Anthony Barker's Weblog on Linux, Technology & the Economy

Best wifi card for linux

I've been looking for a good wifi card for my laptop and frankly it is a pain. Linux support is really hit and miss and I would like to buy something that works out of the box. Here is what I did to get a wifi card that works seamlessly with linux. I didn't really want to use ndiswrapper (which wraps windows dlls). Ubuntu 5.10 wifi support is as good as you are going to get.

Here are the steps

1) got a list of well supported cards from Ubuntu 5.10 hardware support and other one listing chipsets
2) I went through the websites of my local retailers - I live in Canada so some of the more convenient ones are futureshop.ca, bestbuy.ca, tigerdirect.ca, canadacomputers.com, and the the smaller chains such as logic computers.
Went through the cards one by one (in increasing price order) to determine which would work well
3) I avoided the cards with multiple revisions - you don't really know which version you are getting (dlink, netgear, etc...).
4) If I didn't find the card on the list I seach google for "part number linux" or "card model linux".
5) Finally I found one that supports the Atheros AR5212 chipset which is fairly well supported out of the box and supports 802.11g for $35 CDN.

All I can say is I wish companies wrote - "supports linux" in their advertising - it would make life much easier. Until then I will have to use google to verify hardware before I buy it.

Command Line vs GUI Adminstration

Murphy argues that GUI administration is much better than the command line (CLI).

Here are my thoughts:

I agree that a GUI is important for basic configuration - mapping drives etc. However, GUIs quickly get overly complex, witness some of MS admin tools. In order to have a 1000 options they all have to be displayed clutering the GUI and making it hard to use. GUI do not generally follow the unix philosophy of small sharp tools.

If you do the command once on the command line you can easily script it. Or you can copy the lines out of your .bash_history file and create a script. Administering 100 machines becomes as easy as administering 1 machine. Once you get administrators understanding easy simple automation (without messy .vbs files) you allow them to be more efficient.

I guess my final arguement for CLI tools is that they have stood the test of time. Put a Microsoft Xenix administrator (cerca 1982 - over 30 years) in front of linux and they will quickly get stuff done. Windows Admin GUIs are constantly changing making someone who administered NT 3.51 would be mostly clueless about windows 2003.

A case in point happened to me last night. I upgraded to Ubuntu 5.10 and ran pppoeconf to setup my DSL connection. It failed repeatedly so I simply overwrote my /etc/ppp directory with my old backed up copy - typed pon and Voila it worked! When GUI tools fail you are often left clueless.

Taiwan should join the UN

An excellent article outlining the history of Taiwan.

For the Republic of China (ROC) October 25, 1971 was a day of infamy. On that day, its world came tumbling down as the nations of the world rejected the legitimacy of its claim to rule China. With a vote of 55 for and 59 against and 15 abstentions, the countries of the United Nations (UN) decided that the “Important Question” rule did not apply to the credentials of who represented the people of China. Up until this time, the United States and the ROC had by this “important question” designation required that any changes in membership would need a two-thirds majority vote. This was a vote requirement that their dwindling majority of supporters could still use to keep the ROC in the UN. Now however, the end was near. Once this designation was lost, the UN members by a simple majority could vote to oust the Republic of China; and so, rather than be kicked out, the Republic of China withdrew from the United Nations.

Free Software you need

If you are setting up a new windows system what software should you install?

Here is a nice list

How java, adobe, flash, firefox, real, google and yahoo could kill Microsoft's web aspirations

Microsoft used bundling to drive many of its competitors out of business: Wordperfect, 123 etc. Before Microsoft IBM did the same thing to many of its competitors. So bundling is one of the strongest technology strategies that there is.

Why don't the separate competitors to MS web products gag together on ensuring their software makes it to the desktop?

For example if you download flash -> it prompts you to download acrobat, firefox, java and realplayer.
Or you download acrobat 7.0-> it notices your flash is out of date and prompts you to download flash + firefox, real etc

Anyway, I'm sure you get the point. There is a "suite" of web oriented free applications that together could ensure that they are all installed and reasonably up to date.

