EVIATING from the a development branch, thus staying away from the regular updates cycle, is a step which is bound to have its problems, e.g. security and missed out extensions. I am fully aware of these issues and I made mistakes in the past nonetheless, particularly with Web applications. I am rather confident and comfortable with my choices to extend applications, but one must remember the pitfalls, as well as the very few advantages.

Rather than simply downloading pre-installed and/or pre-configured packages like Gallery, WordPress, a VPN client or PHP-Nuke, one can add a wee bit of ‘individuality’ to them. For example, with actual words and vocabularies that do not suit your way of speaking, you can instill some personality within the software — a beauty to be found most commonly in Open Source software. It gives a feeling of ownership, a sense of personal contribution.

Linux users are often inclined to hack software and customise it, maybe because they can. With some Linux distributions like Gentoo, people struggle to compile individual components and some have the odd habit of re-compiling the Linux kernel. Again, it gives an utterly unnecessary sense of achievement. That free platform, however, unlike other platforms, can be claimed to be one where very little intervention should be involved. With 5-CD installations, for instance, all the necessary software is in place, is well-integrated and simply works without any apparent conflicts. Somebody else took care of all the nasty installations and then burned some ISO to be distributed and put as-is on other people’s computers. So, we perceive a situation where there is a great deal of freedom, but at the same time that freedom is unneeded or even discouraged.

Change to existing packages is risky. It can bring an application to a fragile state. Attempts to exploit vulnerable (usually non-existent if the owner is fortunate) components are being re-directed to an unpleasant page at server level on this domain. I hope these can successfully deter a determined hacker. The only ones to come across such a page would be those attempting to sabotage (hence the rel="nofollow" in the link above).

When forking and choosing to no longer follow a development cycle, there is always some possibility of ‘flushing’ self-made components and starting fresh with similar, even identical data and an application belonging to the current generation, hence incorporating state-of-the-art technologies. Upgrades usually mean some loss of personal changes which are better off never lost. This may lead to feelings of regret due to waste. It also means hours of conversions, not to mention the laborious process that is involved in updates and getting accustomed to new interfaces. As it stands, I continue to fork, but do so cautiously.

OZILLA Firefox was voted best product of 2005 in a long and rather interesting list from PCWorld. Firefox snatched that honourable position despite recent criticism due to security vulnerabilities and growth that seemed to have stopped.

As a matter of fact, many Open Source projects have been ranked very well, which reflects on the changing trends, whereby inter-operability benefits the most.

HAT we truly need is not SpamAssassin , but a SpammerAssassin [sic]. We have seen controversial cases where spammers got killed, but taking the law into one’s hand is a desperate and poor solution. However, what else can be done when the law in itself is futile and inherently lacking?

Something evil like comment spam gets blocked in the best of circumstances while nothing is done to penalise or catch the spammers themselves. How long must it take before globalised networks begin to hunt down the spammers, backed by excruciating laws to assist the enforcers? Surely not enough is done. In internationalised networks like the Internet, it is sufficient to have few countries (see spam maps) that are apathetic to spam and make havens for illicit traffic to be dispatched.

I recently joined an initiative to combat and ideally eradicate comment spam altogether. With a few tweaks I also found that SpamAssassin filters out my E-mail spam admirably well, separating ham and spam by putting them in separate boxes. Not all is lost as progress is still being made. Unfortunately, spammers get more ‘crafty’, usually keeping abreast of mail prevention methods. It is a never-ending race.

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N recent years we have seen the rise of (soon the demise of [2, 3]) blogs, as well as various personal homepages. The curious statistics include myself although I began when I was 15 with admittedly poor content. This dates back to the last century and is hence not considered “recent” either. Homepages used to be common habit among academics who wished to disseminate recent work, openly expressing to peers their research interests and showing (off) a list of publications.

This morning my 9-year-old sister approached me and asked for a personal homepage¹. She got envious since her friends have one already. Funny enough, she even wanted her own domain, but I stopped her right there. It was just over a year ago that she asked me to add a photo to a family photos page and I added several albums to the Genealogy section.

