The way we find information has always been changing

Wrote this some ago but for some reason, I didn't publish it. Well, here it is.

The progression of our relationship with machines has reached an interesting junction. Let's skip the industrial revolution and straight into the information age. Back in the day, there I go again, at the beginning of the internet before it became well known to the general public, there was a belief that the skill of finding information would be crucial. This is because the internet at that time was already full of information. However, the problem was finding the information. So they looked to the people who have the skills to find information, librarians. The prevailing thought back then was that Librarians and the library sciences would become important because there lies the skill to index the vast amounts of information on the internet. Then, the search engine was invented and that line of thinking hit a brick wall. Machines was taking over the function of librarians, going out and indexing information on the internet and and fulfilling our requests to provide the most relevant answer to what we were asking for.

So it shifted from knowing how to find stuff on the internet, to knowing where to go to to find stuff on the internet. Think of it this way, one is search for something. We Google it. The name of the search engine became a verb, that is how prevalent that paradigm is. We want to find something to buy, will you look it up at Amazon. You still Google it, though. And so on and so forth. 

It's now shifting again. We no longer need to know where to go to find the information we need. With artificial intelligence, and specifically the LLM technology of AI, we go to these information oracles and ask questions. These oracles spew out the answer to us. But not only does it give us the answer, it can also tell us what what we likely want, how we want it, and if we're even not sure, we can ask it in vague terms or we can ask it to build the description of what we want for us. 

No wonder Google is heavily investing in AI. It is their next iteration. It is not just finding the answer on the internet but it is building the answer for us. Granted, the answer is from the information of the internet. But we will soon not see that layer and just get the summary. In the end, we need to go to Gemini or ChatGPT for all our information needs. 

There is some discussion about the narrowing of creativity that since LLM uses pre-built information to appear to generate new results, the result will never be original. However, new stuff is always built on or from old stuff. This evolution is just another step.

There is something to say about this process of putting AI answers first before the information link and discouraging people from clicking them. Will it disincentivize content generation? Some content are not generated for income and those tend to hold original information and facts. So maybe we will less of the SEO optimized links designed to ride the current trend and more information sources coming to the front. And maybe that is better.

A play against Local AI?

A lot of people don't know that it doesn't take a lot of GPU power to run AI. You don't need a lot of computing power to use AI. However, building AI models does take a lot of GPU power but running them doesn't. Think about it this way: It takes a lot of effort to write, record, create music but it doesn't take a lot of effort to listen to them. AI works in a similar way. That's why I was surprised when all of these AI companies started building all these AI data centers and buying up all the GPUs and RAM. They said that they are building these data centers to run AI and AI related services to sell to customers. I get it that they want lots of customers. But running AI and AI services doesn't need the building of datacenters of that magnitude.

I also understood that it was partly a FOMO mentality, the fear of missing out, that was also driving this AI Datacenter boom. Everyone wants to be the next Google, a company that provides a service so essential that their name become the description to what it does. Like Google is a verb in "to Google". There have been other successful internet companies but none to the scale of Google. Some will rise to dominance but who will later fade away. Facebook is a good example. In social media, people have started to move away from Facebook to other services such as instagram and tiktok. Facebook bought Instagram and that's why they remain relevant as a company. It also copied Twitter, tiktok and Snapchat services to be competitive. But many people under 20 don't have a Facebook account. All of these AI companies who are competing with each other, want to be dominant and will take the steps to become so. That that means building datacenters.

So, what does this have to do with running AI and the data Center boom? The secret is right there: It doesn't take a lot of processing power to run AI. Specifically, it doesn't take a a high end GPU to run AI. In fact, Local AI is where you download AI models and run them on your own hardware. This is obviously a threat to the AI companies. They would be less relevant if more people can run AI themselves. What would prevent people from running their own AI? Everyone would need a GPU powered laptop or PCs fitted with the GPU card. This is compounded when you factor in that normally prices for new technology drives the price of existing tech down. Your want faster processors which means that slightly older CPUs would cost less. Same thing works for storage. New storage devices rolling out of the factories with higher capacities would drive down the prices of the product already on the shelf. So the companies thought, how can this be stopped? 

What if the data Center boom is actually a play against local AI? The construction of all of these new data centers gives a reason to buy out an entire year's inventory of GPUs and storage. That will drive up the prices of inventory in the market and make running local AI more expensive. If you can make running local AI more expensive than subscribing to AI Services, you would slow down the adoption of local AI by corporations and drive customers to your AI subscription services. And do you really need to buy all that storage and GPUs? Hardware that will become obsolete in the coming months? Or will this eventually lead to a situation where the consumer is forced to buy pre-owned GPUs and storage from the data centers? It is so important for these AI companies to build these data centers and buy all the GPUs and storage that they finance it all thru a circle-jerk financial and investment arrangement that will fold like dominos if something goes wrong, bringing down the entire stock market because investment firms are so into AI investments.

These companies can't stop local AI entirely because there are free and open source AI models. These models have become smaller and easier to run on consumer GPUs. But if you starve the market of GPUs, more people can't run Local AI immediately because the prices are so high. And maybe that's the point.

