OK, so it has a few things last year’s model didn’t. Does that really make it worth disposing of a perfectly good phone? Will any of these new features do anything to really help anyone’s daily life? To both I have to say it’s doubtful. I myself will once again avoid the mass hysteria. Even as an OSX fan I just can’t justify a switch to iPhone and here’s why.

1. AT&T
   This alone accounts for numerous reasons why I won’t touch the product. They don’t have nearly the coverage of Sprint, and I have yet to meet a single person around here who has ever had anything to say about their service other than “it’s ok.” In addition, I pay $35/month/phone for unlimited everything on Sprint and I can use it everywhere I go. Why would I want to pay more for a data cap?
2. The Antenna
   Does this really even need to be addressed?
3. Android
   With Android ever increasing it’s market and market share iPhone really is yesterday’s news. Not only have I been able to find thousands of apps I don’t really need for my HTC Hero, I’ve been to install custom ROMs and do all sorts of tricks iPhone users only dream about. In addition, Android Market is growing so fast that it quiet possible will soon be bigger than Apple’s App Store anyway and doesn’t enforce ridiculous restrictions on it’s developers.
4. Phone Cost
   I paid $99 for my HTC Hero. Why would I want to drop double that for a phone that will be laughed at in a year?
5. Google Apps
   I use Google Apps both at work and for personal use. The integration of Email/Calendar/Tasks/etc with Android is something that iPhone can’t currently match and doesn’t seem to have on the drawing board either. Google definitely has a leg up by already offering the services most people are using their smartphones to try to connect anyway.

Apple makes some good products and I in fact own 4 iPods and a Macbook Pro. These past experiences however simply don’t overcome the downsides of both iOS and AT&T. Now should Sprint ever offer iPhone and Apple perhaps start allowing people to actually develop what they want I might be convinced to change, but for now I really don’t see a point in paying extra for an inferior service and closed product.

Looking back there are a number of goals completed, a number still to go, and a few that I never even anticipated. In the case of our redesign we started in April, the main site is still to be done. This is due primarily to the uncertain outcome of our university’s web standards committee. We don’t want to over-invest in a product that will not meet whatever standards they decide to come up with. While waiting however I’ve had time to really refocus and expand our web presence while [hopefully] being able to provide a far more useful product to all of our customers. We’ve installed and launched WordPress MU for individual, group, and class sites. We’re nearing the launch of a MediaWiki installation to be used as our local intranet. Finally, we’ve greatly expanded our social media presence and finally convinced the powers that be that our marketing dollars are better spent on the web than limited magazines and other media.

Stepping away from the web I’ve made a lot of headway in a number of projects. We launched (and then decommissioned) a Squid proxy to restrict internet access during the day due to very limited bandwidth. It worked almost too well and was quickly removed for mostly political considerations. We’ve also begun the rollout of non Microsoft desktops to our faculty and staff in the form of Ubuntu as the primary OS. Only 3 desktops and our webserver have been migrated so far but considering that we had never looked away from MS before that it is definitely a good start. Finally, we added a windows update server to provide more control and better use of our bandwidth while still maintaining the ability to make sure all systems are completely patched.

Now on to the future. My first priority is, as always, our web presence. Pending the outcome of the campus web standards committee I hope to get a new main site in place very quickly. In addition, depending on current content contributions, I would like to see our new Wiki launch at the beginning of the Spring semester. It has been in the making for a little while now and promises to provide a much more complete and, more importantly, standardized method of intra-department communication. Beyond that I would like to see our file services migrated to Samba and Linux away from MS Active Directory as well as continue the gradual migration of departmental desktops to the Linux platform.

With all that I’m sure it will be another busy semester. However as with every semester I look forward to the challenges and can’t wait to see the outcomes!

Yeah, originally I wasn’t even going to try 7, but I believe in forgiveness and decided I would install it at work when it was released to corporate customers in August. In the two months since I have spent far more time installing updates and optimizing the system than I have in actually using it to be productive.

