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A pretty sweet article about how companies should be focused on recruiting and retaining the best talent…and how it can actually save them money. The article is focused on software developers, but I believe it’s relevant in most fields.
So I’ve been a pretty major “LinuxDork” ™ for going on 10 years. My typical ritual is to try to install it on an old desktop roughly every 12-18 months thinking that I can cut the cord from Windows and use it as my primary OS. It usually ends up being an exercise in futility…especially trying to get everything working on a modern laptop (wireless, 3D acceleration, power mgmt, etc).
So I’m pretty stoked that after almost 10 years of futzing with it, I have a fully-functional Linux desktop environment installed on my laptop. Start-to-Finish, total install/config time was about 3hrs. I’ve definitely spent that much (or more) setting up a windows box in the past. I might have spent an additional 1/2 hr doing research to make sure that my current laptop (Dell e1505) was a good candidate for Feisty.
I downloaded the ISO, burnt the CD, and let the default installer walk me through partitioning my HD, setting up dual-boot (automatically, sweet!), and other basic configuration settings.
After that, it was mostly an exercise in “apt-get’ing” most anything I needed. The wireless setup isn’t for the uninitiated, but it also wasn’t rocket science. I basically just followed the instructions verbatim from the following articles:
After the above was said and done, all I had to do was install some Firefox plugins and I was set. The beautiful thing about all of this is that everything basically “just works”, which is unbelievably cool if you’ve ever spent much time with computers.
If you’re a developer, OS enthusiast, or just someone who is tired of Windows/Scared of Vista - but doesn’t want to go Mac - Linux (Ubuntu in particular) might just be what you’re looking for.
Why don’t I have this guy’s job?
For more videos, check out http://willitblend.com
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We’ve (Jen and I) been spending the weekend moving all of Jen’s data+apps from her old Mac Mini to her new MacBook (which is totally sweet, BTW)…so I’ve been spending quite a bit of time “tweaking” the MacBook for her.
One new nugget of awesomeness is the Chuck Norris Facts Widget. The fact below gives you a taste of what the widget has to offer:
Most people know that Descarte said, “I think, therefore I am”. What most people don’t know is that the quote continues, “…afraid of Chuck Norris”.
Plans detailing the specifics of how Google will soon become our digital Overlords!
As a follow up to the recent postings about the whole Sony-CD-DRM-Rootkit Fiasco, I’ve come across an article that explains the roll the “blogosphere” has had in getting Sony to truly “fess-up” on the severity of the issue.
The article’s main point is that if it wasn’t for the constant barrage of negative (and true, mind you) information being produced by the bloggers, Sony would be able to produce a sanitized press release, let the major news outlets give a quick blurb about it, then continue on with their draconian DRM-laden business practices.
I know that bloggers don’t tend to get very much cred for supplying real news. Granted, most bloggers are just jokers like me blabbering about inane personal things or posting pictures of their cat, but there are a lot of serious bloggers out there doing real journalism in a very professional manner.
I believe that the rise of the blogosphere is a direct result of media consolidation. When only a handful of companies in the world get to produce what we see as news, you tend to get a very myopic world-view. It is refreshing to see that the populous at large can still band together and get information out to the (internet savvy) public.
Here’s the story for reference.
This is a follow-up to the previous post about Sony installing Spyware on your computer:
The good news is that California and New York have (or will have soon) filed class-action lawsuits against Sony for this. The bad news is that as of yet, Sony doesn’t seem to be very apologetic about the whole situation, and on top of that, make it very difficult for a user to uninstall. More information about it can be found here.
Next time you buy a CD from Sony/BGM, you should be aware that if you put it in your computer, it quite possibly will install spyware which has been know to cause Windows “Blue Screens of Death” and leaves a monster-truck-sized security hole in your computer, to which virus and worm writers can exploit.
All of this for just trying to listen to a CD you bought legitimately. Wonderful.
Here’s a couple of articles that explain the issue a little more in-depth:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/index.php?p=698
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1882795,00.asp
…and here’s a Google News search on the topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=sony+drm&btnG=Search+News