Microsoft has competing products for all these
Flash ->MS Sparkle, "The Flash killer"
Acrobat -> MS Metro, "The Acrobat killer"
Java -> MS DOTNET (ActiveX), "The Java killer"
Firefox -> MS Internet Explorer, "The Netscape killer"
Realplayer -> MS Media Player, "The Realplayer killer"
Google, yahoo -> MSN, "The yahoo or google killer"

Each one of these products is better than their MS counterpart. Microsoft is attempting to kill them with bundling, FUD, and divide and conquer tactics. The only way to counter these tactics is to work together.

10 Most Important Open Source projects (which you might not expect)

Here is my list - it is ranked by potential impact world wide:

1) $100 laptop - not a Linux project per se but if 100 million are distributed this will result in significant impact world wide
2) gnu gcc - the grand daddy of open source projects. Without it we would have a lot less open source software
3) Firefox - xforms, xul, SVG, Javascript 1.6, AJAX
4) Wikipedia - not software but free knowledge for anyone
5) Linux kernel - nuff said
6) Postgresql - will allow governments and small companies world wide to cut their costs and is the back end of Web 2.0. 8.1 + slony has everything any company could need.
7) OpenOffice - mostly a project funded by big IT as a tool to fight off Microsoft - the result is something that everyone can use. Personally I would like abiword + co to lead this category but they simply don't have the momentum.
8) Thunderbird/Sunbird or Chandler – mail and scheduling
8) Twinkle/Kphone Voice is the killer app.
10) JBOSS / Geronimo - projects that if large business embrace will drive down their cost of IT significantly.

Missing/Not developed enought?
1) Streaming Video - we have the codecs but there are not enough solid streaming solutions around
2) Accounting - no J2EE open source accounting package. We have compiere /GNUe - Open Source accounting /ERP. Compiere now runs with postgresql. Accounting and inventory is at the heart of all economic activity. There is also no decent CRM although Chandler could make the basis of a good CRM client.
3) SIP clients - listed but not solid enough

Missed the list?
Gnome is important but is good enough and doesn't run well on small devices. Similarly kde is for traditional pcs. There are dozens of little programs that one might use on a daily basis that also missed the top 10.

US consumer recession

I've been waiting for a US recession for a while. Now finally it looks like US consumers will be hit with a three punch.

1) Gas Prices
2) Heating costs (heating oil + natural gas is way up)
3) Increased credit card payments (minimum payment increases)

Sprott thinks this will lead to a decline in housing prices in the US. (Raising interest rates etc)

Investment strategy?
Short RV companies
Short consumer companies (eg Walmart )
Short S&P Retail index (already down 10% recently)
Short fast food companies

Multi-Terabyte OLAP

I was putting together a system for a zLinux workload. It required a 160 GB database. Apparently this is considered a very large database (VLDB). But in the overall scheme of things fairly small - check out this list of the top ten OLAP databases.

Oh - one more on Oil sands/ Oil shale exploitation

Porting to Websphere zOS jboss

Two interesting posts: in regard to the porting effort of going between various J2EE app servers. Several changes required in character sets, internal security, data sources and JNDI settings.

And another of the death of J2EE. Personally I never liked Beans. They stank to me of being over engineered for the vast majority of applications. It looks like web services may get rid of them.

Ubuntu 5.10

The reviews are slowly coming in for Ubuntu 5.10 This one by Mathew Newton of PC World is fairly good.

He points to lacking wifi management support that Network Manager does in Fedora. Unfortunately that software is beta. This is a significant and useful feature request. Most users probably have only one wifi network to connect to though.

He also complains about the the menu editor. Honestly I don't think I've ever sceen a newbie edit a menu. Personally I haven't missed that feature - I simply drop the config files in the right directory or launch the app from the command line. smeg is installed by default - so I don't know what his review is referring to.

Other goodies that most people seem to like:
* replacement of xpdf with evince
* ftp now works in nautilus

Other stuff that most reviewers seem to take for granted is better power and driver support. Plus Badger has bunch of system management tools.

