try for giggles, although I'll probably need a bigger USB stick.

As for eyecandy, it's more for a hoot now and then. The terminal doesn't really bother me, and it's been like that for a few weeks. I get bored with black/white, white/black, green/black, sometimes orange/black.

I'm with you about licensing. I really think there should be more Mac and Linux images, but I'm guessing there are forces at work here beyond our understanding.

Re: Social Observations, OraTweet Edition

ehjones — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:20:45 -0000

Yeah, it was me. A while back on OraTweet. I think me and Carl and Noel and someone else (I forget who, sorry) talked about it a bit. As you say, got lost in the noise!

Not being fully clued up on all this Twitter stuff, perhaps I can ask; if OraTweet adds groups and (possibly) the ability to Tweet specifically at a certain person, then doesn't it begin to converge with IM and the Chat Rooms therein, or some sort of IRC? As far as I can see it's just the web interface and possible phone/SMS integration that differentiates it.

Re: Something Cool

ehjones — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:59:55 -0000

Yup, I've been using Ubuntu almost exclusively, for quite a while now.

It's installed dual-boot with XP on my home desktop, which means my wife uses it too, so I guess that says something about it not being just for geeks any more. I moved to Ubuntu when XP slowed down to a crawl, for no apparent reason, and randomly stopped booting.

I use it on my laptop via a bootable USB drive. Which means I can carry it around with me wherever I go and get my whole desktop on any PC that supports booting from USB. Of course it's on a Seagate FreeAgent Go so that the glowy orange colour matches the default desktop theme!

The regular-ish reboots are a pain. But at least it lets you choose when to reboot rather than doing it automatically overnight, or nagging you constantly to do it, like XP does. The VM stuff (I use VirtualBox with Win2K) is a pain for Web Conf and sites that *have* to be viewed in IE, but liveable with. Eye-candy like transparent terminals and the Compiz 3D desktop is cool for showing off, but I find it gets on my nerves when I use it all the time, so I normally just run Metacity (and a black-on-white terminal). Some stuff was a right royal PITA to get working, like the Oracle VPN client, but I've got my machines set up pretty good now and hardly ever need to touch the config.

In summary; I continue to be bemused as to why we generate so much license revenue for Mr Gates. It's really possible for us to be at least a 99% MS free environment. Surely?