Practical Technology

for practical people.

November 11, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

RockMelt: A social networking spin on Google Chrome

Would you like to do your Web browsing while keeping a constant eye on what your Facebook friends are doing? If so, then RockMelt is for you.

RockMelt is actually a combined Facebook front end and Web browser. It is built on the foundation of Google’s open-source Chromium Web browser, which is also the basis for Google’s popular and fast Chrome browser.

I tried RockMelt out on a Dell Inspiron 530s PC running Windows XP. RockMelt will also run on Macs, but there is no Linux build available. On my XP system, it ran quite quickly, like Chrome does.

You can’t download RockMelt without logging into Facebook. Once you have the application (which is still invitation-only), you must log into Facebook and give RockMelt permission to show and manipulate Facebook data before you can install it.

More >

November 10, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Red Hat announces Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Red Hat announced today, November 10th, that long anticipated release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.

The announcement itself was anti-climatic. Everyone in Linux circles knew that RHEL 6 was coming. What I did find interesting–as customer after customer and partner after partner said how wonderful RHEL was and Red Hat Red Hat EVP Paul Cormier showed how the server operating system market has become a battle between RHEL and Windows-was how utterly mainstream Linux has become.

Solaris is done. The other versions of Unix now live in niches. The other Linux distributions, such as Novell‘s SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) and feisty newcomers such as Ubuntu are fighting it out for second place.

Linux is no longer a revolution. It is no longer the outsider wanting into the business market. Linux, in particular, RHEL, is at business’ heart. As Cormier said, "It’s no longer about who has the newest kernel, our customers are beyond that."

Exactly. I see Red Hat’s announcement as a graduation ceremony. Yes, the technology is important, but what’s even more important now is Red Hat, the business, Red Hat, the brand.

As for RHEL 6 itself, yes there are many advances. What I see as the big change here is that Red Hat is pushing RHEL not just as the standalone server operating system we’ve known it as for years, but as the business operating system for both virtualization and the cloud.

That’s not to say that Red Hat will be ignoring bare-metal servers. You’ll still be able to run RHEL on everything from re-purposed desktops serving as servers to blade and rack servers with symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) 4-CPU quad-core processors to mainframes. But, if you want to, and Red Hat hopes you will, you’ll use RHEL on virtual systems. During the press conference Red Hat claimed that RHEL virtualized guests can reach 85%-90% of the performance of running on native hardware. To do this, Red Hat uses Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). Red Hat also hopes you use RHEL 6 in cloud computing deployments. Whether customers want to use a private cloud inside their data centers or use RHEL on Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud.

Another point that Red Hat makes is that RHEL is that they’ve gone to great trouble to make RHEL as power-efficient as possible. RHEL 6, the company claims, will use 40% less electricity. That may not sound that important to you, but, ask your local data center director how he would feel about cutting his electrical bill by 40%. This is a big deal.

Is this exciting news? If you’re a cutting edge technology person, no, it’s not. But, Red Hat, and indeed Linux, is no longer about revolution, it’s about getting more from less with Linux. RHEL has become the establishment. The Linux dream of being taken seriously, of being important, has happened. It may not be as much fun as being on the outside looking in, but it will be more profitable.

A version of this story first appeared in ComputerWorld.

November 10, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

It’s not Apache vs. Oracle; it’s Oracle vs. open source

Apache is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It can’t certify that its open-source Java, Harmony is Java compatible. Oracle, like Sun before it, won’t release the needed certification tests. Without that Apache can’t certify that Harmony is really Java for legal purposes. Adding insult to injury, IBM, which had been Harmony’s biggest backer, moved away from the project to support, with Oracle, OpenJDK.

What’s an open-source foundation to do? It can try to force Oracle to co-operate by using its seat in the Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee, the group that, in theory, runs Java to vote against approving Java 7 when it eventually comes up for approval. By itself, Apache can’t stop it, but it’s calling on other JCP members to also vote against it to protest Oracle’s refusal to work with Apache on certifying Harmony.

More >

November 9, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Shearing Firesheep

Thanks to the Firefox plug-in Firesheep, anyone today can snoop on anyone else on the same network. Worst still, Firesheep enables any user to seamlessly hijack another user’s Web session. Programs are beginning to show up that will block Firesheep from looking over your shoulder. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the ones I’ve seen are Firefox specific and they don’t deal with the problem’s root causes.