Looks to me like they were overly ambitious.
Personally I would add simple command line tools for managing services, dialup etc. These things are not used so much - the debian command line tools work and they are easy to use remotely on a server. Plus they are small and don't take much space. Another track would be to have all the admin tools using GtkHTML so that they are dual rich client and web client available.

Python IDEs

A good review of 6 python IDEs. The winners seem to be:

PyDev 0.9.8.1 if you like Eclipse
Eric3 3.7.1 or SPE if you want open source or free
Wing IDE 2.0.3 if you want commercialware

Apparently Wing IDE has improved. I tried version 1 and wasn't that impressed and ended up using a mixture of ipython, vim, editplus and PythonWin and recently have switched to eric3 on ubuntu and installed easily via synaptic.

I'll have to try SPE but it won't work easily in Ubuntu 5.04. The latest drpython (with folding also won't work as the version of wxpython is old.

Wing personal seems useless without the folding and class browser I'd need to get the $180 version.

Update: I loaded Stani's Python Editor (SPE) and it is excellent.

Cellphones - the ultimate pirating device?

Went to see Röyksopp last week in Toronto. I don't go to concerts much - but really did enjoy Röyksopp.

Observations:

a) The band is only two guys. Gone are the days of the 4 or 5 person band. Electronic music only requires a couple of people to play every instrument.
b) Everyone seemed to be taking pictures with their cell phones
c) Several people seemed to be recording the concert with their cell phones

This lead me to believe that in the near future cell phones may become the ultimate personal recording device allowing you to capture every experience in audio or video format.

This is sort of in keeping with greenspun's cellphone pc idea.

Django, Ruby on Rails, Cherrypy

I am working on a new website and had to check out the new frameworks that are available.

Ruby on Rails seems to have caused a lot of buzz. I also looked at Django SubwayCherrypy and myghty.
TurboGears

Here is my rational and how I decided on the tools for this project.

1) I like Python more than ruby. Ruby feels too much like perl for me.
2) I like a lot of abstraction - particularly around the database layer and form validation - both of which can take a lot of code, however too much abstraction makes it hard when something goes wrong. Or for example in the case of Plone - trying to do something the framework wasn’t designed for gets hard (connecting to a relational database). Too much abstraction in the presentation layer also isn’t good dotnet winforms and lotus domino come to mind. You want to be able to finely tweak the interface to make it look and feel good.
This makes me want to steer clear of Django and RoR
3) Myghty has only one developer and is fairly new which makes me anxious. Great documentation and lots of good examples.
4) Subway looks promising but is beta
6) Turbogears looks good but is very new (lacking documentation) and uses the kid templating system which I don’t really like - I prefer templating languages that don't look like xml - more like a programming language. It also uses the same underlying tools that I use.

Anyway I decided to use Cherrypy, SQLObject and FormEncode and Cheetah for template development.

The Good:
Python
SQLObject is very cool, speeds development and abstracts the database layer sufficiently
SQLObject deals with the pooling of database connections
FormEncode cuts your form validation code significantly
Cherrypy code probably could be ported easily to mod_python because the function parameter passing is similar

The Bad:
Cherrypy 2.1 documentation is scarce
FormEncode documentation is scarce
Not 100% in love with Cheetah template language (prefer myghty). But it gets the job done.

Although here is a great presentation that can get you started

Php became popular because it made data connectivity easy, there were tons of examples around, lots of documentation for new web developers, and it was easy to make a site look really good. These python frameworks need to focus on really good looking examples and documentation and then they may take off.

The only downside of the python community is that I find it a bit too academic. The developers are really smart and so are more interested in designing new frameworks then in getting the job done or making documentation for not so smart developers. That’s why we have a plethora of templating languages and web frameworks.

Google vs Microsoft

The media loves battles and they seem to create them out of air.

Microsoft's bread and butter is selling MS Office, Windows, Exchange, SQL Server and related products to big business.

Google's bread and butter is providing context aware ads. Recently to increase the amount of content they have jumped into a bunch of different areas. The only direct competition with ms competition is around the employees, msn and hotmail.

