Rants and Raves

If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?

· Bill Gates

Tags: Axiom //

Well, Oracle alleges that Google Android infringes on Sun patents numbers 6,125,447; 6,192,476; 5,966,702; 7,426,720; RE38,104; 6,910,205; and 6,061,520 — much the same as the Sun / Microsoft law suit did nearly a decade ago.

Whether or not the Google Dalvik machine does in fact infringe on intellectual property Oracle acquired through it’s purchase of Sun or not, it’s clear that Oracle is after the money…

I don’t particularly consider Google to be my best buddy in the open source software world — they too are after the money (only they want to leverage control of information — which parleys into targeting advertising)…

I suggest Google do what Microsoft did, but do it now rather than wait for the courts; just ditch Java — it’s a crappy language anyway, and it’s not like the Google Dalvik machine could run any arbitrary Java program anyway.  Certainly Google can create an open source language to replace Java on Android, and in doing so help rid the world of Larry Ellison and his ego and greed.

Tags: Computers, Software, Technology //

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

· Bill Gates

Tags: Axiom //

Normally you’d think an article with a tittle like this would have to be ripping on Microsoft Windows – but in fact I’m talking about Linux.

Windows XP minimum requirements were 256 MB of RAM and a 800 MHz CPU, but if you take a look at the minimum requirements for Gnome and KDE you’ll see they’ve surpassed it.

Desktop	Required RAM	Required CPU
fluxbox/idesk	48 KB	100 MHz
XFCE4	128 KB	200 MHz
Gnome 1.x	256 KB	500 MHz
Gnome 2.x	384 KB	800 MHz
KDE 3.x	512 KB	800 MHz
KDE 4.x	512 KB	1 GHz

Now we are comparing a “modern” operating system with one that’s nearly a decade old; but still, Linux used to be a lean mean performing machine… apparently though making Linux usable has had its trade-offs.

Personally I have no problem with a machine meeting the minimum requirements for KDE; I think targeting a machine with 2GB of memory and a 1.8 GHz process is perfectly reasonable for modern computers (as long as Linux retains the ability to trim down to run on older computers)… but then again, I do think that paying attention to performance and footprint are important — and hopefully the Linux community will  make sure that every byte and cycle count.

Tags: Computers, Linux, Software //

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

· Bill Gates

Tags: Axiom //

Intel paid 7.7 billion dollars (US) for McAfee Associates.

WTF is up with Paul Otellini?

Does he really think that having pathetically outdated security technology is going to help keep Intel in control of computing in the ever changing landscape of mobile computing?

Clearly Intel must be in the dark about how modern software is built from the ground up to resist the security issues that plagues the old cobbled together systems of the past (ie Windoze).  Obviously, though, Intel understands that their dominance in the computing arena is likely to fade — but spending this kind of money is just insane.

One thing is clear — Intel is massively over charging for it’s processors if they can afford to dump nearly $8B US into the trash can.

Tags: Computers, Hardware, Software, Technology //

I’m sorry that we have to have a Washington presence. We thrived during our first 16 years without any of this. I never made a political visit to Washington and we had no people here. It wasn’t on our radar screen. We were just making great software.

· Bill Gates

Tags: Axiom //

Yes I know Oracle supported open source Linux in the past; but that was when they felt they needed to help in the fight against Microsoft, but since their acquisition of Sun Microsystems and MySQL it seems that Oracle is killing off open source projects; like because Larry Ellison believes that’s the road to profit, and has feared open source from the beginning.

Open Solaris is a thing of the past (though the project will likely be reincarnated as a real open source project not under the control of a big company); who knows what will happen with VirtualBox and MySQL or any one of the many other open source projects that Sun Microsystems supported.

Tags: Computers, Software //

If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG.

· Bill Gates

Tags: Axiom //

I’ve been using several Linux bit torrent clients fairly heavily for the past week or so, and I have a few new comments about each of the “contenders” — below I’ve ordered them as I would recommend using them.

KTorrent · KTorrent might be a little “fat”, but it works, and it works very well — particularly when dealing with a large number of torrents simultaneously.  This is my pick.

TorrentFlux · TorrentFlux is probably the best solution you’ll find for a torrent server.  Simply said, it works fine (though I don’t know that I’ll continue to use it, simply because it doesn’t seem to be being improved, and it’s far from perfection).

Transmission · Transmission is simple, and that simplicity seems to pay off — it works, it works well.

qBittorrent · qBittorrent works fairly well for a small number of simultaneous torrents; but if you want to download large numbers of torrents or seed large numbers of torrents stay away from this one — it actually crashes, and unless your goal is just to watch the integrity of your torrents be checked and over and over you can do much better.

Deluge · Deluge was what I really wanted to like; and it seemed to work, but it has two major problems — it doesn’t handle large numbers of torrents well, and it doesn’t properly handle port forwarding (either through UPnP / NAT-PMP or when you try and set the port forwarding manually).  We’ll just leave it at it has issues (that apparently are fairly well known) and the progress on it is glacial in it’s pace.

Moving torrents from one client to another isn’t all that hard to do, a little time consuming maybe… but once you figure out how to do it, and let your data files re-check, you’ll be on your way.

My experience over the past week reminds me that you can do your diligence by researching every fact and figure about a program all you like; but until you put it through the paces you just won’t know.

NOTES: My test included about 550 torrents totaling just under half a terabyte in total size.  I required that ports be forwarded through a firewall properly (either via UPnP, NAT-PMP, or by hand), and that I be able to control the total number of active torrents (preferably with control over uploads and downloads as well), and be able to restrict the bandwidth (a scheduler was a nice touch, but not a requirement).

Tags: Communications, Linux, P2P, Software, Technology //