IT-Tactics

Why RSS Feeds and alternatives to Google Reader

2013-05-23T00:21:00.002+02:00

When reading about Google Reader closing down on 1. July, I was in panic because to stay on top of the news (mostly IT specific news in my case), I was depending on Google Reader. I was depending on Google Reader because I am depending on RSS feeds.

Google writes (in the article linked above):

"While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader."

I would never have imagined a decline of use in RSS (and I assume that the decline of Google Reader usage also means a decline in using RSS in general because it is very hard to find good alternatives for Google Reader). And therefore before diving into the alternatives I want to - no, I need to - go into the advantages of using RSS feeds first. And although there are plenty of articles about Google Reader alternatives out there, it was very hard for me to find the proper substitute and this is the reason why I decided to write yet another article about this topic.

The reasons why I am depending on RSS:

Knowledge is power
Information overflow is a problem these days. Recently I was asked (again) why one should - in these days - foster information overflow even more by opening even more channels where the too much of information rushes in.
Information (as long it is not misleading or wrong) can be a life changer. You want samples? Think of a company investing in technology that is about to be obsolete (like Adobe flash) loosing a lot of time and money investing into the wrong product, think of a friend who found his spouse over the internet, think of going on a cheap vacation not knowing about risk of war in the appropriate country. Oh and another example I have experienced already several times: I get informed by RSS feed about food that gets withdrawn from market because polluted or containing toxic bacteria and strangely I sometimes see them on sale in the supermarket the day after I've read the article. Who has the knowledge has the edge over the others!
The problem is not the information, the challenge is the appropriate filtering of information! And RSS feeds help!
Time and information
I do not have the time to visit each single website or blog providing (probably) interesting information. Many sites and blogs do publish very important or very interesting information - from time to time.
More efficient scrolling through articles
Many sites do publish a lot of information, but I am interested only in a few articles, so searching through many articles to find one or two interesting ones is annoying. An RSS reader (be it through the web or a local application) allows more efficient scrolling through articles.
Different user interfaces of websites and blogs
Different sites have different GUI (graphical user interface) and different layout. Visiting the sites one by one also implies being familiar with many different user interface styles. Many of them are not very efficient or it is difficult to find the information.
Ads, bulk and other time and space wasters
Even if you use an ad blocker in your browser often big graphics already consume a third of your screen distracting from the core information. Not only because of big graphics, but also because of many third-party service-sites (like Disqus, Facebook, Twitter, Adthis, Sharebar, ...) that are integrated on websites/blogs those sites take longer to load and having you to wait for the content that ... maybe then isn't so interesting today (while tomorrow may show a very interesting story that makes it worth waiting).

The reasons why I was using Google Reader (= the 5 core requirements of the substitute):

In-Sync-View on the Laptop/Web and on the mobile device (so what I've already seen on my mobile phone did not get presented when reading news on my laptop - one of the most important features for me).
List view option for feeds - I hate the hyped square interface. I want to read from top to bottom - that's it.
Simple and efficient user interface for dealing with the news fast.
Fast and reliable feed loading.
Nearly identical user interfaces on the web and on the mobile device - or at least not lacking core functionality. (Mobile device in my case is Android, Mac and iPhone users, when reading this article, Apple-only alternatives are left out here).

Reasons 1 and 2 are a must have for me, but found that not having 3 and 4 can also drive me mad in minutes. So, now you are understanding the focus I had while choosing the alternative, here are my proposals:

Feedly
Feedly was the first alternative I got aware of and I observed it was the first alternative where the masses took refuge. However, I wondered if it will continue to work after Google Reader shutdown as it seemed to be just a front-end for Google Reader. Indeed they were (or are still while writing this) relying on Google Reader but developed a new backend on their own - see comments here. Not sure if the transition will work flawlessly and if the performance can be kept due to massive increase in amount of users. While I also find it one of the best alternatives, I am not as convinced as most of the others.
Pros: Many features, mobile app (for Android, iOS, Kindle), similar GUI, laptop stays in sync with mobile app.
Cons: Needs a plugin for Firefox (why the hack?), No mobile interface via browser only, even no https connection, Don't see how many articles still left to scroll through (no scrollbar) on mobile app. When I want to share an article link via K-9 mail (or other mail app than GMail) from within Feedly it does not transfer the article title as email-subject which is quite annoying. Further it restarts accidentally when returning from another app back to feedly (e.g. browser view - does not happen always) which is even more annoying.
netvibes (= Bloglines - same GUI, same login)
Pros: Clean, simple and compact web interface, additional widgets in addition to rss feeds. Also looks ok and is usable on mobile device in browser being very, very similar to Google Reader - but only with default browser and Dolphin (Firefox and Opera Mini displayed it totally different and it was total crap). Videos are displayed directly in the article detail view.
Cons: No dedicated mobile client and using some browsers (in particular Firefox and Opera Mini) you get complete crap. Due to mobile app missing, it does not offer any enhanced features via menu button (normal browser menu displayed). Limited share options given (Mail, even multiple clients plus Twitter and Facebook).
RSSly
Seems to use Tiny-Tiny-RSS (which you can also install on your own server, if you have enough permissions there - see below).
Pros: Many features, mobile app, similar GUI on laptop and mobile phone, laptop stays in sync with mobile app, display in browser on mobile device is also very good (Dolphin and Firefox - which is seldom - see below), many features including list of not responding feeds or feeds that seem abandoned as well as filter settings to filter out spam posts.
Cons: It took me a good while to find out, how articles are marked as read on the mobile device. It does not work automatically, but when you do it manually it had unexpected effects until I found out, that doing it on the first page marks the first 30 entries as read and on the last page it marks the complete feed as read. On the mobile device I have cannot switch between show all articles or only unread of a feed. And RSSly seems to load feeds respond to article clicks a little slower than Feedly. I could also not get it to display article title only without abstract on mobile device.
Fever°
This is not free and no hosted service. You can buy it for about 30$/23€ and host it on your webserver. I took the risk and bought it. Installation was very easy. I only had to temporarily disable PHP securiy settings on admin interface on my hosters website for my page (for the time of installation and activation).
Pros: This is then yours, no risk of the next RSS service closing down. Clean interface, some extra features (kindling and sparks) to make your RSS experience even more efficient.
Cons: You need a web server with PHP support for it. If you don't have a web host with your domain then you cannot use this. Mobile client meltdown for Android still missing some features and available only for Android 4.0 and later. Refresh of feeds is not done in background (you can cron it but in my hosting case I can only cron it once in the night) and I experienced it also to be slow.
The Old Reader
Pros: HTTPS connection supported. Simple - no other clutter than plain RSS feeds. Few but clean settings, you will be familiar with it fast.
Cons: No mobile client (yet). When importing my feeds it queued me up after 12 other users. This makes me worry if they have enough servers to have my feeds stay on top of the news. Although they say that their mobile web interface is good, I had already troubles logging in from my smaller phone (small screen) and categories were completely missing and similar issues here when using Firefox or Opera Mini (complete crap is the result).

What I also looked at but excluded from closer investigation and why:

Pulse
Pulse has a mobile client but no simple list view of the news feeds - they always use the squares or rectangulars and I am never sure about the direction into which to read. Also I could not find a button to set a feed to completely read. So this lacks a lot of important switches in my opinion.
NewsBlur
Free version has limits which I already exceed when importing my current feeds from Google Reader.
Mocharoll (=former Blogroll)
Failed importing my RSS feeds from Google Reader (took a very long time and I then gave up first. Looking back later it had imported my feeds but I had no chance to switch to list mode instead of the square view. And in general configuration options are not really existing. Also refreshing problems - so didn't look either how it behaves on the mobile device.
Feederator
Looked similar to netvibes or TheOldReader, but could not find a method for importing opml files or my Google Reader feeds.
Good Noows
Looked nice on my laptop, but mobile view again awful (does not wrap around text. On the laptop I also had problems getting a complete feed beeing set to read. At least it supports https connection (not all of the online services do).
Tiny-Tiny-RSS
As for Fever, TT-RSS is not a hosted server. It is free, but you have to install it on your own server. I could not test it because it said that it requires open_basedir turned on which seems to be disabled by my host.
CommaFeed
Looks simple but already on Dolphin sucks in display (too small but when you zoom into it, display gets mangeled.
Flipboard
Mobile app only - no sync-view between mobile app and laptop.
Feed2Imap
Self-hosted solution, so requires your own server and then forwards RSS news items as mails into an IMAP account. I am not sure, if my hoster supports ruby and I did not want to introduce another protocol (RSS->Mail) where again something can go wrong.
feeder.co
For what I need, I would need the variant that costs monthly fee.
FeedBooster
Online-Reader only with https capability but no specific mobile device/browser adapted display.
Flud
Seems to have a web plus mobile client but people reporting stability problems of the mobile app and pricing is not completely clear to me (maybe because this is not 100% RSS focused) so I refused testing this.
news360
Web and mobile app but no possiblity to add your own RSS feeds - just what you get from them.
More alternatives here...
I skipped everything in testing that obviously
- syncs with Google Reader (and hence die with it)
- does not have any sync option
- does not have a mobile app or at least a useful mobile web stylesheet in use to show an adapted GUI for small screens
- costs money on a monthly basis
- does not have a list view for articles

So despite this long list of alternatives (Feed2Imap apart, I have listed only those I have also tested), in reality there are 4 which are fairly useful for me: Feedly, RSSly, netvibes and Fever. All the others had too many (for me important) flaws. I have Fever up and running and I feel good with it - as it is mine (nobody can shut down the RSS-service). However, best efficiency is given by Feedly and netvibes. Reading this (Feedly gets Unity webapp integration in Ubuntu) was one reason to go with Feedly for the next weeks. I still feel bad about it's desire to read my Google profile but I hope that will be gone when they synchronize with their own alternative but with Google Reader - currently Feedly still remains in sync with Google Reader. I can work around the mailing issue with the subject by first opening it in the external browser (there is an option for this in the advanced settings) and send the link from there. What I find more alarming: Feedly already thinks of asking money for the service. They already created a survey for that. Anyway, I have 3 other alternatives now I can immediately switch to and this gives me some feeling of safety.

