Steve Jobs has resigned. I'll miss him... and why.

Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple Inc.

The official statement: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Steve-Jobs-Resigns-as-CEO-of-Apple.html

While, as most of you know, I have never been the biggest fan of the iOS (on iPhones and iPads) what you may not know is that I have always admired his tenacity and belief in his company and product. There is a very good reason Simon Sinek [TEDtalk | Start With Why ] spoke about Apple in his Golden Circles talk – Steve was a believer in pushing the boundaries of IT use and his desire for IT to not only be useful, but easy to use and good looking, has quite obviously come through in their products.

There are many, many lessons we can learn about innovation in education from the way he has lead innovation in the IT industry. I aspire to have the same belief in and dedication to my products, young, Christian leaders who will influence their community for God and good, so that they may achieve their potential. Anyone who has seen Steve talk, either via vodcast or in real life, will know that he has always meant what he said.

Steve, you’ve done a great job and you will be missed.

My favourite windows cleaner is now there for macs!

Just like the idea that macs can't get malware has turned out to be false, the idea that you don't need to clean up after a mac is also not true. Thankfully CCleaner the best free cleaner is now out for macs.

New beta version of CCleaner for Mac is limited but shows signs of promise - News - PC & Tech Authority Mobile Edition

My Ubuntu Lucid Beta play

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 2 Technical Overview | Ubuntu

I've installed Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 2 (Lucid) on my Toshiba Portege (ie. old, old laptop) because XP was running a tad sluggish. So far, I'm loving it! Yes, they've put the window buttons on the wrong - I mean the Apple (left) - side, but then I've been using a Macbook Pro as my home laptop for a while.

User experience:

It's fast - snappy even - which is saying something considering that the laptop it's on might be best described as antique. The new interface/themes which they have put under the banner of 'light' - Ambiance and Radiance. I currently use Ambience - and I have to admit, it's a lot nicer to look at compared to the 'woodsiness' of the old Ubuntu colours.

Installing:

The install (I used the Wubi installer which installs as a separate virtual disk so there's no risk) was easy and relatively pain free - didn't even have to answer much in the way of questions.

Problems?

I say relatively because the one issue I had with the install was that Ubuntu didn't recognise my ancient video card - a Trident CyberXP - and the default screen size was 800x600... positively tiny. Not much of an issue if I could easily fix it up. Of course, I couldn't, at least not easily. This led to a couple of hours of searching forums until I found that I needed to create (because Ubuntu doesn't use it by default) a blank xorg.conf file with some basic settings (below). Once that was done, restarted the x-server and voila! Had a 1024x768 resolution again! And then, after heaps of searching, I find out that Trident CyberXP cards can't do 3D under X-Server (though it can in XP). Just have to suck that up and move on.

In terminal, run sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf , enter your password when asked, and then add the following:



Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
HorizSync 60-60
VertRefresh 43-117
EndSection


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection 

My Customisations:

On the other hand, I've customised it a bit - added a dock because I like the icons - added Google Desktop and Chrome (because I'm a fan boy) which was all really easy using the Ubuntu Software Center. Screen:

Ubuntu Software Center

This is a really great addition to the distro. It makes finding the software out of all the mess which is Linux Packages simple. Nice. It's basically an application for easily finding, installing and removing programs. It's a 1-click type of interface and categorises the types of applications you might be looking for. Screens below.

Final Comments:

If you're looking for an alternative to Windows, Ubuntu 10.04 is already a great OS, with some final tweaking (I guess) before the final. Worth a play at least using the Live CD.

More Google news

Google Phone? In more google news (seems to be all I'm typing about these days), it looks like there's going to be a google phone. Will I use it? Hmmm. After some somewhat disturbing remarks by CEO Schmidt about Google and privacy (see quote below), I'm in two minds. I still use their products though- it seems that people (myself included) are willing to hand over our personal lives for a really useful (or somewhat useful) app. Case in point - I'm writing this blog using Google's Chrome browser for Mac (which really is a step back from the Win version) in Blogger (another google product) and I use Google seach religiously. Seriously - Bing? Nah.

