July 2011
7 posts
1 tag
Leaving Tumblr
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,...
5 tags
“As a user of BrowserID, you confirm your email addresses once. Then, you can...”
– 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).
3 tags
I keep sucking.
The chords are from Polly...
7 tags
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...
6 tags
“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...
8 tags
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...
3 tags
I suck at improvisation.
Dmaj7 : F#m7 :...
June 2011
4 posts
6 tags
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...
5 tags
Aldershort One (original)
I tried to put some...
6 tags
“Way back in 1999 I predicted a significant market for desktop Linux by 2005. (I...”
– 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.
4 tags
Joy Machine
Royalty free music for professional licensing
This Polish band is simply awesome: pure 80s hard rock/heavy metal, licensed Creative Commons BY-SA. Check their latest album …to be rock and to roll… (distributed by Jamendo).
Apparently they failed to find a distributor for their work, I guess this kind of music is not commercial any more (because it was commercial, some examples are...
May 2011
7 posts
5 tags
“I decided to just bite the bullet, and call the next version 3.0. It will get...”
– From Linux Torlavds on Linux 3.0-rc1.
It’s just a numbering change, so don’t expect anything special beyond the usual stuff. The mail is quite funny, it’s reading is fully recommended.
7 tags
“Install Apache with your web application running under mod_php, mod_perl or some...”
– From How to handle 1000′s of concurrent users on a 360MB VPS.
Seriously, Apache + mod_php (and probably MySQL) is the easier way to start serving web pages, but it is also the easier way to start having problems when your server is under some load.
Some customers ask us stuff like how many web...
10 tags
Bring a Box!
Today we attended to the May Bring a Box meeting of the Surrey Linux User Group, and it was great!
We got a lot of interesting chit-chat and a couple of talks/demos at Nokia Southwood (nice venue, thanks Nokia guys!).
One of the talks was about VoIP alternatives to Skype, I guess because of the recent news of Microsoft acquiring Skype.
I was kind of disappointed by the approach to this topic,...
8 tags
Scan With your Deskjet F2400 Series
I hate when I forget these kind of things, and scanning with my HP Deskjet F2480 is probably my favourite.
Printing with this all in one printer is so easy with Fedora, but today when I tried to use the scanner functionality, Simple Scan application was unable to detect the scanner (actually it was using my webcam!).
I think I always follow the same steps:
Check the dmesg, and the printer is...
4 tags
5 tags
“OpenShift, is a portfolio of free, portable cloud services for deploying and...”
– From FAQ on OpenShift.
So Red Hat wants to be a PaaS provider with OpenShift. That’s interesting, but the fact they support PHP, Python, Ruby and Java it’s surprising! I mean, I would have expected Java (Red Hat owns Jboss), but not PHP, Python and Ruby.
The only thing that is slightly...
6 tags
“Because JavaScript is pretty free-form, consistent coding style and unit...”
– From README of GNOME Spidermonkey Javascript binding.
I think this README file sums up my opinion about Javascript in Gnome 3: I can’t understand why Javascript is used in the shell and not a more suitable language (such as Python). It was a very good opportunity to open the desktop to new...
April 2011
10 posts
9 tags
PIL Error Saving a JPEG Image
This bug has been very difficult to identify and workaround, so I’m writing this post for the record.
When I tried to save a JPEG encoded image using optimize option, I was getting the following error with some images:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 100, in get_response
response = callback(request,...
7 tags
77 Million Accounts Stolen From Playstation... →
More information at PSN blog: Update on PlayStation Network and Qriocity.
I don’t know how I would feel if I had a PSN account, with personal details, billing and credit card information, but I wouldn’t be happy. Not at all.
The thing is that I trust a couple of providers that currently have more or less all this kind of information (I don’t think I have provided personal...
4 tags
“Today, we’re pleased to announce that Delicious has been acquired by the...”
– From delicious blog.
So finally Yahoo! is is not closing Delicious (yet another service they don’t know how to monetize). Good news.