Before I dropped it however I’ve made it my mission to find one think I liked about it. After all, it can’t be all bad, right? Well, there are actually a couple of things I found that I could live with in my little experiment. First is Notepad++. This excellent little text editor is one of the best I have found for any system, however as good as it is it isn’t enough reason to stay with Windows (after all every system has some good text editors).

Second, Windows 7 will save my department a lot of money and time over the next few years. This is due to the fact that it has finally demonstrated both to me and the people I work with that Microsoft software is no longer worth the investment. Instead we have started the process of migrating our remaining servers to Linux and will soon start migrating our desktop and server software to either Linux, or in a few cases, Mac OS (we have about 3 or 4 users for whom Mac would still be a better choice). Already we’ve had a couple of users switch from Win 7 to Ubuntu and their feedback has been nothing but positive. They report it to be faster, far more stable, and in all the cases so far they find Ubuntu to be much more user friendly. Of course at some point there will be a few roadblocks in our way, however the end result will be a faster, more efficient system capable of maintaining, and in some cases even increasing productivity for less money than we are spending on our current setup.

Here are the highlights of my experience so far:

Boot time is about the same as Vista, when attached to the company domain we are still often seeing boot times of 5 minutes or longer (from power on to being able to launch an application).

Disk IO is still horrible. In fact, many simple file operations (copy,delete,move,etc) often take longer than they did under Vista. This is a problem I’ve have a number of users report regardless of hard drive, etc. In addition, the reliance on a formal defragment procedure on a modern file system is archaic compared to other systems such as EXT3/4, HFS, etc.

Software maintenance is still a nightmare as upgrades of many 3rd party apps continue to expose the weaknesses in the Windows registry.

While hardware support seems to have finally caught up to the newer kernel (the 7 kernel is virtually unchanged from Vista) it still cannot produce consistent performance on even multiple uses of the same device.

Applications, especially Java, are still painful compared to any other system I’ve used in the last couple of years. The launch time of application such as Netbeans and Eclipse can be measured in minutes rather than seconds.

The list can go on, but in a nutshell 7 is still a sub-par OS who’s only redeeming quality is the widespread adoption which allows for the most comprehensive library of available software. Even that quality is fading however as both open-source applications and the growth of Linux and Mac are making development for systems other than Windows much more compelling (I haven’t even installed a Windows VM on my Mac since Snow Leopard as I just do not need it anymore).

While the iPod Video is the best I’ve had it isn’t the only MP3 player I’ve owned. I bought my first MP3 player way back in 1998 or 1999 and it was a 32MB gizmo from RIO. In addition my wife and I each own 1GB iPod Shuffles that we use for the gym and other places in which bringing the larger classic doesn’t make sense.

All that being said, my iPod Video had one problem, it wasn’t big enough for my CD collection. When I first bought it I had about 50GB of music, but over the last 4 years my CD collection has grown to the point that, when ripped, it takes about 70GB of space. Time for a bigger iPod.

When the new iPods came out last week It was time for me to upgrade. I ordered a 160GB iPod Classic from Amazon the day they were released and last Monday it arrived. I feel guilty putting the old 60GB out to pasture as it has literally followed me around the world, but it was time and Apple’s latest offerings have not dissappointed.

So what has changed other than capacity? It’s not the sound quality, it’s not the design UI, it’s everything else. The new iPod is smaller, faster, and all around better than what I had with a sound quality that hasn’t changed a bit. For example, to completely fill my old iPod takes about 2 hours from my Mac. To copy all 70GBs of music to my new iPod however takes about 45 minutes. In addition, where the old iPod would take 30 seconds or so to boot after being left for a couple of days, the new iPod does so almost instantly and without any of the subtle hard drive sounds that now make my 60GB iPod seem so old.

Although I haven’t had  the time to compare the longevity of the two devises I must say that on design and hardware alone the new “Classic” is a long way ahead of it’s Video counterpart. Hopefully in 4 more years it will be just as sad of a departure as the 60GB has been.

Fast forward a few years later and things have changes. First we went to a PHP/MySQL combination on our windows server and were using a number of, shall we say, rudimentary techniques to force issues such as SEF friendly URLs, etc. Then last spring we decided we didn’t want IIS at all anymore and switched to a LAMP stack on Ubuntu server and in the process eliminated our use of WebDav, FTP, and RDC relying solely on SSH for all non Apache tasks.