Does google threaten MS Office or any of the above mentioned tools? No. Google apps will be a tough sell outside of the consumer and the very small business.

Google won't stop Microsofts bid for 100% of the large corporate data center. Only IBM, Oracle, and intertia can slow it (but it will take a while for them to kill all the MainFrames around).

Google master plan

Interesting picture of Google's master plan.

Annotating the world with google maps

Cool presentation from Udell on google maps.

Here's how to set it up

Good enough mixed with free is a proposal hard to refuse

This user refuts a typical slanted review of openoffice.org.

The reviewer says "business users typically want the best and they don't mind paying for it.". Which we know is not true - business users want what they know and what is cost effective. Otherwise OS/2 would have won over win 3.1 and business people would never fly coach (or southwest airlines). They are focused on the bottom line - which hopefully translates to a higher share price.

Why do most mid sized law firms that I've seen have their users on windows 2000 with office 2000 or 98? It is good enough and the partners would rather keep the money in their own pockets. The story around Office dominance is more about learning curves and file format lock-in than it is about loading speed.

The problem is that OpenOffice.org is 10 million lines of code and it is quite hard for part time developers to get involved. Hopefully this is changing and the development cycle will speed up. My concern is that Sun is using oOO as a negotiating tool or something to push more Java to people's desktops. IBM really needs to step up to the linux desktop plate and put some resources behind it. Currently they are non committal - focusing on IBM workplace.

Postgresql - your secret weapon?

A year or so ago the Aberdeen group looked at postgresql and said it is missing these key features. Their concerns have all been addressed with the latest version of Postgresql.

• Incremental and parallel backup/restore
Postgresql has a seperate transaction log
Postgresql has point in time recovery(via transaction log)
Postgresql has hot backup and restore

Commercial backup software support is still somewhat lacking. This is really up to those vendors. Netapp makes a decent alternative.

• Encryption (security)
Postgresql offers a variety of encryption options

• Deadlock detection
Automatic

• Row-level locking
MVCC is available

• Bit-mapped indexing (for large data warehouses)
Now available in 8.1, also, vastly improved improved performance on other forms of advanced indexing;

• A single GUI administrative interface
pgAdmin III – quickly getting better

• View update/insert/delete
Yes

Not mentioned but important:
• SQL standard compliant stored procedures.
Postgresql has procedures now, but they're not compliant with the standard syntax. This will be fixed in 8.1

• 2PC - Two phase commit
two-phase commit, which is another big thing for distributed application users;

Postgresql 8.1 beta2 XA Transactions etc

Postgresql 8.1 is shaping up. The code is frozen - and it contains a couple of really nice features such as improved scalability, xa transactions (2 Phase commits), user roles, etc. Also recently the Slony-I 1.1 was released giving Postgresql log shipping. There aren't too many "enterprise" features that Postgresql doesn't boost.

Why not download and test it out?

Enterprise class Job scheduling for Linux

Sometimes cron doesn't cut the mustard. Typically companies turn will use ESP from Cybermation, JES from IBM, Control-M from BMC or similar apps from CA.

Quartz meets these needs and would be particularly useful if you do a lot of java inhouse. To call your existing perl or shell jobs simply create a java call to java.lang.Process.

Tracking someone via a cellphone

Say you've married a secret agent. How do you keep tabs on what he/she is up to? Get a GPS enabled cellphone for your hubby and use a service like accutracking to know where they are. Nextel in the US or Tellus in Canada support this. You need to install a small java app on the phone which periodically updates the website.

Bill Gates gets down and dirty

Jon Udell gets down and dirty with Bill Gates in a highly technical podcast. Microsoft is trying hard to reach out to developers and block the great value and very attractive java development environments and open source. Gates mentions an internal product currently called wpfe will be a "flash killer".

My question for developers (which wasn't asked) is that by using Microsoft development tools are we limiting our company's potential growth? As a small software company in a microsoft dominated world can we get big or will Microsoft end up being a competitor?

