Image of Googleplex in London (from ZDNet gallery)

AST night I had my 2^nd interview with google (a *nix systems administration position). What is noteowrthy is that I did not apply for a job. I was contacted by Google owing to my involvement and work on the Web. I am patiently waiting to hear their decision (should take several days), but I am pessimistic. Some questions were really hard and I needed hints. These questions were less analytical than I had expected.

TFM stands for “Read The Fine Manual”. But the letter “F” does not necessarily stand for “Fine”. This phrase, which is a popular support forums acronym, is often used in scenarios where a basic question is asked despite the fact that it can be easily answered given some minimal research effort.

Inevitably, this reminds me of times when my mother asks me computer-related questions over the telephone. I have read about similar experiences from others, so I will share. The bottom line is that I steer away from any such conversations and sometimes refuse to answer questions. Why? Because, at the end, these conversations tend to frustrate both sides. What was supposed to take just seconds to achieve can ultimately consume long and miserable minutes that involve impatience, anger and blame games.

The root of such problems is reluctance to read manuals. To friends or family members, the demands are often higher. To a non-tech-savvy person, everything needs to be done in the form of a UI or command-line ‘recipe’ by somebody else. Rather than exploring a program and learning how it works, some people want to exclusively know the path to the few things which need doing. It’s the natural and rational approach, so there is little room for blame. However, any program which is to be used in the long term can be learned from literature and tutorials, rather than endless one-on-one crash courses.

Lazy users, in my opinion, are often those who rebel against the intrusion of technology into our lives. When it’s something new that they face, they just immediately ask others and expect to be served. Why? Because it’s easier to ask. But beyond a certain point it’s unacceptable. Exploration and trial-and-error routines are still a fundamental and important skill to anyone that is inquisitive.

As for my mother, I reached the point where I insist that she spends several hours looking at application menus, without ‘tinkering’ too much. For one who isn’t familiar with the application at hand, it’s unfair to seek help to grasp the very basics. The exception is, of course, dedicated/paid support/teaching. Otherwise it’s just wasteful; Especially if the manuals are out there. Giving a solution will not help without context, as well as user orientation. Without letting others acquire the skills of exploring computer programs and their user interfaces, a request is implicitly made for more of the same.

ERE is the latest find (a video) which illustrates how beautiful and powerful Linux has become. It is a showcase of dual-head with Compiz/XGL, all under a GNOME desktop. Some continue to argue, backed by myths, that GNOME and KDE are ugly and/or hard to use. I refuted both claims, I hope. Some would say that Fedora does not look so nice ‘out of the box’ (truly a matter of personal opinion). Nevertheless, just like any Linux distribution, it’s extensible and customisable. Here are two visual examples that I could quickly find on KDE-look.org:

1. I Love My Fedora
2. Metal Fedora

Related item: GNOME and XGL Showcases

The powers and savour of GNU/Linux have taken the attention of Oracle’s taste buds. Anything that reduces margins seems to make the founder, Larry Ellison, feel elated. And he’s no exception these days. Some months ago I heard the following joke (paraphrased below):

Q: What is the difference between God and Larry Ellison?

A: God does not think he is Larry Ellison.

Oracle is no longer waiting for a days of free beer (let alone Freedom, as in Free and free UNIX). Oracle reaps the crops which others have previously sown, throughout the early days of Linux. Oracle programmers do not share much of their work, despite their new Open Source strategy. Meanwhile, OSDL is being snubbed too, according to a recent interview. So what gives? Will Sun Microsystems go down a similar route with Java?

I sometimes think that Oracle executive need to sober up their mind (preferably with some rum) and give something in return. Linux could truly benefit from budgets as large as Oracle’s — budgets that expand owing to the competitive advantage one gets with Linux. Seeing the abuse they currently direct at Red Hat leaves nobody with impeccably-neutral thoughts, sentiments and Oracle affinity. The ethical issues that are tied to forking of Red Hat Enterprise Desktop/Server, as well as the inability to snatch JBoss for middleware, has left Oracle bitter. But it’s more akin to snobbery, as well as neglect of the roots that got Oracle where it is today (Oracle was among the earliest large adopters of Linux).

RedHat Linux

Will Oracle ever befriend Linux and actually prove that something can be given in return? At present, Oracle competes with and destroys some of the business that MySQL, Firebird, and PostgreSQL have conquered with Linux and pure Open Source software. This lack of moral values makes the mind boggle. Reciprocal benefit is just a belt-and-braces exercise given that Linux is out there begging for mere donations. What about assisting the giant whose shoulders you now stand on? Nobody can issue a cease-and-desist on the use of Linux and, in fact, with contributions to the kernel and even vocal appraisal alone, this can be seen as a form of advertising — a reciprocity.