Quote from Schmidt on PCWorld (http://www.pcworld.com/article/184446/googles_schmidt_roasted_for_privacy_comments.html) :
66

Lest anything be taken out of context, here's the full quote from Schmidt, uttered in an interview with CNBC:
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."
       99


Thanks Schmidt for making me feel safer using your products - really (italics is used to show sarcasm).

Five Years of Firefox

Wow! Five years already!!! Who knew that time could go so fast.

Five years ago, Microsoft had killed off their major web browsing competitors and looked set to keep the throne for decades (mumble, grumble) to come. Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Netscape reborn, rebadged and completely (pretty much) recoded, comes back on the scene as Mozilla Firefox.
With features that MS could only dream of and a user base which rapidly grew (and still is), Firefox reignited the Browser wars of yesteryear and warmed the hearts of so many who had been enslaved in the net pits of IE.
Now, after paving the way, and wounding the dragon, Firefox has allowed other browsers to also take up the fight to reclaim the Internet - welcome Chrome, hello on Win Safari, and Opera: just keep on singing.
So to say happy birthday, I've linked to the celebration page. Go there and rejoice for the reign of 'good enough' is almost at an end.

Five Years of Firefox

Posted using ShareThis

Hang on - what is Google Operating System?

If you have no idea what it was that I was talking about in the last post, lucky for you that google has released a video for you:

Chrome Operating System - It's here!

Google has just released Chrome OS as Open Source and they've got bucketloads of videos out there.

I thought I'd post a very recent demo video (from Google's youtube channel) here - it's a live, working version.




What I find interesting is the absolute reliance upon the cloud. All documents etc are based "in the cloud" - or on a google server.

What I love is that it's not due for release for another year, but it's working and Google is mroe than willing to show it off.

There are more videos on the channel, but I thought I'd start with this one.

It's MY info, Google! .. Enter dashboard

We all know that Google can build up a lot of info about you, but most of it comes from yourself. You create a blogger account, set up a gmail, enter in the Wave playground, make your own profile, write some pages, create some documents online, have a calendar - you know, all the regular stuff. All this info, you give to Google because they run all those things. And, until now, it's been kind of hard to check what the world could and couldn't see about you because of it.
This is where the Dashboard comes in.
In short, it allows you to see what Google stuff you've got and what personal information is being given out as well as offering you the opportunity to change settings about what is public and/or private.

I like it. YAGGT! (Yet Another Good Google Tool).

For another view of it, see: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/11/google-dashboard.html (google's own blog - so it's a bit biased)
or: http://blogs.computerworld.com/15054/google_dashboard_triva_tabulator_for_my_google_life?source=rss_blogs (has a more...'trivia centered'... view of it)

BTW: my twitter's going well... and I've hooked it up to my facebook too! Woot. I almost sound Gen Y!

Chrome Dev Version rocks!

I've taken the plunge and been trying out the Google Chrome dev channel releases.

Chrome 1 gave us speed
Chrome 2 gave us more speed
Chrome 3 gave us themes (kind of like igoogle)
and why am I using Chrome 4?

One reason, and one reason only:
Extensions.

Yep - that's right, extensions. And you know what? While there aren't actually all that many out there, the extensions I'm using don't appear to have slowed Chrome down. Not at startup, not during page rendering and not during shutdown. While Chrome's memory usage is a dog - because it seperates each tab out into seperate processes (really good idea by the way - seriously), the extensions don't seem to add anything.

This is really important, because I'm now going to get rid of Firefox... gasp! I don't really need it anymore - except to play Quake Live. Okay - I'm going to keep Firefox. For now.

Security issues - I'm not sure, but it still appears to be quite secure. I'll let you know if my bank accounts suddenly empty.

Try it or not. Extensions are cool

Windows 7 is out!

I don't suppose that there is anything else to say - the press has said enough today. All day.

Windows 7, by all reviews, appears to be the best version of Windows since Windows XP... which means it's better than Vista.