I propose a new Firefly timeline

To recap, I thought the new Firefly timeline could go something like this

• The end of the TV series in Objects in Space
• The capture of River by someone. Could be the Hands of Blue or a new villain.  
• The rescue of River (now by the crew of Serenity) and the visit of the Operative to the Laboratory. 

The gory details about how this came about is here. There are a few plot points between the TV series and the movie to be addressed  

1. Inara's departure
2. Shepard Book's departure
3. The role of and eventual demise of the Hands of Blue (maybe)

It would also create opportunities for new critical story lines or story points.   

• The Hands of Blue would still be alive and still chasing River
• There could more storylines involving Inara and Sheppard Book with the crew before their departures
• And the eventual re-capture of River and her being brought to the Laboratory. 
• The search by the crew of Serenity to find where River was brought to. 
• The planning and execution of the rescue
• The events leading to their heist on Lilac 

And between it all other storylines that create new stories, introduce other characters or expand minor characters from the movie to be more prominent. The Operative could be introduced sooner or another villain would take over from the Hands of Blue and capture River. Which would eventually lead to the movie Serenity.

Just thinking aloud. 

Was I thinking of writing fan fiction using this timeline? Nothing became out of just thinking.

Firefly Returns and I have thoughts

The recent announcement of the Firefly revival as a animated series brought back a lot for me. First, I held off watching Firefly because I had missed it when it came out, due to life and work, and the high praises it was getting made me wary of a possible over-hype. When I finally was able to watch it, I just couldn't stop. And like so many before me, the feeling of loss, emptiness and confusion came when the series just ended. I followed the development of the movie and watched it on the big screen. The movie was great but I didn't agree with the framing of the events. I wasn't introduced yet to the graphic novels but later found them and read them. I still didn't agree with the timeline.

Sorry for the bad AI image

Looks like I wasn't the only one. The timeline of the movie and with the series didn't seem right. The Operative's visit to the Laboratory didn't align with the time elapsed that with his next encounter with the Firefly crew. From The Operative's perspective it seemed a short time elapsed. From the Firefly crew's perspectives it was some time ago because River Tam's rescue was from the Laboratory was before the start of the series. Which implied that The Operator's visit to the Laboratory was long after River Tam's rescue. 

That felt off to me. The Operative would have visited the Laboratory soon after River was rescued. Which means he was chasing them throughout the TV series but couldn't get close, which seemed unlikely. The Alliance High Command would have sent The Operative soon to investigate River's escape. All of this was explained in the "Those Left Behind" graphic novel series, where the Hands of Blue failed to re-capture River, the Alliance then decided it needed "a more personal touch" and The Operative had a cameo. Which meant that his visit to the Laboratory was long after River's escape. And that felt off. The Alliance would have dealt with the Laboratory severely for letting River escape. Which meant that there was nobody for the Operative to kill when he came much later. 

I propose a different timeline to stretch the time between the end of the series (Objects in Space) and the movie Serenity. This would create the space for more stories to be told. Alas, this necessitates the events in of the "Those Left Behind" graphic novel no longer be canon. I developed this alternative timeline after I saw Serenity because I didn't read the graphic novel until long after I saw Serenity.  

In this new timeline, the events of Serenity is not changed but rather the timing does. I propose that River Tam's rescue that we saw in the movie was done in between the end of the TV series and the movie. The fact that this could have been done by the Firefly crew is entirely possible given the events in the episode "Ariel", where they infiltrated a hospital. This would put the visit by The Operative to the Lab much later and that the time elapsed between that visit and him finding River much sooner. 

The announcement forced me to re-visit these thoughts so many years later. I'll need a bit of time to think more about this. Stay tunes

A problem not big enough to solve?

In open source, 'scratching your itch' is a source of birth for many a project. It makes the assumption that someone who has a problem a.k.a. "itchy", has the resources (e.g. time, effort) to develop a solution (or scratch that itch). With so many open source solutions already built using this time-honored method, the issue nowadays is more of finding the project that "scratches your itch" than actually building one of your own. In fact, this has lead to a lot of dead projects, some of which were brilliant but lost in the shuffle. 

But it surprised me to discover an itch, a problem, that should have been so prevalent that someone should have done something about it. 

I was setting a new MSWindows10 environment at home and decided I needed to be able to access a Linux box remotely and do so while being able to run X11 applications remotely from the box. My go-to solution has been MobaXterm but since it is Freemium solution, I have always installed it with a caveat. I also didn't like it charging for was basically integration of existing open source solutions (in a way, at least). Okay, re-packaging. I remember seeing an alternative called mRemoteNG which sort of has the same features, is open source and expandable.

I downloaded a portable version and in no time was able to reach servers via SSH tunnels. It does rely on external applications, like Putty, to do the actual connection. But the presentation and configuration management features it provided was very much welcomed. Finally, I decided to use an X11 application on the server. MobaXterm has a built-in X11 server and using it was a no-brainer. But mRemoteNG has no documentaion for it. Even on-line, people did provide suggestions like using the VcXsvr X11 server for windows but no clear indication anybody has successful done so. Which is odd considering running an application from a linux box would be one of the things one would do after connecting to a Linux box. Or have we been disciplined enough to limit ourselves to command-line?