I’ve also been finding that even now many people don’t really understand just how dangerous Firesheep can be in the wrong hands. Sure, a network hacker could always WireShark or another professional-level network sniffer tool to see what you were doing and harvest your user IDs and passwords, but Firesheep lets anyone do it.

Oh, and this may sound hopelessly simple to some of you, but you only need Firefox to run Firesheep. If someone is watching you with Firesheep, it doesn’t matter what browser or operating system you’re running or whether they’re up to date with their patches. Someone with Firesheep can watch you no matter what you’re using on your PC, tablet, or smartphone if your network connection isn’t secure.

More >

November 8, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

The iPad stands alone, lacking real competition

Where is the iPad’s competition?

By this time, I’d expected to see some real comers gunning for Apple’s iPad tablet. Hasn’t happened.

You want to talk about HP’s just-released Slate 500? It has a starting list price of $799. An iPad can cost that much, but the price starts at $499, and people have demonstrated that they’re willing to pay that much and more. Are people going to feel the same way about the Slate 500? Highly doubtful.

The Slate has an 8.9-in. screen, compared to iPad’s 9.7 in., and it runs Windows 7. Now, tell me, how many Windows 7 apps are there for a pure touch-screen tablet? The iPad boasts over 5,000. And get this: For your 800 bucks, you get a Wi-Fi-only device. Makes you wonder whether HP’s goal is to see whether it can ship a product that can die even faster than Microsoft’s Kin did.

Some people would tell you that since Windows is under the hood, the Slate is going to get snapped up by business users who wouldn’t touch an Apple product. Really? Thousands of people are already buying iPads for business use.

More >

November 8, 2010
by sjvn01
2 Comments

The new Linux Desktop: Ubuntu’s Unity

The Linux desktop has been around for more than a decade now. Despite its best efforts, and Microsoft’s dumbest missteps — I’m looking at you, Vista — it’s never owned more than a fraction of the market. Canonical, Ubuntu‘s parent company, plans on changing that with its Unity desktop.

The more I look at Unity, the more I see Ubuntu taking a radical new approach to the Linux desktop. As my friend Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier observed, "Look at the Ubuntu.com site and you’ll notice — there’s nary a mention of Linux or GNOME on the front page or on several of the ‘About’ pages. The company and project are pursuing branding that doesn’t even mention the Linux heritage of the project. That might be a good strategy, considering the perception of Linux for many users [as] ‘something just for geeks, not for me.’ But at the same time, some of the rest of the community are a bit — dare I say — jealous of Ubuntu’s success and wishing the project were more effusive with its acknowledgement of its heritage."

That’s no accident. Yes, Ubuntu is based on Linux, and the Unity desktop is built on GNOME, but at this point I think Canonical has decided that everyone who’s ever going to use a "Linux" desktop is already there. Therefore, to broaden the Ubuntu Linux desktop base, they needed to reach users who know nothing about Linux.

Ubuntu has always been about making it easy for new users to use Linux. Now, I think they’ve decided to go recreate the Linux desktop in order to make "Linux" easier for still more users. For starters, that means dropping a graphical desktop that’s reminiscent of Windows and Mac OS X. Say what you will about Unity, it doesn’t look much like any other desktop interface. Indeed, Unity is an interface that will work for desktops, netbooks, tablets, or even smartphones. That’s quite deliberate. Unity is meant to be a universal interface.

This isn’t just skin deep. While it won’t show up in Ubuntu 11.04, Canonical plans on making Wayland, the OpenGL-based display management system, in place of the X Window System, the foundation for its GUI. While developers for years have gotten sick and tired of the Byzantine complexities of X Window, no one had the guts to say enough was enough and dump it from their desktop plans until the Ubuntu developers did it.

I’ve also noticed that Ubuntu is making unusual application choices for its next desktop. These include the Mono-based Banshee for its music-player and LibreOffice, the OpenOffice fork, for its office suite. In other words, Canonical is going its own way with applications, too.

So what are they up to? You put it all together and I see Ubuntu striving to create a new kind of Linux desktop. It’s one that will run on every device with a user interface and will use whatever Canonical believes will deliver the best possible user experience. If that means it won’t look or work much like everyone else’s desktop Linux, so be it.

Can they do it? I think they have a shot. I do know that the traditional Linux desktop, much as I may love it, has reached about as broad an audience as it ever will. That said, the Ubuntu programmers have a lot of coding to do to make this happen. Then, we’ll see if Ubuntu has found a new way to popularize the "Linux" desktop, or if they’ve gone up a blind alley.

The first version of this story appeared in ComputerWorld.