I've read a range of reviews, all saying it's the OS that Vista should have been - but interestingly, a lot are saying that XP is still faster, and more reliable than the 7 Release Candidate (which is not the one you're purchasing - but should be almost identical).

So, the question I've been asked quite often is - should I upgrade? If you're using Vista and you want a bit more snap, and you can afford it, yes. If you're using XP and you've absolutely no wish to have all the beautiful effects of Windows 7, I'd say no. I'm not anyway. I've got better things to spend my money on, and better things to spend my time on - rather than hours trying to get from XP to 7 (not an easy venture I've been told).

Anyway - you want reviews? Do a google search (I've included one here).
And you can try Microsoft's own site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

Have fun!

Chrome 3 - lovin' it still

Yep - Google's chrome browser is up to version 3 already, and it's just getting better all the time. It's been out for a couple of days, and I've been playing with it, thus leading to this fantastic write up.

All the main points from when v.2 was released are still the same. I still don't like having personal information about me stored when all I want to do is browse. I still occasionally want to use some plugins, but I haven't seen any 'official' ones yet.

Some new features - speed (again) and themes. I like the themes that Google have offered, they're simple, quick and plain (ish). All this means that they don't slow the jolly browser down - unlike some of the themes on offer with Firefox.

When it comes to plugins, I'll just keep using FF.

Enjoy!

Chrome 2

Love it. It's like version 1, but better, faster and more... just more.

It's fast, really fast. I know that I've said that about Firefox before, but Chrome is really speeding along. I'm currently posting this using Chrome. Nice.It loads faster than either Firefox or IE 7 0r 8, which is saying something. You'd think the people who make the OS would be able to make it move.

I've noticed a few issues, though. While it is built on the open source project Chromium, it still uses a lot of personal information hooks (which google assures us are not too damning and/or permanent) including a unique ID for the download of Chrome that you're using.

Another issue is that of plugins. Nowadays, there's a lot of stuff out there which is quite useful to view in a browser (like pdf files) and Chrome, or at least my Chrome, won't open them. Not surprisingly things like flash and flvs (they are the file of choice behind most video sharing sites like youtube) do play, and play well, but the other, less googled plugins just aren't there.... yet.

Google has said that they are planning on building in a plugin architecture, but I understand their hesitancy in doing so.

There are two main problems with browsers including plugins: security and speed.

Security becomes an issue when you allow someone else to add scripts (often with a great amount of power/priveledges) to an otherwise secure browser. This reduces the possibility of a browser vendor being able to assure users of the security of their program. They have no power to control what the programmers of the plugin add to the code. And at the moment, Google have scored on the security issue. Its a complete redesign from the other browsers out there. I like that.

Secondly a browser will slow down the more plugins are added - this is simply because it is more program code which has to be run and stored in memory. A plain vanilla installation of Firefox is blazingly fast. Add a few plugins (say 10 or so) and it becomes less weildly and more labourious.

Anyway, at the moment I've got three browsers going: IE, Firefox and Chrome. IE because I don't have much choice, Firefox for the plugins (I do need them from time to time) and Chrome, because I like its user interface and its speeeeeeeeed.

Make up your own mind. After all, it is yours.

Google Wave - A new (and better) form of communication

I thought I'd break my hiatus from blogging to bring this to you all. Firstly, because I'm really excited, and secondly because I'm really really excited.

Lars and Jens Rasmussen (the guys who basically created uber cool google maps) have gotten together, with a few other aussies in Sydney (yay!!!) and have come up with Google Wave.

"Uh huh?!" I hear you mutter at your screen(s). Well it is a really cool new communication form that kind-of melds email, IM, blogging, facebooking (or Orkuting for all you google freaks out there) and all those other types of messaging together.

Look, I really can't explain it enough, except to make one of my fatefull pronouncements (like the one I made back when google was next to unknown) and state simply - this will redefine the way you communicate online, and it will be the next big thing. Oops. That's done it.

No seriously, this isn't like "this is the year of Linux", or like "Duke Nukem Forever will come out, sometime"... this is for real. Even if no-one else reading this ever takes it up (silly people) I will.