I used XMing back in the day but there are warnings that it doesn't run on Window10. There seemed to be a myriad of things to consider when setting up VcXsvr (e.g. display number, permission settings) before being able to run a single X11 application. Which is strange considering the X11 architecture was intended to allow complex X11 applications to run and consume resources on the server and just provide the UI to the user. 

So I chalk this up to an itch not itchy enough to solve. Nobody has done the work and shared the way to setup mRemoteNG with VcXsrvr. Someone has solved the connection part and the ability to run X11 on Windows. But no one has setup mRemoteNG together with VcXsvr. And that is a shame given that MobaXterm runs X11 apps straight from the ssh window. 

Maybe MobaXterm is the problem solved but nobody it willing to take the extra step and make an open source solution for it. Like I said, not itch enough.

Why I think SystemD is acting like a bully

It's seems that I post only to complain about Systemd. I have tons of other articles in draft but only the ones about systemd drives me hard enough to complete them and post them. My other post on SystemD took some time longer but this was written in record time.. So much so that I write as a form of release or therapy in the face of all the roadblocks systemd has put between me and what I want to accomplish.
Systemd is a way their developers of saying to all the guys who have been doing Linux longer than them, "Sorry, what you knew then, is worth nothing now. We are the next generation and we are changing the game." Typical talk from the young who thinks they know it all. It gets worse when you think they are also saying, "We saw something better and we are doing it that way." when what they really saw was Linux through a terminal session in Windows or a Mac. The behavior of pushing people up the stairs, even when you don't really know whats at the top. All they see is light but it could just as well be a cliff.
While the dev seemed to claim they were seeing the light, it's that odd that one of the main things systemd did was blind others to what it was doing by making other people jump hoops through journalctl. It kicked syslog to the curb even though it didn't do everything syslog did. Being opaque was the order of the day.
Systemd is a solution looking for a problem. Rather than building a layer on top of work done before, they decided to start over, which was ok but then said "It's my way or the highway." and "We'll redo the tools you made before but they'll only work with our stuff, our way." It doesn't necessarily improve anything, only just for completeness of control when it's just masking "I can't be bothered interfacing with anyone else's stuff". Systemd has a bully mentality and it probably rubbed off from the people who developed it. It also has a Windows mentality of "(more) complexity is the solution" and "security is what we do later".  Which telling of where the developers get their ideas from.
Basically, RedHat, who is funding this realizing this or not, gains the most. They can't control Linus and his kernel team. So, why not build a wall around the kernel and forcing everybody to go thru systemd to get daily things done. Linus can do what he wants in the kernel, RedHat controls the doors leading to the kernel. And a knock-on effect for them is more people require retraining because all that knowledge accumulated is worth less now with systemd.
Let's get this straight, systemd works when it gets out of the way, like in desktop distros. I run Mageia and it's wonderful. I don't have to deal with it directly. But when it makes previously simple tasks complicated forcefully, then we have a problem. If it changes stuff while I am configuring other things and claims "but I told you so in the logs that you have to enter 4 parameters to make it readable", we have a problem. Look, things aren't perfect and improvements are always welcome. And Linux people love to learn new stuff. But it's hard to compare when the first thing done is say "I'm the only one competing." And being forced to learn is always a turn-off.
But I guess we are living in times when bullying is ok.

Top 5 mistakes new programmers make while developing

Is programming an art or science? While numerous proofs can be made on programming languages on their properties, which puts it in the realm of science, inspiration is the source to a program that can be described as elegant as well as efficient.
Being such so, in the early years, programming is often a singular pursuit that offers great satisfaction. As a programmer matures and Interest become Vocation, the nature of programming changes. What was a lone effort is now collaborative. And while there was none in the past, deadlines constantly looms high over the programmer. This change has led many programmers down the same path of discovery and maturity. Some become disillusioned, others trudge on and often making the same mistakes those ahead of them.
Being a programmer myself, I am also guilty of some of the following mistakes. In no particular order,

1. Trying to fix the problem on their own. A remnant of the lone programmer mindset or the advent of the 'lone programmer against the world' world view. Often followed by the belief that nobody else can help or solve the problem but themselves. This despite knowing well someone else has walked along the path before they did. Solution: a. Always repeat to yourself: This is not a unique problem. Someone else has solved it or solved something similar to it. Look for that solution. b. Talk to someone. Sometime the act of telling someone one provides another perspective.  
2. Dismissing bugs as 'small' in front of others. Those 'small bugs' can get very big. Treat all bugs the same or through the same process.
3. Going down a rabbit hole. That is hyper-focusing on one issue which create more problems or needs changes elsewhere. Which goes recursively until a few hours is lost. Solution: Mandatory breaks where you stop thinking about the problem and have something to eat OR talk to someone about the problem and what you are doing.
4. Not familiar with the production OS platform and not giving a care. Assuming just because it runs on platform, it must on the other. Followed by the attitude that because it doesn't, it's the platform's fault. The big picture: The customer doesn't care. All they want to see is that it's done and running. While the platform developers are at fault, you still have to care for the target's platform. What other services does it offer?  Hoe do I use them. Classic example: while a lot know about ssh, not many have used scp despite both using the same platform and technologies
5. Assuming the most technical/complicated solution is the right one to match the difficulty of the bug. Because only such a solution is 'worthy' of this bug. In reality, the best solution is often the simplest. Wield Occam's Razor wisely and the path to the solution will present itself.