Related post: Efficiently following web news with RSS.

Proof of Concept

2013-04-18T00:08:00.001+02:00

More and more companies tend to set up proof of concept projects before they buy software or IT solutions.

Apart from the fact that there is nothing wrong with that, I can see that companies do believe less and less of the stuff they get told by sales. And I think, they are right. Be it economic crisis or greed, to get a deal, salesman simply lie. When they lie they often the don't really lie explicitely, they often just choose words and phrases that can be easily missunderstood or lead to high or wrong expectations. Then of course there is usually the technical part of the story that salesman mostly don't understand well - and they guess or are just happy with the positive attitude.

Well, this is business as usual, you might argue - and you might be right.
But the product features/limits/facts and expectations of the people in the project are a crucial part not only during the evaluation period.

Who suffers?

The IT administrators at the customer.
The consultants doing the installation and configuration stuff.
The final end-users (some of them - they key-users - are nowadays often involved, even if often too late).

All those people are often not involved during the early project phase, although they are very relevant for the final project success.

What is worse than having few work only and a tiny amount of new customers only? When you have your consultants blocked working in projects which are always short before escalation or at high risk that customer wants unwinding the contract!

So I try not to feed high expectations and I prefer overdelivering over underdelivering. In the long run this brings more satisfied customers getting back to you for further projects.

Related post: The truth about software.

Firefox and RSS feeds in Google Reader

2013-01-13T00:18:00.000+01:00

Update: Google Reader will be closed down at July 2013 so this article is quite obsolete - read the newer article "Why RSS Feeds and alternatives to Google Reader".

However, here is the old story:

Lately I explained RSS feeds to someone and wondered why Firefox is not behaving the same way as on my machine when subscribing to RSS feeds. I did not remember what I exactly did on my machine to get it to work because it is so long ago that I created my profile for new that I first started searching the internet. Interestingly I could not get it to work so - back home - I investigated my own settings. Interestingly they do not match what I found on the net so I think it could be worth writing this article.

Preamble: Google Reader is an online RSS news reader that is also available for Android phones which is very fine when you (as I do) use your phone a lot to read news (for example while on the bus or waiting for it). What you read on your phone is synchronized with what you see when you are back on your laptop or PC. What I show here is how to get subscriptions with Firefox:

Newer Firefox versions do not show the RSS feed symbol by default any more. - Right click next to your tabs or somewhere between your toolbars and choose "Customize...". Look for the "Subscribe..." button and drag it onto your toolbar (I have it next to the refresh and abort button).
Type "about:config" into your url location bar and search for "feeds".
Change "browser.feeds.handler" to "reader"
Change "browser.feeds.handler.default" to "web"
Change "browser.feeds.handlers.webservice" to "http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=%s"
You might also need to change "browser.contentHandlers.auto.application/vnd.mozilla.maybe.feed" to "http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=%s"
You might also need to change "browser.contentHandlers.types.0.title" to "Google"
You might also need to change "browser.contentHandlers.types.0.type" to "application/vnd.mozilla.maybe.feed"
You might also need to change "browser.contentHandlers.types.0.uri" to "http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=%s"

Now when you are on a site that offers RSS feeds the "Subscribe" button should be active (sometimes, when there are many different RSS feeds available on a site they are available through separate links on the site while the main RSS subscribe button is inactive so you might need to dig a little for the RSS subscription link) - however in both cases you should get the option to put the RSS feed onto your iGoogle page or subscribe with Google Reader then.

Related post: Efficiently following web news with RSS, Why RSS Feeds and alternatives to Google Reader.

The truth about software

2013-01-12T23:59:00.000+01:00

To summarize the software-troubles:

Too many bugs
Too difficult to use
Too much administration and maintenance work

As you might already know, as it seems obvious for you - or maybe, if you are listening to your inner voice, you only hear it from somewhere burried deep down in your mind: software is full of bugs. There is no bugfree software.

Since I started programming, I could see the IT world complexity growing and growing. In the beginning there was one processor and one process running at a time - no other software to integrate with. Everything was easier. When I think back to times of Commodore C-64 or when I was using the MS DOS Borland Turbo Pascal or C compilers - they were all extremely robust and when there was something not working as desired, I could be to 99 % sure that it's my fault. So at least the core system and the development platform were rock-solid and stable. That did not always apply to my programs... ;-)

Nowadays, operating systems and their core services as well as development environments - and in addition to that a bunch of third-party libraries all have their issues. So the software developer doesn't even start on a rock-solid base as it happened to be back in the early eightees (at least according to my experience - YMMV). In addition to that: If you want to produce cars, toys or whatever other physical stuff, in most cases you need a factory and a lot of money before you can start. For producing software, all you need is a computer and download some tutorial from the net and even a fool can get started - and unfortunately a lot of fools do...

But the low entrance barrier is only one reason for the lot of issues around. In my opinion the complexity is the worst thing here. Even with the honest strong desire to get everything right, you can't - apart from the fact that IT world has grown far too big to be completely covered by a single person.

But the growing IT world did not bring only troubles - we do have far more possibilities since computers were invented. Software development is far easier than in the beginning of computers. We can build software with far more features in much shorter time now. The problem: The software can often do far more than the users can handle.

And last but not least: I remember times when the "installation" of a program was just copying it to the machine and run it. Today it requires dependency checks and sometimes complex installation procedures. Although still possible - only a very few programs that run fine when you just copy them. Nowadays many software products have a bunch of required preconditions and a lot of integration options that need configuration. Highly integrated software means more maintenance work regarding updates (of any of the involved components). Another reason for increased maintenance work are the customization options that most software comes with.

A normal user nowadays is working with a lot of different software products and often there are some software products that are used very seldom only. I have seen users dealing with software they need to touch only once a month. From one month to the other they need to re-find all needed menu items again because from one month to the other they always forgot.

The challenge these days is:

To reduce complexity (of the problem and feature set) as far as possible (while maintaining flexibility).
To make using the software easier - software must be intuitive to use (only a very few people do read documentation or help file text).
And to make configuration obvious and simple.

The truth about hardware support

2012-08-07T02:06:00.000+02:00

Since the time I first started using Linux at home I know that one must be careful when choosing hardware to avoid pain when installing Linux.

When people say that Windows supports more hardware than Linux I always confirmed from my own experience.

But: Linux - out-of-the-box supports more hardware than Windows does (out-of-the-box)! Microsoft "outsourced" most hardware support to the vendors and when you buy new hardware with Windows preinstalled, vendors did the job in getting everything to work!

Lately I wanted to help out a new co-worker reinstalling Windows on his work laptop (HP Pavilion g6). There was an extra partition prepared by the vendor which probably contained possible required drivers. However, somehow it was inaccessible so we couldn't get drivers from there. After a clean Windows 7 installation: No WLAN, no sound and no ethernet either! After long search on the net (from another machine of course), my co-worker found the most important download (ethernet driver) on a separate site from HP for businesses (after finally also identifying the exact sub-model of the g6) - more than 100 MB download - for a freakin' ethernet card!

After that I was so frustrated loosing so much time just to get the normal ethernet to work (let alone WLAN and the rest), that I left the rest up to him. Later in the evening he called me about activating Windows and Office and I could not get to the Microsoft action pack site because somehow the login did not work any more.

The next day he arrived at the office with Ubuntu installed on the HP Pavilion g6 - everything worked out-of-the-box - no single extra driver required and of course fully usable (without the need of activating any software)!

But this is not always the case. There are plenty of vendors that do not write drivers for Linux and many even do not publish the specifications so that somebody else could write the driver. If there is an open source driver - or at least a free driver available, Linux already contains it, where on Windows you need to get separate driver setups or CDs from the appropriate box or vendor site.

There are currently software updates running on a Dell Latitude E6530 next to me. As usual, all I need to tell Dell: I need a laptop and I don't pay the Microsoft tax, I will install Ubuntu on it and the hardware must support it. I don't want and don't need to search forums for possible problems, I can rely on Dell shipping fully supported hardware - everything out-of-the-box - also no additional drivers required.

My recommendation: Even if you don't plan yet to use Linux, tell your vendor when buying a new PC or laptop that you want the hardware to be Windows AND Linux compatible. If you plan to use Windows: Hope that you don't need to reinstall yourself grabbing all the required drivers from the internet!

Related posts: Ubuntu compatible hardware, About Dell, The hardware.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin - Optimized

2012-06-22T00:19:00.002+02:00

Preamble:
If you are a recent Linux convert, just new to Linux or only a casual computer user, you don't have to worry: Whatever of the main Linux desktop distributions you are choosing (be it Ubuntu, Zorin OS, Linux Mint, Fedora, ... - whatever flavor of those) to use or try out - you are ok. The following is for power users who want to save clicks and mouse-miles to the absolute minimum required.

This article partly applies also for other distributions that offer compiz.

Introduction:
Since Ubuntu 11.04 which first introduced the new Unity interface for the main desktop instead of Gnome, I was testing many different Linux desktop alternatives because I worried about the future of the Ubuntu desktop. After testing several distributions (see preamble above) and all the main desktop environments including XFCE, LXDE, KDE, Gnome3+AWN, Gnome3+Cairo Dock I came back and settled with Unity on the current Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) production work desktop. I do consider myself as a Linux Desktop power user on a daily basis at home and work and I focus on usability, efficiency and stability. On 10.04 I was experimenting with Gnome 2 plus AWN or Cairo Dock finding a more efficient desktop configuration. Basically I ended up with something similar to Unity. Except: I was doing hard work on configuration ending up with several small but annoying problems (including crashes of particular applets now and then).

Honestly, I find Unity on Ubuntu 12.04 (not so in the versions before) very stable and useful out-of-the box. There are still a few very first actions, but anyway far less post-install-configuration work than everywhere else (not to talk about Windows which is the OS with the most-post-install work ever existed).

