Andy Hadfield

Alpha - Software undergoes alpha testing as a first step in getting user feedback. Alpha is Latin for "doesn't work."

Beta - Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it's released. Beta is Latin for "still doesn't work."

Computer - Instrument of torture. The first computer was invented by Roger "Duffy" Billingsly, a British scientist. In a plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler, Duffy disguised himself as a German ally and offered his invention as a gift to the surly dictator. The plot worked. On April 8, 1945, Adolf became so enraged at the "Incompatible File Format" error message that he shot himself. The war ended soon after Hitler's death, and Duffy began working for IBM.

CPU - Central propulsion unit. The CPU is the computer's engine. It consists of a hard drive, an interface card and a tiny spinning wheel that's powered by a running rodent - a gerbil if the machine is a 286, a ferret if it's a 386 and a ferret on spe…

Had lunch with Mr. Chilli a while back and we got to chatting about how to leverage the long tail effect of South African's citizen journalists. ie When all the media houses are ploughing money into the big sites (News24, iAfrica etc.) with traditional banner adverts - how do you start taking advantage of the plethora of niche sites out there. Sites that aren't monetized. Sites that have unqiue, loyal audiences.

Anyhoo. Paul started a Wiki asking for contributions to the idea of a South African Independent Publishers Association. It's a cool idea - but like all cool ideas - needs a bit of momentum to get the discussion going.

So, if any of my readers have had similar thoughts - please hop on over to the Wiki and add some ideas.

It harks back to a previous post I wrote about looking for trends in 2007. I was hoping to see some progress towards a consolidated blogging effort - using combined traffic as opposed to fighting over the 100 visitors per day scraps...

It interests me.…

I'm sure this isn't new. But it's the first I've noticed it. Afrikaans ads coming up on Adwords / gMail. Some clever Afrikaans entrepreneurs. Prikkelpop MOOI!

Righto. Quick thoughts on compatibility and fitting into the requirement of a development / IT strategy environment. What's the score, I forget...

Oh. Ubuntu 3. Vista 0.

1. Reading Microsoft Documents.

No problems. Open Office support everything up to Office 2003 (the latest version pretty much - and widely used). It imports and saves into compatible formats pretty easily. Wasn't this a problem before? Cross platform difficulty? I'm not sure - but if it was - it's definitely not anymore.



2. Connecting to a Microsoft Domain.

Everyone's got one. It's the MacDonalds of the the corporate network. And it would be a bitch if you couldn't get on it. Thankfully, Ubuntu just works. It picked up the office network, allowed me to connect and authenticate with my normal username/password - and remember that password so I wasn't forced to type it over and over again. Magic.

3. Connecting and using Internet Services.

Bah. Nothing to it. Firefox. IRC. GAIM Instant Messenger …

Now... I'm not much of a gamer, but this really tweaked my retro strings. A friend of mine recently purchases Space Quest I - VI (on ONE WHOLE DVD)... They've used a util called DosBox to make sure it runs on XP (forget Vista).



Does this or does this NOT take you back!?



This second screenshot is of Space Quest II. Hectic.

Apologies for the crappy screenshots - but we hooked it up to a TV - just for the extra bit of pixelation.

Righto. Eye candy time for corporate environment boy who leaves Vista for DUST (particularly stoked right now with Ubuntu performance and easy of use) and tries to survive in a MICROSOFT development house - not running Microsoft.

The interface is great. People have been raving (myself included) about the vast eye-candy upgrade Vista provides, but Ubuntu is not far behind. It takes a bit more of a Mac approach - simplicity - with subtle candy thrown in for good measure.

OK. Sometimes not so subtle - but from a Windows lad, it was just the ticket.

Everything runs from a "Start" bar at the top of the screen. Easy access pretty much to everything you need - as well a quite a nice holding bay for widgets and application shortcuts.

So. Onto the eye candy. Multiple workspaces - and when you switch to them - they rotate as if on a cube... Shoo. Wow. It's glitzy enough to be cool, but subtle enough to out-candy the Vista Alt-Tab shuffle.

It also has a funky feature called Window Wobbl…

Right. Corporate environment boy attempts to rescue himself from void of Vista non performance on outdated hardware (duh). Installs Ubuntu and...

Honestly? I was blown away. The install is so slick, and just so non-windows. Download the ISO here, burn it to CD, reboot and you're on your way.

The major difference with Ubuntu - is that it can boot into the OS from the install CD. So essentially, you get to try before you buy. Don't underestimate the importance of this. It's just so accessible... and transparent.

There's a logo on the desktop which invites you to put the OS onto your hard drive. Click that, and be guided through some extremely friedly options - just setting up time zones etc. Even partitioning your hard drive is easy. Choose from guided or non-guided options - and whether to use the whole hard drive or install alongside windows.

It's. Just. So. Easy.

And quick! The install couldn't have taken longer than 25 minutes (this on a Celeron 1.6 GHZ with 512 M…

My Acer TravelMate beastly thing is in the shop. It started melting. Whole other story. So - picked up one of the spares lying around the office. This time, a slightly inferior (who am I kidding, ridiculously inferior!) Acer Aspire 3620. 512MB RAM. 1.6 GHZ Celeron.

With Vista on it.

Well, the office had moved over to Vista - so the spare machines were nicely set up and waiting.

Oh. My. God.

Over the last 4 days I have almost put my head through the nice bright LCD. They weren't kidding when they said be careful with hardware, were they? When it takes 25 seconds to alt-tab, you know you've got problems.

SO. I'm taking the plunge and putting Ubuntu 7 (Feisty Fawn) I think it's called. The project? Can you survive in an intense IT environment, helping to run an MICROSOFT development house, where everyone is sending you Office 2007 files? And can you survive using Ubuntu, probably the friendliest of the Linux distributions?

If I have the time, I'll post some thoughts about t…