As we move to a new server now I find myself asking the question as to whether the dual NIC setup is worth it given the independant structure of the various services and the fact that we don’t allow any non-public data on the machine. What do you guys think? Should I continue to segregate the CMS and SSH services by IP therefore restricting their access to the campus CAN through a hardware firewall, or should I just use a single IP without using up scarce IPv4 addresses/etc.

Please let me know what you guys think in the comments?

To be fair actually I won’t go back to it on my personal machines either at work or at home. Instead I’ll stick with the latest incarnations of OSX and Mac respectively. I have tried Windows 7 and am in fact running it on a test machine for the department, but I find it to be little more than a major service pack for Vista.

After testing Win 7 for the last month I have run into numerous problems with general stability as well as many of the same compatibility issues that have plagued MS since it gave up it’s DOS kernel with XP. In the case of 7 the XP legacy mode is helpful, but runs apps slower than they would natively run in XP and seems to me to be more of a band-aid than a true feature to support older software. In addition, many of the speed problems and other issues that I simply adjusted my work flow for in the past are still present. Load time is improved but far slower than Ubuntu or OSX, UAC is still a nuisance, and I continue to find it necessary to run more apps for system maintenance than I do for the actual work to be done on the computer. From virus and malware scanners to disk and registry cleaners and disk defragmenters there is still too much overhead required to keep the machine running well.

So what will it take to bring me back to Microsoft with my own machines? The first thing will be an abandonment of the Windows Registry and a return to file-based configuration information as is done with all modern *nix systems. I can’t even count the number of issues I’ve encountered over the years with corrupt or otherwise problematic registries and although some of the problems can be fixed, far too many have necessitated the complete rebuild of the computer’s software. Second would be the need for a more advanced file system capable of handling file fragmentation in a much more efficient manner, and finally, a user permission system that allows for true multi-user operation in which individual files and processes can be more effectively isolated to individual user accounts.

When (if) this list was ever completed then I would look back to Windows as my primary OS. Until then however I’ll stick with OSX and Mac as they just work for me rather than making me work for them.

When I moved back to Illinois in 2007 I bought my first small laser, an HP 1020. This was a huge step up for me. It’s print quality and general performance went far beyond anything I had owed up until that point and with the exception of no color it was a great little printer for a while. After I ditched my desktop and Windows is when it showed it’s limitations. It simply wouldn’t work with my Mac, and even with my Linux desktop it was annoying to have to go in to another room and hook up a USB cable to print. I know I could have picked up a USB print server, but it just didn’t seem realistic for a printer that wouldn’t work on my primary computer anyway.

Enter the Brother 2170w. I saw this one on sale at Staples a couple of months ago and figured it was worth a shot. For $80 I had the promise of wireless connectivity and Mac compatibility which was quite a step up from where I was. Not only did it perform these tasks but it also had wired ethernet compatibility as well as instant Ubuntu compatibility. Wow!

All in all these features, combined with the longevity of a laser printer have made this the best printer I’ve ever owned. Not only can I print from anywhere on any computer, but I don’t even have to worry about the ink cartridge going dry anymore. Nice.

1.) Aptana Studio

Aptana Studio is an excellent developer environment for coding in nearly all the popular languages found around the web today. With a growing user base and a foundation in the solid Eclipse platform it will give any web developer the tools he or she needs to produce powerful, complex code for their projects. I have personally replaced Dreamweaver CS4 with Aptana and couldn’t be happier

http://www.aptana.com

2.) Firefox

The Firefox web browser might not be the fastest currently on the market, but with an abundance of addons and solid support on nearly every operating system in existence it is hard to overlook as an excellent choice for your primary browser.

http://www.firefox.com

3.) Filezilla

If you do much work on a website you’re probably gonna need an utility to transfer files between your computer and your web server. Filezilla can do that with ease with support for FTP, SSH, and more.

http://filezilla-project.org

4.) XAMPP

There are a lot of ways to display your site on your local computer, but XAMPP is the only one I’ve found that will run on all the major platforms. It is easy to install and administer and comes with all the necessary features to turn your local machine into a top-notch test server (I’ve even seen it run on a few production web servers although I wouldn’t recommend the practice myself)

http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

5.) The Gimp

Photoshop might be the most popular image manipulation program on the market, but it isn’t the only one that can handle image manipulation for the web. The Gimp is an excellent, if somewhat complicated, image editing package which can work all sorts of magic on any photo you want to put online. For vector graphics it can be used in conjunction with Inkscape to provide a solid package for creating and editing everything from logos to pictures from your last company picnic.

http://gimp.org

6.) SmartSVN

SmartSVN is a Subversion client which allows you to interact with a Subversion repository. Subversion, in turn, is a version control system allowing you to not only keep a repository of all the data in your project, but it can also keep track of changes, rollback changes, and perform all sorts of other tasks of use to a web developer. It can even be a solid alternative for deploying your work to your production server without the use of FTP or another file transfer method in which it can be easy to forget a file. There is even an excellent free SVN host available at XP-dev

http://www.syntevo.com/smartsvn/index.html

7.) VirtualBox

Virtualbox is a free virtual machine from SUN. It allows you to run other operating systems on top of your main system which can then be used for testing your project on other browsers and configurations. For example, if you have a Mac you could run Windows within VirtualBox on your mac and use it to see how your project looks in Internet Explorer or other browsers not available on your Mac.

http://www.virtualbox.org

8.) Xmarks

Originally known as Foxmarks, Xmarks is a service which can backup and sync the bookmarks and passwords from your browser. This is a must if you use multiple machines yourself or even if you just want to pull up a page on a machine other than your own as you can even access your bookmarks from their online interface. Currently it works with Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer on all the major operating systems

http://www.xmarks.com

9.) DropBox

DropBox is a cross-platform file backup and synchronization service that not only backs up your most important data, but also seamlessly synchronizes it on your other computers. Of all the applications I use on a daily basis this one is definitely the handiest as I never have to worry about forgetting anything important. Like Xmarks it even has a web interface in case your at a different computer and need access to one of your documents.

http://www.getdropbox.com

10.) Google Apps

Although not a local application like the rest of this list, Google Apps is an excellent resource for helping you set up your personal web identity as well as those of your clients. It allows for hosted email, calendar, and other services on your own domain name and does so while providing users with the often familiar GMail interface that so many people already know.

http://www.google.com/apps

So what are your favorites?

Well, the last time this happened was a little over 2 years ago when I was working off-site. Someone else did the server install for me and I finished all the configuration. At the time he upgraded it to Windows Server 2003 which he indicated he received legally through the campus IT department.

So anyway, the windows updates the other night killed something again. After updating all pages were receiving a generic 404 error even though not only were the pages there, their was also a custom 404 error in place. So I started troubleshooting and went as far as deleting and recreating the Websites in IIS. Still nothing worked. Every page still reported a 404 error. I tried restoring a backup then found out the backup media couldn’t be read after the updates. In all I spent a good 3 hours trying different tricks and nothing worked.

So OK, I’ll just reinstall, no big deal. Other than a mod-rewrite application, PHP, and MySQL there wasn’t a whole lot more I would need to install. I got out the old OS CD and noticed it was cracked (we had moved offices about 2 years ago and a few software folders had been rather abused). Uh oh. Well, no big deal, I’ll get in touch with campus IT and get fresh media. So I called and was told that 2003 was never licensed for department use and we would need to buy another copy. Instead an MCSE friend tried to help troubleshoot the server but that attempt also resulted in utter failure. Something was really messed up.

Before I continue I must admit I realize it is common practice by many to prevent security updates from automatically installing on production servers. However as the server is for Internet use and is open to the world this is one such practice I can’t go without. Besides, there is something inherently wrong when security updates can corrupt the server in the first place.

Now I was screwed. I needed to get the site back up and our budget crunch was going to make a fresh copy of windows server a hard sell. So I decided I would give Ubuntu server a try instead. After all, our sites required only PHP, MySQL, and mod-rewrite and the latter had been hacked into IIS to work. Why not give LAMP a try.