Systemd is not the end of the world but someone needs to save us from it

This post has been months in the making. I believed I've reduced the rant-iness to a minimum level. It add nothing to the discussion elsewhere on the Internet. It is however, a burden off my chest.
I became aware of systemd as an init system in recent months as it gained traction in Fedora and it's competition with upstart. I didn't give it much of an interest as it primarily dealt with services that are more associated with the desktop: Plug and Play, power management etc. Imagined my surprise when I installed CentOS7 and it was the default init option. And going back wasn't an option.
The discussion around it's adoption has been intensive. This is a website that documents the fallacies in the arguments against for it and the follow-on discussion for a now-dead website advocating for boycotting it.
 My main beef with systemd is philosophical. Systemd's complexity and how it goes against the concept of "many simple programs doing basic jobs well working together" is not where Linux should be going. While many deride this backward-looking, that concept has served us well and has brought us this far. Yes, I do know that not everything that has brought us this far can carry us into the future but that point is evident only in hindsight. We should try new things but not at the cost of what works.  They should also be subject to discussion and mutual agreement. And finally there should be a transition between what is to what will become.

The opposite of this concept is "one big program doing many things complicated things", the best example being Windows. While some point out that systemd is a collection of applications, they are being developed together as a whole and made inter-dependent.
Another beef is the sense of (or lack thereof) of community around the development. The fan-boy-ism around it and the attitude of the developers (e.g the attitude towards corruption in binary logs) is alienating. Although it runs both ways, it is more healthy on the sysvinit side of things. I understand why there is a strong push-back from parts of the Linux community. This is the age-old difference between Linux users that are excited by solving problems and those that like to go home at the end of the day. Systemd is this complicated box / tool that can be used to solve complex problems in a complex way.  

Login failures and the joy of Linux

Linux login screen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have only Linux running at home, most of them Mageia. Which means that I am also Technical Support. A few days ago, the kids complained that they couldn't log in on the shared computer near the kitchen..I tried logging in and after I entered my password, a dialog box appeared and said "The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files". Clicking on OK would land me back in the login page. Fortunately, I solved it pretty quickly.
I found out that there was a power outage and the machine restarted with a filesystem error. It fixed itself but then the error message came out. I reckon one of the config files got mangled and needed to be re-installed. If you are new to Linux, this is not as bad as it sounds. This isn't the only Linux box in the house, so I had options. My first guess was that the Mate / Gnome config file in my directory was messed up. So I logged in as root. It logged me in without any error.
A quick Google search did said that it was likely my GDM custom.conf file was mangled. I compared it with my laptop's version and it was the same. Then I remembered that Mageia didn't use GDM but LightDM instead. And then I realized that all I had to do was switch Display Managers. Mageia came with about 4, so I was spoilt for choice. I opened up the Mageia Control Center and then chose Boot and then Display Manager. I chose GDM, saved and logged out. Problem solved.
Sorta. I will have to get around to fixing LightDM but there is no rush. GDM is almost similar and Mageia developers went to great pains to ensure all the graphics were consistent. So the difference my kids saw was that instead of a drop-down list with their names to choose from, their names were now in a dialog box list. It was something they saw for about 3 seconds and knew immediately what to do.
This is one of the reasons I love using and working with Linux. It not only gives you choices, those choices are modular to the point where one breaks down, chose another that does the same thing and move on. This would have been a major catastrophe on MSWindows. I'd be looking at a re-installation at least. If I knew, what file was corrupted, I could replace it but I wouldn't know whether it would be of the same version of the other MSWindows components.

Beware: Blogger deletes everything in HTML editing if you don't save

Some words of warning when editing in HTML in Blogger and what you should do every single time to avoid disappointment.
I am livid. I was working on a post for hours when I decided to edit something in HTML view of the editor. I saved the post before switching to HTML view. After some tweaking, I decided to drop the changes and revert. I clicked the Close (post) button and it warned me that all changes will be lost. I was fine with that and said Ok. When I opened the post it was gone. Blogger decided that since I didn't want to save, it should save nothing. Literally nothing. Blogger saved an empty page.
Lost all the work for the past hours. Pressing the back key sometimes switches to the past state but not this time. Blogger was serious. Even though I had saved and closed and opened my post several times, it didn't changed the state of the page. I was working within one page as opposed moving from page to page. I wonder how many people done this and moved to wordpress or tumblr in disgust. Perhaps this is one small way Blogger is killing blogging.
The way to avoid this and have backups before editing a post in HTML is use the preview function. Preview will generate the preview of the page in another tab. Then switch back and edit in HTML. If things go south, you at least have the text in the preview tab.
Thanks Blogger, for nothing. 

