Comments for David.R.Gilson

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by Peter

Peter — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:05:43 +0000

Don’t forget the following reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows:
- No disk fragmentation
- Faster file system (EXT4)
- No viruses, no malware
- No annoying pop-ups telling you that an upgrade is available. Ubuntu updates all installed software in one single action.
- Stable stand-by mode
- Fun to use
- Loads of excellent free software available.
- Continues to work great even on older hardware
- Excellent support through the Ubuntu user community
- Network friendly
- Ubuntu is free !

Comment on Tip of the week – 6th November 2009 by David

David — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:32:55 +0000

Thanks for that Tim, and as a caveat, I’m also having trouble with regard to this bug.

Comment on Tip of the week – 6th November 2009 by Tim Salmon

Tim Salmon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:10:32 +0000

Great tip, David. However – just so people are aware – if you try this with a recently updated N97 (firmware v20) it may play up and not connect properly. I corrected this by a hard reset, then it worked properly. We talk about this is Phones Show Chat 11 – App of the Week! http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/sshow/chat.html

Comment on MP3 Tag Editing by David

David — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:10:53 +0000

Well, I used MP3TAG to edit the ID3’s of my entire collection, which allows me to use any library based application, and to change to any other whenever I want.

I currently use both Songbird and RhythmBox.

I always say “use what works best for you”, but I avoid Apple software because it always leads to vendor lock-in one way or another.

Comment on MP3 Tag Editing by Dominic

Dominic — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:40:05 +0000

Actually I find it a good piece of SW in general, just this one thing that is a bit annoying, what do you use as an mp3 library?

Comment on MP3 Tag Editing by David

David — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:54:51 +0000

Hi Dom,
Afraid I can’t help you with iTunes, it’s those sorts of problems that make me steer clear of it.

Comment on MP3 Tag Editing by Dominic

Dominic — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:43:02 +0000

I have used Tagscanner before for this purpose, it can use names to produce tags or vice versa. This was good when I had to copy my music from a creative mp3 player which had obscured all the names but which still had the tags.

What I really want is a program which can sync the file mp3 tags with the info in itunes library, so I can keep all the data if the library files gets corrupted (which has happened once, and I only had an old back-up)

Comment on Bluetrek Bizz Bluetooth Headset Review by David

David — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:02:13 +0000

Oh dear!

Comment on Bluetrek Bizz Bluetooth Headset Review by Sebastiaan Eldritch-Böersen

Sebastiaan Eldritch-Böersen — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:46:29 +0000

I had a Bluetooth headset bought for me as a gift last year. I think I still have it somewhere. I’m sure the gifter meant well….

Comment on Review of Nokia E51 smartphone by David

David — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:07:48 +0000

Glad to be of help

Comment on Review of Nokia E51 smartphone by Mobile

Mobile — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:53:25 +0000

Excellent post, helped me in making my descision to get one!

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by trsctr

trsctr — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:07:19 +0000

osx <3

Comment on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Preview by suyog

suyog — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:58:05 +0000

I am also waiting for final release , I tried beta last week and had few issues.

Comment on A guide to Linux and Series 60 phones by David

David — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:47:11 +0000

Thanks for your comment

If Nokia did make Linux desktop software for their Maemo devices; and if the Maemo devices performed well as phones, then that would indeed make me switch from S60.

However, I have a feeling that even though Nokia are dabbling with embedded Linux, they still aren’t going to go to the desktop. They don’t even support their phones with Apple Macs (afaik)

Comment on A guide to Linux and Series 60 phones by Giles

Giles — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:00:05 +0000

I’m also a longtime fan of S60 but have been becoming a little tired of late. I’ve been wondering about the N900 and what it will mean for Linux/Ubuntu people. I would think it will not be long before there is software written for complete intergration of phone and computer.

Comment on Hardware Review: EagleTec 8GB Nano Flash Drive by David

David — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:24:44 +0000

Hi there,
Currently, I leave mine at home. Although if I were carrying it, I’d carry it in a pocket that has a zip

Comment on Hardware Review: EagleTec 8GB Nano Flash Drive by Mohammed Saeed

Mohammed Saeed — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:10:26 +0000

Hello
what the way to carry it ?
put it in wallet ?
or u have a series to handle with keys ?
Regards

Comment on A guide to Linux and Series 60 phones by suyog

suyog — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:35:11 +0000

hey, i hope you keep up posting more about your experience/learning with Ubuntu-S60. I tried Karmic beta and had hard time so back with jaunty again.
May be they will iron out many show stopper bugs in Final Release.

Comment on A guide to Linux and Series 60 phones by David

David — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:54:10 +0000

Hello Suyog,
Thanks for the great comment!

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one trying this sort of thing.

