T was only a few days ago that I came to ponder an interesting fact: I have never,ever in my life paid for a piece of software. I have never paid for a Web service either. I had some computer games bought for me as a gift while I was a teenager, or even younger than that. I was primary using freeware as a child and I do not think it ended up quite so miserably, despite my habit of relying on free and/or Open Source solutions.

The are a few exceptions to the above statement. Admittedly, I may have bought computers that had Windows pre-installed and thus a licence paid for. Anything commercial that I ever use nowadays, the University pays for (MATLAB which runs on Linux, for example). My Web host pays for cPanel too, I presume. Palm handhelds which I have owned have some programs bundled, but I never purchased any softwere for this platform where so much is already free.

Is it all something to take pride in? I do not believe so, but the observation is an interesting one nonetheless. Frankly, I can never recall pulling out a credit card for software purchase or a paid service on Web. On the Internet, if I ever pull out the CC numbers, it is for groceries, various items (primarily gadgets) and Web hosting bills. Never have I paid for a licence key or a binary file.

Bottom line: expensive proprietary software is not a necessity. That, however, is not what commercial software vendors would have you believe. Freeware and Open Source software are their greatest enemies and, given experience and orientation, they can achieve anything. They also have the merit of being transferable and readily available in abundant numbers.

‘You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

ARTICULAR behavioural patterns (exclusively in humans) can become rather intriguing. In support, for instance, sometimes you give people an honest answer and that answer is not what they were wishing to hear. They then attempt to challenge your analysis, of which you are certain. Hopefully for them, eventually this analysis will be changed or at the least softened. The adamant mind does not permit for inner conflicts.

Finally, that ‘status-quo’ suits their wishful thinking, so the answer becomes a reality or sometimes stands, at least in their own stubborn minds. It is a deliberate obfuscation of the truth, from which many are fearful. This explains many bad habits and detriments in society: design choices, war, smoking.

Let us learn to listen, to accept and to embrace.

WYSI(not)WYG, so better use plain-text (click to enlarge)

HERE is most definitely no perfect editor, regardless of which platform one uses. Nonetheless, while Linux has some very powerful text editors, different ones should be used under different circumstances. In this item, I concentrate on editors (primarily my favourite one) for development work.

If one ever made a transition to Linux, my suggestion for an editor would be Kate/KWrite, among more. KWrite, which is the editing component of Kate (typically KDE-only), is a good editor for developers — either Web developers or programmers. KWrite incorporates knowledge of markup and syntax for many programming languages, which would be valuable to the P/L-polyglots.

I recently made a permanent transition to KWrite and I continue to explore Kate, which integrates seamlessly with FTP, much like the rest of the desktop environment. It becomes an important trait if you develop on a remote computer, which for me is essential due to parallel computing.

The MATLAB editor, for example, I recently conceded in favour of KWrite. It was slow and it hadawkward and unconventional keyboard accelerators, probably owing to interoperability. The accelerators were an oddity and a real pain to adapt to. Above all, the editor was an unbelievable bloat over SSH. It was not too responsive, yet it had built-in debugging capabilities, which I never bothered to use as it had been aimed at unexperienced users.

BBedit is said to be a good editor for developers on the Mac, but it is costly. For Windows, there are many free editors that replace the weak Notepad — that which is included by default in Windows.

SearchStatus – one among many Firefox search toolbars

LUG-INS have become very popular among Open Source projects. They enable an application to be extended endlessly by its community without getting bloated at the very core. At present, you can come across a large variety of plug-ins for the Mozilla family and many of these plug-ins tend to be more playful than practical. They serve no pragmatic purpose or even a purpose other than amusement. Most of them offer nothing beyond an enjoyable 1-minute time-burning. Examples from Mozilla Firefox:

• Extension to display your IP address
• Extension to diplay the Google icon in the status bar whenever you visit Google
• National security threat level in your panel

All of these plug-ins simply do what they claims to be doing. No more, no less. These are ‘proof of concept’ examples; very basic examples, almost as fundamental as the infamous “hello world”, but ones which exploit the Firefox API‘s for independent developers. These often get unjustifiable low ranks, which criticise their presence rather than quality. This bugs me at times.

Plug-ins are indeed sometimes pointless, but they should do what they say on the tin. Why do people install such plug-ins and then whine about them? If you don’t need a plug-in, don’t get it installed in the first place, I say. I continue to see review of what is admittedly incomplete or lacking. Better not review or not download literature and code if the description does not sound pleasing. Review is unfortunately used as means of punishment for time-consuming activities or dissapointments, which were all along called for (and voluntary). Rank, popularity and value must be separated altogether.

long time ago I argued that more people ought to digitally sign their E-mail messages. Unfortunately, very few people bother to do so. There are many benefits to encryption-based verification of one’s identity. Ultimately, it can lead to more trust, which can in turn prevent spam and make communication less susceptible to ‘noise’.

There recently emerged a word-of-mouth that signed messages are less likely to be intercepted by spam filters. As to whether this is true or not, I would have to say I doubt it. I am sorry to antagonise some people’s hopes, but several messages that I PGP-signed got flagged as spam (not by SpamAssassin). At least I was informed in all (probably two) occasions, but it was nonetheless worrisome. Quite recently I mentioned a trend whereby banning of autoresponders becomes prevalent. It is very important that moderators up above can discern spammers from those who attempt to fight spam in genuine and effective ways.

O you know the feeling of listening to playlists which contain assorted tracks from various different albums? More familiarly perhaps, have you ever pondered this issue of volume shifts?

The sound becomes louder and quieter as one track bounces onto the next one. Balancing the — shall we call it — ‘cross-song imbalance’ is an unnecessary nuisance. This lead to a lot of manual intervention with the volume control throughout playtime. Should music players not have the capability to adjust this on-the-fly, before playing a track? Equating in one form or another the volume baseline? Would this be done better off-line? The latter option often requires that the entire track is analysed first. One wonders which players incorporate such functionalities already.

Linux desktop – picture from kde-look.org; click to browse the source

PEN Source is renowned for many reasons, but (monetary) abundance is barely one of them. Abundance, however, due to the factor of cost, can often be perceived in a different way. Many software options are available , even all at once, because licences have a different meaning under ideologies like the GPL.

Practical example: I have about 9 installations on this domain which involve a database and are absolutely free. Also, there are at least 3 statistics packages that cater for monitoring. All of these are free. That freedom gives a sense of eternal ownership — the everlasting affordability and the freedom to modify at will.

The World Wide Web offers many other free applications, either as Web-based services or downloads without restrictions. To take an opposite example, Photoshop requires licences for a desktop installation. Being a desktop-side example, the deficiencies that cross one’s mind is the need to perpetually renew licences and, the lack of portability, and growth that indeed entails a considerable cost.

I was somewhat amused when a fellow Webmaster, who had opted for Windows hosting, came to discovers that statistics must be paid for as a separate commercial package. This come to demonstrate what a role cost truly plays. One has to pay extra just to be able to understand what happens on his/her own Web site.

Often you may find yourself confessing: “Yes, shared hosting on a Linux or Windows server might seem equal in terms of initial cost”. However, When basic extensions and growth come to mind, as well as the possibility of large operating licences and dedicated servers, it become apparent why Windows will struggle to compete. Only the false perception that brands and costly products are best bar none can perpetuate a myth. Heavily-invested-in lies support this myth.