First actions after install (applies to debian based distributions such as Ubuntu, Mint or Zorin OS):

Click Settings/Power Icon in the right upper corner, then "System Settings"->"Appearance"->reduce "Launcher icon size" to 32. Default size is just too big to get most icons fully displayed that I need on a daily basis (ok this first one is only for Ubuntu users with Unity).
Start Nautilus (Windows/Ubuntu/Super key + 1), move mouse to top of screen (new way to get to the active application's menu) and choose "Edit"->"Preferences" and change "default view" to "List View".
And in tab "Display" I also change the date format to ISO (yyyy-mm-dd) - you might want to keep the default.
Start Firefox and under "View"->"Toolbars" check "Bookmarks Toolbar".
On the commandline (open a terminal):
sudo apt-get install synaptic
I now, there is a nice app store now - pretty fine for the normal user and even for me if I want to look around for interesting stuff. But I still like to see the original package names, have overview and full control about the repositories and the like. therefore I still like synaptic - in addition to what comes with Ubuntu.
On the commandline (if on Ubuntu or other distribution with Desktop environment that offers/works with compiz):
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-plugins-extra
That's for configuring my desktop to get the best usability and efficiency.
Enable partner repositories:Press ALT+F2 and type synaptic then press Enter.
In the menu select Settings->Repositories.
Enable the partner and independent repositories.
Close the sources dialog and on the synaptic main window click on the reload button (this is the same as the commandline "sudo apt-get update" - without the quotes).
Managing passwords:
It is always recommended to use different passwords on different sites where you register and login. After several registrations nobody can remember all the passwords. Therefore it is helpful to use a password manager. My current favorite is keepass2. It can be installed this way:
sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:jtaylor/keepass
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install keepass2
And then I install a lot of other tools - such as (on the commandline again - this is all one line):
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras ubuntu-restricted-addons adobe-flashplugin ffmpeg vim cups-pdf gnome-utils thunderbird k3b p7zip-full gufw libdvdcss2 xdotool gthumb vlc shutter gtk-recordmydesktop openjdk-6-jre icedtea-plugin openjdk-7-jre grsync galternatives soundconverter winff asunder ogmrip thoggen k9copy google-talkplugin skype pidgin emesene mc htop traceroute secure-delete pdftk imagemagick rar unrar jhead what-utils ttf-linux-libertine ttf-isabella ttf-dejavu-extra ttf-inconsolata ttf-sil-gentium ttf-junicode ttf-rufscript ttf-radisnoir remmina remmina-plugin-gnome remmina-plugin-xdmcp remmina-plugin-nx freerdp-x11rem chmsee jxplorer mdbtools-gmdb nautilus-filename-repairer smbclient clamav clamav-freshclam clamtk libmotif4 curl network-manager-openconnect-gnome network-manager-openvpn-gnome network-manager-vpnc-gnome openconnect ttf-mscorefonts-installer acroread
Note: You need to enable a few repositories before:
#Adding medibuntu (all the next on one line)
wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && apt-get --quiet update && apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && apt-get --quiet update

#For Google-Talk-Plugin (2 lines)
wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/talkplugin/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'
On Ubuntu with Unity? - Then these help:
sudo apt-get install classicmenu-indicator lo-menubar unsettings myunity indicator-weather
For the professional IT guys (continue on the commandline - again all one line):sudo apt-get install gparted dconf-tools gconf-editor gisomount bum vim-gnome gedit-plugins geany geany-plugins scite meld diffutils diffuse diffpdf gitg bless ghex build-essential xmlcopyeditor
For the developers or server guys more might be highly relevant (on the commandline one line again):
sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client mysql-query-browser mysql-gui-tools-common mysql-admin pgadmin3 gsql

Enhanced usability:
Now - if you are on Unity or using a desktop environment with compiz - here are the tweaks to maximize usability:

Start ccsm (e.g. Press ALT+F2 and type ccsm and press Enter). This is the compizconfig-settings-manager.
Choose "Desktop Wall Plugin" under "Bindings" category and set "Move Left" to "Bottom Edge + Button 1" and "Move Right" to "Bottom Edge + Button 3. - That let you switch the desktop left and right easily with the mouse on the bottom edge.
Still in "Desktop Wall Plugin" go to "Edge Flipping" and uncheck "Edge flip move" as well as "Edge Flip DND".
Go back to main screen and select "Scale plugin". Go to "Bindings" and set the "Initiate Window picker" to "BottomRight" and/or "TopLeft".
Go back and switch to "Application Switcher" plugin. Under "Bindings" choose for "Next Window" the TopEdge+Button 1.
Set "Next Window (all Windows)" to "TopEdge+Button3".

New user experience

2012-04-15T22:43:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I made an experiment which for me is difficult to do: I showed Ubuntu 12.04 to a person (about 70 years old) completely new to computers (only used the mouse to click through a set of photos so far but that's it). I only know a very few people of this type (most already have used computers).

I have seen a lot of funny and interesting behaviour (like hit the key with the pipe character written on it instead of i ;-) - never thought of things like this). Don't want to go into detail - just share the most relevant results in very short:

Big icons are not only for people visually handicapped - also for people who are not familiar with a mouse (or relevant for touchscreens: have big fingers). A quadratic form is easier to click than a rectangular shape (text on websites is rectangular shape and more difficult to click than the Ubuntu Unity launchers for example).
Without explanations - whatever Operating System - a complete newbie person cannot learn only on his/her own. There needs to be a person that explains. Not to talk about administration. A newbie with low experience level will never administrate the computer on his/her own. There must be a person with higher experience level helping out and doing this for everyone who just wants to do a few things (or must do). This draws a very important conclusion for me - confirming my belly feeling somehow: The operating system must try to minimize the annoyance for that guy behind everything. The person that needs to help out the core family and a dozen of friends! - That usually are IT people or at least the very technical interested guy/girl. So companies or communities building an operating system need to focus more on the technical person than on the new user! If the guy/girl that needs to administrate, hates the OS he/she will install something else and the user needs to adapt. For the unexercised user efficiency differences of one or the other operating system are irrelevant - not so for the power user or IT guy! So those driving an operating system forward with their experience and with their desires for improving efficiency are the key group - they are the experts others will trust. Who would you rather ask which new car to buy - the flower lady at the corner or the taxi driver?
Most websites are far more complicated to use than the base operating system. Navigating those sites is far more hassle. Last but not least because they do not tend to look similar. Imagine, all websites would have a standardized menu so that whataver company site you are at, you find the link to the office hours at the same position.

A few Linux related videos

2012-04-10T03:19:00.000+02:00

Here are a few easy and overview videos related to Linux that might increase your interest:

Ubuntu spot:

How Linux is built:

Linux vs Windows (in brief):

Linus Torvalds: Why Linux is not successful on the Desktop:

Ubuntu TV:

Ubuntu for Android Demo:

Linux is better than Windows:

Unity technology overview:

Microsoft Office vs OpenOffice / LibreOffice:

10 reasons Windows 8 will fail:

Choosing a programming language

2012-04-05T00:10:00.001+02:00

Currently - after a very long period I am again into the programming language decision which I was not expecting.

Changing programming language is a big deal and you shouldn't do that every 2 years. When you search the web you will find recommendations to learn many languages and learn a new each 2 or 3 years. I find this totally silly. To get really productive with a programming language, takes at least a year and of course you would like to get the most out of it regarding ROI (return on investment).

When I did evaluate programming languages the last time, it was a 3-step way:

Collecting all options with the result of a hand full remaining for further analysis.
Keep an eye on activity and evolution of the results from step 1.
Detailed analysis of the remaining options and choose.

The time from beginning of step 1 until end of step 3 took about 2 years. During step 1 I already decided on a few parameters, which in my case were:

I prefer static typed languages over dynamic ones for several reasons (e.g. less error prone, YMMV).
I don't want to code user interface - I have coded GUI since I was an 8 year old boy and I was about 14 when I got GUI designers (those times still using MS DOS) so hand-coding GUI is for me like returning to stone-age and so that is a no-go for me if a GUI designer is missing.
I don't like language hopping and because of the very dynamic requirements of my software projects I need a programming language that can be used for quite all realms - so all the domain-specific languages are excluded for my needs.
My applications are usually plugin/addon enabled which means that a customer must be able to develop those for special needs on his own - without additional costs. That means, my favor goes to languages that are free (and open source) including the IDE used for development.
The language should not be tight to a particular operating system.

My decision - taken back in 2008 after many years of classic Visual Basic development on Windows was: Java together with NetBeans IDE, using Swing GUI for desktop applications (NetBeans itself uses Swing - however, there is another option for building GUI in Java: SWT). A short comparison Swing vs SWT can be found here. Back in those days I have already blogged about my decision, you might want to read back to "The programming language" and "The IDE and the libraries" maybe. The Swing GUI is - by the way - far superior to the .net WinForms or WPF - both do not adapt well to very different text lengths in labels (just to give one example - in Swing this works without additional work in full automatic). Another core advantage of Java in general is: You take the binary and it runs everywhere! - C++ and many other languages at least require the same code to be compiled on each platform. What if I want to develop for the Mac and I don't own one? - I have given Java apps that I have written to a friend for testing on his Mac and it worked - without me ever testing it on the Mac. Of course if you call system programs dealing with the output you may see differences in the behaviour on different operating systems that you have to deal with. The most annoying thing in Java is that you need to ensure that the Java runtime is installed on all the client PCs where you want to use the app. Of course no difference to Microsoft's .net here - although there is less version quirks than for .net...

Now, about 4 years later there is nothing wrong with my decision. My decision is still that. With the rising of alternative operating systems the importance of Java has gained (on the server side Windows definitely already lost for enterprise applications at least) and many server-applications go Java to be platform agnostic. Apart from that the Java world is huge. Microsoft's .net is growing also, but still far from that (regarding size and quality of libraries and community).

