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Archive for May, 2007
Tintin headed for the silver screen
Variety reports that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have finally decided to produce a Tintin movie. Not one, but three movies will be made. I hope the Destination Moon or Secret of the Unicorn storyline are under consideration.
Thankfully, the production will reproduce the characters in 3D using the WETA engine developed by Jackson. I am no fan of real actors portraying the likes of Tintin or Asterix. With only the distributor to decide upon, it seems as though this project will definitely be going ahead.
via 
Variety
Microsoft targets FOSS
It’s a well-known fact that Microsoft is incapable of embracing any technology it hasn’t hatched itself. The recent attempt at creating a competitor to Flash is just one example (let’s forget, for the moment, that the purported cross-platform operation of Silverlight is restricted to Microsoft and Apple platforms only…open? I don’t think so). There are many other examples where Micro$oft either buys out or crushes the competition. That’s fair enough: their business model relies on the fact that users are tied into their products and are forced to upgrade. The fact that documents and media files are crippled by DRM and become unusable once certain products no longer support older file formats is another issue. The ODF (open document format) is also under threat, by the way.
A while ago, Microsoft stated that Vista’s UAC (user access control) should be included in every operating system. Anyone who knows what’s what in the computing world will tell you that such functionality is an intrinsic part of any UNIX operating system. The best modern example is sudo, yet in the past you’d log in as root to perform critical system activities. It’s by design, not a feature considered at the last minute and plugged on top of a behemoth like Vista. It makes Unix-type operating systems what they are: stable, secure and less prone to virus attacks.
If that isn’t ridiculous enough, Ballmer is now attempting to make up lost ground by stating that FOSS violates Microsoft’s patents. 235, to be precise: Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties from distributors and users. If Microsoft’s claims are true, it would be great to see the resulting stable and secure operating system and software that would result from the use of these patents. Until now, I doubt that Microsoft has actually implemented them…
Google has the most popular search engine and web portal. Apple has the most successful music player in the world. Linux is gaining a larger market share in corporates and the desktop. SAP and Oracle are dominant in the ERP segment. Microsoft is facing a bit of competition. That’s a good thing. If only Microsoft could stand up and compete by providing technologically superior products…
via Fortune Magazine
Spook Country available soon
Only two months or so and the eagerly-awaited Spook Country by William Gibson should be available to order. The follow-up to Pattern Recognition, this one has a Russian-speaking Cuban, investigative journalist and a high-end junkie dealing with military secrets.
Let Gibson tell you a bit about it himself.
Return of the Symbian
I’ve not paid a lot of attention to anything but Windows Mobile devices and the promise of a better day with Linux, of course 
So much so that I’ve slept through the hype surrounding the new N-series based on the Symbian S60 platform. The N95 is here and it packs a huge feature set into a small package.
Just a brief run-down of some of the features:
- built-in GPS with maps and location-based services (network-dependent, of course)
- 5MP camera, capable of recording near-DVD quality video
- quad-band, HSDPA, USB, Bluetooth, WiFi and IR connectivity
- Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support
- standard headphone jack, TV out
- integrated VOIP support
The slider moves in two directions: one way to reveal the keypad and in the other direction to reveal dedicated media playback controls. The GPS is able to provide turn-by-turn directions when teamed up with maps available over the air. The phone boasts a fair amount of internal storage (160MB to be precise) and a slot for Micro-SD cards is available (up to 2GB supported). Overall, reviews of the unit indicate that the screen is crisp and that the camera performs really well. There is a fair bit of criticism of the battery life – many indicate that the phone requires a daily charge. That’s not such a big deal for me as I habitually plug my JAMin into the power socket every night.
Depending on the applications available and whether or not some of my peripherals will work with this, it may be time to consider a change…
Getting Beryl to run on Feisty
5 years ago
by manfred
in Linux/Unix
Out of the box, Feisty ships with open source graphics drivers. The performance is hardly blistering, especially when trying out games and playing video. My attempt at watching episode 1 of Heroes was hardly a pleasurable affair: artifacts, black screens when moving windows and overall sluggish performance.
