Practical Technology

for practical people.

May 26, 2010
by sjvn01
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Revenge of the Facebook Users?

Sure, Google may know about you, but its Facebook opening up your private information to the world’s gaze, and their advertiser’s profits, that has people ticked off. So, it should come as no surprise that someone has finally done it: They’ve sued Facebook for violating their privacy.

As reported by MediaPost, Rhode Island Derrick Rose has sued Facebook for allegedly violating his privacy with the four-week-old “instant personalization” feature. Specifically he claims that the launch of instant personalization “violated users’ reasonable expectations of privacy. Users’ private lists of all the persons they want to share information with may be very different from what they may want to share for purposes of social networking through Facebook. Nevertheless, Facebook, without user authorization, accessed and made public the users’ profile information.”

Why, yes, yes they did. While you can lock your Facebook account from snoopers and Facebook claims they’re going to be making it easier to bar unwelcome visitors from your information, the company isn’t backing off from letting any Tom, Dick, or Harry into your information by default.

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May 25, 2010
by sjvn01
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A PowerShell 2.0 Introduction for System Administrators

No matter how we try to get away from the command line, for many administrative and maintenance jobs for both individual PCs and for an office full of Windows 7 computers, when push comes to shove you can’t beat individual shell commands or reusable batch or script files. That’s why I was very happy to see Microsoft’s new PowerShell 2 baked into Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

The single most important change in PowerShell 2 is that it is not just for individual computers, retro-fitted for administering multiple PCs. No, this version of PowerShell was designed from the beginning to manage networked PCs. In short, PowerShell is just as much for network administrators as it is for system administrators or PC technicians.

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May 24, 2010
by sjvn01
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Has Asus Abandoned Netbook Linux?

It wasn’t even three-years ago that Asus took the concept of a cheap, small notebook and turned it into a revolution: the Linux-powered netbook. Today, netbooks continue to sell well. Indeed, Linux netbook sales forced Microsoft both to fire employees and to bring XP back from the dead. But, now, without any fanfare, Asus seems to have closed down its Linux lines at least in the United States.

I found out about this annoying development when some readers wrote to me to say that they’d been trying to get new Asus Linux-powered netbooks and that they’d gotten no-where. Some of the more persistent ones kept pestering Asus and this is what they heard from Asus sales:

“I show that this model is still in production and should be available to purchase through some of our online vendors such as Newegg, Tiger Direct, Zip Zoom Fly, Etc. Also we have just become retail and you may find our units in Target, Fry’s Electronics, Best Buy, Etc. I apologize I don’t have more information about what stores have how many units, but at least you know that this model is still in production. Thank you and have a great day!”

How nice, except it turned out that none of these retailers actually had any Linux-powered ASUS Eee PC 1000 line for sale. Or, any other netbooks with Linux pre-installed.

Another Asus sales message went: “I have just been informed that we do not have any netbooks that are loaded with Linux at this time. We do have a model that will be coming out but I do not have an ETA on that as of yet. I apologize for the wrong information.” That sounded promising, but the next message poured color water on his hopes of getting an Asus netbook with Linux: “This information is not going to make you happy and for that I apologize. This model has hit its end of life and they are no longer producing them. I have also found out that our Eee PC line will no longer be sold with Linux. I am not sure for what reasons but I am sorry. Have you tried to look for the units that are either refurbished or sold from companies as used?”

So, what’s really going on here? I contacted Asus representatives and asked: “Is Asus indeed no longer offering Linux on its lines? If so, why? Does the company plan to offer other netbooks/notebooks with Linux in the future?”

I haven’t heard a peep out of Asus since then. It sure looks to me like Asus, which started the Linux netbook movement, has dropped out of it.

Why? Well, it’s not sales. Netbook continue to sell well in general and netbooks with Linux has about 32% of the market. And, since Linux costs less than Windows, the profit margin should be higher for Linux netbook vendors.