Away and back

There is no way else to say it. I haven't posted much in the past few months. Simply put, work overtook free time. In fact, work overtook everything else. So much so, I had to come to a decision, choose work or everything else.
Don't get me wrong. I loved working with the people I've been working with the last few months. They were, and still are, some of the smartest, most positive people I've worked with. Whatever came our way, we took on the problems and dealt with them the best way we could, with whatever we had. We played with the hand we were dealt with, no excuses. Inclusion was a big theme. Information was shared freely and bullshit was called out without shaming and without shame. Getting things done was the song of the day and it drowned everything else.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But it came with heavy costs. Free Time fell first. Health came next. I'm sure Sanity would have been the next casualty. It's a big problem for me because I've seen how lives and families were lost when work took over everything. I could learn from lessons past or forge ahead.
So I made the decision. I value my life and my family more than work. Work is money but having gained hindsight the others, I've saved some just for a rainy day like this. Money can always be earned elsewhere. But love is life. And I love my life.
I have a ton of posts in draft so expect to see more in the next weeks. Thanks for sticking around.

What Facebook saw in WhatsApp and Liked it enough to buy them

Sizing up WhatsApp and Twitter (Photo credit: Tsahi Levent-Levi)

A lot of people are scratching their heads about the Facebook deal with WhatsApp. Most of those heads are in the US. They just can't see why Facebook would pay so much money to a company that charges a dollar a year to use it, with the first year for free. In fact, it seems that WhatsApp seems to be looking for ways to give itself away for free. In the early days, all you had to do to get another year for free was to uninstall and reinstall the app. In some countries, using WhatsApp doesn't count against the data cap.

So what is Facebook really buying? It's very simple: Facebook is buying users. The popularity of WhatsApp in the rest of the world is so huge that it dwarfs so-called popular messaging platform. But what makes it most interesting is how loyal users are to it. Rather than bore you with numbers, here are the 5 reasons it is so popular and why Facebook splurged serious cash for it.
It's cross-platform where it matters.
To a lot of people, especially on IOS,  WhatsApp was the way they communicated with their non-iPhone friends. It was also the app Blackberry users told their friends to install if they wanted to send messages to them ala BBM. Using WhatsApp allowed you to join your friends on BB and iPhones.
While messaging platforms in the past were also cross-platform, the platforms they covered were traditionally computer-centric. WhatsApp is all about mobile platforms, from IOS and Android to all the way to the common Symbian phones. Which makes it accessible to more people than PCs. For the younger generation, especially in the rest of the world, a smartphone is their first computer. Which is partly why there are so many active WhatsApp users.
It ties in with your phone number. This is the secret sauce. WhatsApp identifies you by your phone number. At first glance this may not be a big thing. But by making your phone number your unique ID, it ties you, the WhatsApp user, with a verified ID. Your phone company verified you as a paying customer, their definition of a "person". Different phone companies have different regulations for who can have a phone number. Each country has their laws regarding phone number ownership. WhatsApp rides on these laws and regulations to ensure that the phone number being registered to WhatsApp actually belongs to a person. This, plus the fact that users can only message to people in their phone book or to groups that they can leave any time, raises the bar of entry to bots and spammers. 

Plus having a globally unique ID like the phone number is a programmer's dream. They now have a way to follow you from phone to phone and keep you connected to your friends. Switch your handphone, even switch to another platform. all you have to do is insert the sim card, install WhatsApp and you start getting your messages and continue discussions in your WhatsApp groups. For those of us who can't figure out how to transfer contacts, this is really useful because your friends' names appear next to their phone numbers in the discussions. You can then add them back into your contacts in the new phone.

Is Ubuntu is licencing Linux? Canonical looking for value in the wrong places

Linux Mint 11 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Full disclosure: I am no fan of Ubuntu. I applaud their efforts to put Linux in as many hands as possible with the free CD distribution effort but I'm of the opinion that Ubuntu puts itself above Linux while riding on the contribution of open source developers to Linux in general. I applaud their focus on making Linux user-friendly but I'm of the opinion that their effort is no more better than of other distro developers like Mandrake/Mandriva in the past. To top it off, I've predicted the path Ubuntu will take eventually once it has decides it does not need the community any more.
So it comes to no surprise the latest move by Ubuntu to protect 'it's intellectual property' is to licence Ubuntu. Sounds harsh? Some people will think I am being unfair using language normally used to describe Caldera. How else should I react when Canonical is asking derivative distros to sign a license to use 'Ubuntu binaries'? Ubuntu apologists have already made their stand known. They have made light of the gravity of the act of demand to licence and trying to convince us that the issue is about protecting the Ubuntu brand when it comes to derivative distros, Linux Mint, specifically.
I have ask: Why Linux Mint specifically? Does Canonical ask the same from Kubuntu and lubuntu? Is it because Linux Mint is becoming increasingly popular at the cost to Ubuntu? I've been thinking about writing of the possible danger of other distros basing their work on Ubuntu and how dangerous it is to base their work on a source that is actively consolidating their hold on it. I guess I don't have to now.
Really, I don't. At the end of this post are links to articles that go into this deeper.