Update: I got an email from Yahoo! asking me for permission to move my links with Delicious to the new company (they have a different set of terms of service...
8 tags
“Internet service providers’ claim that new law infringes web users’...”
– From Filesharing: BT and TalkTalk fail in challenge to Digital Economy Act.
According to this article, thousands of warning letters accusing Internet users of downloading copyright protected content will be sent in the first half of next year.
I was wondering where it were the Ofcom codes for...
5 tags
“Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) today is announcing its intention to move...”
– From Trond’s Opening Standard.
This is after Oracle’s management of the OpenOffice.org community led to a successful fork of the project: LibreOffice. Oracle, you’re doing it definitely wrong.
4 tags
“5/11 participants (P2, P3, P5, P9, P10, P11) crashed Unity during their hour of...”
– From Charline Poirier user test of Unity results.
I guess that was latest beta. All software has bugs, and Unity is a complex project, but the bit that caught my eye is: the participants crashed Unity.
Not bad if that’s what they intended to do ;).
8 tags
“The industry’s first open platform as a service. Run your Spring, Rails and...”
– From Cloud Foundry website.
This is a very interesting move by vmware, the company behind the idea, that claims that this is actually the first open source platform as a service project that it’s open to different frameworks and technologies (currently Java and Spring, Ruby with Rails and...
6 tags
Is Google +1 Useful to you?
I’m testing Google’s newest take on social networking: Google +1 Button.
First thing is that for some reason you need to enable it in every browser you use. May be it’s because the product it’s in its experimental stage and you need to enable it specifically, and it’s using a cookie (I haven’t confirmed this, but it makes sense). So I enabled it at work, and...
5 tags
20th Anniversary of Linux →
Check the video, it’s really good!
6 tags
GNOME 3.0 Release Notes →
Finally, Gnome 3 it’s here! Congratulations to everybody involved in this release, it’s been a long road.
Remember that Fedora 15 is scheduled for April 24th 2011.
March 2011
10 posts
8 tags
“Choosing the Microsoft stack made it difficult to hire people capable of...”
– From Did the Microsoft Stack Kill MySpace?
Interesting reading, and also:
Facebooks’ choice of the LAMP stack allowed them to hire quicker and find people who knew how to scale.
I can name just only one successful and massive web application based on a Microsoft stack (StackOverflow and...
6 tags
Fly Me to the Moon (Somewhat)
I really love how...
6 tags
Digital Canon Ruled Illegal in Spain
The National Court in Spain has ruled that the so called “Digital Canon” is illegal. Oh, surprise.
For those unfamiliar with Spanish regulations, this canon is not exactly a tax, because it’s not collected by the government but by different right management associations. So the consequences of not paying it (ie. you can buy media in a different country, and that media would be...
4 tags
6 tags
After more than a year without guitar (the Ukelele...
10 tags
“PowerStack is a repository that allows you to run the latest LAMP versions in...”
– From PowerStack site.
This is a brand new repository providing an up to date LAMP experience in your RHEL and CentOS based servers. Basically you can enjoy the long time support and API/ABI stability provided by Red Hat rock solid operative system, and at the same time have access to the cutting...
9 tags
“A human error caused some sensitive server configuration information to be...”
– From Tumblr staff blog, although you can find more information about this human error: Security hole spotted in Tumblr (I know, I know, but you must admit it’s funny they treat a human error as security hole).
Some sensitive souls are wondering if it’s OK to disclose that kind of...
7 tags
“B.A.T.M.A.N. (better approach to mobile ad-hoc networking) is a routing protocol...”
– From Open Mesh project website.
The name is awful, but the project is awesome. I wish we had this kind of technology back in 2003 when we were trying to make a public MAN in my hometown.
Btw, kernel 2.6.28 was released two days ago, and it includes B.A.T.M.A.N. support.
6 tags
5 tags
Brilliant Future Ahead for LibreOffice
Copyright © 2010 Linux Journal. All rights reserved.
