The following is a mind-stimulating fragment from a post that I recently read in the Linux advocacy newsgroups. Judge it for yourselves.

(In a derogatory reference to Linux) “Anything free is worth what you pay for it” - Robert Heinlein

What? You think it could be worth less?

He also said:

“Certainly the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you; if you don’t bet, you can’t win.” - Robert Heinlein

Which should be the unwritten motto of the OSS community.

And finally one for you to ponder:

“Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate–and quickly.” - Robert Heinlein

Upgrade to Thunderbird. It’s Open Source and it honours standards/netiquette.

ICROSOFT Outlook is a terrible mail application, despite some common beliefs (and expectations due to cost, or bloat). I cannot comment on its abilities as a calendaring software as I have only seen others using these peripherals features. However, at least one Outlook user whom I exchange E-mails with is breaking every rule in the book regularly (if not always). Outlook does not prevent him from doing this. As a matter of fact, it encourages this and a dissatisfied recipient is of course less likely to reply.

Here is a short description of the problems inherent in these messages that I receive from Outlook (and sometimes Outlook Express too):

• HTML-formatted
• Non-standard ‘HTML’ (Microsoft Office inclination, MSIE-centric)
• Roughly 38 kilobyte even for a one-liner (an enormous non-standards compliant ‘style sheet’ is prepended)
• 10-line signature (Outlook does not warn or deter)
• No signature delimiter (breaking all RFC standards)
• Always top-posted, not trimmed and lacking context (Outlook is definitely not helping by creating new lines and putting the cursor at the top)
• In quotes, re-wrapping is broken and irregular symbols get inserted sporadically

There is no gentle way to approach the issue, but one such person learned to at least stick to plain-text (owing to a kind request). The top posting habits remain though. Outlook Express requires QuoteFix, which is addon software/hack, just to stop this default behaviour and make bottom posting practical. So there is no subtle way to suggesting others to improve their posting habits, unfortunately. To them, the Windows/Microsoft way is the right way. Acceptable standards lose their value when a desktop monopoly simply ignores them.

Some time ago I wrote some notes on how to begin loving E-mail again , which reminds me of an old favourite that is titled the UseNet improvement project.

Baghira Mac OS X lookalike for KDE

INUX can be assimilated to merely any desktop environment, including the appearance of its rivals’ desktops. It can endlessly adapt, particularly layout-wise, although look-and-feel is getting there too. Different interfaces (achievable through desktop environment), as well as various addons, make this truer than ever before. There are several design sets lying about, which enable Linux to look and behave merely like any other operating system. Here are a few examples that I collected recently:

• KDE posing as Mac OS X
• GNOME posing as Mac OS X
• Another approach/route to GNOME OS X
• KDE as Windows XP (not quite so ‘brushed up’ though)

Another nice style that I found is Noia for KDE (version 1).

Here are some sets of instructions of interest. These are step-by-step recipes to achieving some of what’s shown above:

• Transforming GNOME to become a OSX lookalike
• A recent blog item pointing to Arnaud’s OSX cloning tutorial

was travelling to London the other day and something out of the ordinary happened on the journey back to Manchester. This has me think of the possibility of a subsequent rant, which is something that I can never help doing.

So, we were all prepared to leave Euston Rail Station, but the train got stuck. Once it was time for it to depart, the brakes could not be operated. They didn’t permit the train to move. The manager soon said that the local engineers were called in and later added that the train needs a reboot. All the lights went out and the train was virtually disabled for several minutes. Then, even after the reboot, the breaks did not work. Delays have begun to accumulate as the train remained in the station for almost half an hour longer than it should have.

Eventually, the problem was fixed and we rode to Manchester faster than usual, still to no avail (it was late). I slept the entire time fortunately, so not all was bad. The occupancy of the train was low. I couldn’t help but wonder: are these new-ish Virgin trains driven by anything from Microsoft? Windows in particular as a possibility? Or is it specialised UNIX? This reminded me of a very recent deal involving Microsoft and all the Formula 1 teams. I asked somebody who might know the answer, but he could only suggest the following:

“I’d kind of doubt that they’d have windows, but it is just possible. I’d suggest you contact virgin to find out. If it’s true, it could well be a serious safety hazard which should be highlighted anyway.

Personally, I’ve truly no idea…”

Eventually, I decided to contact the company and find out. I doubt Virgin would even reply to any such as enquiry. If they use Windows, they’ll probably deny it. Nobody wants their train systems hijacked, using the flaw du jour, right?

IET is a tricky thing. It’s harder to commit to it than it is to decide to get it started. I still believe in controlling one’s diet by supervising ‘fridge inventories’. It’s essentially done by abstaining from buying undesirable foods or sharing food with others too openly. Shared fridges are a disaster, speaking from experience, as you are no longer restricted to a narrow range of foods (variety is good on the other hand). I find that avoiding the temptation at the stage of purchase leads to a more balanced diet at the end of the day. This expands beyond the ‘realms’ of the fridge. Also dried and long-enduring foods fit this argument. Even sugary drinks and alcohol.

Managing SPAM with the Horde
Web-based E-mail client (click image to view in full size)

N many contexts, no proprietary application can beat Open Source software where development is cumulative — that which stands on the shoulders of giants. I quite like using SpamAssassin as an example.

Spamassassin has captured and isolated tens of thousands of messages for me and never once flagged any genuine message as SPAM. On the contrary, off-the-ground commercial software performs far more poorly, despite its price and its shrink-wrapped package. Many times in the past, messages from myself actually reached the recipients’ SPAM boxes. They actually expected and welcomed that mail, which at time was important. This led to serious inconveniences and communication gaps.

So ask yourself today: in this industry of software, where production costs are inexistent or negligible, should price be indicative of quality? Co-founder of Apple seems to concur with the opinion that some of the worst software comes from large commercial companies.

E often face the need to compromise and rearrange priorities. We do so in order make better use of our time, but there are trade-offs involved. A few months ago I said I would give up on blogging pace, which stood at about 3 posts per day. According to one blogger, this deems quite reasonable. At present, neglect of pace appears like the right strategy, for a wide plethora of reasons.

Daily posts are a legacy of a Web 1.0 mindset and early Web 2.0 days (meaning 12 months ago!). The pressure around posting frequency will ultimately become a significant barrier to the maturity of blogging. Here are 10 reasons why.