The solution provided to upgrade a graphics driver is far simpler than apt get or downloading tar files. The Restricted Drivers Manager accessible from the System -> Administration menu is a really easy way to install it. Provided your graphics card is recognized and a proprietary driver available, you’re good to go. A reboot is required once the new driver has been installed.
Performance is much better once that driver is installed. Snappy performance and the opportunity to install Beryl with its exploding windows! Not so easy, that one… To think that the installation via Synaptic does the trick is hoping for too much. There is an issue with the Beryl release supplied in Ubuntu. In fact the Ubuntu version of beryl-core is incomplete and has to be downgraded to work. Without getting into too much detail, I recommend you follow the instructions here.
Beryl is a great addition to any desktop and you’ll spend a fair bit of time fiddling with options and making windows explode just because you can! It’s not 100% stable and may crash occasionally, but overall it runs rather well.
Ubuntu to go mobile
5 years ago
by manfred
in Linux/Unix
InfoWorld has an interesting article that confirms the move of Ubuntu to mobile devices. In co-operation with Intel, Canonical will be developing a specially tailored distribution that will be capable of driving handheld devices.
It seems as though the new distribution will be targeting the Intel MID platform, so it’s unlikely to be available on other devices immediately. Maybe it’s a move to stave off reliance on the Chinese RedFlag distribution? Yankees can be so paranoid
The mobile version of Ubuntu should be available in October of this year, together with the new Gutsy Gibbon release 7.1 for the server and desktop.
Out to lunch
5 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
David Bullard is another old-school media type who just doesn’t get it. His column in yesterday’s Sunday TImes displays a fair bit of arrogance and cannot be justified.
Let’s go over this one more time, David Bullard: to think that anyone is writing a blog to compete with you is plain ludicrous. Your job is safe, until digital media overtakes it.
Your perception of quality is somewhat of the mark. How many times has the publication you write for fabricated stories in order to garner higher sales figures? Who are you to say that your writing is in any way better than anyone else’s? Sure, there may be many blogs created and forgotten. Sure, there may be many blogs that don’t suit your taste. This one may be among them. I have the same opinion of your newspaper. I don’t read it, and I don’t waste my time or money on it. That makes you irrelevant from my point of view.
Get with the times. Stop killing trees to publish words that lose their relevance the moment they hit the page. By all accounts, you certainly are out to lunch.
In the deadzone
5 years ago
by manfred
in Connectivity
GPRS connectivity has still not improved in the Sandton/Rosebank area. As a follow-up to a previous post, I’ve tried to figure out what is going on. To no avail.
My rather amateurish attempts at figuring out the boundary of the deadzone have led me to the following conclusion: no connectivity travelling from the Emmarentia dam towards Rosebank. Connectivity out after passing Hyde Park from William Nicol towards Rosebank. At times, I struggle to make or receive calls in the Sandton/Rosebank area, too. Never mind that there’s no hope of getting a GPRS connection out of my JAMin. And magically, all connectivity is restored and works perfectly when I leave the deadzone, so it has nothing to do with my device.
I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone…
Phone Dashboard
5 years ago
Hudson Mobile is a name I have not come across in the Windows Mobile software world. Their Phone Dashboard for Windows Mobile devices is a fairly useful application to keep track of mobile phone usage. Designed to provide reporting and track how much airtime you have utilized, Phone Dashboard is yet another Today screen plug-in. With all these plug-ins, we’ll need 17″ screens on PDA’s soon!
The Today screen plug-in rolls through various status displays, indicating network provider, used minutes and similar information. Phone Dashboard attempts to predict your usage based on historical information to give a projected usage indication.
The icons on the panel provide access to various reports and configuration screens. Initially, it is necessary to select what one wishes to view and also to provide the application with details regarding free, peak and off peak minutes, in addition to other details regarding your contract. The settings are easy to navigate and divided by category into a number of separate tabs.
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