December 29, 2005 Posted by mitch |
technology |
Its a sad day... Peter Quinn, CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is resigning effective on the 12th of January. Seems the personal attacks hes had in the media and else where, when politicians decide to play dirty, have over whelmed him. Its horrible. Why must we result to such tactics? Is Microsoft this affraid of the results of one state switching to a format (their welcome to support I might add...) thats free for *everyone* to use? I really do try to be fair, even though I'm not a fan boy of Microsoft by any sense of the word, about the goings on in the IT world. But, honestly... this all started when the commonwealth stated that Microsofts 'Open' XML Document format did not meet the requirements they setup. They even went out of their way to answer Microsofts question about what they needed to do to be considered. Since then... Microsoft's kinda half-assed their way to meeting the requirements... tring to meet them by the letter of it, not the spirit of it. The commonwealth saw this and luckily they worded their requirements such that its hard to streach those two apart. So they didn't cave to the presure. After all, I really don't think its much to ask Microsoft, if they want to compete they need to meet the same requirements our current format choice does. They really don't even need to open their own format up... for their software to be considered when procurment starts, all they need to do is support the ODF standard(if they refuse to open up their own format to the requirements set forth). So, when the technology wrangling didn't work so well... then the political games started. And spats with the local media, which crafted personal attacks on Mr. Quinn. I don't have kids yet, but this sounds an awfull lot like a kid kicking and screaming when their mother took something away from them because it wasn't theirs. Is this really the grown up world we live in? Doesn't anyone believe in honor anymore? Or do we all just follow the money?
Listing what I got for christmas would be so prosaic, I decided not to. However, I did want to say that I absolutely love the wireless access point my little bro got me! I love it. I've been trying to convince Elissa that it would be nice to have one... but shes not so easily convinced of my need for geek stuff. :) So my bro, hooked me up with a Linksys WRT54G. Hopefully they figure out how to hack the newer revs of these so I can get more linux lovin from it. :)
Once again, thanks bro!
December 22, 2005 Posted by mitch |
mythtv |
Finally! I've completed my first phase MythTV install. Currently the case I have it in is fairly loud so I don't really want to move it into the living room. So its sitting on the floor next to my desk, and currently I connect to it with a mythtv frontend install on my local box. So far it all works flawlessly. I must say I'm quite impressed with its simplicity. At first its somewhat daunting, but once you get your head around it it's not so bad. Now I need to figure out what all the settings mean, and how they'll affect me. Currently I've got it setup using about 2.4GB per hour of recorded video. Which should give me roughly 87 hours worth of recorded video not bad :) I'll be expanding it probably in 6 months or so with another 250GB drive which should be fun :) Anyway, I need to get ready to head off to school.
December 16, 2005 Posted by mitch |
apple |
With some changes at work, I've been given a powerbook G4 17" :) man is it nice. So far I love it. Just going through customizing it a bit. Changing the themes and so forth... I had to reinstall it as well, since I will be loading Linux on it to dual boot. figure its got a 111GB hard drive... why not? :)
Anyway, more to come, screen shots 'n all...
December 9, 2005 Posted by mitch |
technology |
I liked his letter so much, I thought I'd link it up from GrokLaw. I must say I agree with his statements 100%. I loved the how simple he made the explination. Makes the reasoning straight and to the point, why people don't understand this is beyond me. Why the commonwealth is still debating over it is even more beyond me. Microsofts always made promises... who knows if and when they'll actually come through with it. The best way to keep them honest is to make them use ODF too. (Not through laws/restrictions) Simply, market presures will be fine. After all, if you let them win with their 'Open' XML format standard, he who makes the rules can always change them. Pardon the skepticism, but they've done it in the past (even recent past), whats to stop them from doing it again? It needs to stop, Mass. has a chance to make a stand and really show Redmond that we're serious, that we want them to abid by rules of the industry not whatever they feel like. To actually do whats in their *customers* best interests. It really shouldn't be this hard to fathom.
Been a long time since I last posted... not sure why really, just haven't felt like writing lately. I've worked out a deal with school and redid some of the payment options, so I'll be getting back underway with school starting monday. However, one of my classes is all about Windows. Lately my Windows install on my laptop has been driving me nuts. I don't understand anymore why people like that operating system... Why people willingly put up with the crap that happens with it... you install a couple apps and they'll over run your machine making it crap slow... whats wrong with that picture? I don't understand... why would you subject yourself to it? I guess not knowing that it doesn't have to be that way is one thing, but please for the love, when will it die! Joking, joking... partly atleast :) Windows has its place, its not on my desktop however. I won't willingly subject myself to that much torture. I do understand why others use it, for the apps mostly, familiarity and hardware support tied for second. The day will come (hopefully soon, but I won't hold my breath) that Windows won't be the only common thing on the desktop anymore, the market is big enough from multiple players. When that day comes we'll see real innovation, after all, what innovation really needs is healthy competition. I guess the question that remains is, Will Windows and Microsoft know how to play a game with the turf being equal? If you've been paying attention to the MS vs ODF ordeal, it seems they're pulling out every last stop they can come up with to prevent the turf from being equal for *all* sides. Their latest is an attempt to "open" their new Office XML format, thats turning out to be not so "open". They must think people are dumb. The "open" format they're trying to push, still prevents people from writing GPL'd apps that support the format.... Now how open can an "open" format be that still has restrictions? Silly Microsoft, tricks are for kids.