I continue to perceive Oracle as somewhat of a Linux and Open Source parasite. Sometimes, more damage to reputation is done rather than the very contrary. Every once in a while somebody needs to crack that whip and knock some sense into those who only use Linux, accumulating enormous wealth and refuse to return anything, even when gently asked. Although there is no obligation (this is a clear point that frequently recurs in such discussions), there should be some sense of responsibility. You give and you get. FLOSS is community based, so the development of ‘lamer’ habits is dangerous. Let us all work together for the betterment of Linux.

Related item: Open Source and Paracites

From the press: Oracle #1 on Linux With More Than 80% Market Share

Oracle’s Linux commitment began in 1998 with the first commercial database on Linux. Today, only Oracle provides support for the complete software stack on Linux with applications, middleware, database and the operating system, including Red Hat, Novell/SUSE and Asianux. All Oracle products run on Linux, and Oracle Database on Linux meets the EAL4 Common Criteria…

EEDS have improved the lives of everyone who wishes to be ‘on top of things’. But what tools should ideally be used? For syndication, I continue to use RSSOwl, as opposed to more bloated alternatives such as recent versions of Mozilla Thunderbird. I partly helped in the testing of RSSOwl (as a gensture of reciprocity), so I still feel as though I must ‘eat my own dog food’. And yet — recently had to check some other feed readers that are Web-based (or a carefully-crafted script that outputs (X)HTML). I was interested in better tools whose development is more active. The same applies to newsgroup readers. Some describe themselves as ‘application whores’ in such contexts.

Over the years I developed this banal habit of reading feeds. At present, I read the news three times a day (i.e. three passes), but other feeds — those which I once followed closely — I only go past or glance at about twice a week. Desire has been lost for full RSS coverage. Mailing lists and newsgroups likewise. Often I just quickly look through the titles/subject lines. It’s probably due to excessive subscription and burdensome load that I can no longer cope with. But there is no sense of obligation anymore. I suppose many people reach the state of feed overload, which is closely-related (if not an alias for) ‘information overload’. Such overloads take over innocent cyberspacers.

Side-anecdote: In hindsight, the last sentence if a bit of an overstatements or maybe a gross generalisation (projecting one’s problems onto others). But this generalisation is probably a benign one that acts merely as a warning sign. Unlike, for instance, calling someone a murder for taking antibiotics and killing germs…

• For malware developers
• For spammers
• For extortionate botmasters
• For spam filter developers
• For firewall developers
• For anti-virus developers

All of the above are nasties or software that defends against them. All of them exist and prosper owing to the fact that Windows was never built with security in mind. I can’t help feeling bitter as I am among the sufferers, despite the fact that I touch no Microsoft software. In a matter of just one week, a 30-megabyte mail account got clogged up by SPAM. The amount that comes in is so sheer that I cannot afford to even look at all the subject lines; rather, I go by patterns and highlighting-type filters. It is unbearable as I am skipping some genuine mail.

Windows botnets have brought the Internet to a dark age. Some people question themselevs as to whether conceding the use of E-mail altogether is the better way. And as for collaboration-based, Web 2.0-ish software, I have already been forced to disable much of its function (e.g. registrations, comments, and open Wikis). I also needed to block 2 IP address yesterday, due to continuous abuse involving heavy and continuous spidering of my main site. At least the abusers’ ISP‘s were alert and they quickly took action. These attacks came to their end yesterday. They were not the first though. It is a recurring pattern.

Several years ago I said that SPAM was a problem that did not affect me and I would rather just ignore it. But I am afraid that it is no longer possible. And if Microsoft does not protect its O/S (Vista was already proven to be hijackble) or loses a very significant market share, things will not improve any time soon. They will only get much, much worse.

IGG.COM is a Web sites where more prominent news stories are voted for by a large pool of users. An informal blog post from ZDNet revealed some intersting ‘Digg facts’. It is of great interest to me as I have become a regular member and participants of the Digg community (I am currently ranked 17^th).

Diggtrends.com aimed to find out answers to the following questions:

1. What is the real contribution of top 100 users?
2. Who took Jason’s (Netscape) Offer?
3. How did the user statistics changed after July 18th (Jason’s Offer)?
4. How many dig users are really contributing?

To the first question, they found:

• top 10 users contributed 1792 of the frontpage stories – i.e 29.8%
• top 100 contributed 3324 stories i.e 55.28%

Nearly 30% of frontpage stories contributed by just 10 people is a pretty amazing stat – talk about the A-List!

Addendum: here comes the more official analysis/announcement