The trigger for my latest search for a programming language is that I have a few very small programs (running on the client) to write (they are not "real" applications, just tiny programs for particular small needs). I found Java - and .net or Mono as well just too big for such tiny stuff. In my particular case they are Windows specific needs. A few of those needs I already solved by just writing VBScripts. That was ok for the GUI less needs. Now I have a few little needs for small GUIs. And that again brought me to a brief look around.

And indeed that is the single parameter ("should fit for very tiny requirements also") I did not include in my former decision back in 2008. And good it was I think because finding the programming language that fits for really everything 100% is not realistic. It is even not realistic to think that a programmer nowadays can survive just knowing one language - but: It is important to keep in mind that no one can achieve the same level of expertise in all used languages.

So this post can be seen as an addition to my main pro-Java decision - the programming languages that are helpful in addition to Java.

For Windows development you should know VBScript and on Linux shell scripting or Python or Perl for the small scripting stuff.

But what to choose, if a little GUI is needed?

If you search for a platform independent development platform, you could look at Free Pascal and Lazarus IDE as it creates native code (so just take the executable and run it instead of writing packages or setups that manage plenty of dependencies) and is fast. There is one problem with this approach: On Windows (in my case) using COM components (not to talk about .net) is not well supported and possible only with quirks (not tried myself, I just read about that). That is the reason why this is not an option for me in my current situation. If your application does not need to tightly integrate into the Windows ecosystem Free Pascal gives you multi-platform development (same code, just need to be compiled for/on each platform).

After all, still core technology is C(++) and Code::Blocks is an IDE available for all major platforms (for wxWidgets projects the wxSmith seems to be the most capable GUI builder, you need separately install wxWidgets - at least on Windows). Or anyway you can either use NetBeans using external designers to build the GUI for Linux development. I have developed quite a lot C++, but maaany years ago and today I simply had problems getting Code::Blocks to work seamlessly with wxwidgets (design worked, but compilation finished with configuration errors). What I found on the net related to my errors was from about 2008 partly not matching my environment. I gave up on this but for those succeeding I want to mention this option.

Last but not least I still also see the option to use SharpDevelop with .net for the single reason of time-to-get-started and seemless integration into the Windows ecosystem - and this combination by the way is the only mentioned one that is bound to windows only. If you think of Mono and MonoDevelop then be warned about the differences! Creating platform independent applications with C# is not as seamless as you might think! Using MonoDevelop on Windows (MonoDevelop can compile against .net or Mono) brings more platform independence but you loose the Windows integration (COM/activex support at minimum level - I find the Java-COM-interop even better; registry access and stuff like that). The very important point here is the Windows integration - it's the one and core argument for this option!

I was about to write a paragraph on speed but didn't want to write that without a single test after more than 3 years of not checking that. Surprisingly a minimum GUI test lead to the following result: Cold start on a virtual Windows 2008r2 machine is 5 seconds for both - .net as well as java. A second start is 1-2 seconds - either for both. I then tried a Java test application with a little more GUI to find out that (warm) start is 4 seconds - not bad either. Surprisingly Java 1.6 update 30 and .net runtime 4.0 seem to bring a similar user experience at least from startup behaviour. Many still say, Java is slow - far missed!

But I may not forget that I need to access activeX/COM components for my small work which makes it more feasible doing it with .net because .net simply integrates better here - as already mentioned. Of course there are options when using java - for example - my favorite com4j (which I tried for several COM components in the past where it worked well). Although I never tried to embed activex controls into a swing component - and that does not seem trivial in Java - see here.

Needless to say that I would prefer Java for 100% of the work if it would be easier to deal with COM components and if it would integrate nicely with the Windows stuff. Java with NetBeans is basically the only combination that I really love to develop with. Everything else lacks in IDE features, is difficult to set up or the community is small and tiny amount of available components.

And of course there is my general tendency to avoid Microsoft technologies whereever I encounter them. The classic Visual Basic was one of the longest continued stuff of Microsoft, even although there were signifficant changes between VB 3.0 and VB 4.0 (with switch to 32 bit). When I look at the last years there were unusable first attempts of .net with first Windows forms and then WPF (see a discussion here), Microsoft pushed a lot of newer GUI styles over the years with Ribbon interfaces or now the Metro GUI where you need to use a new GUI language and software companies continously need to adapt or rewrite parts of the application). Would I have used Java since the late ninetees I would have experienced a completely different continuity. Microsoft managed it very well, to drive developers .net without those getting aware that they are again caught in a one-way-street with a dead end. Just because industry follows Microsoft - at least on the client side - in most areas, I need to accept that I can't stay completely outside the windows specific (VBScript and .net) stuff. I will take care to keep it at a minimum. This means, that for my tiny programs I will most probably go with .net just because of the lack of other options.

For those who like dynamic languages, I want to mention Python. One of it's core advantages in my opinion is that it runs on many platforms but comes along with Windows extensions on Windows. This means: When you need to do Windows stuff you can continue to use Python - of course using the Windows stuff (COM and Windows API for example) means that (at least that part) of your program is then bound to Windows-only use. For platform agnostic programming there are bindings for wxWidgets for Python. However, the IDE's I tried were all poor in features or stability - I tried Eric, SPE and Idle back in 2008 - a short look tells me, that there is still a lack of GUI designers (e.g. Glade for Windows seems near to discontinued) - so I cannot really recommend a particular IDE - you can have a look yourself - here is a list of Python IDE's. Unfortunately deployment for Python programs on Windows is not as easy as for .net or Java.

To round up this post: For building setups for your Windows applications I can recommend the Innosetup application as a good mix of flexibility and ease-of-use. For creating Linux packages see official documentation for creating .deb packages (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, ...) and here for creating .rpm packages (redhat, Fedora, ...).

Related posts: The programming language, The IDE and the libraries, Install NetBeans on Ubuntu 10.04.

Efficient desktop environment

2012-03-12T01:56:00.000+01:00

I consider myself as a power user. Every day (and sometimes also nights ;-) ) I make intensive use of computers to get things done. Of course I am not a farmer - I am working in IT business. - However, intensive use of computers is by far not limited to IT people.

Of course, for people spending a major part of their time in front of a computer lousy software has a bigger impact on efficiency. While many people can live with the fact to reinstall their Windows PC every 6 months, I get angry when some of my most often used features take two clicks to much as it could be.

There are two major kinds of computer users: Those who are using one or two applications most of the time and those who use a larger set of applications. To the first group people belong who will respond to the question "Which operating system are you using?" with something like "Word - Microsoft Word". ;-) - While for the first group the underlying OS is of minor relevance, for the latter group of people using a bunch of applications, the underlying operating system can be a critical factor.

I am an Ubuntu user and in the Ubuntu world the last months were full of discussions about the new desktop environment developed by Canonical, namely Unity. Many argued about bad user experience. I myself did play around with a lot of additional components to bump up my desktop. I tested several dock components like Cairo-Dock, AWN and others. Although I finally did not use any of those due to other reasons (stability, performance or simply no time to tweak it to fit my needs perfectly), I had a quite nice configuration with Gnome 2 and AWN on my Ubuntu 10.04 machine. Surprisingly that configuration looked quite similar to Unity.

Many of my peers switched to Linux Mint which is Ubuntu-based but is going for a different strategy regarding desktop look and feel. If you like Ubuntu, but don't like Unity, you can either use "classic" Gnome3 or install Cairo-Dock which then offers an option to go with Classic Gnome + Cairo Dock right on login (at least starting with 12.04 beta 1) and I even managed to create an AWN session with the help of TuxGarage. (The example there is outdated - you need to look at your current ubuntu.session file and take this as a sample or look below in the comments on that post).

However I found - after testing a while - that Unity fits best for me - at least with the least effort to put into getting it efficient. Important from my point of view is that with mouse OR keyboard everything can be reached quickly, that includes: Virtual desktops, Launchers, Open Application Windows, Menus, File system.

Out-of-the-box Unity offers a lot of cool hotkeys, besides ALT+TAB for switching between open applications you can use ALT+^ to switch between open windows/instances of the same application or after ALT+TAB you can collapse and expand application windows with the UP/DOWN keys. Pressing and releasing ALT offers the HUD menu (F10 still brings you to the normal menu). STRG+ALT+LEFT/RIGHT switches between virtual desktops. The only thing I immediately missed was a quick way to switch desktops with the mouse. My former way of configuring this was installing compizconfig-settings-manager and configuring desktop wall accordingly to switch to next and previous desktop doing a right-click on the left or right edge on the screen. That does not work any more when Unity is active on the left. I did not change that to now use left and right mouse button on the bottom edge and that works. In addition to that I reduced the icon size to 32 (can be done using compizconfig Unity plugin, installing MyUnity or also via commandline).

People who don't like Unity have different reasons but one might be the dock-style (which even Windows adopted later). The dock with launcher and window list in combination has one big advantage: The icons are always on the same position - no matter in what order you launch them. This is essential if you open a lot of applications during the day and end up in continously searching your app windows. Although I used to hate window grouping, Unity behaves differently whether you click on a different application launcher or not - which I found reduces necessary clicks.

These and a few other things I missed in all the other desktop environments - like e.g. configuring different times - not just one (I like to see New York or other time zones when clicking on the clock). Although other dock components have a lot more customizing options and features, I find Unity simpler and I found minor bugs in Cairo-Dock and AWN which resulted in my decision that I do not want to bother with finding my own fully customized X-Session and then probably experiencing more troubles. Would have tried longer if I would have found Unity unacceptable. But: After all my tests I still find Unity the best.

I definitely find that the time of a classic task bar (as known from Windows XP, KDE, XFCE or LXDE) is over - mostly because of the unsure icon position in a classical taskbar and the fact that the first thought always needed to be: "Did I already start this or not?" - depending on the answer a different icon had to be clicked. And even on larger screens it is annoying to waste screen space with additional panels (quickstart and windows). My attempts to get a combination of XFCE or LXDE with Cairo-Dock or AWN working well together failed because I either had some crashes, or too many panels remaining. BTW: XFCE comes with a bottom launcher which only is set to autohide by default.

