BBC are putting together a Mac, Windows and Linux user, to debate the pros and cons of being a users for each operating system. While this in itself is good news (more airtime for alternatives), most of the comments are highly in favour of Linux, then Mac and lastly Windows. This is part of the BBC’s coverage of Windows Vista. My hope for the future is that Mac and Linux gain at least 10% each (20% total) over the next 5 years of the home desktop market, as this will push innovation forward, like AMD and Intel competition.

Just a quick blurb about some things Microsoft like to say: Don’t believe it, well at least not it all anyway. On the Irish “Get the Facts” page (on Windows Server vs. Linux), they make critical errors of judgement a person reasonably well versed in computing could deconstruct. First of all, Linux isn’t a server, its a kernel, like the Windows kernel. So comparing “Windows Server 2003” to “Linux” is misleading to say the least, and stupid to say the most. You could run any server software on Linux you wished, even Windows Server 2003 if Microsoft ported it! For the sake of argument, I think they are comparing themselves to Apache, which runs 60% of worldwide servers[1].

Just a quick post on Google Sketch UP for Mac (also available for Windows), it is a very nice application. I drew my Engineering project (Leaving Certificate) on it, to see if it was easy enough for a novice (Read: Me) to mess around and get something functional out of it. Most people have heard of Computer Aided Design, but usually the applications are expensive to say the least. Not so with Google Sketchup, it is totally free and can import some of the most popular 3D drawing formats. It is easy to use, but difficult to master is how I would best describe this product. The video tutorials Google provides on their website is a huge help, and got me off to a good start. They represented what every tutorial should be: short, snappy and to the point. The User Interface should be designed a little better and be a little clearer, but for a free product, it does exactly what it says on the tin. So I got down to business, and I present my very first drawing in Google Sketchup:

Thanks to Dashcode, the tool for making dashboard widgets, there is now an RSS one for this site! Currently it only works on Mac OS X, but KDE 4 should support dashboard widgets (they are really just bits of javascript, css and html).

Well I guess you can call me a hardcore Apple Computer fan, I have a Macbook, an iPod Nano (1st Gen 4GB) and now a 80GB iPod Video! I bought i for a couple of reasons, namely price and storage. I had been put off before since I thought they were too bulky ( I know a couple of people who have older generation iPod Videos) after being with the Nano for over a year (its still chugging along gleefully). What can I say? I am impressed! Battery life is huge to me and well to be frank, its amazing. My first MP3 player was a Creative Nomad Jukebox II (circa 2002), which I still have. I know only one person who owned an MP3 player before me, and its nice to be there from the start, you appreciate the little details most people don´t, as they are new to mp3 players, so they expect it as standard. I now get all the latest tech podcasts, so I am very happy with that!

AOL, the longtime dialup king, who esperate to keep customers at its’ site who have switched to broadband, is offering free dot com and dot net domains. There are a few caches however, one must be in possession of a US mobile phone (cell) number. Luckily I have a cousin stateside willing to help out ;-) . I got to register NeilGrogan.com (My actual name) which I hadn’t bothered with before. AOL is the legal owner however, so has all the say legally to the name. At the minute it provides 100 2GB email accounts with the free domain, and if you visit the address online, it redirects to an AIM Pages profile of the owner (for all intents and purposes, it’s another social networking site). Its a good way to drum up interest in its online offerings, but they should be more flexible. If anyone is in any doubt, this is just an ‘alright’ kind of deal, AOL say they will give you the option to buy the name back in the future, but I won’t hold my breath.

Well apparently I am a new kid on the block, according to the Irish Blog awards blog). Irish Blog Awards from what I can gather is a new event, hoping to happen in March 2007. They have an impressive list of backers, so I expect significant (although maybe minor) coverage in the media. Unfortunately they called it Duey Fensters, but I thank them for the link nonetheless! These are the categories that will be adjudicated on:

I recently got a hold of my Christmas present in advance, a new Nokia 6234 from Vodafone Ireland. I did a short video test, maybe this could be the start of my VideoBlogging career:

Well maybe not! But I do hope to have more videos on my blog! The video is of me describing my living quarters and about my laptop. I needed to be a bit closer to the phone as hearing me is difficult sometimes (not so in real life!), but basically I just point out what you see and explain the phone won’t sync address+calendar with my macbook :-( (My old phone did just that :-) ). I don’t really mind, bluetooth works a charm and I can exchange files between it. All I need now is a super 2GB mini memory card, for some quick music on the go!

I managed after ages of trying hard, to get my NAT transverse to work :-) !! This means the computer sitting in my house should be reachable worldwide at dueyfinster.com. It’s login screen is from Ampache music center, a php+mysql solution to a large music catalogue such as mine. It means (for those who can login :-) ) that my whole collection is streamable, downloadable, rateable and generally all round goodness and what you’d expect from a top class open source media+web application! I am excited about this, as I have already tried it from a remote family members house. Unfortunately it does not work too well half way across the world in the US (speed is *really* slow I have been gleefully informed), but I am not too bothered, upgrades in speed will come with better broadband (which may be years, this is Ireland). I am trying to restrict peoples usage of it at the moment, as I really do not want a letter from my Internet Service Provider!

We all want to stop spam and phishing domains, it hurts the Internet and confidence in it. Their is a lot of debate on this issue, even from the registrars. But I believe, as I know there are probably many out their like me, that the Irish Domain Registry have taken this one step too far. One only has to look to Slashdot to see what the rest of the world thinks about our backwards, censorship-driven domain registry. My favourite rule they have about domains is perhaps the one which requires the least amount of bureaucracy: