Yak shaving
'How I ditched Windows and embraced Linux' - the prequel.
On Saturday morning, I thought it might be fun to install Linux on my home computer. A year ago, I had experimented with a few Live CD's and actually installed Ubuntu (not officially supported) followed by Oracle Enterprise Linux (officially supported) on my work laptop (Thinkpad T61). For various reasons, I subsequently had to reverse that change so I thought it might be worthwhile and interesting to install Ubuntu on my own computer (an aging but reliable Dell 4500).
There was no problem with the computer, there was no problem with Windows XP. I am not a rabid, freedom loving, Microsoft hating individual. I just wanted to play around with Linux before 'Football Focus'.
As Norma also uses this computer (email, Web, Word documents), I decided to install Ubuntu as a dual-boot option alongside the existing stable Windows environment. This was firstly to evaluate whether Linux supported all my various peripherals and software requirements and secondly, let people continue to use Windows.
I dug out an old Ubuntu (8.04 - Hardy Heron) Live CD and started the installation process. When I came to partition the hard disk, I chose the 'Advanced' option so I could preserve all my existing data with 60GB allocated to Windows with another 20GB for Linux.
The re-partitioning failed; the 'ntfsresize' program helpfully told me with a typically cryptic Unix style error that '1028 is greater than 1024'. No matter - just get a Windows recovery disk and use the 'fdisk' utility to re-partition.
I booted from the Windows recovery CD. After a while I saw 'Files being copied for installation...' and wondered if I had missed the prompt to enter a DOS prompt enabling me to run fdisk. So, I hit 'Control-C' and rebooted. As I expected, my computer was now completely screwed as I had aborted during a full installation.
I sighed inwardly at my impetuousness and stupidity. I also blamed David Marsden who had helped sow this original tiny, little seed in my brain which was now turning into a long running saga and a complete waste of time and effort. Just to get back to where we had started. Almost.
This whole exercise was a classic example of Yak shaving as its finest. I was justifiably proud of myself.
I decided to postpone the Linux experiment to another day and simply re-installed Windows. One hour later, the machine was usable again. All my data was preserved so I took a full backup to an external USB drive. However, although none of my programs were installed and the Windows registry was pure and virginal, the 'Program Files' directory was horrendously cluttered with lots of unused folders.
Now I had a choice; dig out all those drivers and install disks for my Linksys Wireless Adapter, Canon printer, scanner, reinstall and reconfigure all the important software (Picasa, Firefox, Office, Outlook Express) so the machine would actually be usable again. Preferably before Norma got home and asked 'Can I just quickly check my email ?'
Alternatively, now I had a full backup, I could do the right thing, rebuild the computer completely and install Linux. So that's what I did. Only I didn't because I wasn't entirely sure Ubuntu was the best Linux distribution for me. Using the excellent, open source program InfraRecorder. I embarked on burning ISO images for all those distributions I was aware of, have seen recommended or reviewed recently.
I also perused DistroWatch to look for the most popular and used Dan Lynch's excellent, comprehensive, honest, balanced reviews of various Linux distributions.
The cast list, in no particular order:
- Ubuntu (8.04)
- OpenSUSE 11 - lurking in my drawers for the last 12 months
- Mint 5 (xfce) - also last year's vintage
- Fedora 11
- Mandriva
- CrunchBang 9.04
- Arch
- PCLinuxOS
- Debian 5.0
three red rings of death
Last Friday, Norman Junior III emerged from his bedroom, looked mournfully at me and pronounced in a quiet voice: 'Dad - I've got the three red rings of death.'
'Just have an aspirin and sit down quietly for a bit. Your mum will be back soon.'
'No Dad - not me. It's my XBox. It has the dreaded three red rings of death and won't boot.'
And so we embarked on a prolonged saga that involved a fruitless hunt for a two year old receipt that revealed plenty of interesting long lost items but not the actual receipt from Game.
Then I contacted Microsoft about the prospect of repairing a faulty console that was out of warranty and had subsequently fallen by £100 in price.
Much to my surprise, Microsoft told me that, for this specific hardware fault, the warranty had been extended to three years.
Microsoft checked the date of manufacture from the serial number, confirmed the box was eligible for the extended warranty and asked me to courier the faulty console, free of charge, back to their service centre in Frankfurt, near Germany for repair.
Microsoft sent me the necessary paperwork to ship the XBox to Germany using UPS. In turn, UPS sent me a package label, invoice, receipt and an export certificate.
I then booked an appointment with UPS to collect the games console at my convenience.
And all of this was accomplished without speaking to a single human being - except for Norman Junior III who is doing well and making a fine recovery after going 'Cold Turkey' from Call Of Duty.
It all sounds too good to be true...
Facebook penetration of corporate America
I was interested to read that Microsoft have over 17,597 employees registered on Facebook out of a total of 70,000 employees.
I thought I would try to discover how other leading IT companies compared, including my own. The staff numbers come from Google Finance and the rounding errors come from me.
The following Facebook networks are only open to company employees with a valid email address although, obviously, a better metric would have been some measure of recent activity.
| Company | Employees | FB factor (%) | |
| 10,674 | 5,545 | 51.9 | |
| Yahoo! | 11,400 | 3,911 | 34.3 |
| Microsoft | 71,000 | 17,980 | 25.3 |
| Sun | 14,000 | 2,942 | 21.0 |
| IBM | 355,766 | 23,400 | 6.6 |
| Oracle | 74,674 | 4,280 | 5.7 |
| SAP | 41,919 | 2,300 | 5.4 |
| HP | 186,000 | 9,742 | 5.2 |
| Intel | 90,300 | 4,219 | 4.7 |
Inevitably, I guess - Google lead the way (again) but I was surprised to see that Sun Microsystems have a significant proportion of Facebook members.
IBM were slightly lower than I expected until I remembered that half their 350,000 employees are busy building fantasy worlds in Second Life. No wonder I can't get spare parts for my Thinkpad.
Nice to see Oracle positioned just ahead of SAP after recent discussions about the companies' respective contributions and reputation in the Web 2.0 community.
I still have wildly oscillating feelings about Facebook; on one hand, a walled garden, puerile, teenage and gimmicky but undoubtedly an insidious, strangely compulsive and probably important platform.
PS. For example, I have just seen the immortal words 'Andy and Mark Burgess (The Chameleons) are now friends'. Superb.
Google finally sees sense
On the face of it, the recent changes to the interface to Google Docs and Spreadsheets look trivial and superficial.
Google's official announcement is brief and understated but Google Blogoscoped hits the nail on the head (twice):
'The file listing now resembles a more traditional view in the style of, say, Windows Explorer.'
...that ordinary mortals understand and are comfortable with.
'Google D&S looks more and more like an office application.'
In fact, Google Docs looks and performs much better than the most popular office application. I recently upgraded three home PC's to Office 2007. I think Microsoft Office is a superb suite of professional applications (Word, Excel, OneNote) and represents great value for money as £85 buys licenses for use on three separate PC's.
Inevitably though, my wife hated the new Word interface (shock of the new) because 'everything had changed' and she could not easily locate the old 'Print' button or even 'File-Print'.
My wife doesn't use Google Docs and now she has mastered Word 2007, she probably never will.
However, if she ever does, it will be easy to teach her how to migrate. If she wants to print a document, she clicks the 'Print' button or the pretty picture of a printer. This is completely intuitive and obvious. She won't have to call the Helpdesk and interrupt the Champions League Final just to print two copies of her CV.
If my wife wants to delete a document, she either selects the document and clicks 'Delete'. Alternatively, if she has successfully completed my 3 days 'Advanced Course' (a bargain at £150) and is officially certified, she simply drags the document to the dustbin. Two choices. Both quick, easy and obvious.
Another occasional task my wife needs help with is finding her CV. She keeps all 178 documents in 'My Documents'. She doesn't archive files by year. She doesn't remember that she last updated the CV in May 2003 nor does she know whether the document is named 'CV', 'Curriculum Vitae' or 'CV-Full' or 'CV-May-2003' .
She can't fathom out the search interface from within Word (nor can I) and does not know that you can search for Word documents from a completely different application - Windows Explorer. She simply wants to find her CV. From within Word. Quickly.
In Google Docs, she types 'CV' in the 'Search' box and is offered all the available possibilities with intelligent auto-complete.
This isn't patronising. This is all about usability, interface design and mass market appeal.
If Auntie Beryl writes yet another letter to her bank, she simply drags it to the 'Letters' folder. She doesn't need to know that this isn't really a folder and the document is now tagged as 'Letter'.
Uncle Harry doesn't need to know the definition and intricacies of folksonomies. He doesn't care that, strictly speaking, this document could also be multiply tagged 'Bank' and 'Personal'. He just wants to type the letter, run a spell checker, quickly print the thing and make the 5 o'clock collection.
I honestly believe, in the future, this seemingly trivial change will be viewed as the turning point when Google changed from a marginal, Web 2.0 application and started to offer a credible alternative to Microsoft Office (for personal but not corporate users - yet). This was the day that non Web 2.0 users can now be introduced to Docs and actually understand and use it.
Ironically, the revamped Google Docs interface is very reminiscent of the Web based interface of Office 2007 which is another excellent software product and unbelievably close to the desktop equivalent.
Bill Gates reads my blog shock !
Great news. Bill Gates has heeded my advice and I will be able to purchase Vista online and download the media. This means that I no longer have to buy an expensive box full of fresh air from Microsoft.
Burning a DVD is probably still recommended just in case the seamless Windows upgrade fails and I discover, to my horror, that none of my drivers work any more and I have to format the hard disk in order to boot the computer.
However, I take a similar attitude to risk averse Siebel customers contemplating the recently released 8.0. I have a large and demanding customer base (son and daughter) and an integrator who wastes all my hard-earned money (wife) with a perceived requirement for 7x24 operation and high availability.
On reflection, it's probably better to let other idiots people suffer the pain and iron all the glitches out before I take the plunge when SP1 is released.
That reminds me; I really must ring my Dad tonight and warn him not to do anything stupid.