Regarding browser bookmarks. I often find that I bookmarks different sorts of things on my phone than I do on my desktop. If I ever find an interesting link on my phone, I’ll bookmark it, then use the send option to email it to myself for checking on my laptop.

Yes, Nokia are a limiting themselves a little only supporting Windows. Both Linux and Mac users are left out.

Thanks again for visiting and posting your comment

Comment on A guide to Linux and Series 60 phones by suyog

suyog — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:42:52 +0000

@David, Great to see someone taking note of Linux-S60 scene and writing about it.
I am using Ubuntu since 2 years with Vista dual boot, now Win7.
I am huge S60 fan and initially found going tough with Ubuntu for Phone PIM, Sync, connectivity. But with each new Ubuntu release , I see hope.
I am using following things.
1)rsync for data cable file sync
2)Blueman for anything for bluetooth connectivity. please try it its better than default.
3)F-spot for photos.
4)Music, I just do drag n drop
5)PIM Sync, I use multisync for syncing with Evolution. I think we should not always rely on cloud and I like my backup to be in my PC. I also use OVI cloud.
6)Using phone as modem , this simply rocks in ubuntu, sooo easy and out of the box.

Issues still remain as you have mentioned with Map loader and Firmware Update. Firmware is going OTA in most new models.
I also miss Bookmark sync,SMS sync,backup, though we have workaround via opera sync.

I still wish Nokia opens up OVI suite and we have version for Linux.

Suyog

Comment on Hardware Review: EagleTec 8GB Nano Flash Drive by David

David — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:07:50 +0000

Hi there,
Thanks for posting about this, that’s interesting.

Mine hasn’t fallen apart yet. If you ever happen to get another one it would be interesting to see a series of photos of the internals you described.

Comment on Hardware Review: EagleTec 8GB Nano Flash Drive by James

James — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:36:24 +0000

i bought one of these a few months ago. they arent exactly the most robust flash drives ever made, mine broke into 3 pieces last week as i took it out of the computer. i was actually surprised to see that the drive is just an 8GB SDHC micro card sitting next to a chip that has usb pins on one side and SD micro pins on the other. This is really a simple product, the sd micro card and the chip arent even soldered together! i was able to glue the parts back together and its good as new. Now when sd micro cards with larger capacities debut in a few years, i can just take the old 8gb out and slide in a new one! I’d recomend getting one of these just to break it for fun, you can still use it when its broken…

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by David

David — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:52:02 +0000

Indeed. Although it will do for me, as I’m just going to be reviewing features, not performance.

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by Michael

Michael — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:27:12 +0000

Let me know how you getting on with 9.10 Btw, testing it in a VM is not the most representative way of testing But its ok.

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by David

David — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:27:26 +0000

Doesn’t sound good, but with 9.10 still being in beta, it’s a bit early to say what the problem is there. I suggest that you see if you can replicate these problems with 9.10 in a virtual machine install. I’ve been meaning to review 9.10 (by means of a VM) myself, but haven’t had time yet.

As for 9.04, I haven’t any experience of the ATi drivers, but I do know that ATi isn’t as well supported in Linux, and my laptop has a nVidia card.

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by Michael

Michael — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:41:24 +0000

Well, I “tend” to agree, but I have made aweful experiences with the latest releases of Ubuntu, namely 9.04 and now 9.10… When I did a FRESH install of 9.04 on my laptop, after the first reboot it suggested to intall the 3rd party vga drivers for ATI… I thought well, why not, done and voila, Ubuntu destroyed itself to not being able to boot into gnome anymore, regardless of my 2-day effort to fix it…

9.10… (fresh install), on my hardware (which worked fine and stable for with earlier versions) is NOT stable at all.. failing too boot sometimes, crashing and firefox 3.5.3 that is preinstalled crashed ON THE SPOT one its very first virgin launch lol… so what is going on ?

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by David

David — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:20:20 +0000

Hi Alan,
I think it’s because the people who wouldn’t use Photoshop to it’s full potential don’t know what its full potential (and how over kill for them it is).

You can’t blame any non-techy people for it because Photoshop is so popular its name is now even a mainstream verb. And, GIMP is rather unfortunately named.

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by Alan Tickhill

Alan Tickhill — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:01:08 +0000

You know, there is a smugness of reading articles like this Ubuntu

Anyway, pretty much agree with your list. Why do people always quote Photoshop? It is not the only photo manipulation program out there and why the hell do people insist on having it for the home when most people don’t use it to more than 3% of its potential? Unless you work in the media, you don’t need such an over weight program for touching up your family pics

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by David

David — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:37:31 +0000

It sounds like you haven’t tried Ubuntu for a really long time.

Ubuntu 9.10 (out in a few days from now) will have Firefox 3.5 which is fast, and if you just don’t want to use Firefox, then you can use Opera, or webkit.