Interesting times for Microsoft as it goes through a mid life crisis.

The Ultimate linux PDA - Toshiba u100

It looks like the ultimate linux pda that is widely supported in the US and Canada isn't really a pda, rather it is the 2.1 lb Toshiba U100. "It looks like a clamshell pda but contains a full computer".

The good:
*Looks like full linux support
*Atheros Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11b/g out of the box by ubuntu
*Pentium M 753 1.20GHz
*60GB HD
*Full Linux support of Intel Graphic card
*Docking station includes W/R DVD player

The bad:
*The price $1.9K USD
*Toshiba's proprietary video out may need some fiddling - but will work
*Fingerprint reader won't work
*Some don't like the small keyboard

full review

Our Nuclear Future

I watched a very interesting documentary about the rise of nuclear power in the 50's A is for Atom. The account is fascinating as nuclear technology so far is perhaps human's greatest pandora's box creation. Plus it is incredably important as one Russian scientist puts it "it is the only source of energy that will last for the next 1000 years". It is particularly for countries such as Russia, Canada and parts of the US. What will we get fresh food with and heat our homes with oil and gas run out. Coal? Wood?

At one point Curtis get's Dr Adam Weinberg to admit that 'The decision what was acceptable isn't something that we technologies can make it is something that the public makes'. But overall Curtis shows that in the US it was really Westinghouse and GE that were setting the public agenda. The technology that they were using was designed for 60 Megawatt reactors but they were using it to build 1,000 megawatt reactors because those are more profitable. Also in England, Russia and the US deployments were rushed and cost cutting rampant.

Dealing with high gas prices

Talking to people about gas prices is quite interesting - it really shows how they view economics.

Large numbers of people believe in conspiracy theory - "The oil companies are out to rip us off". Others groan and say "Man I wish I hadn't bought that SUV".

Still gas prices are a only a small percent of overall car ownership costs - even with the gas of price increase for the average driver. Say the average driver pays $300 a month for their car, including taxes, permits, repairs and maintenance. Insurance adds another 100 dollars. Gas we can say is $50 a week or $200 a month. Gas prices up 50% means that they spend another $100 a month.

Overall costs are only up 8-16%. Now for the rural uninsured driver with a beat up pickup costs are up closer to 50%.

How to buy a used car

Shopping for a used car? Here are some steps they are a bit specific to Canada, but fairly general.

Narrow down on a good year and make using:
carsurvey.org
also look at
consumerguide.com
msn cars (they have consumer reports stuff)

Check out fuel efficiency

You should have identified the problem areas in that vehicle. Eg Timing Belt and Transmission on some Hondas. Next you check out the listings.

For canada autotrader and easyrelease.ca are ok.

Private listings are a bit better in that typically you are not buying from a professional seller. Second you can get a gut feeling about the person you are buying from based on where they live and why they are selling. Sometimes they have receipts as well to ensure they had repairs done. In Canada you can also reduce your GST expenses by buying used from a private seller. Also check the specific manufacturer's website for certified used cars. When you buy from a used car dealer often the dealer has no clue about the vehicle - sometimes they even make them up. Search for the dealer on the web. Has anyone compained in any chat rooms about being ripped off? Ask them if it had any major accidents and get the VIN for the car and run it through carfax to see if it had any major accidents and check the reported mileage. Avoid cars that have crossed the border (eg US cars).
Take it for a test run. Check the transmission brakes lights. Look at the belts to see if they need replacing. Check the paint - any sign of a recent repaint job(accident fix-up)? How does the engine run? How about over bumps - how are the shocks?

Search something like edmunds to see typical problems with this vehicle. Also get the expected price for this vehicle from autotrader value finder, autos.msn, or another source. Look for a car that is reliable - but not popular or trendy. Buick or older corollas instead of rice rocket hondas. Be a contrarian investor. Also avoid cars that aren't popular enough as the parts may be hard to come by eg Saab, Renault etc.

Check the expected repair costs from consumer guide. Japanese cars have an abundance of refurb engines and transmissions from Japan, so typically they are a cheaper car to maintain for the long run. Search for the parts online. How much for an alternator? Electrical components? Refurb Transmission?