There are still a few things I would like to see in Unity - like easier configuration of the unity launchers or including a classic Gnome menu launcher by default, but I think that Unity is on a good way - I got familiar with it quite fast and so new users will, I think. Of course many people find many things to tweak after a first installation of Ubuntu. I probably will come up with my one set of tweaks after the final Ubuntu 12.04 LTS came out...

Related posts: Popular Ubuntu desktop myths, Why companies do not use Linux on the desktop, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin optimized.

Mobile world with Android

2012-02-14T10:03:00.002+01:00

As I already wrote earlier, I was not one of the early adopters when it comes to smart phones. In fact, the first smart phone user in our family was my wife with an iPhone (which I am happy that it has been ditched in the meantime because my wife had some troubles with it from time to time and I could not do anything about them with this mega-locked block).

In the beginning of the year (which is only a few weeks ago) it was time to choose a new mobile work phone. As I already have a smart phone now, I was searching for a very simple phone for doing just calls. Battery duration was the primary "feature" I was looking at when comparing models. Unfortunately I was not able to find something better than the Samsung Galaxy S II which is again a smart phone. It has one of the longest battery times, is slim, lightweight, very low SAR value. And one of the reasons why I again have chosen an Android smart-phone: It is simple to setup - just login to my Google Account and all the contact data is there - automagically.

First I had a few concerns with two phones running against the same Google account, but I find it very fine now. I have setup mail and calendar for both phones and so I can very easily check appointments or emails on the second phone while talking (it often happens that a customer calls me and wants to talk about an email he/she has sent a few minutes ago. Easily now with a second smartphone.

You may not believe, but there are cases, where I go out or going on vacation without my Laptop in the luggage and I might be on places without WLAN access. So happened a few weeks ago when a customer called with an issue which I solved using the great TeamViewer Android application on my phone while having the customer on loudspeakers.

While in train or bus going to work in the morning, I do read news with the Google Reader Android app or listen to podcasts, so if I do not travel for a longer time right now, I don't turn on my laptop any more.

Here is the list of applications I am using on my mobile phone - bold ones are my frequently used apps:

Advanced Task Manager (Saves battery power by killing apps that are not in use but otherwise remain started).
AlarmDroid (Alarm clock)
Apo-App (Austria)
BarClone (Get rid of customer/club cards by having the barcodes in your phone and display them instead of using the card - unfortunately a lot of barcode readers in shops are not capable of reading the barcode from the display although other smart phones can read them without problems).
Barcode Scanner (zxing)
barcoo (Barcode scanner)
BatteryTime (Display battery charge level more in detail or as icon on the Android-Desk)
BeyondPod (Podcast software - like Google Reader for Podcasts)
Bluetooth File Transfer (Phone-to-phone data exchange)
Bump (Handshake with other people to exchange contact data)
CamScanner (Scan documents with your phone)
Citrix Receiver (Remote access to company citrix server)
ConnectBot (Remote access to other Linux/SSH servers)
Contact Widget (Put Quickdials on your Android-Desk)
Dolphin Browser HD (Alternative Web browser)
Dropbox (Access to your cloud files - I use it on Android for saving ringtones and small files containing notes or scans/photos done during meetings to get them automatically on my work machine without requiring the use of bluetooth or USB).
ES Datei/File Explorer (File Manager)
Facebook (if not already there, but I use it less and less because it gets slower and slower with each update)
Financisto (Financial expenses tool)
Flash Player
Flashlight (several available)
Genial Writing (Handwriting tool)
K-9 Mail (Alternative E-Mail client - I tried several, that is probably the only one where you can configure IMAP folders to use in detail and probably the one with the most options).
Money Manager (Financial expenses tool)
MultiLing Tastatur/Keyboard (I tried several original keyboards of different phones and always finally downloaded MultiLink keyboard - it's simply the best with the most options.
Note Everything (Note taking tool)
(Opera Mini - as alternative for Dolphin Browser)
(PowerTutor - if you do not already know what consumes the most power
and consider appropriate settings)
QR Droid
QuickMark
QuickOffice (View office documents)
Reader (Google Reader)
RealCalc (Alternative calculator with more features than the usual default ones)
Schweizer Taschenmesser (several small tools)
Shazam or SoundHound (both are quite equal - record music from where you are and get the name and interpreter of the music title being played.
Stoppuhr (Timer)
SwiFTP (Access your phone via FTP - must be on the same WLAN-net - use that at home to bulk-download fotos).
Tasks To Do Free (Tasklist / todo manager)
TeamViewer (Remote Support and meeting tool)
TuneIn Radio
XING (Xing social networking Android app)
YoutTube (Video viewer - mostly already installed by default on Android phones)
Zeiterfassung (Timesheet, worktime recording)

Virtualbox vmdk image to vdi

2011-10-28T11:20:00.000+02:00

One of my VirtualBox virtual machines used the vmdk disk format (From VMWare). Somehow it seemed to be slower than another machine I had running in VDI format (default for VirtualBox >= 4.0).

I had to search the internet a while to find the right solution and it was not complete, so here is my description on how to migrate the virtual machine disk format from vmdk to vdi:

cd <folder where your disk image is>
vboxmanage clonehd somename.vmdk somename.vdi --format VDI

That takes a while. After finished you need to start virtualbox and go into the settings of your virtual machine. Under "Storage" you will still find the old HD file attached to SATA (or IDE) controller. Remove the old one and attach the new .vdi file.

Try starting the virtual machine to see if everything works as intended.

Then shutdown your virtual machine, go to File->Virtual Media Manager and remove the old vmdk file even there. Now you can delete the .vmdk.

The individual desktop

2011-10-27T22:54:00.001+02:00

I can see an interesting movement on the market: Many Apple iPhone users seem to lurk towards a Mac when they think of buying a new computer. - And some actually do.

And in my neighbourhood I can count already 6 Macs in the first minute trying to count them.

I find it a good thing, that Macs are increasing. With more people using Macs, companies need to start considering that there is not only Windows and world is colorful.

There is just one thing that I need to make clear: Many Mac users think that they are a special individual with their extraordinary computer and this is not true IMHO.

I can see the following different strategies:

Microsoft: Keep compatibility to keep market share but try to offer new GUI stuff that feeds people's enthusiasm and keep some flexibility.
Apple: Focus on usability and don't make the user think or choose.
Linux: Be open and flexible. Everybody should be able to use it as desired.

I was thinking if there could be the optimal all-use-fitting user interface but I came to the conclusion that there are many different use cases, many different jobs and many people thinking in many different ways.

I think, the Apple way is not the worst, but for those who work a lot with the computer it might be worth to invest a little more time finding the best fitting environment. If you want to be really individual, Linux is the way to go - just search youtube - e.g. for "my Linux desktop" or "top linux distros" to get an idea what people do with Linux.

Related posts: Distribution choice, Popular Ubuntu desktop myths.

Failed user lock-down

2011-10-04T18:12:00.002+02:00

Have been on a Citrix Windows 2008r2 server machine where the admins really tried to lock down everything.

The other side is: Some stuff is not working well and I do not wonder because I am pretty sure that a lot of features that have been disabled are required by several pieces of software.

And the funny thing is: You can't really lock out the user on Windows - just to show one simple way to open the command prompt if disabled:

Start Microsoft Word
Press ALT + F11
Press CTRL+G
Type: vba.shell "cmd.exe"
Press Enter
Voila here it is the commandline window.

In the particular case C: drive was disabled and command prompt - now everything is at hand form the command prompt. You can either try:
vba.shell "explorer C:\Windows"
works either. :-)

Smart Backup on Linux

2011-10-03T23:47:00.001+02:00

About two years ago after setting up a Linux server I was asked to create a backup of the last seven days. Reason for this was the idea that if something gets deleted or corrupted it might not be noticed immediately.

The problem was: The hard disk did not have enough free space to hold 7 times the data and at the moment there was no external hard disk available.

I searched the Internet and found a really smart solution - you can find details here on mikerubel.org (rsync snapshots). My final script looks like this:

 #!/bin/bash  
 rm -rf /data/autobackup/backup.7  
 mv /data/autobackup/backup.6 /data/autobackup/backup.7  
 mv /data/autobackup/backup.5 /data/autobackup/backup.6  
 mv /data/autobackup/backup.4 /data/autobackup/backup.5  
 mv /data/autobackup/backup.3 /data/autobackup/backup.4  
 mv /data/autobackup/backup.2 /data/autobackup/backup.3  
 mv /data/autobackup/backup.1 /data/autobackup/backup.2  
 cp -alv /data/autobackup/backup.0 /data/autobackup/backup.1 > /data/autobackup/0to1.log  
 rsync -av --delete /data/live/ /data/autobackup/backup.0/ > /data/autobackup/last-rsync.log

If you want to go more into detail - Michael Jakl has posted a variant here (rsync time machine).

Currently in my use case the live part takes 149GB and the whole backup of 7 days takes 161 GB (instead of more than a TB!)

I know, disk space is quite cheap, but the rising amount of data also requires a lot! - In my case:

I already have several external drives (2 HDs where HD images of my work notebook are saved alternating).
Two separate external drives where data only is saved with rsync (to one disk more often to other about once in two months).
I have a 500GB external HD where data is outsourced that I do not need that much or simply consumes too much of my primary HD. That one was not saved in the early times. In the meantime I do sync it to a second one from time to time (people have a lot of external HDs these days but I am not sure if they backup those too...).

Guess what, if I would decide to keep snapshots of several days - way too much for a normal copy x7!

Google Maps issues

2011-09-22T15:07:00.001+02:00

A while ago I had problems using Google Maps - I had a slow loading issue which ran into an error.

I found a discussion about this problem where many people were angry at Google because they don't fix this problem.

I found out that the problem was due to my browser security plugins Adblock Plus and NoScript. At least one of those (I think it was NoScript) was blocking the site gstatic.com (and google.com of course or at least maps.google.com). No need to completely disable (which was mentioned also in the discussion), just whitelist relevant sites in those plugins (Check site media information to see loaded images for example).