I think this chart from Who Contributes the Most to LibreOffice? summarizes it all: 133 new coders and 55 localizers since the fork!
This is good news, to add to LibreOffice obtaining the 50,000€ needed for The Document Foundation. Go LibreOffice!
February 2011
16 posts
7 tags
“Apple at least only takes 30%. Canonical? 75% and they did not even write a line...”
– From @migueldeicaza.
I don’t share the view of Miguel in a lot of topics, and this is obviously a humorous comment, but reading Banshee In Natty To Ship Multiple Stores And Contribute To GNOME Foundation and Canonical’s New Plan for Banshee, I must admit he nailed it.
6 tags
7 tags
“Too see how much ram is free to use for your applications, run free -m and look...”
– From Help! Linux ate my RAM!
If this isn’t a public service website, I don’t know what it is.
7 tags
Enlightening Platform as a Service
Talking about SaaS and PaaS market sizes:
PaaS is smaller because its for us geeks. And
its smaller because all the PaaS vendors want to lock you into their
frameworks.
See… IT has not changed in 30 years. Its the same
lock-em-up strategy that IBM employed back in the non-3D-flat-panel-TV
days of yore, when Frank thought “mythical man month” meant a
“mythical-man...
6 tags
“The new process […] begins with rightsholders gathering lists of Internet...”
– From Wikipedia about Digital Economy Act 2010.
The interesting thing is that the threshold is set by the Ofcom (Office of Communications), and the details of the copyright infringement provisions are specified in a series of codes to be produced by this organisation (the Act only sets limits).
...
5 tags
Python 2 or Python 3?
Actually, that’s not the question. I would ask you what’s the problem you want to solve.
Recently some guy created the Python 3 Wall of Shame, which it’s supposed to expose a problem with Python 3 being released in 2008, but currently most of the packages don’t support Python 3 but Python 2.
As you may know, Python 3 isn’t exactly backwards compatible with Python...
5 tags
“After choosing Banshee as the next default player in Ubuntu, Canonical...”
– From Banshee Supporting GNOME on Ubuntu (please, read the post… the revenue of Banshee’s Amazon store currently goes 100% to Gnome project).
Basically it’s news because the Banshee team declined a 25% revenue share offering from Canonical for not disabling the Amazon store in Banshee.
...
7 tags
How to Gracefully Restart Django Running FastCGI
Last Friday I got an almost perfect solution for a problem that we (Memset) had in our production site running Django with FastCGI (prefork flavour).
The problem was that the FastCGI must be reloaded every time new code in the Django site is delpoyed, and sometimes we found logs of KeyboardInterrupt exceptions in our monitoring system. Keyboard interrupt… weird, isn’t it?
Django uses...
9 tags
Updating non-Distro Packages
Today I’ve released Nautilus Flickr Uploader 0.10, and after 10 releases (since August 2009), I’ve been looking at the package downloads statistics for the last 8 months (I moved hosting in June 2010, and I lost the stats in the process).
Although log parsing is not the most scientific way of tracking this things, I can get some points from this graph:
I have more Ubuntu/Debian...
6 tags
“Migasfree is a very simple, but effective, system management systems. Actually,...”
– From Migasfree Github page.
The feature list is quite impressive, with support for configuration management, software deployment, hardware and software inventory and multiple distributions with multiple versions (yes, Fedora is supported!), so basically almost everything you expect in a centralized...
5 tags
Nokia Adopts Windows Phone as Its Primary... →
Booom! That’s bad for MeeGo, definitely (Nokia say it will be an open-source, mobile operating system project, that it’s unlikely to be used in a mobile device - at least from Nokia, that is).
I don’t think this change will affect Qt in any way. What do you think?
3 tags
GTK+ 3 is here →
There are lots of cool features, but my favourite is:
Easy application support. With the integration of D-Bus support in GIO, we could finally add a GtkApplication class that handles a lot of the platform integration aspects of writing an application, such as keeping track of open windows, ensuring uniqueness, exporting actions, etc. This is still a bit of a work in progress, and will be...