Trends appear to evolve and greed mounts enough to justify extending a single page, which soon becomes an independent, stand-alone site. It has become a norm rather than the exception and the ‘entry barrier’ is easier to get by. Several years ago there were only a few ‘brave’ individuals who boasted a page or a blog, but today these are so common that they are merely insignificant. The excess — or the overload as some would prefer to call it — makes visitors less willing to explore. In more and more forms and an increasing number of subscription we are given the input field “homepage” these days. So, individualism it no longer is.

Due to such homepages, it is also easier to access our minds, which as many other things can be used for better or for worse. One thing is for sure: the early years of the 21^st century will be remembered as the days when many people began erecting personal, self-centric sites (as opposed to scattered pages). Consequently, freedom of speech was on the rise (or conversely muted) and privacy jeopardised.

¹ I am afraid her homepage will remain unindexed by crawlers and accessible only to her friends for the time being.

I am still on vacation, but I would be sad to see the blog remaining static. The following are a few pointers that I have accumulated in recent days:

• Linux tablet – running fully-featured Linux on a modern tablet PC
• $100 laptop prototype – a proposal from MIT
• Why would a Linux device be as capable (or more) as any other platform which is expensive and bound to restrictions? See the Slashdot roundup of Web applications. The collection of links therein is makes an excellent proof of the emergence of AJAX in several major aspects of work, e.g. scheduling and spreadsheets. I mentioned this as a future possibility a few days ago and wrote a long essay about it on the plane just a day before coming across the item from Slashdot.

Did you know there was AJAX word processor, AJAX spreadsheet, AJAX calendar, AJAX presentation-building software, AJAX e-mail client, AJAX note-taking software and some other interesting applications, which, deployed on your local server, do not need installation and “just work” in a browser window?

ATER this morning I shall be leaving for a 10-day vacation. I will attempt to continue adding content to my blog, though pace will not be comparable with my usual. As I will be getting less input (i.e. reading and conversing), I don’t expect myself to have much to say either.

Shown above is a photo from my last vacation in springtime. A few transformations were applied to the image using the excellent GIMP, just for amusement. Knowing my past experiences, this vacation will only lead to accumulation of work and reslessness. Internet is an addiction to me.

S Palm form an alliance for their smart phone with their former rival Microsoft, many perceive the step as a damaging one to the Open Source community or advocates of open standards and inter-operability. Microsoft are already strutting about, showing off in their front page a Palm device while labelling it “Windows-powered” (a segment of the image is shown below). This image looks rather offensive since they go a rather long way in order to pass across the message: “the enemy is ours”. Sadly, Palm do similarly in their front page; maybe a reciprocal exchange?

This aggressive attitude is by all means nothing new. It comes after a great deal of trouble and distress at Microsoft. Windows Vista, for example, needed to be-built from scratch and there was recent loss of government support and trust, which in turn opted to move to OpenDocument. So, that “incompetent-at-best” move from Palm gives Microsoft a small victory among the many recent losses, ‘Google threat’ being the most prominent one.

How can Palm live with the shame? (from Microsoft’s front page)

In UseNet, several threads come up with misleading subject lines insinuating a complete Palm migration to Windows, which is evidently false. Then again, when will Palm complete their promised move to Linux? Is the recent Access-Palm takeover going to have an effect on strategic alliances? What if Palm carried on with Windows for their smart phones, as well as Linux in tandem, primarily for older-generation devices?

Looking at the users’ side, how would smart phone owners, whose data has been stored in line with Palm’s conventions, synchronise their data with a Mac or a Linux machine? Are they supposed to be swayed to change their desktop environments because of a PDA?

This move by Palm left me bitter and I am not alone in feeling somewhat betrayed. I came to witness a platform which I voluntarily supported (assisting many hundreds, if not thousands, of Palm users in UseNet) as it gave strength to an opponent — an opponent whose purpose is to destroy and cripple anything that is not Microsoft. I am beginning to investigate a migration to the Zaurus after many years of sticking and evangelising Palm. I truly hope that Palm prove that their commitment to Linux is true, thus keeping me ‘on board’. They will need to do that soon enough, or else rumours will grow wings and suggest that Palm(One) have become merely a hardware vendor and that PalmSource are history.

Cited by: PalmAddict