New post at my other web log. Meanwhile, on open-source software
I’ve entered a new post at Senior Web Log, Mostly by Knight.
Q’s place here will have to work harder to catch up. Software problems are untangling, but slowly. The Ubuntu thing is a marvel, and it would be great to go for it full time (right now, this is under Windows XP). I’ve even made some small progress on the web page byknight.com . Getting the shop up is behind schedule though, as is writing the next project (typical: right here and now I couldn’t get WordPress to generate the link there, until I “saved” this draught it wouldn’t translate the HTML or whatever it had to do).
Graphics: My trial version of Photshop is running out so I have to learn how to grapple with GIMP.
GIMP is an another amazing piece of open source software. As far as I can see it manages pictures as well as the Adobe ‘Shop and though it’s complicated, there’s a lot of great people supporting it.
Ubuntu, … GIMP (the lil’ fox is called Wilbur by the way), … Open Office .
All these are free, powerful and do more than one expects of them. The market, profit, gain and business is a strong driver of progress. These are market driven in that they can provide a platform for business, but they are not profitable in themselves. So … ?
Maybe my recent Windows crashes, catastrophic as they were, are telling me something. At the very least, there is no need to despair when it happens. Of course Microsoft has a worldwide network, support anywhere and everywhere and these alternatives are difficult, geeky. I don’t think Microsoft launches really bad products (except for the infamous Millennium Edition Windows that was inflicted on my poor Toshiba portable). Their strength is the huge development effort, under a single banner, of millions of lines of code. It’s also their perceived weakness, the constant flaws that need patches and upgrades – which GNU and open source have anyway and it’s an ongoing thing – hence the geekiness, I suppose.
Q
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May 13, 2008 8:49 pm