Find out why by going to the google wave page (http://wave.google.com/) and watch the video and read all about it. Really - it's 1 hour 20 minutes in length, but if you're anything like me, you'll be sold after the first 10. And it actually makes sense.

BTW: this is the same video below.

PointUI 2 Home is out!

I appear to be a little late (must have missed my email warning) but PointUI 2 Home is out for download. Its a little app that remakes your old dodgy looking Windows Mobile interface into something you can actually show your friends.

Just downloaded it - about to try it. Give it ago yourself:

http://www.pointui.com/

Google yourself

Have you ever googled yourself? According to one of my friends on facebook (I know, I know, they're only really friends if you've actually met), I was a google evangelist back before google was cool. Again, I know, google was always cool.

At the moment, you're probably like... what?! Get on with the story! So I will. Anyway, even from day 1 of my google addiction I was googling myself. And then I forgot about it.

I can sense your disappointment - but wait, there's more! But, one of my brothers-in-law is a mad keen php developer and has been a bit of a sleeper hit. It wasn't until I googled him (to find out what projects he had actually worked on) that I found out just how well known he was. Essentially, the first 50 returns (that's 5 pages) were about him. Whoa...

Yep, so now you're wondering how I've fared... 1 entry... page 6 4 (yay! I've gone up two pages!). ummm.

Do yourself a favour - google yourself. You might not like what you find, but hey, at least you get a healthy sense of perspective... :)

Help me get up another couple of pages... you know you want to. Link to this blog... it's cool. Nah, didn't think that would work...

Software I use: Productivity

There comes a time in one's life when one wants to do the same amount of work in less time. These are the tools I use to reduce the work I have to do in keeping my life going.

Productivity tools:

• Office applications: Microsoft Office (http://office.microsoft.com/). Really, at the moment there's no true replacement, and that's for a lot of reasons. The main issue, of course, is market dominance. If I want to change to my preferred suite (eg. StarOffice - based on OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org)), then I need to convince everyone who uses my machine to swap as well. After all, I'm not going to pay for a licence I'm not going to use, now am I?
• Calendar: Google Calendar (http://calendar.google.com) Google calendars are the only calendars that I need. Accessible from anywhere, easy to use - I've never seen a better design for quick and easy data entry, and there are plugins for pretty much every web-based tech you can find. I use Joomla! (http://www.joomla.org) and there are so many plugins for Google Calendar - it's crazy! My church website (http://www.christlife.org.au) uses Google Maps... the only problem is that I haven't told anyone yet, so it's a bit out of date.
• Syncronisation: SyncBack SE (http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html) has to be one of the easiest I've used - and efficient. Check it out.

I think that's about it... If you've got a suggestion for another type of productivity app (an area I haven't talked about) then comment it here. If you think you've got a better piece of software, let me know too!

Software I use (Internet)

I keep getting asked by people (friends, acquantainces, complete strangers etc) what software I use... what I think works and is good. Well, here's a little list of the software I use for various tasks.

Slight change: I've decided to do this bit in parts. That whay I can easily distinguish between the different types of software.

Note: I occaisionally use software that I don't think is necessarily the best, and I'll offer alternatives for them.

First, the Internet:

• Web Browser: FireFox 3. Duh! No choice really... Open Source, free, cool, great. Get it from: http://www.getfirefox.com
• Email: Thunderbird 2. Same reasons as above. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/ I actually like MS Outlook for it's completeness (tasks, mail, calendar etc) but it's not free.
  
• FTP: FileZilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) Like the ones above. Cool. Free. Secure.
• More? Let me know.

If you have a different opinion about what should be here, let me know!

