Maui Beach under KDE (click to enlarge)

have recently come to grips with my slight wallpapers obsession. I currently have 370 megabytes of wallpapers that suit dual-head (two-monitor) displays. I get most of them using keyword-based searches in Webshots and PBase. Older sources which I made good use of are mentioned in my Utilities Section.

KDE has many powerful features built-in and they are relatively well-integrated. Among these many features, it allows users to specify a random cycle of wallpapers and applies colour blending on-the-fly. Maui is shown above with a hue shift applied (the colours are not manipulated off-line, only when loaded). Background pictures get shuffled every 2 minutes and similar third-party applications offer these features to Windows users.

Even on a rainy day you can get absorbed in this illusion that your surroundings are as peaceful as you choose for them to be. The variety and choice of wallpapers is endless. Moreover, the frequent change of wallpapers requires no user intervention. I use KDE under SuSE (one of the best Linux distributions). Unfortunately, Gnome which is yet another desktop environment that I happen to use at work, does not provide me with similar, much-needed options (under Ubuntu Warty Warthog).

Related item: comparison between KDE and Gnome.

LinuxDevices.com have put together a detailed review of the Aeronix Zipit instant messenger appliance which runs atop Linux and in many senses is a fully-functional PDA with WiFi built-in. The extremely low cost of $99 proves how advantageous free operating systems can be in terms of affordability. Hackers are already in the process of manipulting this device for other, more general purposes.

…priced at $99, in colors that include white, silver, blue, red, and pink. It includes an 802.11b WiFi radio, 16-color greyscale LCD with QVGA (320×240) resolution, and a thumb keyboard with rubber buttons. Also included is a stereo DAC (digital audio converter) connected to a speaker and headphone jack.

There is a growing trend which involves installing Linux on mobile devices, Palm handhelds included. It has already been determined that Palm O/S will migrate to sit in tandem with Linux if not be replaced by Linux.

Cited by: PalmAddict

Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)

Some time the past I composed a little tool from various scripts to correct for the differences between Windows and Linux servers. To quote just the gist:

The Linux filesystem behaves differently from that of Windows. For example, Linux treats index.htm and INDEX.htm as if they are separate files; Windows does not.

In the logs, I repeatedly observe errors like the following (from half an hour ago):

[Tue Jul 12 05:48:11 2005] [error] ...
[client 207.46.98.35] File does not exist: ...
/home/schestow/public_html/guestbook/spam/

The correct URL is in fact /home/schestow/public_html/Guestbook/Spam/ (note case)

Performing a reverse DNS lookup, I discovered that MSNBot was the culprit. Its Windows-egocentric requests invoke errors again and again, making false positives and adding noise to the error logs. Phrased differently, whenever requesting non-existent pages (by manipulating their names), MSNBot flags errors which result in a chaotic mess (I view my error logs several time a day).

Are Microsoft intentionally tempering with Linux servers? Are Microsoft punishing us because we did not buy their expensive server software? That’s what it boils down to.

Top-left: The older days of Apple who have recently sidled next to Intel; Top-right: So-called Microsoft’s Hardware Department; Bottom: Screen-shot of Metisse for FVWM (*NIX)

A very unusual story comes from eWEEK. Microsoft have apparently demonstrated Linux to their audience.

While the answer is unclear, Microsoft Corp. surprised many of the attendees at its annual worldwide partner show here this weekend by allowing a third party to present a “hands-on lab” that allowed attendees to play with a range of Linux desktop software…

…the lab let attendees, many of whom were not familiar with Linux, experiment with KDE (K Desktop Environment) as well as see the Apache Web server in action…

Quite frankly, I consider this to be yet another attempt at being cocky. It was not too long ago that Microsoft paid one of the most popular bloggers in the world to evangelise their company and software products. They also scheme to adopt a large group of bloggers who will preach about Microsoft ‘goodness’. Biassed journalism — now isn’t that something that Microsoft can buy? I also wonder if they demonstrated Linux on some antiquated Debian distribution.

According to the BBC, Open Source begins to have its impact on schools in Britain.

In open source software (OSS), the underlying computer code is freely available so users can alter it and publish new versions, to benefit the community.

Leslie Fletcher, chair of governors at Parrs Wood High School in south Manchester and campaigns manager for the UK’s Unix and Open Systems User Group, offers a personal perspective on how schools can benefit.

Manchester made this courageous step, which came to my attention via the Manchester Linux Users Group. There was another recent and much more widespread initiative in Michigan.

There is a true advantage to having audio stored locally, as in the case of off-line podcasting. There is full control, in general, over the audio data in question. This means that podcasts can be sped up to fit the preferences of the listener. There is an XMMS plug-in called SndStretch (shown to the left) which I absolutely adore. It can speed up audio to be up to twice as fast, without change in pitch. No more squeaky voice due to change in pace. An half-hour show can be listened to it in only 15 minutes. This also works for music, which makes it more entertaining and variable.

Getting just the valuable data from pages

eeds have definitely revolutionised the way we use the Internet. We can efficiently seek and exploit content without having to undertake laborious navigations in sites. The content is delivered to the user so there is no need to actively obtain it or ever spend time re-reading segments of text.

I have just finished brushing up the script I developed for syndicating static pages that do not offer feeds. Windows users can use it under Cygwin; Mac and Linux user can use it at much great ease. All details and code are contained in the more comprehensive page.