I’m sure that the real reason is Microsoft has pressured Asus into abandoning Linux. On ASUS’ site, you’ll now see the slogan “ASUS recommends Windows 7” proudly shown. Never mind that, while Windows 7 is a good operating system, Windows 7 is awful on netbooks.

That’s by design. Microsoft’s chief poobah Steve Ballmer has said, “Our license tells you what a netbook is. Our license says it’s got to have a super-small screen, which means it probably has a super-small keyboard, and it has to have a certain processor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

So you can forget about running Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional on a netbook. Instead, if you want to buy, say an Asus Eee PC 1005PE, you’re stuck with Windows 7 Starter Edition, aka the trash version. Windows 7 Starter Edition only reason to exist is to act as a bait and switch to get you through the virtual sales door so the vendor can try to sell you a more expensive computer.

Fortunately, while Asus may want us to join it in drinking Microsoft’s Windows 7 Starter Edition kool-aid, other vendors like Dell, System76, and ZaReason still make it possible to get computers with the full-powered operating system that’s the right netbook size: Linux.

A version of “Has Asus Abandoned Netbook Linux” was first in PC World.

May 24, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Want to buy a Linux company?

Want to buy your very own Linux company? Two important ones, Mandriva and Novell are looking for buyers.

There’s a world of difference though between the two. Mandriva, which at one time was a major Linux distributor, is in serious financial hot-water. Novell, which has been targeted by two hostile takeovers attempts in the last few years, seems to have decided that to either cash out or to wrestle control back from some of its stockholders. At this point, it’s hard to tell which goal Novell actually has in mind.

Mandriva’s goal is clear though: it’s simple survival. The French-based company has never had an easy time of it. In 2004, Mandriva went through a bankruptcy. Mandriva followed this with a failed attempt to take on Red Hat and Novell in corporate servers. The company also fired its co-founder, Gael Duval, which lead to a bitter fight that did the company little good.

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May 21, 2010
by sjvn01
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Has ASUS abandoned netbook Linux?

It wasn’t even three-years ago that Asus took the concept of a cheap, small notebook and turned it into a revolution: the Linux-powered netbook. Today, netbooks continue to sell well. Indeed, Linux netbook sales forced Microsoft both to fire employees and to bring XP back from the dead. But, now, without any fanfare, Asus seems to have closed down its Linux lines at least in the United States.

I found out about this annoying development when some readers wrote to me to say that they’d been trying to get new Asus Linux-powered netbooks and that they’d gotten no-where. Some of the more persistent ones kept pestering Asus and this is what they heard from Asus sales:

“I show that this model is still in production and should be available to purchase through some of our online vendors such as Newegg, Tiger Direct, Zip Zoom Fly, Etc. Also we have just become retail and you may find our units in Target, Fry’s Electronics, Best Buy, Etc. I apologize I don’t have more information about what stores have how many units, but at least you know that this model is still in production. Thank you and have a great day!”

How nice, except it turned out that none of these retailers actually had any Linux-powered ASUS Eee PC 1000 line for sale. Or, any other netbooks with Linux pre-installed.

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May 19, 2010
by sjvn01
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Novell launches SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP 1

Novell launched SLE (SUSE Linux Enterprise) 11 SP 1 today, May 19th. At first glance, this major update to both SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) and SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) is quite impressive.

Technically, SLE 11 SP1 is based on openSUSE 11.2, the Novell community Linux distribution, which was released in November, and the 2.6.32 Linux kernel. OpenSUSE 11.2 is an outstanding distribution in its own right, and its commercially supported big brother is a worthy successor for business users.

From a corporate viewpoint, I see several important advantages. First, the new SLES is going to continue to support several kinds of virtualization.

While Red Hat has turned its back on Xen, Novell is continuing to support the Xen 4.0 hypervisor. In addition, SLE also includes support for KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), Linux’s built in open-source virtualization hypervisor.

However, unlike any other Linux, it supports integration with Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor. SLE also includes SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack, a set of drivers which improves the performance of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual guests. The last, according to Novell’s PR manager, Kerry Adorno, is the fruit of Novell continuing to work closely with Microsoft.

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