Also if the mileage is a little bit high don't worry about it - it means they probably haven't turned back the odometer. Low mileage? Be suspicious.

Finally bring it to your mechanic or CAA/AAA for a thorough inspection. Don't buy the car before you do that - typically this costs about $100.

Before you commit check out how much the insurance will cost you.

Once you have bought the car also get a repair manual (Hayes etc) so at least you can speak with your mechanic intelligently. Buy a small manual in which you log all repairs, problems, and accidents. Use this if you ever need to resell the vehicle and to keep track of what needs to be replaced when.

A lot of leg work? Yes but you can save quite a bit. For more details check Samarins

The Value of Google Talk

I played around with google talk yesterday (I forecasted this in May) both on a windows machine and linux. It works but seemingly is not significantly different from the competition.

That's where the critics are wrong. By standardizing on Jabber lots of application development opportunites are opened up.

An open version of Microsoft's Passport authentication system? This can be done using the jabber interface.

Pushing data to users? Again this can be done via Jabber.
SMS gateway? Try using the google jabber interface.

Hacking together a GMAIL(POP3) to Jabber to SMS gateway in python would be only a few hours of work.

zLinux TCO / Business case for zLinux

I've developing a business case for zLinux on the IBM Mainframe zSeries. From an initial glance it looks like the business case will be based on 3 things.

1) IFL - IBM's less expensive engine for Linux (still $125K) (you can move off apps from the more expensive mainframe engines)
2) Hipersockets - Virtual sesssions of linux can access zOS directly through memory mapped network access.
3) Linux Open standards - Besides running on z/VM linux is linux and anyone familiar with Linux or Unix can administer it. Unicode instead of EBCDIC, OpenSSL and standard open software and tools.
4) Less power usage
5) IBM Communication Controller for Linux on zSeries will allow for FEP removal

What to use it for?
IHS Apache
DB2 Connect
Tivoli
CCL

And potentially:
zWAS
DB2
Oracle
Lotus Domino

Limitations include:
Limited batch processing support, JCL is completely absent, and COBOL, is rare rare if used at all (OpenCobol supports a subset)
Security is more limited than RACF, and RACF integration is only via LDAP.
zVM will have overhead compared with running on bare hardware(5%?).
CPU is expensive for processor intensive compared with Intel/AMD
Spawning processes has more overhead on zSeries - there is a lot more checking and security then x86.

Backups?
FDRINSTANT
Tivoli Storage Manager

Monitoring?
Tivoli/mon

I am still looking at Suse vs Redhat for zSeries. Most people seem to be using Suse. Also according to Gartner group's Weiss Redhat support isn't that great as they have been growing too fast. I still personally lean towards Redhat as they are a "True" open source company. Novell sales still mostly come from close source apps (Novell/eDirectory etc).

Good Friday reading

Paul Graham's talk at OSCON is definitely worth having a look at. Wow. I wish I could write as well as he does.

Commodities and Sun's Schwartz

Jonathon Schwartz loves to lambaste people, particularly if they are associated with Linux or Windows. In this weblog he blasts anyone who says that "to commoditize" is bad. According to Schwartz:

"What do oil & gas, telecommunications, and financial services have in common?
They're all commodities."

Sorry Johnathon, actually oil barrels, wheat, pork-bellies and orange juice are commodities and there are commodity markets that go to support them.

As a product becomes a commodity profit margins typically drop (unless there is a limited supply such as oil). So instead of Sun's lovely 60% profit margins or Microsoft's 86% profit margins they will be more likely be a 10-20%. It this a potential business? Yes. Can Sun survive on thin profit margins? That remains to be seen.

What do most of people who make in the 2-10 dollars a day range do? They make commodities such as Coffee, Chocolate, and pick fruit such as oranges. Good luck Jonathon.

Apache Über alles

Apache market share seems to be moving a fraction off 70% market share.. The IBM HTTP Server that a lot of websphere shops use is the IBM compiled version of Apache.

This corresponds with an interesting fact that close to 70% of companies surveyed last month use some sort of open source software. As Sun open sources solaris this should shoot up.

VOIPBuster a Cheaper skype?

Doesn't work in Linux But for $1.27 you can use Voipbuster to call a dozen countries for free.

A friend of mine is using it and the quality is usable - similar to skype.

Meanwhile I've been using hitcalls.com Which is very cheap for the amount of calls I do a month and I find POTS->VOIP->POTS has better sound quality.

Update Aug 31 - actually you can get it to run in linux using Kiax a IAX application for KDE.

Useful OSCON meeting notes

O'Reilly OSCON meeting notes

Data center power - the new concern

What keeps people who manage datacenters up at nights these days? Is it SAN capacity? Microsoft Licensing fees? Oracle/IBM/Siebel licensing? Skilled worker availability?

No the fastest increasing cost for Datacenters in Ontario is the cost of electricity.

Flatlining IT Expenditures

Most major financial companies are still either flat lining IT expenditures or trying to slowly induce them to go down a bit. Microsoft on the other hand is gunning for the growth that it had in its heyday - targeting sales growth in the 10-20% range. Now a lot of that growth will come from MS cannibalizing its competitors (SQL Server, MOM, Sharepoint, and introduction of anti-virus software etc.) but MS also wants Office to drive more growth. But with MS Office is on 90 per cent of desktops, it's really hard to make a significant increase in sales.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. My forecast? MS pushes some companies to expensive office versions, other firms will cut back on their MS office deployments, perhaps giving a boost to OpenOffice.

IBM SNA = AIX 5L

An interesting post from Anura. AIX is great technology - but it would be better for IBM and its customers to move more swiftly to a standard open platform. The post for me is particularly poignant because I have been working on half dozen projects to remove SNA and its associated outdated FEP (x.25) technology. FEPs are shortly no longer supported by IBM. The standard solution seems to be move the connection to TCPIP or wrap it using Enterprise Extender...

from the post:
I have seen IBM hedging its bets too many times. And right now, at least to me, that is what IBM is doing with Linux.

IBM is hedging its bets, and at the same time still trying to indulge in its lop-sided vendetta against Microsoft for the great OS/2 scam. What IBM is doing with Linux is only slightly different to what it did in the past with OSI, ATM and even TCP/IP. AIX is what SNA used to be, and you can pick whether you want to equate Linux to OSI or TCP/IP. IBM in the end only abandoned SNA when TCP/IP, thanks to the Web, became a given.

Well it is time for us to tell IBM that Linux should also be a given.

No business case for VOIP

A major company with 32,000 employees in 1300 offices throughout North America recently determined there was no business case for voip. Why?

1) Long distance providers have dropped their prices to rock bottom prices
2) They wanted to have a system at each location in case the network went down. (Distributed instead of centralized)

They are piloting at new location with 100+ users but are really only looking at it on a case by case basis.

Mark Rothko

Cheaper if you waste time

I have found a disturbing trend with companies that will only give you a discount if you waste a lot of time. Here are a couple of examples.

1) Rebate programs on consumer electronics
You have to fill in the form, use snail mail to mail it in with a receipt. The cheque takes 3 months to come and in Canada you can't deposit it using an ATM (need a branch for USD cheques). Once you deposit the cheque it takes 1 month to clear. Why can't they just give you a discount?

2) Buying a car
My friend bought a Mazda5 last weekend and told me about the 4 hour negotiation that he did to get a good price. Leave, comeback, get a "final offer", leave come back and get another "final best offer" etc. His point is that they wear you down so that you will accept a higher price.

Consumer Debt - America's competitive advantage?

Kenichi Ohmae once explained American's love of debt like this: Japanese save to spend, while Americans force themselves to save by accumulating debt which must then be paid off. Kenichi identified that Americans tend to accumulate debt by buying expensive houses and cars and then are forced to suppress consumption in order to make payments.
This seems to have changed somewhat with the advent of interest only mortgages but is still fundamentally true.