In the shadow of DOS: DESQView and DESQView/X

There is a wonderful article in ArsTechnica that summarizes the story of OS/2, the competitor to Windows at it's infancy. I'll have something to say about the article later.
The article made me pull out a draft I had kicking around on old-school tech. I had written on old-school tech like PCGEOS and TFS before but this article reminded me of on another legacy technology that is no longer around: memory managers and the unintended competitor one memory manager spawned.
When PCs still ran DOS (or command line to you younger guys), it had a big weakness: DOS programs can't use more than 640kb of memory. As programs got bigger, there was a need to use memory above that limit. Then programs got weird, they wanted to stay running in memory while you ran another program. These were called TSR (terminate and stay resident). There were programs that displayed alarms or provided a function that could be called on at any time. These programs caused more memory to be used.
The memory manager was born. They allowed more memory to be used by swapping blocks of memory from under the 640kb limit with blocks of memory above the limit, fooling DOS into thinking it's still using 640kb of memory. The gory details of DOS memory management can be found here. The best memory manager was QEMM. It allowed more programs to run at once simply be making more memory available. But it soon took that to another level with a companion product called DESQView.

DESQView running DOS programs
in windows

Before DESQView, a program had to be programmed to be able to become a TSR. But with DESQView, any program can become a TSR. This allowed for the ability to switch to another application and then switch back, without stopping the first application. There were other programs that could provide that function. But DESQView also allowed DOS applications to run within something called "windows".  This meant that applications that were programmed to run full-screen could now run in a smaller virtual screen or better known as a window. Some graphical applications could run inside a window, too. The picture shows 2 full-screen applications, WordStar and Lotus123, running at the same time. The top blue window shows other programs that are ready to run.

If it run xeyes, it's XWindows.

Quarterdeck, the company behind both programs, upped the ante with DESQView/X. This was a program simply too far ahead of it's time. It integrated an X Windows server with
DESQView. Not many people could fully wrap their heads around what that meant. It was mainly marketed as a GUI interface for DOS and a Windows alternative. It also provided a tiled interface to launch DOS applications. With some applications that used smaller fonts, it allowed them to run on-screen at the same time with programs using normal-sized fonts. It even allowed graphical applications, like AutoCAD, to run in a window alongside normal text-based DOS programs. Some pictures in magazines even showed MSWindows running within DESQView/X. Although it wasn't virtualization, that feature did seem like it was, mainly because MSWindows was essentially a graphical DOS program.

That's right, Tiled GUI and Windows-within-a-window
circa early 1990s

What blew people's mind was that because it was an X Windows server running on DOS, a PC running DESQView/X could serve DOS programs to X Windows workstations (XWindows terminals still needed a start-up system for booting, IP management etc). If you are not familiar with X, the concept allows for Unix workstations to run DOS programs because they were running on the PC's CPU. Unfortunately, it didn't blew that many people's minds. The fact that the configuration meant bypassing some licensing restrictions also meant that if it was ever popular, it would have been shut down anyway.
If you are interested in old technology and want to experience how it was done in the old days, there are now sites that give guides and clues as to how to rock it old school. Apparently, you can get QEMM and DESQView from here. Quarterdesk was bought by Symantec but I'm not sure what they did with the technology they bought. My guess is that they bought it for patents.

Reveiw of Blogger for Android 2013

Updated September 2012.
I am posting this on Blogger for Android. I am happy to report that it is a better app than the previous version. I am also not happy to report that Google has delivered a product that seems to be uneven and confusing to first time users, again.

There are many things to like about this app. All of your Blogger blogs and their posts are immediately accessible. It is faster and more responsive. Switching between blogs is almost immediate. It does feel like the Blogger App is pulling the RSS feed of the blog instead of pulling it directly from the Blogger system but it still works quickly. (Which should help explain the problem I had were the Blogger app just stomped over a published post).

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you are a Blogger user and need to note ideas for posts and work on drafts, this is what this app seems to be built for. However, since there is little or no layout formatting options, sites whose design language calls for a specific layout (e.g. each post has to have a related photo on the left side of the post), will find that final posting will still have to be done at the PC. Which is odd is because one of the highlighted features is the ability to include photos taken from the phone's camera. 

In fact, if you are thinking of using Blogger for Android as part of your blogging workflow, consider this advice: opening a saved or published post is a multi-step processs. First, the app will show the complete post, including labels. Then you need to select or activate/touch the post text to edit it. The good news is that it now hides the HTML formatting and show the complete formatting. 

Post settings are still missing from the Blogger App. But handling labels has improved. There has always been the ability to add labels to the post edited but now when you start typing, you get a list of previously used labels. Which is really useful if you have many labels and can't remember which one to use off the top of your head. There is still no Schedule option to schedule when you post will be posted. This makes using the App to post on Blogger seem like an all or nothing proposition. And knowing other Blogger users, they will miss the powerful SEO-friendly option of providing a search description because it still isn't available.The Blogger App for Android (2013) is now good to use for general blogging but leans towards immediate posting.

It could be that Google is now leaning towards Google+ a blogging platform. However, Google+ is still missing a killer feature: to customize the layout and therefore the user experience. If you blog using Google+, your posts is just a post in a stream of other posts. You can set up Google+ Pages but your audience will mostly come from reading your post in their stream as opposed to going to your specific Google+ page.
Also is missing is a way to monetize your Google+ posts or page. This could mean people who do make money from Ads will not be interested in posting in Google+. They may post publicly there to reach a bigger audience but it'll just link back to their Blogger site. It may not be a big revenue generator for most but some prolific posters will find posting solely to Google+ to blog, a turn-off.