Some other people mentioned different reasons causing the same problem like:

Check your orther privacy or security plugins for blocking maps.google.com or gstatic.com
Delete cookies for maps.google.com as well as all temporary internet files (clear cache).
Skype extension for Firefox causing the problem.
DNS problems (that usually temporarily - to separate this reason from others check availability of maps.google.com and gstatic.com using nslookup and check if it works using a different browser without any plugins - if both works then DNS is not the reason for your problem).
if2k (if on Mac).
Badly written router firewalls (try deactivating IPv6).
Turn off inprivate filtering (if on Windows IE).
Windows only: Uninstall Java and reinstall launching as Administrator (Win 7).
Your mobile web service provider might have implemented an accelerator reducing image quality - check and turn off on the provider's website.

I am posting this because there were many responses to this and still some are posting without reading the earlier answers offering solutions and it seems that plenty of people experiencing problems with google maps.

Normal.dot in OpenOffice or LibreOffice

2011-09-21T01:43:00.002+02:00

Some time ago I was asked where the normal.dot is in Open Office and I was stuck. I don't open the writer and write. I have copied all my templates to ~/Templates. The first action I take when I want to create a new document is to go in the folder where I want to save it, click the right mouse-button, hover on "Create new document" and choose the template of my choice. That way I neither have to think about what type of document (text, graphic, spreadsheet) my template needs to be.

However, most people are just used to just firing up MS Word or if they are on Windows with Open Office they miss the nice template folder and to create a new document from a template within Open Office for me is definitely too many clicks away (3 clicks and 2 double-clicks).

When I was asked for the "normal.dot" I searched a lot and I searched the internet to finally find out, that it is described very well in the Open Office help:

To Create a Default Template

Create a document and the content and formatting styles that you want.
Choose File - Templates - Save.
In the New Template box, type a name for the new template.
In the Categories list, select "My Templates", and then click OK.
Choose File - Templates - Organize.
In the Templates list, double-click the "My Templates" folder.
Right-click the template that you created, and choose Set as Default Template.
Click Close.

It's the same in LibreOffice by the way.

Related posts: Default paper size in Open Office, Firefox change default page format, Locale configuration on Ubuntu.

Default Paper Size in Open Office

2011-09-21T01:13:00.000+02:00

Under Linux (or at least under Gnome or Ubuntu) we already had the issue with default paper size in Firefox. Now on my older Ubuntu 10.04 workstation where I have not yet upgraded from Open Office to LibreOffice my wife has a permanent problem with wrong default paper size when using Open Office.

I have examined the situation and found out that in Ubuntu system administration under Printing the default paper size has not been set to A4. OK, but didn't help for OpenOffice.

Finally I gave up finding the problem and started to google. After a while I found a blog entry at "Starry Hope": OpenOffice Default Paper Size for Printing - here the important part:

1. Change the default paper size in /etc/papersize
This is the first place to look and solved the problem most of the time. Simply edit /etc/papersize and change “letter” to “a4″ then restart OpenOffice.

2. Check for settings in ~/.cups
In some cases, CUPS saves printer settings for individual users in their home directory (don’t ask me why). If you see a .cups directory in your home directory, open it and see if “Letter” isn’t set as the default paper size in there. (In my case, I just deleted the .cups directory all together).

3. Check for poorly formatted PPD files
Check the PPD file for your printer in /etc/cups/ppd/ to see if it has errors. Apparently, some PPD files are incorrectly formatted and cause an error. This problem is most commonly discussed in relation to Brother printers. You can find more info in this bug report. - Seems to be fixed.

4. Change DefaultPageSize in SGENPRT.PS
It appears that OpenOffice gets its default media size for some printers from the DefaultPageSize line in the /usr/lib/openoffice/basis3.2/share/psprint/driver/SGENPRT.PS file. More info here.

In my case indeed, changing "letter" to "A4" in /etc/papersize already solved the issue - thanks so much!

Related post: Firefox change default page format, Normal.dot in OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

Outlook Calendar Meetings

2011-09-15T22:24:00.000+02:00

When it comes to discussion about alternatives to MS Outlook, a common argument is the unique calendar and meeting request feature. So far I could understand people as it seemed quite comfortable to me (even although nothing beats the Google Calendar).

After working a lot with the Outlook Calendar (although mostly through the web or thank good, integrated with Lightning in Thunderbird), I can tell you: No, the Outlook Calendar is not so good, as you might think!

BTW: Outlook is not the only software supporting such features any more.

Here are a few things that are super-annoying (and I am talking about the 2010 version - so state-of-the-art version):

I cannot create an appointment over n hours with one click and drag (this works in Google Calendar and Ligthning for example). I always need to double-click and set the length by adjusting end-time.
When I accept a meeting request, in the Outlook Web-Access, the appointment is carved in stone - I cannot change it (apart from background color), however,
in the Outlook 2010 desktop application I can change the meeting details - usually I add relevant informations to a meeting, information that I need exactly for that appointment, like addresses, contact phone numbers, conference call numbers etc. So far so good, problem: When the initiator of the meeting makes changes to the event, mine gets updated without notice and my edits are gone! - This also means that if somebody is ill and I change a foreign appointment, I wipe out their notes either - that's crazy!
When viewing a shared calendar from another person in web client, the other calendar gets displayed next to mine and not in an overlapping mode. Do this with 3 and everything gets too narrow to view on a normal laptop display.

Mobile phone situation

2011-09-13T00:16:00.001+02:00

I was a Nokia user since about 2000 and it was hard to give up on these high quality phones during the first quarter of this year. I also have seen other phones, like a Sony Ericsson after changing job - and (just to mention one of the few strange UI concepts) I will never understand why it offers switching to flight/airplane mode when I turn on the phone instead of when I am about to switch it off. I have also seen the iPhone (used for about 2 years by my wife).

And now I am looking back to about 6 months of Android use on two different phones. Even my wife switched to Android after an unrecoverable error in mail sync (since then no e-mail access any more on the iPhone). I was not able to fix that due to the poor (or better non-existent) options to clean-up temporary files, cache or application data. There is a simple rule for the iPhone: The user can't ruin the OS, but the user even cannot fix it. Apple did not consider software bugs that affect their bricks.

On the other hand I was able to completely recover after several problems with SD card (resulting in a final permanent failure - hardware defect) on my Android phone.

What they do not tell you while pushing you to buy a smart phone:

You must recharge your smart phone nearly every day!
The very bad thing with smart phones these days is battery lifetime. And it's the same for the iPhone and for the Android phones. Out of the box most smartphones last a single day of medium usage.
Fortunately you can optimize battery usage by dimming display, turn off W-LAN, GPS and so on (I will get to this in a another post). I get about 2 days of medium use now - but hey, there have been times where I needed to recharge only after 10 days (like the Nokia 6210). Still very good the Nokia 6310i and later the Nokia E-71 (which I still use as my business phone only for doing calls).
Speaker and Microphone quality drops drastically!
I don't know a single smart phone which has a real good microphone and speaker. The best I ever experienced was the Nokia E-71. Driving in the car with freehand speaking was still possible even if I was driving on the highway. Nothing can top that! Neither the iPhone or any Android phone reaches that. I am used to say: "With todays smart phones you can do everything but phone calls." In fact, this most important feature gets out of focus.
Radio reception drops.
Maybe it is just my impression, but the older phones still got radio reception at locations where I don't get connection anymore now.
You are quite naked when you leave the country.
As soon as you leave the country and roaming gets active, all the network features that require data connection are usually switched off. This means that a lot of features are inaccessible or only at a high cost. However, there are a few exceptions: Three does not charge roaming (neither for calls nor for data) while you are in one of the countries where Three is present. For other countries it means, you need to use W-LAN where possible.
You enter in the world of software updates and even malware.
With the large set of applications you will now need to update those from time to time and you might either install malware by accident. So this means: Maintenance work.

The good things are:

You get your emails quite as fast as SMS!
Social networking on the go.
You can go through the news during short waiting times (public means of transport, doctor, queue at the supermarket etc). Such situations are the best opportunity for social networking.
You can manage to-do-lists, expenses etc with the appropriate applications.
You can use your phone as a GPS navigator or photo camera. This means that navigator or photo camera can be left at home, if you don't plan excessive use of them and just use your phone instead.
Web browsing on the go for getting informed.
While in a foreign city, talking to a friend or to get information to an art you look at, the mobile phone can help you by serving you helpful information.

I first had a ZTE Blade, which although very uncommon, had quite good specifications - "good" in the sense of "in equilibrium". Why I say this? Well, there are already dual-core processor phones, but more power does either consume more battery - combine this with a small phone (= usually smaller battery) and you are done.

In that first attempt I really did not want to spend a lot because what I have seen from the iPhone I was very skeptical, if I really want to have such a "smart" phone. I was quite satisfied with it - of course, pressing the buttons you feel that it is a cheap phone and the touch screen is not the best. Freehand speaking is to forget also.

Now I have an HTC Desire Z. It is only a little heavier than my Nokia E-71 and offers a real keyboard which I like very much in general. A real keyboard is still better than every touch screen. That said, with this phone you have both anyway. For those who plan a more intensive use of the Android phone, the HTC Desire Z is a good choice. I also thought about a Samsung, but from what I heard and read, I expected less battery lifetime of Samsung (maybe also due to more widely used AMOLED displays, which take more than normal LCD as far as I know). Also I like a few features of HTC, like turning/flipping the phone to make it silent or ringing getting near to silent automatically when you take the phone from the table in your hands - as it is now clear that you heard it ringing (but maybe want to take a look who it is before taking the call). Freehand speaking is not quite as good as Nokia, but a lot better than the ZTE. I was able to use it while driving (slowly).