So consumer debt forces future savings. But could high consumer debt levels actually be a competitive advantage? I think it could be – and here’s how.

High levels of personal credit allow consumers not to postpone purchases. If Apple comes out with a new high end IPOD for example there is no need for consumers to wait to purchase it. They slap the purchase on their credit card and worry about paying for it later. This in turn means that new products that are sold in the US break-even quickly and that the US is the largest most advanced consumer market in the world. Companies launching products in the US have a competitive advantage.

Linux marching forward with Palm, Tandem (HP NonStop) wins

A couple of very important things have happened in the past few months regarding linux. First is that PalmSource is shifting all development to Linux. There are already more Linux based telephone devices than Windows. This could indicate the tipping point where Linux is the defacto system for telephone devices.

Second interesting event is that The HP (Tandem) NonStop Himalaya is switching its operating system over to Linux. Most credit card transactions still use Tandem based systems and software such as Base24.

North American Solar Challenge

The North American Solar Challenge is nearing completion - They are in Winnipeg, MB.

I was looking for some information regarding the cars (batteries, materials etc). Most of the website sites are quite light on real info.

Waterloo has some interesting info about their 3 wheeled car

Weight: 190 Kg empty
Batteries 30 Kg Kokam Lithium Ion Polymer
Frame: 6061-T6 aluminum tube with hybrid battery box
Motor: NGM 3 phase DC brushless
Body: kevlar, carbon fibre, nomex honeycomb
Solar Cells: 22% efficient Emcore Solar cells
Speed - cruising 80-100 km/hr
Speed - Top: 130 km/hr

The large-format Kokam lithium-ion/polymer batteries offer an energy density of 364 Wh/l to 377 Wh/l, and a recharge lifetime of more than 500 cycles at 80% DOD. If you ripped off the solar cells and just used this thing as a electric car it would fly!

Impact of China flexible currency

A couple of things I don't think the US is thinking about when pushing China to revalue the Yuan.

1) Oil Prices may rise further.
Oil will get cheaper for Chinese due to the revaluation. This may increase demand and push up inflation.

2) Increased Mergers and Aquisitions
Like Japan in the 80s if the Yuan went to 16 to the USD American firms will likely be aquired

3) Inflation
It takes Manufacturers a while to switch locations (eg moving Textile manufacturing to Vietnam). Inflation may see a small increase.

Light Electric Vehicles

I've long been interested in lighter electric vehicles. Lighter simply because batteries last a lot longer on a lighter vehicle. Not all of these are Electric, but have been included for comparison reasons. The DOE estimates that every 10% reduction in vehicle weight results in an approximate 7% savings in fuel.

Here are a few interesting vehicles.

My friend's mountain bike Blur LT: 13 kg

Cab Bike: 32 Kg (no motor or batteries)

Go One: 32 Kg (no motor or batteries)

Giant Lite Bike: 17 kg and the battery pack (4 kg),

Electrified Recumbent: 30-40 kg (half battery)

The Honda Gyro: 126 Kg (not electric)

Twike: 225 Kg - up to 446 kg:

Tango T600: 1133 Kg (half of the weight is the batteries):

Smart Car (not electric yet but they may soon):730 kg

Reva (from India) kerb weight: 745 kg
Toyota Prius: 1250 kg
Honda Insight: 827 kg
GM EV-1: 1350 kg (500 Kg batteries)

For a good discussion of electric vehicles and batteries check out the Prius+ Discussion or alternatively VisForVolage Discussion

Panasonic Lumix LC80 Camera Review

I picked up a Panasonic LC80 over the weekend from TigerDirect. Very nice little camera at a very nice price.

Great Point and shoot camera
Great LEICA lens
Quite small - fits in a shirt pocket
Some limited video support (320 x 240 pixels 30 fps unlimited size)
AA battery support (great if you do long trips in the wilderness with no power source)
Very quick on and photo taking
1.5" LCD is quite clear
USB support - so you can connect directly to a linux box

I think this is a better value than the equivalent Canon Camera. I also picked up a 1 Gig SD Card and portable reader.