Again, download the Blogger App for Android because it is great for capturing ideas and first-drafts. It is also increasingly becoming an equal companion to the Blogger site. 

Will Ubuntu eventually go BSD?

At some point, I think, Mark Shuttleworth looked back and thought, 'I wish I chose BSD instead of Linux'. Imagine Ubuntu powered by BSD or FreeBSD instead of the Linux kernel. Crazy talk? Speculation? Definitely.

But the thought couldn't help cross my mind when I look back at what Ubuntu have been doing the last year or so. The trend is very clear. They are moving away from Linux and perhaps GNU Open Source.
First was the use of the term 'the Ubuntu kernel' instead of the Linux kernel. You would be hard-pressed to find the word Linux on the Ubuntu website or paraphernalia. I can't fault Ubuntu for maintaining brand prominence. But why at the cost of diminishing the Linux brand. Surely, Ubuntu is not ashamed of it's Linux core. Some people have pointed out that perhaps they want to distance themselves from their Linux heritage. To this, I point out that it is only a heritage when you are generation removed. Like Linux's Unix heritage. Ubuntu is still clearly dependent on Linux. In a way, I do see their point. Perhaps there are almost no Linux references in the website because they really want to prepare us for an Ubuntu without Linux. 

Then there is Unity. Maybe Ubuntu saw what I saw in the debacle of Gnome3. The sense was simply that the Gnome developers betrayed their user community. But instead of offering a safe haven for the majority that didn't agree with where Gnome is headed, Ubuntu saw this as opportunity to differentiate themselves even further. They created another environment, open source but definitely under their control. They were hoping that users will flock to that instead as an upgrade path from Gnome3. In the end, Unity didn't look much different than Gnome3, users faced similar issues and they even share design principles. Ubuntu just applied them to different parts of Ubuntu. And their goal is evidently the same, a touch-friendly, tablet interface. No matter how much the Gnome developers protest and claim otherwise, the proof is just in the result of their work. If fact, when taken from that perspective, both Unity and Gnome3 are really good. Problem is, most users still don't have touch screens. The Gnome developers may want their Star Trek dream to come true, most of us just want to check mail.

The biggest step Ubuntu has taken so far is to move their graphical display technology away from X Windows to something that they themselves developed called Mir. Let's get something clear first. X Windows has a lot of problems. It is very simplistic in nature, mainly because it was designed in the 80s. It even needs a separate program to manage the windows and make them move, maximize and do even the most basic functions. That doesn't even include what we normally expect from a GUI like cut and paste between applications. KDE and Gnome were built to fill the need for a graphical system that does more. But at the core is the fact that X Windows offered cross-platform compatibility. I remember selling linux boxes as replacements to expensive Sun and HP graphical workstations. The X Windows applications still used the powerful CPUs of the servers while the workstation only busied itself with managing the GUI. Ubuntu moving to Mir breaks this compatibility. They had originally planned on using Wayland to replace X. Wayland respected X and offered a way to coexist and interact with X. Mir doesn't seem to care about that. What it also means is that future Ubuntu users can't share their applications with other Linux (or even Unix) distros and vice versa. But that is only good for Ubuntu because it create a lock-in. Ubuntu say it really wants to build a graphical display system that could be used for both desktop and mobile platforms. If it locks in their users and makes applications written for Ubuntu exclusive to them, then what downside is there for them?

Microsoft's invests in Dell to cut off Linux?

Update: It's official. Microsoft has a hand in taking Dell private to the tune of 2 billion. Is this a loan like the 'investment' was in Apple?
Dell is considering taking itself private. This is nothing odd, most successful companies with a large cash pile will consider buying back their public shares, taking them private. They would then do business as usual for a time before taking themselves public again, this time at a higher value. If you are interested why, there are some possible reasons why explained at the end.
So while Dell considering taking themselves private is not really interesting to technology watchers, the rumor that Microsoft and Silverlake Partners is reported to be involved in the buy back of those shares and coming in as investors is interesting. So why now? And why Dell? Microsoft has not been successful with hardware (other than their mouse and keyboards). Xbox is a success but it's success comes from games software and subscription services rather than just hardware alone. Case in point, the Microsoft Tablets and the Zune. So the question is what would Microsoft gain from having a say in the running of a PC manufacturer.
This could be another front Microsoft is pursuing against Linux. Dell made it no secret that they were investigating the viability of having Linux as a desktop OS option. The well reviewed Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition or Project Sputnik and regional versions of laptops pre-loaded with Linux are examples of their efforts. The adoption of Linux as a Desktop OS option by a major PC manufacturer would spell big trouble for Microsoft. While Dell has offered several Linux OSes such as RedHat and Ubuntu as options for a server OS, this has not been a real threat to Microsoft. This is because of the use of Linux on servers has a low consumer profile and the fact that Microsoft makes more money on the connection licences on the server than the sale of the server OS itself.
Another interesting twist to this story is the involvement of Silverlake Partners. While many know of their collaboration with Microsoft on the Skype deal, the people behind both companies share a more darker past in relation to Linux. Both are entangled in some way with SCO as it was launching it's legal battle against Linux.
Is there something more to this?

