Somewhere out there!

DeepBurner is the best way to burn an ISO in Windows.

Auckland tied with Düsseldorf for 5th in the Mercer Human Resource Consulting World’s Top 100 Most Livable Cities. Wellington also gets in the top 20 at 12th. Vienna another city I’ll probably spend time in, is tied for 3th.

From Digg.

A difficult question to google. In Solaris nodename is “the common name of the system regardless of how many hostnames the system really has.”

So each /etc/hostname.{if} interface file might have a different hostname associated with it, but /etc/nodename is the primary name.

From Ben.

Couple useful articles on running windows with an existing install.

Check out this OQO2 demo video video by Kenrick. Even with the Via 1.5Ghz CPU performance seems good enough for the small form factor. It’s doubtful someone will be stocking it in NZ, so I’ll probably have to wait until I’m next in Hong Kong before I can check out how it feels in the hand.

From Gottabemobile.

From How to Wreck Your Brand.

Debian 4.0 is released:

The Debian Project is pleased to announce the official release of Debian GNU/Linux version 4.0, codenamed “etch”, after 21 months of constant development. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system which supports a total of eleven processor architectures and includes the KDE, GNOME and Xfce desktop environments. It also features cryptographic software and compatibility with the FHS v2.3 and software developed for version 3.1 of the LSB.

…

This release includes a number of updated software packages, such as the K Desktop Environment 3.5 (KDE), an updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 2.14, the Xfce 4.4 desktop environment, the GNUstep desktop 5.2, X.Org 7.1, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4a, GIMP 2.2.13, Iceweasel (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3), Icedove (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5), Iceape (an unbranded version of Mozilla Seamonkey 1.0.8), PostgreSQL 8.1.8, MySQL 5.0.32, GNU Compiler Collection 4.1.1, Linux kernel version 2.6.18, Apache 2.2.3, Samba 3.0.24, Python 2.4.4 and 2.5, Perl 5.8.8, PHP 4.4.4 and 5.2.0, Asterisk1.2.13, and more than 18,000 other ready to use software packages.

Good job!

Spent a couple hours trying to get DOS booting on a flash disk. Syslinux/Sysreccd worked, but I couldn’t get standard DOS to booted. Finally figured my 4Gb flash disk was a little too big or had the wrong C/H/S settings for DOS to work. Luckily I had another 2Gb flash which did work.

• FreeDOS on a USB Flash Drive – HP tools seems to be the best method to use
• Ultimate Boot CD – check details on download page for installing to flash disk
• BootFlashDOS – uses files from diskcopy.dll on XP/2003
• Tip: Boot from USB Key Addendum – lots of tips
• How to Create a bootable USB Memory Key – nice walk thru for HP tool with screens and links to archived zip files
• How to boot from a USB device

A useful looking appliance: Ultimate Deployment Appliance

The Ultimate Deployment Appliance will help you deploy your servers or workstations. The goal of the project is to be able to fully deploy a computer by booting to PXE and choosing the prepared operating system template. Of course this is already possible, but as I discovered, it takes a lot of time to setup a service like this. This appliance will do it for you. Windows, Linux (Fedora, Ubuntu, Suse) and Solaris X86 are supported.

From rtfm.

Nice quote I’m have to remember in to the future when I have some ‘theoretical arguments’: Open source: Reality bites?

A great philosopher may sit in his study and deny the existence of matter: but if he takes a walk in the street he must take care to leave his theory behind him….

Pyrro said that there was no such thing as pain; and he saw no proof that there were such things as carts, and wagons; and he refused to get out of their way: but Pyrro had, fortunately for him, three or four stout slaves, who followed their master, without following his doctrine; and whenever they saw one of these ideal machines approaching, took him up by the arms and legs, and without attempting to controvert his arguments, put him down in a place of safety.

We may believe anything for a moment, but we shall soon be lashed out of our impertinences by hard and stubborn realities. (4, 7)

Action not theory:

I know I find open source in everything, but it seems to me to be a perfect rendering of James’ pragmatism. It’s not about the theory behind open source that matters. The only thing that matters is the output. That output makes me think that open source is “true” in the Jamesian sense. From “Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth:”

True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we can not. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as…. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.

As Matt says, in business the only thing that matters is delivery of a product. Whether this be a nail or a word processor. In the value chain that creates ‘things’ for people’s lifes.  The strength of open source is exactly what RMS saw when he started down the GNU path. Freedom to choose, creates the freedom to innovate which plays to the strengthens of the human condition.

The balancing act always being the profit of the present vs the profit of the future.  Microsoft being a clear example in the former case for software and maybe the original company behind Nautilus File Manager being an example of the later.