Archive for the ‘technology’ Category
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 |
Doing some other reading I stumbled over this thread (letter to OLPC) over at bsd-misc. First OLPC is short for One Laptop Per Child, and it is an initiate to produce US $100 Laptops which can be distributed to children in the 3rd world – read more here.
Now the interesting part is that Redhat signed a NDA with Mavell to be able to write the wireless driver for these laptops, which means that this driver will probably be a binary only driver. And as far as I know this is against GPL, and the spirit of OpenSource – read more here for how RedHat thinks about other companies who have done something which is not even as bad
Now the intersting part, when one follows the thread on bsd-misc are comments like:
Red Hat (and a number of other linux distros) are morally bankrupt. By that I mean the sit under the linux banner touting the GPL, and yet this is not how they act. They act in a way that helps to ensure that
GPL'ed software can not continue to be written.
And it goes on.
For some odd reason no one picked up one this, normally one would expect ./ to be filled with outraged people, who would demand that the driver code would be released, or that RedHat should stop working with them, or RedHat should close…. but no, silence…..
Me personally could probably not care much, I think it’s a shame that the OLPC choose a chipset which would require an NDA (and therefor a close source driver), but on the other hand it is a better thing if it will be possible to distribute 10 million of these laptops in the 3rd world
On the other hand, one can wonder why people is not yelling/complaing/ranting about this, as there are people out there who believe that close source (also know as proprietary software) is something which should be banned, or said in another way that it is something the guy below invented.
Posted in opinion, software | No Comments »
Monday, November 20th, 2006 |
It looks like I’ve not seen it all yet – the Apple store in The Netherlands have a ‘new’ concept for sale. It’s called an Fatman iTube.
It’s a vacum tube based amplifier with an iPod dock, and a pair of speakers, it looks nice, but at the pice of €799, I’m not so sure that it’s really worth the price
Also it looks like it is more designed for the folks who cannot figure out how to use their money, than a person who really is into hifidelity. In which case one would probably use a turntable instead of an iPod.
Posted in apple, music | 2 Comments »
Sunday, November 19th, 2006 |
According to this on /. Optimus will start preorder for the OLED keyboard on Dec. 12 (2006)
Great, I just got a new keyboard, but I doubt that this thing will be cheep, and according to a review of the 3 button keyboard they released earlier, one might sit back an see how it works if it works.
But I still think it is a cool idea, and would love to have one, if I can afford it
More here
Posted in computers | 1 Comment »
Saturday, November 18th, 2006 |
I wrote earlier about the Logitech S530 Desktop for Apple, which I was slightly dissatisfied with (actually so unhappy that I gave it away).
Now I got my hands on the Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop for Mac and I have to say that the quality compare to the Logitec S530 is somewhat high, to a lower price.
The only two things I do not like is that it’s a curved layout (can learn to live with that), and something which really really anoy me, which is a clickable ball in the upper right corner
which depending on which key you hold down at the same time as you click it works just like
Expose. I would be happy having to press an Function key, but nooooo Microsoft absolutly had to clutter my desktop
But I have to admit, that over the years Microsoft have passed Logitech when it comes to the quality of the Keyboards and Mice they produce, and the driver actually works, which I’ve found with Logitech that it not always does.
Posted in apple, computers | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 |
Argh!!! Apple have released a new X11 (update 2006) package which breaks OpenOffice 2.0.4.
If you already have installed it, then delete /usr/X11R6 and /etc/X11 and install the X11 which came on your installation CD – “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install Disc 1/System/Installation/Packages/X11User.pkg”.
I will not recomend upgrading your X11 until OpenOffice have been fixed.
Just for the record; I only know that this happens on my MBP.
Update – Nov. 4
Looks like NeoOffice have been updated to 2.0 Beta 3, patch 7, and it does not require X11 to run.
Update – Nov. 16
According to this artical at macworld.co.uk the latest update for X11 (X11 Update 2006 1.1.3) is now supporting OpenOffice. According to them it had to do with some fonts being corrupted…..
Posted in apple, software | No Comments »
Sunday, October 29th, 2006 |
Not really, some one reported 9 reasons why not to upgrade to Firefox 2, and already I’ve been forced to switch back to 1.5.0.7 which seams to be the best alternative if you want to have a stable experience while surfing the web.
My expirence was not a happy one, during the 2 days, where I tried to use FF2 I had random halts, crashes etc. going back to FF 1.5.0.7 (download link) solved the issue for me, and it might do the same for you.
On OSX I most saw crashes caused by ‘__spin_lock‘ which is a indication that it’s a dead-lock – what is causing it I don’t know but it’s nasty.
So in my world FF2 was not worth the wait, it way to unstable, one can only speculate about why they released it, it could be that the reason was the IE7 was release earlier…… Not that I would use it anyway as it does not really run on OSX:-)
Posted in apple, software | 5 Comments »
Friday, October 27th, 2006 |
Actually I saw this last week, but I just like the comment to it; have a look – one could also start to wonder what the world is coming to. What will the next thing be?
Posted in computers | No Comments »