Blogger for Android review: Getting better

Google released a new Blogger for Android and I'm happy to report that it is an improvement over the past version. I blog from everywhere. I used to use the Springpad App to capture the initial ideas before forming them into posts. Then, it would be a cut and paste away from being posted via the Blogger web interface. Then, I switched to the previous version of the Blogger App. I used it at every opportunity I could. Then I hit a bug. I could live with idiosyncrasies of the app but when it became destructive, I ditched it. But before that, I had used almost all of the features it offered, perhaps working it enough to find that bug.
The best new thing about this version is the way it allows you to manage posts. In the past, it used to be in one long list. But now, you can view them separately. You can safely view and edit  drafts and not have to worry about accidentally opening a published post.
I reviewed a more recent version of the Blogger app for Android here.

Is Facebook Graph Search promoting insularity?

While I agree the science of search needs to be further developed, I don't think that Facebook Graph Search is a step in the right direction. Basically, Facebook Graph Search uses information that users have shared previously and then uses them as weights in searches. To generalize, we can search in stuff shared by other people who are connected to us. We can do perspective searches, searches that give results based on your perspective or scope or visibility of other people's Facebook data.

This isn't new. This search feature was previously available to advertisers and used to target ads to Facebook users. Look how successful that was. But that is not the point of this new feature. It's point is to add more data to Facebook. Specifically to find out what is the context or importance the specific shared or related Facebook data. With each search we do, we provide Facebook with more information about us. With each graph search we do, we provide Facebook with more information about that data that we have in common with the people connected to us. This is a mother-load of information for advertisers. They  constantly want to know the things that interest us so that they can lead us to them.
This used to have hilarious outcomes. That one-off search you did for your mother on recommendations for skin rash cream? Facebook associates that search with you. Were you peppered with adverts for hemorrhoid cream and mature relationship/dating sites? Facebook can't be blamed totally because that is all they have on you. They need more data to make your future searches more relevant. Maybe with this new data, Facebook will be able to differentiate on-off searched from searches that you regularly do. Perhaps, Facebook will notice that you haven't searched for skin rash cream in six months and stop sending you hemorrhoid cream adverts. If it was too smart, it would then assume the worse and start sending you adverts on will generation and estate planning. If you decide to stop using Facebook out of disgust, maybe Facebook will take this data, assume the worse and start sending your family members ads for caskets and funeral homes. Ouch.
How about it if Facebook uses the data it gathers from Graph Searches to target the ads for people around you? Will you start seeing messages that begin, "Which one of you guys searched for hemorrhoid cream?"

MSI CR650 Review with Linux

Update: I've given up on the proprietary ATI drivers. Read on to find out how to remove the ATI proprietary drivers.

In my previous post, I installed the Ubuntu-powered ZorinOS 6 on my friends notebook. That notebook is the MSI CR650. I've been able to kick it's tires for a while now and I'm sort of impressed.

Let's get one thing straight. This is no screamer. It is an AMD Fusion E-240 CPU powered notebook. It runs at 1.6Ghz and incorporates the AMD Radeon HD6310 GPU which gives it better than average performance than what you would normally expect for a notebook within it's price range. At 2GB of RAM, it is a bit cramped for Windows but great for Linux desktops.
If the specifications look odd, don't worry. Apparently, different regions get different specifications but since the difference is only in the bundled OS (or not), CPU and memory config, MSI didn't bother changing the model number. Minor things, you know. It's the chassis that matters. And if you are buying this variant of the the CR650, you are better off with a Linux distro.
Since ZorinOS 6 is essentially Ubuntu, you can equate my comments to any other Ubuntu variant like Mint or Ubuntu itself.
Most everything runs out-of-the-box. Just keep to the mantra of Install, Update and Reboot before doing anything else and you should be fine. I panicked when the wireless didn't seem to work at first and tried to fix it before the first big update. Wrong. Just let it go, do the Update and Reboot. And then judge.
My advice to anybody buying a notebook, go and buy it yourself at a shop. Pick it up and feel it's weight. The CR650 is a bit on the heavy side. I blame that mostly on the larger-than-most 15.6" screen. Running at max resoution of 1388 x 768, the screen is a beauty, a heavy beauty. The batteries do contribute but not normally more than other notebooks.
The full keyboard took some getting used to. I've used a similarly large HP with a full keyboard before but the CR650's keyboard posed some challenges. Mainly it's keys are not full size, just slightly smaller. Worse, the right shift key was cut in half to make way for the direction keys, which meant I pressed the up arrow key a lot. While the numeric keypad would be useful for someone who needs to enter numbers by the truck-load, I would rather had a full keyboard. Plus, the location of the PgUp and PGDn keys need getting some used to. Special Fn keys all work with the exception of the Eco key which is supposed to change the power usage profile. I don't know whether it works because there is no feedback. Dmesg is silent. Even if it works, I couldn't see any difference. There is a slight lag when pressing the volume keys but not much. The top row special keys next to the power key are all user configurable so you can assign them.
There were some Linux-specific issues faced.