I enjoy the additional features but the last time I left the country, I worried if the battery will last. In the meantime I have 3 multi-loader (capable with adapters to load all type of phones), one in the office, one at home and one that I take with me so I can load the phone even in the car - just to make sure I can get power if it is needed. And battery lifetime can even drop fast if you are not really using it, but you are in an area where it takes a lot of energy to keep being in reach with the next radio mast.

Related post: Efficiently following web news with RSS, Mobile world with Android.

Distribution choice

2011-09-04T02:17:00.002+02:00

Lately I am testing a lot of different Linux distributions for the desktop.
There were some discussions about Unity (the new default desktop used in Ubuntu) and Gnome3 (the new Gnome default desktop) and that made me think and test other distributions.

Maybe I should point out the major differences seen in different flavors of Linux. These are the core points where they are different:

Base distribution from which it is derived from.
Many distributions are based on others, only a few are doing everything from scratch in their own way. Some are based on Debian or Redhat for example. Somehow relevant is then also the company that stands behind the distribution as main contributor (if there is one particular company behind).
Package Management System - some use apt (debian) some yum (redhat) for example)
Default Desktop environment and window managers used (can be Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Fluxbox etc etc).
Default packaged applications (the set of applications installed by default when installing the distribution).
Core objective (be it use as a Server, on the desktop, on routers or net storage systems, etc).
Hardware support. Although all Linux distributions share the same core parts (Kernel), different distributions are based on different versions of the kernel, apply different patches and some do add several drivers where no source code is available (while others do strictly include only open-source drivers). Because of these differences not all distributions support all sets of hardware. So it is very probable that this last point is the most important one.
Oh, and there are plenty of navigation bars that can be used - for example AWN, Cairo Dock, Docky and many, many more. Those are GUI elements for application launchers, taskbar management and things like that. Here you have to choose - if you are not satisfied with what your favorite distribution brings - mixing them is not a good idea...

Here is an overview of relevant components mentioned above:

Overwhelmed?
For those who are now overwhelmed with options and cannot decide, remember that you can install either all desktop environments together on one machine and decide what you want to use at each login! You can either use Gnome for example but install and run applications written for KDE either while logged in using Gnome Desktop. You can run a mix of Gnome or KDE etc applications, whatever desktop environment you are currently using. So there is no exclusive OR in desktop environment or particular applications. The only thing that is not interchangeable (at least not so easy) is just the package management system - which is usually of secondary importance for the normal user.

Regarding hardware choice there are two options:

Inform yourself, what hardware is supported by your favorite Linux distribution and buy those - or
Go to any shop of your choice and just tell them that you want a machine that is compatible with "<Put Linux distribution of your choice>" and if not you will throw them their piece back on the counter.

I use a mix of these strategies. :]

For choosing a distribution, my advice is:

Look at the screen shots of different distributions. Those you find horrible to look at in general, are probably the ones you would like less. That said, often it is sufficient to switch the theme to get a much more friendlier desktop.
Watch demo videos of different desktop environments on youtube (or other channels).
Try them. Most Linux distributions offer Live-CDs for download. That means: You download a CD image, burn it on CD and then boot the computer with that CD that offers to start Linux without changing your current installation - everything is run from the CD. That is of course slower as if it would run from the hard disk, but doesn't change anything on your current machine.
Search the repositories (software center or however it is called in the distribution) for applications you might want to try. Don't search for applications by typing "Microsoft Word" - no - try "word processor" or instead of "Excel" or "Photoshop" try "Spreadsheet" and "photo editor". The idea is to use search keywords that describe what you want to do. The reason for this is: For your favorite photo editor you used on Windows might not exist a Linux-version. But there might be plenty of other applications doing the same stuff on Linux.

Here are the distributions I tested since 2005 (skipping all those I only took a very short look at):

Fedora (with which I started in about 2005)
Ubuntu (my current primary OS in the office and at home in version 10.04 with latest updates). I also tested other flavors like Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE), Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE), Lubuntu (Ubuntu with LXDE).
Mint (including different flavors)
Puppy Linux
Debian (Stable and Testing)
Zorin OS

Maybe you are missing OpenSUSE here - as it is also a widely used distribution. I skipped it because from all major distributions I know, SUSE is the one that works closer with Microsoft. Because of the business conduct of Microsoft I want to be as far from them as possible and that's why I didn't either test OpenSUSE. Apart from that I heard many complaints about it.

Although I am pretty convinced of the stability of a Debian server, on the desktop even the testing version contains outdated program versions. (On my last tests the second website I visited complained about outdated browser ;-) ).

These are currently my favorite distributions:

Ubuntu (of course, as it is my primary OS, based on Debian)
Mint (based on Ubuntu)
Zorin OS (also based on Ubuntu)
- it quite nicely implements a very Windows 7 like desktop environment. Those who like the Windows 7 taskbar, will like the Zorin OS. Of course it brings a cleaner menu and a package manager - things you don't get on Windows 7 ;-) .

All those offer the install of different desktop environments, so you can hop desktop environment for each single logon. You can find them searching for kubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-desktop or lubuntu-desktop in synaptic package manager.

Remember that depending on your type of job and the needs it brings - and depending on personal flavors you might find a different distribution or desktop environment to fit best!

Related posts: Popular Ubuntu myths, Why I switched to Ubuntu, Going Linux, The individual desktop.

Implementing effective computer security

2011-07-30T00:59:00.000+02:00

I am really surprised, how safe people feel in their daily computer work.

Whereever I hear people speaking about viruses and computer security they are quite convinced that a virus scanner is sufficient for secure computing. I can say, that I have removed a lot of viruses from a lot of PCs. Whenever I found an infected PC and ran several antivirus tools in parallel, I got different opinions of the scanners about how many and which viruses were found. If you ask real experts, you will get the answer that

there are differences in quality of virus scanner software and that
no virus scanner finds all viruses - and last but not least
they cannot search for all ever known viruses all the time (because this would simply take too much time - so during normal scans they usually search for the currently most common found viruses.

Running multiple virus scanners at once is usually not really an option because already just having running one, reduces performance drastically.

Apart from that you do not only have viruses. You are surfing to sites in the web that may have got infected and run spying and malicious code in addition to the original website code. A co-worker of mine got infected by a virus by surfing to his online-banking software which got hijacked by a hacker. (Of course, it was a Windows virus...).

In addition to the viruses which come with no or very few action needed to be taken by the user, hackers and spammers try to convince users (by email for example) to take more action, like sending over money or adding malicious code even to their own web pages or browsers (e.g. https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=31987371885&topic=14985).

I am the first one getting angry when I see too much security. The computer is an important and powerful tool. Whenever I need to work on a machine with limited permissions, I get easily angry if something does not work just because disabled. But: Everyone should implement a little security!

On Windows the easiest is to:

install A virus scanner like AVG, Avast, BitDefender or other.
use Firefox or Chrome instead of Internet Explorer to browse the internet.
get the Addons Adblock Plus and NoScript. The latter can be quite annoying because of many websites not displayed well by default. While not very liked by most end users, I find it being very effective in relation to the additional work necessary. It is a good tool to avoid effects of cross-site-scripting.
use an E-Mail client that allows text-only display of messages. Again this might make your emails not very nicely displayed but shows you the real link (in HTML-mails the displayed link can differ from the one called when you click it) and keeps you free from a lot of typical e-mail viruses. Outlook is not the right tool at this point (no version of it). One option is Thunderbird (which I personally love because of the many options and long list of plugins available).

This paired with caution (e.g. not clicking on every link even without reading). Of course, the next level of security would be to get Linux instead of Windows, but I can understand if this is not a realistic solution for you (which applies when you are too dependent from other Windows-only software pieces). I personally found it very effective to install Ubuntu Linux at end users using Firefox with Adblock Plus and NoScript (as mentioned above).

Related posts: Why companies do not use Linux on the desktop, Going Linux.

Why companies do not use Linux on the desktop

2011-07-30T00:42:00.005+02:00

There is a very long running discussion on LinkedIn with the headline "Why aren't more corporations using Linux as a desktop OS?" and after a while I had the feeling of the same reasons and arguments returning again and again.

So I went over all the comments again and tried to categorize the opinions (trying to filter out those who already replied earlier with same or similar arguments.

Here is the result with the 15 most mentioned reasons of not using Linux on the desktop - from the opions of the discussing people (the red ones I consider in fact being issues to be solved, my comments in italic):