Flash support is fantastic, I’m using the Adobe plugin and have no complaints.

An Office Suite with a working spell check you say? Sure thing, OpenOffice comes pre-installed and works great. I actually wrote my MSc thesis with it, so see if you can spot any spelling mistakes there

Surely reliability, boot time, regular updates and the up-coming application store are things people are about too though?

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by Mike

Mike — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:08:56 +0000

Does it have a fast browser yet? How about flash support? Or an office suite with a working spellcheck?

Canonical needs to work on issues that people actually care about before adding shit like desktop effects.

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by David

David — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:17:12 +0000

Hi Paul,
Well, Windows and Linux (Ubuntu is one flavour of Linux) are like the old days of Spectrums and Commodores, software for one won’t run on the other. However, Linux has a program called WINE which allows you run a lot of Windows programs in Linux.

Having said all that, Ubuntu comes pre-installed with an alternative to Photoshop called GIMP, which will do everything you’d probably want to do with Photoshop. I’ve been using it exclusively for years, including all the artwork I make for this blog.

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by paulbrear

paulbrear — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:10:44 +0000

ok so if it’s all that good can things like photo shop be run on an ubuntu or linux which ever way round it goes ????
from a techno phoebe

Comment on Ten reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows. by RusDavies

RusDavies — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:20:48 +0000

You forgot an important point of comparison: Windows exists to get you to part with as much money as possible in return for the minimum possible value. Linux strives to give you as much value as possible for the least cost possible.

Comment on Book Review: Neuromancer by David

David — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:43:23 +0000

Hi there Kevin,
Thanks for reading my book review, and pointing out my error! I have corrected it now.

Comment on Book Review: Neuromancer by Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:54:21 +0000

The main character’s name is Case, not Chase.

Comment on Alternate phone charging methods by paul conroy

paul conroy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Hi, i like the prospect of charger facilities in public places, airports train & tube stations etc. Supplier staytalking.com & recharge.ie good idea

Comment on Review of Nokia E51 smartphone by Set up WiFi on your Series 60 smartphone | David.R.Gilson

Set up WiFi on your Series 60 smartphone | David.R.Gilson — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:03:35 +0000

[...] Review of Nokia E51 smartphone [...]

Comment on Hardware Review: EagleTec 8GB Nano Flash Drive by David

David — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:43:52 +0000

For the record and anyone else reading, we talked about this more on E-mail and it seems they are suitable for Readyboost.

Comment on Hardware Review: EagleTec 8GB Nano Flash Drive by David

David — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:09:51 +0000

Hi there,
Good question, right at this moment I don’t know!
So, I have passed the question on and I’ll post again when I get an answer.

Keep checking, or subscribe to comments by e-mail and you’ll get the answer in your inbox!

Comment on Hardware Review: EagleTec 8GB Nano Flash Drive by jonamse

jonamse — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:30:16 +0000

I know that you use Ubuntu, but is this thing compatible with windows readyboost?

Comment on A year of blogging by David

David — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:42:41 +0000

Thanks Jamie, I will!

Comment on A year of blogging by Jamie

Jamie — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:37:41 +0000

Happy blogiversary! And keep writing!

Comment on A year of blogging by David

David — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:01:04 +0000

Thank You

Comment on A year of blogging by Matt Simmons

Matt Simmons — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:21:09 +0000

I love the hat!

Happy Blogiversary!

Comment on Bookmarks for August 17th through August 21st by Joseph Berry

Joseph Berry — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:37:50 +0000

I think Linux is taking up the ground. recently i am hearing a lot about it. My new laptop has Linux installed in it. i think it will help.

Comment on Tip of the week – 11th September 2009 by David

David — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:44:49 +0000

Good call! Funnily enough, I have an upcoming post about this site too

Comment on Tip of the week – 11th September 2009 by Rarst

Rarst — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:27:02 +0000

I like this one much more
http://www.ismyblogworking.com/

It provides plenty of useful details on top of simple up/down check. Had a post about it while back.

Comment on Miniaturisation & Minimalism by Rarst

Rarst — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:50:39 +0000

Nah, mostly finding ready-made electronic versions. Not too hard around here (hint – my books are not in English).

Comment on Miniaturisation & Minimalism by David

David — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:33:39 +0000

Hey Rarst,
Glad to hear I’m not the only one. When you say about books, it kind of sounded like you were Scanning and performing OCR. Am I right?

Comment on Miniaturisation & Minimalism by Rarst

Rarst — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:29:00 +0000

Heh, discs are easy – I got rid of those few years ago.

Now I am getting rid of books (I have e-ink book reader for tech replacement) and this is somewhat more challenging. I have under hundred left to deal with.

After that my frankenstein of a desktop PC is next in line for scrapping in search of slimmer and more convenient setup.

Thinking of getting netbook for a home server.