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Last Updated ( Monday, 30 August 2010 11:23 ) Read more...
 

apt-get install ubuntu

I'm not quite ready to ditch Win7 (but I'd like to!) on my main computer yet, but I've been having really good luck with Ubuntu, both as the only installation on my laptop and as a VM on my workstation.  I've had to work with the virtualization more and more recently due to some website testing, and I just leave it up a lot otherwise because I like seeing it over there.

I'm using Ubunto 10.04, and I love Gnome, I love apt-get installing things (SO EASY!) and I love the built-in feel that this version has with a lot of the base installs.  Chat app?  Built in.  Standard, useful desktop stuff installed?  Absolutely.  And having a desktop within a desktop is especially weird - when I use the Desktop Cube effect from Compiz in the VM it almost blows my mind.

I'm using AWN as a dock, which I like a lot, but it does come with a simple problem or two - I don't know where to find icons for installed programs that I want to put in my dock.  I'm told I really should try Docky, but what it'll do that AWN doesn't is a mystery.  Maybe when I run up against a shortfall in AWN I'll try it.

And I'm definitely using only Ubuntu on whatever my "real" laptop becomes this fall - it'll be time to get something then (a t410s, maybe?), and Ubuntu will be the only OS on there for sure.

That's it for the geeky linux love for now.

 

the Woot/Amazon thing

So Woot got bought by Amazon.

What's the business end of this deal?  I've read the Blog Post, I've seen the video, and I'm still a little confused, or at least in the dark, about how something like this works.  Like, who gets what?  Presumably, Amazon paid something for Woot.  They weren't a public company, so it didn't happen by stock purchses, right?  No.  So they just put up a certain amount of money and, boom, they now get the profits?  Everyone gets the same salary and job description as before, just the ownership changed hands?

I guess, if I owned Woot and Amazon came along and gave me, in cash, the value of the profit I expected to make over the next three years (ten years?) and let me stay on as CEO with the same salary, etc., then I might do it, too.  Especially if I had another idea that I wanted to exploit.  Hmm.

Anyway, anyone who has a real clue about how this sort of thing goes down, I'd be interested in your take.

 

Palm Pre woes

Palm PreJust performed an applications reset on my Pre because there was some weird issue where there was a blank application that was keeping my phone from updating some of the programs that needed upgrading.  Doing a reset where I deleted and re-installed the applications on the Pre (and restarted twice) seemed to solve the problem, at least for the time being.  I've read that the problem came back for some poor schmuck, but at the moment, it seems solved on my part.

I've been thinking about phones because I'd really like to have a phone abroad, and I think I saved my carte-orange from Paris, so I could use that there.  We'll see.  Maybe an unlocked phone from craigslist is the way to go.  I dunno.  Unlocked phones sort of confuse me - can't I just pop a new SIM into an AT&T phone or whatever?

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 June 2010 09:19 )
 

Gawker just lost its place in my Reader

Over the last week or so, there's been a change in the way my reader looks - all Gawker Media sites changed their full-text feeds to partial-text, AKA click-to-our-site-so-we-can-make-money-off-you feeds.

Not likely.  There are other options out there, and/or the info I get from them isn't that important.  I can drop Giz and only read Engadget.  I barely skim Jalopnik anyway, and the porn blog?  Pure tourism - no loss to lose it, really.  Fewer tits in my day probably means more productivity.  Besides, there's always Tumblr.  So I'm on the hunt for new places to read on a regular basis if you're in the mood to recommend.

Ironically, at the same time (conspiracy?!), Slashdot just expanded their feed offering to show me selected comments - amazing.  I'm not sure I even need all that information (and they provided a link to change the feed back that I haven't explored yet), but it's nice that they offer it.

Now, I'm not a particularly "valuable" reader from a demographics standpoint.  I'm over 30, basically ad-blind to the ads that I don't automatically block and I rarely comment.  So they don't care about losing me.  But if they feel that way about everyone who's just like me (and anecdotal evidence suggests that we are legion), Gawker Media is losing a big chunk of their readership.  Ah well.

Thanks to Mike Masnick at Techdirt for the article that pointed this out and prompted me to act.

edit: I *am* sad about losing Lifehacker, but a stand's a stand, and i'm sure I can find other places to read.

Last Updated ( Sunday, 14 March 2010 12:20 )
 
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