Slick Microsoft PR, Windows is the defacto standard or simply inherited monopoly. (18 votes)
This is a fact, but not a reason for using Windows. If so, we would still ride on horses and don't have cars - just because horses were a monopoly for traveling (related to 11.)...
Missing appropriate software on Linux (for particular needs) / Vendor Lock-in. (18 votes) - Mentioned were in detail: Branch specific, special used apps not platform independent and/or not integrated well, AD, Deployment, AS400, Sage, Meeting- and Conference-Software, Photoshop, Exchange-Integration, Smart-Phone-Integration, AutoCAD, Screen Reader, ...
Yes, this is really an issue - and that is because the fact mentioned above in 1. and hence followed by 6. The result is that many developers and software companies still just focus on Windows.
Compatibility issues Linux-Windows in software when collaborating. (13 votes) - Mentioned were in detail: MS Office vs OpenOffice/LibreOffice, some proprietary formats can't be read, Domain-Integration, Some websites are IE only, General compatibility-fears.
The MSO vs OOL/LO issue is a really big one because many people write many documents and many people need to collaborate. There are many compatibility issues - already between different versions of Microsoft Office. The 2007 and 2010 docx, xlsx, pptx formats (yes, we have already two variants of the *x-formats) introduce a lot of possible conversion/open/save problems. I could write a long blog post just about those issues. Domain integration I do not consider important as I find the whole domain system outdated looking at current company structures (increasing cooperations between separate companies for example) and how they evolve. To develop IE-only websites nowadays is still done - although completely free of sense.
Too much tech-knowhow needed (just for nerds, servers and/or for commandline junkies). (11 votes)
In reality, if you want good work to be done, on Windows you also need much in-depth knowhow. It's just, that quite every guy or girl, spent hours in front of the computer gaming, already considers himself/herself a computer guru...
What simply is not true is, that you need to be a commandline junkie or a nerd to use Linux. Those days are a long gone - Linux has graphical environment!
People already know Windows and are simply resistant to change (and will struggle). (10 votes)
Most people I met who showed resistance when I talked about Linux, weren't interested that much because they do not use computers that much - use it only when necessary for writing an email or surf some website. Those can be considered to be resistant to computers in general. Although even those could have a better computer experience going Linux, it's usually best to just let them continue until the next virus has biten their OS to death.
Lack of awareness / Ignorance or simply decision of management. (9 votes)
Yes, is an issue. People simple don't open their eyes. This point is somehow related to 5. I found that most people currently in management, grew up with Windows. That's simply their comfort zone and usually they are so busy and so convinced of themselves that they simply don't consider anything different. This will change over the years, when more people grow up with Macs or Linux machines. I do trust, that even without active marketing, people will notice the advantages plus their current suffering and move over slowly.
(Migration) costs (get it to work, experience, train users etc). (9 votes)
Related to 10. Of course, when considering a big change (and changing OS in a company is a big change anyway), investment is needed. I also have invested a lot of time into learning Linux, which only at the beginning is really tough until you understood some core things. And for the admins there is a lot more to learn than for the users. In my case I was so annoyed by Windows and the continuous suffering that - when I started - I was sure, it will be worth the investment - and it was! And honestly: Switching from XP to Windows 7 or from Office 2003 to 2010 is also eating a lot of money and requires additional training for the users.
Missing Linux Knowhow (and not enough time to dig into it). (7 votes)
Related to 7. Of course, in the beginning there is missing know-how. But seriously: Switching from Windows Server 2003 to Server 2008r2 also required additional know-how - even worse - you think, you know it, but then you oversee some relevant changes (like the syswow64 registry hive and separate 32-bit executables in that folder) during your first attempts. You have to struggle with the new versions because Microsoft urges you by quitting support for the older OS versions. In reality you don't even have time to dig into the new Windows details, isn't it? - New details, new problems...
Hardware compatibility issues. (7 votes)
Yes, you need to take care (which the normal default user does not - or cannot - when buying a new PC). I had problems with particular WLAN-cards, Bluetooth-adapters, sound and video cards first of all. Issue can be widely reduced by buying officially certified hardware for example (either by Canonical or the hardware vendor for example). Dell and Lenovo for example are vendors known to be very compatible with Linux (anyway you need to look at the particular model or just ask the vendor or partner of your choice). I usually recommend people: When buying, tell them that you want a Linux-compatible model - otherwise you will return it back).
Less educated specialists/administrators available or cost more. (7 votes)
Related to 7. - I am pretty sure that a real good Windows administrator will also ask more. By tendency, there are more people working in Windows environment, but total number of real specialists I think is not significantly more than in Linux world. But I understand, that this can be an issue for a medium-sized or small company just watching out for the cheap administrator around the corner.
People don't want to run risks and do what the others do (using the market leader). (6 votes)
Related to 1. Of course, if you do something new and you fail, people might argue and ask why the hack you didn't follow what the "expert" says. When you do something new then of course you make mistakes - but you will learn and get know-how. But you can do what fits for you. Doing, what the major part of others do (or recommend), you will never get, what really fits really good for your company.
Better support (because you pay for the software and have a contract). (6 votes)
This is completely wrong! You can also get payed support in open source world and a commercial company does never give you the guarantee of continued maintenance. In fact I already invested into software technologies and then the vendor discontinued the product (without selling it to somebody else - just let it die). The history of Open Office and Libre Office shows us, that open source is even the better path here. Oracle thinking of unacceptable changes? - The project was forked quasi in an instant! As long there are some folks being interested in it, it can continue to life - even if it's just you - it's your choice.
Windows already there on the shipped PC. (6 votes)
I have never ever kept the default installation on a PC - neither when I was still using Windows. In most cases it already started with partitioning that was not fitting my desires or needs. Next could be OS language or preinstalled software. And a Linux installation can be either done by a novice - it's easy (at least the Ubuntu, Mint or Fedora distributions - beside others). The only very annoying thing with a Windows preinstalled is: You already paid the license fee to Microsoft in that case and I am pretty sure, that Microsoft is not sad about it, if you overwrite your OS with Linux because: You don't consume bandwith, don't call support, don't ask stupid questions in forums etc - you pay without either asking a service for it...
Too much confusion because many distros, desktop environments. (6 votes)
Are you confused and don't know what to use? - No problem, I do recommend Ubuntu with it's default desktop - and choose the LTS version. If you don't have an idea what you might want, Ubuntu for sure won't be a bad choice. But the point is: You have the choice! People work in different ways, have different priorities and have different jobs. You might discover later that you prefer a different distribution. You may consult distrowatch.com. At this point I still find the Ubuntu distribution the most stable one (regarding the complete set of applications existing around) offering everything I need regarding features and additional packages.
Windows (and apps) looks/works better, is easier to use and/or has better/more features. (6 votes)
Simply not true. Why? Regarding the look: There are so many nice themes you can choose - for sure you will find one that you find cool. And of course you can choose a totally different desktop or window manager - there are so many around (you get an overview at wikipedia). Just combine the desktop of your choice with the theme of your choice - watch, what people do show on youtube! Finally you can either make your Ubuntu look like Windows XP or Windows 7 - watch this video. - Regarding the features: A standard Windows installation is totally barefoot and poor in relation to a standard Ubuntu installation. There isn't either Office installed by default (if you didn't buy it alltogether with MS Office included). People who find Linux has poor features sometimes think of particulare Windows software not available or running on Linux - that is more related to 2.

Hope this helps.

Related posts: Popular Ubuntu desktop myths, Implementing effective computer security, Going Linux, Efficient desktop environment.

Efficiently following web news with RSS

2011-07-24T13:36:00.000+02:00

As my productive machines are all running Ubuntu 10.04 where Firefox 3 is still the standard browser. It is not automatically updated due to a policy like "never change a running system". However, you can add another repository from Mozilla to get the latest stable Firefox, which I did a few weeks ago.

So I am probably one of the last persons suddenly missing the RSS feed icon at the right side of the URL location bar.

If you don't know, what RSS is: It gives you the possibility to read new blog and news site entries of different sites all from one place with the ability to track what you already read and what not - more information here.

I found this blog post telling that it got removed with Firefox 4 because only 3 percent of users ever clicked on that icon! - That is crazy! Are there still people surfing manually from one interesting page to the next? - I simply can't believe that!

Although I have upgraded to the latest Firefox already a while ago, I only now noticed the missing RSS button. I think, it is because I already have a quite stable set of feeds I read which does not change a lot any more. Maybe this is a reason for the 3 % statistics mentioned above...

Without RSS feeds I wouldn't be able to follow recent news in my areas of interest. There is so much news published on the internet and there is so few time to read. Without RSS feeds I couldn't get over the massive amount and read just the most important (and really new) information.

With the rising amount of smart phones I find it even more important to have RSS feeds as surfing the web on the smart phone is just annoying.

For all others, missing the RSS feed icon: It's now under Bookmarks -> "Subscribe to this page". You can get back the button by adding it to the toolbar (right-click into a free area on a toolbar and choose "Customize..." - there you find the RSS button which you can drag somewhere onto your toolbars).

Here is my way how I keep up-to-date:

I select sites (Blogs, News-Sites, Forums etc) that publish good content in areas of my interests.
I subscribe to those sites via RSS (clicking the Feedly RSS button) - Feedly is my favorite RSS reader.
Then I categorize the feeds into Computer, Linux, Development, News, Science etc so that I can read news by category when I don't have time to go through all.
Since having an Android smart phone I usually go fast through the headlines by starting the ~~Google Reader Android app~~ Feedly app while on bus or tramway - or waiting somewhere. I star/mark those items I want to read more in detail later or where I want to do more searching on the net for the topic - or if I want to comment later on a particular blog post.
When back on one of my laptops or desktop I ~~go to Google Reader site~~ click the Feedly-button again and switch to starred/read-later items - as the feeds are synced with my smart phone and across different machines whatever has been set to read or marked with a star is the same status on all machines automatically. When I am done with what I wanted to do, I remove the star and done.

Even if you an artist, teacher, plumber or other profession - no matter, there are plenty of sites that might be worth watching. Don't waste time by continuesly surfing from one site to the next where you can't see immediately what you already read and what not!

Related post: Mobile phone situation, Firefox and RSS feeds in Google Reader, Why RSS Feeds and alternatives to Google Reader.

Outlook 2010 Meeting requests

2011-07-15T19:07:00.001+02:00

It's been months now that I (have to) deal more intensively with Windows world now. Although you might know that I prefer my Ubuntu desktop over Windows I am not one of the "fan boys" ignoring people's or business needs. Honestly, nobody can accuse me of being ignorant on any of both worlds. And honestly, I cannot recommend anybody to go with Microsoft and Windows as a long-term strategy.

One of the recent changes introduced with Outlook 2010 I want to share with you today:
Imagine, you are using Outlook and create a calendar entry. You want to invite a customer, partner, supplier etc - an external person at another company - to this event. You may further enter some agenda or other information before sending the meeting request. So far so good.

In the past it was known that not all e-mail clients or collaboration suites do support meeting requests. There has been an independent standard defined for sending and receiving meeting requests - it's the ICS format. Even Outlook learned to use that format!

Anyway, not every client is supporting this. Before Outlook 2010 Outlook always sent the meeting information as text also (as by the way all/most other mail-clients and collaboration do also).

With Outlook 2010 they removed the event information as text which might lead to the effect that your invited persons never notice that you wanted them to invite to a meeting. The meeting information is simply missing in the email!

I noticed that just because Thunderbird does not read .ics attachments if Lightning is not installed. Only after installing the addon you get the meeting information displayed. I really don't understand why one line of appointment information text is too much to expect...

Related post: Outlook Calendar Meetings.