Ramble On

July 24, 2011

My relationship with Tumblr started in December 2008, and since then I’ve never been completely satisfied with the service.

This is not really a blog platform, but something more quick and agile that allows you sharing and posting content without spending many time, which is good. But every now and then I need a real blog, and then I start looking for an alternative. This is the third time, so I think it’s better to me to live now and never look back :).

Live and learn, now I know there are some reasons to never start a blog in Tumblr:

You can’t export your blog out of Tumblr. The fact I know I can’t leave urges me to leave ASAP. It’s probably me, but keep it into account.
Their RSS feature is broken. I filed a bug report (twice), and seems that it’s not important because it’s still broken.
If you’re not into their social features, it’s very likely that the people following you are part of some link-back form of spam.
Disqus is not a bad comment platform, but I think it would be better if a blog has its own comments instead of using a third party service because of page loading times.
Tumblr uptime and performance could be definitely better.
Tumblr and SEO it’s like oil and water, and because their built-in search doesn’t work very well, I’ve found hard to find old posts when I need to.

Because I can’t export my posts, I’m leaving everything here just in case is useful for someone, but I’m not posting anymore. My new home is at wordpress.com, so please update your bookmarks/feed reader:

by jjm on 10:01am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy7SeBgY
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Filed under: blog

July 14, 2011

"As a user of BrowserID, you confirm your email addresses once. Then, you can sign into any web site that supports BrowserID with just two clicks."

—

From BrouserID website.

It needs a better website design, please. Besides that stating that is an open source experiment is basically a call so nobody treats the idea seriously (it’s an experiment after all).

I’m sceptical (at best).

by jjm on 9:57pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy76Z_Kz
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(Notes: 13)

Filed under: BrowserID Mozilla identity web browser

July 14, 2011

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

I keep sucking.

The chords are from Polly (original song by Nirvana).

by jjm on 6:29pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy7680Lu
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(Notes: 1)

Filed under: improvisation Guitar Audio

July 11, 2011

About Apache License at Google

Although all Chris DiBona’s interview at derstandard.at is interesting, I’d like to point to this fragment:

derStandard.at: Why did you choose the Apache license as a default?

Chris DiBona: We really like it, it has a couple of things which make it very modern. Obviously you are getting a copyright grant, you are free to use and modify the software - like with all open source licenses. But it also says for any patents that we have in relation to that software we are giving you a license free of charge, and your users can too. The only exception is, if you sue us - well you don’t have that grant anymore. If you don’t - it’s yours, you don’t have to worry about us sneaking up on you later.

That’s a very good reason to use the Apache License (version 2.0) over MIT or BSD licenses.

by jjm on 6:57pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy6__ebS
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(Notes: 19)

Filed under: Licensing Apache License Apache Google Open Source MIT BSD

July 10, 2011

"Is Silverlight dead?” I replied: “No, but it has seen better days."

—

From Silverlight is Dead, Long Live XAML.

I’m surprised, because I never had the perception of Silverling taking off; although that it has seen better days it’s quite relative.

I’ve never used Silverlight, and I have a quite decent online life (that’s harder to say without Flash, for example), but the big news behind this is that Microsoft wants HTML5 and Javascript to be the main application platform in Windows 8. That sounds like screw you .NET developers!

I couldn’t care less about the next Windows version, but it’s true that Microsoft embracing a standard it’s been dangerous in the past. You know that embrace and extend motto.

I hope it doesn’t mean that we’re going to see standard HTML5/Javascript applications that work in Microsoft systems only.

by jjm on 11:23am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy6y7SRt
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(Notes: 9)

Filed under: HTML5 Javascript Silverlight Microsoft Windows 8 Standard

July 3, 2011

Installed Fedora 15

Despite all the efforts to make Fedora 15 easier and more user friendly, making power users kind of unhappy by removing functionality and features, it doesn’t look ready yet (please, remove more features! :D).

I installed Fedora 15 and it’s running in Gnome fall back mode (no hw acceleration here, so it’s OK). First thing I tried was updating my system: Applications > System Tools > Software Update; and it didn’t work. The error about a failing transaction was quite cryptic to me, and I didn’t know how to fix it (I tried to update several times but it didn’t work).

Running yum from a console works as expected, though. Fortunately nobody thought that yum had to be removed because some weird reason!

This is my first experience with Gnome fall back mode, and it feels less crippled than the regular Gnome interface. Too bad the drag-to-maximize thing doesn’t work in fall back mode.

by jjm on 9:55am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy6iMkTC
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(Notes: 3)

Filed under: Gnome Fedora Software Update yum Fedora 15 Fall back mode Error FAIL

July 2, 2011

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

I suck at improvisation.

Dmaj7 : F#m7 : Bm7 : Em7 : A7, from try this out on your guitar.

by jjm on 7:33pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy6gzqf7
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(Notes: 1)

Filed under: Improvisation Guitar audio

June 25, 2011

libravatar

Interesting, although is pretty clear that Gravatar rules the world (really, it is the Globally Recognized Avatar service).

From the website:

Libravatar is a service which delivers your avatar (profile picture) to other websites. If you create an account with us, your photo could start popping up next to forum posts or blog comments on any site where you left your email address.

Why is it interesting? Because it’s an open source federated service, and it means you can run your own instance and serve yourself the avatars related to your domain name.

by jjm on 10:29am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy6RAgub
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(Notes: 5)

Filed under: libravatar gravatar avatar service open source federated

June 24, 2011

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Aldershort One (original)

I tried to put some lyrics on it, but I failed. Probably because the verse part it’s too short.

Anyway, it’s not the style I like most so… who cares! Enjoy.

I’ve used my Telecaster guitar, Hydrogen for the drums and Ardour for recording and mixing. Linux powered, and the song is licensed CC BY-SA (you can download it in mp3 format).

by jjm on 8:57pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPorZy6Ppko0
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(Notes: 2)

Filed under: Song music original Aldershot Telecaster

June 15, 2011

"Way back in 1999 I predicted a significant market for desktop Linux by 2005. (I was targeting better than Mac OS type numbers, in the 10-15% range.) It was clear back then that Linux had found a substantial adoption as a server OS, and it seemed only time before the desktop adoption rivaled at least “the other desktop”. Obviously I was wrong."

—

From Focusing on the next Linux client (btw the title of the post is a picture).

TL;DR: we give the tiniest sh*t for the Linux desktop, and it’s because we think it’s irrelevant.

This post wasn’t needed Adobe, we already knew that. Sincerely yours, a Flash 64bits Linux user.