Wow - it HAS been a long time

Somebody just recently asked me if I'd posted on my blog recently... and as you can see from the dates, my answer was no.
So why do people start up blogs and then not keep going? It's a bit reminiscent of those personal web pages on 'free' hosting sites which were set up once, maybe tended for a short while and then just forgotten - left to be sucked up by the sands of time (and the creditors when the hosting company collapsed).
I can't really answer for anyone else, but for me I have to admit that it's partly because I don't feel any real emotional attachment to my blog space. It's google's, not mine. The URL tries to make it feel personal, heck - google really does try to give you some sense of web 'backyard' to work within (and major kudos to them - privacy issues set aside), but it's just not the same as having a site which you've built up from the ground.
Those people who have known me for some time, know that I began working with HTML back in it's infancy (at least in Australia), way back in the early to mid 90's. I can't really remember when I first started, but it was early. I remember the joy of being able to use the img tag for the first time (note: not xHTML compliant - no / in those days!). I remember animated gifs and the free for all that web enthusiasts had for setting them as background images, regardless of how tacky it made the site, or how hard to read. I remember feeling like a legend, because my good old Netscape managed to get my page up and going and looking kind of like I'd intended in under 10 seconds (remember 9600 baud?). I remember using notepad and Netscape Composer to set it all up. Those were the days where I had some sense of personal belonging - where I knew that all that was there was because I could.
These days you select a template, give it a title and away you go...
It seems to me that the most used blogs (and this is from pro's as well) are ones where some personalisation has occured, they're not just plain vanilla anymore.

Maybe that's what I've got to do. That and get some darn visitors!!! Come on, leave a comment just so I know that there's someone out there...

A User's View is moving...

Hi all,

A User's View (the blog about software useability) is moving to http://ausersview.blogspot.com and this space will become my personal blog - essentially a regular (hopefully) update to what is going on in and around my life.

Enjoy the new spot!

Get those add-ons working with Firefox 3 beta 3

As I've stated in the previous posts, getting those add-ons to work in the betas isn't as simple as clicking on the beautiful install button.

The problem we now have is that the vast majority of add-ons have been built for Firefox 1 & 2, and because FF3 is still in beta, not many of the developers have updated their add-ons.

Thankfully, unless the add-on deals with some of the core which has changed (e.g. bookmarks), it is quite simple to update them yourself. It requires little knowledge of anything other than how to use a good compression program (i.e. 7zip) and read files in notepad (although I like using notepad2). NOTE: both of those programs are Open Source and GPL'ed, so no philosophical issues here.

To start off, I'm going to install one of my favourite add-ons: Firebug. This is a nifty little tool, which is very useful for developers - unlike myself.

So let's get started.

1. Get the add-on. This is as simple as going to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843 and clicking on the green 'Install Now' button.

2. The add-on install will go as per normal, but will pop up an 'Incompatible Extension' error box - just as you thought all was hunky-dory.

3. Hmm... we now have a problem - but it can be fixed!

4. Go back to the add-on's page (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843) and right-click on the link.
Select 'Save Link As...' and choose great little folder/directory in which to save the .xpi file.

5. This is now where 7Zip comes in handy. Go to the directory in which the .xpi is saved and open the file in your compression program of choice (if you haven't guessed, I choose 7Zip).

NOTE: The reason we can do this is that the .xpi file is actually an archive containing all the files needed for the add-on. We're going to change one - that's right, just one - file in that archive.

The steps I'm about to use are for 7Zip, so if you don't have it - get it. Really, it is the best compression program out there anyway.

6. Look for the file 'install.rdf', right-click on it and select 'Edit'. This is the main configuration file for the add-on.

7. We're going to change one - that's right, one - line in the file. Look for the code section:

<Description>
<em:id>{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}</em:id>
<em:maxVersion>2.0.0.*</em:maxVersion>
<em:minVersion>1.5</em:minVersion>
</Description>

We're going to change the value in <em:maxVersion> from 2.0.0.* to 3.0.*

8. Make the change and save the file. Exit your editor (again, mine was notepad2) and, if you're using 7zip, it will ask if you want to update the archive with the new file - select 'Yes'. If you're using some other program and it doesn't ask you, save your install.rdf file elsewhere and add it back in to the archive, making sure to overwrite the old one.

9. Close the archive and drag the .xpi file onto firefox. The install Add-On dialogue should come up and away you go.