Rodent Regatta

I want a Mac, but I want a Mac that I can work with as effectively as I can work with my PC. Wait…perhaps that’s an overstatement. Plenty of days I find myself hating PC’s and Windows and USB and technology…and, I digress. Why haven’t I switched?

The three reasons are beautifully summarized by John Gruber’s essay this morning called Familiarity Breeds a User Base. He quotes liberally from and responds to this entry from Joshua Micah Marshall. However, the spur to the flank that apparently got all of the discussion under way is here.

* * * UPDATE * * * Less to do with Macs per se, but a clear message about technology, here’s I’m just sayin’. * * * UPDATE #2 * * * All (logical) objections notwithstanding, Joshua Micah Marshall bought a Mac.

Today a shipping carton arrived on my doorstep. Inside was a display carton like those you might find sitting on a retail counter. Inside the display carton were twenty (20) cardboard CD cases with two (2) CD’s in each one.

Clearly, there is money in all of this open source stuff somewhere.Made out of good materials and with nice-looking graphics, both the CD’s and the cardboard carriers were from Ubuntu or Canonical, LTD. I’m not a Linux user. I’ve never really had a notion that I’d replace my Windows laptop with anything other than a Macintosh. Yet, compelling graphics coupled with these twenty sets of open source software CD’s shipped unexpectedly to my desk make me curious.

These CD’s carry version 5.1 of the Unbuntu distro of Linux. The second CD in each package contains such things as Firefox, Open Office, Thunderbird, etc. Check it out here. I don’t know when I might need Linux, but this unexpected package and the sites that I’ve linked to make me curious. I’ll pay more attention to what Linux is doing and what Mark Shuttleworth is doing to promote it.

Back country flying presents a host of challenges. Operating conditions take a toll on aircraft that were designed for those situations. Yet, service intervals, mean time between failures and pilot flying styles alter even the most rugged aircraft’s ability to perform on a continuous basis.

You saw End of the Spear? You got a glimpse of one type of aviation need in the field of mission and humanitarian flight. Now comes word that the Quest Aircraft Company is preparing the next generation of airplanes designed for this work.

Take a look at the media gallery.

From a daydream several weeks ago to yesterday’s receipt of instructions providing my access to Joyent, things are changing. What things? What changes?

Joyent bought TextDrive. Now Joyent lists three products on their weblog. There are the “Joyent connector services. There are TextDrive’s hosting services. Then, there is the Strongspace service.

All three services are needed. They are needed by the small business, and they are needed by the freelancer providing any type of goods or services to a list of customers. The question is whether or not the small business and/or the freelancer can manage all of these features. If so, how? Let’s work an example…

Read on...

Norton Antivirus 2006 from Symantec carries a passenger. He goes by Norton Protection Center, and he’s one of those arrogant blowhards who knows everything about everything. Dealing with him is ponderous at best and like watching your computer handle every bit on screen at worst. He’s big, loud, unentertaining and slow.

If he visits you, here’s what you should do:

1. Right-click on My Computer and select “manage”
2. Navigate to Services and Applications in the left-hand window and expand that menu
3. Click on “services” and then find Norton Protection Center in the right-hand screen
4. Right-click on the surly pig and choose “properties”
5. Neuter him by stopping him and changing his startup type to “disabled”

Having sufficiently crippled him, you will now return to antiviral computing at speeds approximating normal.

Oh, and thanks Symantec for bringing this louse into our lives. Your pursuit of all things anti-computing continues to make you one of the least customer-friendly companies in existence.