Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

ED Hat have got some nice promoptional videos that neatly explain the process of world transformation and fast adoption of Linux. The videos are titled:

• Truth Happens;
• Inevitable and
• Choice

Highly recommended for Linux enthusiasts!

PAMMERS are not utterly dumb. They constantly learn how to get past the filters and receive more attention from their recipient. Subject lines are often fudged in such a way so that they beg to be read, but it doesn’t stop there.

Consider, for instance, spam that goes ‘on top of the pile’ by having a future date (thus the title of this essay), assuming reverse chronological mail readers. Such spam can stand outamong the pile of trite spam. Also consider spam with very odd dates, no dates or ones which goes years and decades into the past. In the latter case, this puts message at the bottom edge of the inbox, which again, appeals for more attention.

Lastly, and perhaps most annoyingly, certain spam is being sent with a sender address which resides the recipients domain, which can under many circumstances have it automatically whitelisted.

couple of months back, Vista engineers ere bragging about Intel systems architecture which would enable quick startups from memory. This sounded like “hibernation mode” rather than standby, but it was still used as Windows Vista selling point, alongside updates without reboot. So here we shall address two issues.

Why should one bother rebooting? Linux rarely ever requires it. Frequency of updates is low and the severity of bugs is relatively low. And again, what is there to be gained from quick reboots or even the avoidance of bootstrapping? Saving a minute a couple of times a year? It would probably take longer to just set up such quick startup facilities. The whole scheme is unnecessary with energy saving modes, so again, why ever reboot in the first place? And why bother reducing booting duration?

Here are the annual winners in the domain of Open Source and GNU/Linux. The results were accumulated using a poll-based facility.

Distribution of the Year – Ubuntu (19.49%)
Database of the Year – MySQL (62.98%)
Office Suite of the Year – OpenOffice.org (84.84%)
Browser of the Year – Firefox (71.90%)
Mail Client of the Year – Thunderbird (51.74%)
Text Editor of the Year – vi/vim (37.96%)
Open Source Game of the Year – Frozen Bubble (23.17%)
Window Manager of the Year – Fluxbox (27.11%)
Desktop Environment of the Year – KDE (64.86%)
Audio Multimedia Application of the Year – amaroK (41.86%)

[remainder of list omitted]

The choice of Ubuntu and KDE as top picks makes one appreciate the value of Kubuntu (KDE-based Ubuntu). It is said to be less stable and consistent than Ubuntu (GNOME), but nonetheless it combines a rich desktop environment with admirable hardware probing.

How does the notorious Google cookie affecting your search results?

I is no secret that Webmasters sometimes subvert (or “optimise” as they would call it) Google results pages, which in turn weakens the relevance of Google’s search results. This manipulation is done by insertion/injection of particular keywords, as well as navigation hacks, ‘organic’ inbound links and so forth.

While artificial changes to site content have an effect on other search engines, changes are done primarily with Google in mind. This urges Google to make their strategy (algorithms) more dynamic and permit results to ‘dance’ every now and then, sometimes owing to large updates (c/f Bourbon). In such circumstances, ‘re-shuffle’ reached the extent that resembles a complete overhaul of indices. The main purpose it to weed out spam, yet the borderline between “ham” and “spam” becomes rather vague, so genuine siteget affected and often penalised. Many lose vital revenue as a consequence.

The Internet is becoming a brutal battelground. There are many cases of black-hat SEO, which have become worryingly prevalent. Even id search engines can annul the effect of ‘noise’, this does not account for the issue of relevance, spam aside. This is possibly a case of becoming a victim of one’s own success. Google have become the main target to many harmful practices, including the rumour mill.

In my humble opinion, Google remain the best engine bar none, but new challenges are being posed every day. Black-hat practices accumulate more and more tricks, which can be ‘pulled off the sleeve’ and then shared, soon to become a Web epidemic. Like a virus which quickly exploits flaws in servers and desktops, SEO hacks rely on flaws in search engines algorithms. The question remains: will Google be able to adapt to changes as soon as they occur, thereby annihilating the impact of Google-targetted site/page optimisations? I will illustrate using a very timely and true example.

This morning I wanted to know the precise definition and difference between single-breasted and double-breasted garments. Putting “single breasted double breasted” in Wikipedia (I tend to use it for knowledge queries, as opposed to URL search), I got the perfect answers with clarifications, pictures included. In Google, one gets promotional stuff. Shops are trying to sell suits, so results 1 to 4 are purely irrelevant for my query (at least the one I had in mind). I had no intention of seeking a guide or a purchase. In other words, the finanical incentive beat the informative source, which is sad. I did, however, find Wikipedia’s page at number on Google for the phrase “single breasted double breasted”. To me, this was not good enough. As a whole, it wasn’t a specific and satisfactory outcome as the first 4 places attempted to sell me something. Knowledge references should surpass any individual store — one among the many which exist.

EVERAL months ago, Google’s co-founder denied rumours and shattered hopes of a so-called ‘Google Office’. It was by all means rumoured to be ‘in the works’. This story was alluded to in the context of Web-based Office. This was the time of Web 2.0 and AJAX hype. Many Web 2.0 startups laboured hard on Web-based, Office-like productivity tools, which were (still are) in the making, as well as began to penetrate the commercial market.

As it now turns out, Google indeed enter a territory that could potentially lead to a Web-based Office, directly challenging Microsoft’s Live Office, as well as the existing desktop-bound Office. ‘Live software’, as it has been called, has the intent of complying with Gates’ Web-ward migration memos. This move by Google will urge Microsoft to take their Office tools on-line, thereby making the Web a primary batteground, not out of choice. OpenOffice is yet another threat to Office, yet Microsoft already fight it with dirtier tactics.

Also in the news on Google: GDrive – the upcoming on-line service for storage and backup. It has already become highly controversial due to privacy concerns. The latest of Google Desktop raised similar concerns as Google may hold copies of people’s hard-drives on their servers, making it more susceptible to exposure.

Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

ERELY anyone who follows the news will have come across this by now. A an intersting rumour, if not an announcement, gree legs and began running wildly. It came from IBM in Germany. It suggested that IBM would be moving to Linux rather than upgrade to Windows Vista. This initiated a storm in a teacup, but finally, IBM make a formal denial. Many questions still hang in the air.

Andreas Pleschek, IBM’s head of open source and Linux technical sales in Northern Europe, was widely misquoted this week as saying that IBM had cancelled its Windows contract with Microsoft as of October.