Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

EVERAL years ago I foresaw the demise of Windows, especially when I was first introduced to Linux. Years later to find myself sought after by companies like Google, whereas giants like Microsoft only seem to offshore their job market as to cut margins and sustain stable figures.

As some recent large declines in the MSFT stock indicate, the trend looks unpromising, for Microsoft. If I was to predict the events of the next couple of years, I would argue strongly in defence of SOA and mobile computing, predominently run on Linux.

Concurrently, as an article in the CNN suggests, mobile devised will gnaw at usage of the personal computer. The evidence is there to be seen as Google liaise with Nokia on their Linux-based Internet tablet. Moreover, Motorola have just become friends of Open Source.

Picture from the BBC

XCITING news (for me at least) came out yesterday afternoon. I won the rowing competition (first stage among 10) with the time of 10:43.5 for 3000 meters. The second among the 10 contestants was almost 1 minute behind me, which considering my neglected endurance, makes this a high achievement.

Related items on exercise:

• Rowing Ahead
• Decade of Exercise
• Mr. Fitness

T has been a good day at the gym today. A team of dozens of production staff took over the health club for the filming of models. Good-looking women ‘infested’ the place. [smile /]

Previous ‘special guests’ were
Jeff ‘Left hook’ Lacy, a boxing world champion (a fortnight ago), and Justin Timberlake a couple of years. It was just me and him at the gym, but I didn’t recognise him at first. He is unimpressive when faced in person.

My pause/resume demonstrative program

ARLIER this afternoon noticed that my MATLAB profile had gone past the 30,000 count milstone. That count corresponds to the number of downloads of my code and programs over at MATLAB Central. I keep track of these numbers three times a week using HTML syndication. After some hesitance, I thought it was worth raving about; just because I rarely get the chance! [smile /]

Related item: A short write-up on an honourable highest position: first world-wide. This was my greatest moment of excitement, for which my grandfather popped some champagne.

Y site has just returned to Google’s top 50 for “roy”, after I had dropped to oblivion last year. I was never truly trying to get there. I never aimed for the site to be affiliated with the keyword “roy”, but this was a side effect of anchor text (words adject to or within hyperlinks). More oddly, my domain name and front page title make no mentioning of Roy. This, anchor text must matter a great deal; More than many of us realise, that’s for sure.

As another example, take the main developers of WordPress. They are ‘Googlebombing’ themselves in ‘out of the box’ installations of the software Web-wide. Try searching Google for “matt”, “mike”, or “alex”. You will see what I mean.

I occasionally re-think my arrangement of automated backups. Recent reading about somebody else’s backup method inspired me to take better care of backups (yet again). I used to have 40 GB mirrors in 3 separate sites, which seemed beyond sufficient. Nevertheless, last Tuesday I bought a 300GB external hard-drive. Unwrapped, connected to SuSE and voila! New drive appears on Desktop. Linux has become easier than ever before. Almost frustratingly easy as there is no challenge and rarely a need to install any software.

The only downside of this device is the noise level, which is resulted from rotation at 7200 RPM inside relatively small housing. This can become loud and persistent during overnight baskups. Since the noise bothers me, I suppose could rely on earplugs. The internal hard-drive on the actual box probably has greater noise levels than the new external unit. Usually, however, it is idle or asleep, so only noise from the fan is a true factor.

I never lethargically back up my hard-drives, but nightime appears to be a must for backups, owing to (to put negatively — due to) duration. Matters used to be worse if defragging hard-drives, back in the days when I had a Windows laptop in my apartment. It required some overnight maintenance jobs and fortunately no such issues exist with Linux. Backups, on the contrary, become larger and larger (thus taking longer to complete).

All in all, I have 300 vacant gigabytes to fill. But where will I ever find that much pr0n? I kid, I kid. [smile /]

Photo from around 1984

Warning: shameless rave lies below, but it is no lie.

sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out if I had chosen a different career path. I believe I could stick to a particular sport and make a living out of it. Yesterday, the guy at the cashout (a friendly lad) asked me if I was a bodybuilder, making me shy and flattered at the same time. He then began asking for some general guidance and workout tips, while packing the groceries very slowly with the intention of earning time.

More often than before I find myself giving others advice on fitness, diet and exercise (apart from computers). Yet, on many other occasions I sought help from personal trainers with whom I am in good terms and, as a matter of fact, it was my father who got me started with regular exercise over 10 years ago. So, I merely pass on the experience I have absorbed from others.

This year’s fitness competition is coming up and I am already obliged to sign up and participate. I was the winner in all previous contents among this series, which got me in an ecstatic mood.