It took a few hours and some help from a friend to get everything right, but it’s all back up and running and faster than ever. Interestingly enough the Ubuntu server had no problems reading the Windows backup either. HAHA. Figures.

So now the only computer I have left on Windows is our file server and even that might still be switched over one of these days. I just can’t believe I hadn’t done this earlier! I guess there can be benefits to the whole trial-by-fire scenario.

So I decided after readying about ext4 and the faster boot times in Ubuntu 9.04 I would give it a go and after 2 days it’s time to go back.

So what’s good about 9.04:

Ubuntu 9.04 has a number of things going for it. First off it is fast. I used the new ext4 file system and that combined with some apparently optimized code brought the time from power-on to login down to 21 seconds which is 22 seconds shorter than the average I was  experiencing with 8.10. In addition, the new notification system is much more eye pleasing than the old one.

So what’s not so good about 9.04:

First of all, in the install the new timezone selection screen wouldn’t work on a full-screen view. I needed to run the install from a live CS to be able to graphically pick my time zone. When it did work however I must say it is much more intuitive than the older style yet until the bugs are ironed out it just isn’t good enough to be useful.

Next I had problems with package installations, namely I had to install Filezilla from the command line to make it work as well as a few other miscellaneous apps I use. In addition I found FireFox to crash quite often when using the sun JRE found in the standard repository. While these alone weren’t enough to make me switch I was already getting close.

Finally, This afternoon a new version of compiz appeared in the ubdates repository. After installation however I lost the borders on all of my windows. This I can’t live without.

So in the end while Ubuntu 9.04 is faster, it really doesn’t have  a whole lot more going for it. Throw in the stability problems that comes along with Alpha software and I’ll send 9.04 back to the dugout. For now anyway…

Well, last week I decided enough was enough. I was tired of the 7 and a 1/2 minute boot-up. I was tired of the random waiting after clicking on anything in nearly any program. I was generally tired of all the little nuances we take for granted in Windows. It was time to switch.

For the switch I picked Ubuntu 8.10. Why? Well there are a few reasons. First, it has one of the largest package repositories available. Although I don’t mind compiling and installing apps, the idea that they are there waiting for me does make things a little easier. Second, although I don’t often pay for commercial support I am a big believer in that a strong base of free support such as forums, blogs, etc is a necessity. In this area Ubuntu really seems to outshine the competition. Nearly every search I’ve had to do to answer a Linux question has presented the answer based on Ubuntu (Fedora was a close second, but just not quite there). Finally, I like Gnome. Say what you want about KDE, Gnome, etc but Gnome for me has always been stable in all the distrobutions I’ve worked with. On top of that, although KDE has matured with 4.2 there just seems to be too many bugs and other problems to make it worth it.

So what about the app issue? How did I manage to replace Microsoft Office, Adobe Web Suite, and all the other apps I use with Windows? Well here’s the breakdown:

For Office I chose Openoffice and I’ve been highly impressed. I had used the App back in the 1.0 line and it left a lot to be desired. With the advent of 3.0 however it seems to have come of age in both features and stability. I’ve been able to completely replace MS Office without looking back.

For Dreamweaver I’ve migrated to Aptana. For those who like the WYSIWYG features of Dreamweaver this won’t be an option, however as I hand code everything myself and haven’t use Dreamweaver’s WYSIWYG since DW 3 or earlier I didn’t lose anything. In fact, I’ve gained quite a bit in code support and the ability to integrate my projects with other applications such as Eclipse (which I’ve used for some time on Win/Mac).

Photoshop has been a little trickier. For the most part I’ve been able to do everything I did in Photoshop using Gimp and Inkscape. However I still can’t do all the little details I had perfected in Photoshop over the years and I admit that I have kept Photoshop installed on my Mac. Over time I’m sure I’ll be able to get rid of this as well, however for now I still use it for about 20% of the graphics I need to do.

For web browsers I’ve finally given up my IE and Safari and migrated to Firefox. This was another app which in the past hadn’t quite evolved to where I needed it. However with 3.0 I’ve found it to be the most versatile browser I’ve used especially when combined with all the add-ons available.

For development I’ve been using FTP and testing remotely for years, but with dropping Dreamweaver I just haven’t found the same ease of integration that Dreamweaver has with their FTP features. Instead I’ve replaced it with something better. Namely, I’ve migrated my projects to Subversion repositories using SmartSVN as a client and I test locally with XAMPP. This setup has even managed to work on some of my servers in that I can use an SVN update to push the latest version of the files out to the server without having to deal with FTP or any other technologies (although I do keep Filezilla on all my systems just in case).

As for keeping my files in sync between all my computers I’ve gone from Sugarsync on Mac and Windows to Dropbox. For the most part its a flawless solution however Dropbox does have one downside in that you cannot choose individual folders to sync on each machine. It isn’t something I can’t live without but I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss Sugarsync for that one feature.

Lastly there have been a few things that I just have to have Windows for. Namely there is an app known as Talon we use at work which is specifically designed to only run on Windows/IE (don’t get me started on that topic). For this I’ve gone with Virtualbox and loaded a copy of Windows XP in a virtual machine. Considering I only have to look in Talon for a few minutes once every few days this has been a fine solution. Using the Virtual Machine also gives me the added ability of testing websites on Window’s browsers so in the end it definitely is a worth-while setup.

All in all I couldn’t be happier with my switch. On top of having a much faster, more stable system I have found that using Open Source apps has been a great benefit over the multiple computers I use (so I’m a little behind on that one, what can I say). At this point I’ve managed to integrate all the new apps I’ve found with Linux into my other Windows and Mac machines. The only exception has been Photoshop which I have left on my Mac for the few tasks I still can’t figure out in the Gimp.

Oh, by the way, now that I seem to have all my computers in order I should be able to start writing a little more often…

Today my utopia has come to an end. I now find myself in the position where I need to once again redesign the site for my full-time employer while working within the constraints of both a team and the in-ability to design directly on the production server. What’s even a bigger change for me is that I also need to really re-work the content and presentation to fit in a rough set of guidelines given to me by the department (OK, you can put away your little violins now).

Frankly I’m looking forward to the challenge, but as of today I haven’t figured out how I’m going to accomplish it all yet. Some of the bigger points are as follows:

1. Migrate the existing structure from the Windows server I’ve always used to a Linux server. The need for mod-rewrite and the cost of Windows are the main motivations here. With another new version of Windows server out and still no real easy way to integrate a mod-rewrite functionality I just can’t justify staying with MS any longer. I’ve been using the LAMP environment on hosted servers for the last few years, but I’ve never set it up before.
2. I now have at least one developer to work with and I need to make darn sure were not duplicating work or writing code that won’t play well together.
3. I really need to clean up the code on the current site. Almost nothing is re-used anywhere.
4. I need to maintain the data in the current website database. This shouldn’t be too hard and in fact I should be able to do it with a simple migration script, but it is a constraint all the same.
5. After years of adding “experimental” features I really need to re-organize the content and organization of the whole site removing unused features and pages and optimizing those that will remain.

All in all it will be an interesting challenge and one I am really looking forward too, however I’m sure it will lead to a heavy loss of whatever hair I have left!

1.) I want to make Bridge easier for users to get in, change what they need, and get out with the minimum amount of effort. Although the last version of the software made great strides towards this goal, there is still, as always, room for improvement.

2.) I want to streamline the code base to help reduce bugs and to make future updates easier. Right now simple changes simply take too long and leave to much open for error. The next generation of the Bridge software will work do reduce this with a more powerful internal code library and other streamlining features.

Now a lot of bloggers have reviewed the new platform so far with particular focus to the new administration interface. While I’ll agree that this is a neat upgrade it isn’t the best feature. By far that would be the built-in updater for both plugins and the main installation itself as well as the ability to download and install plugins automatically with the click of a mouse. While this my seem trivial to most, anyone who works with websites can tell you that upgrading can often be more frustrating that the original installation. This new engine however makes it completely seamless and has so far proven a blessing for myself as I use a number of frequently updated plugins.

As nice as automatic updates is for WordPress however, it will be the ability to use such updates on WordPress MU that will really increase my love of the product!