…I’m at work (it’s slow), and the station where I’m sitting has a Microsoft Natural Keyboard, one of the split-keyboard, ergonomically-correct designs. I used to have one of these until it stopped working. I had forgotten how much I missed it. This design works really well for me. Now I have a similar model made by Fellowes, and it just doesn’t have the same feel.
So yes, it’s true: Microsoft does do some things very weGACK COUGH ***CENSORED
Well, I finally got around to installing the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. Perhaps I’m heeding the advice of the article in the previous entry. It installed very easily; I just typed ‘apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird’ and it was ready to go. I’d have done this weeks ago, but Thunderbird only now found its way into the PCLinuxOS apt repositories.
So far so good. I was able to import my old mozilla mail settings easily enough, which was nice. So far it’s definitely faster than Mozilla. And supposedly the spam filters are better, which is good. Mozilla Mail was getting about 70% of the spam I was receiving. I’m hoping Thunderbird will do better than that.
This article recommends a step at a time:
The 6 month guide to desktop migration:
1. Switch Outlook for Mozilla Thunderbird. If nothing else this will immediately give immunity from quite a lot of viruses which exploit weaknesses in outlook. Although Thunderbird can do all the things Outlook does, many of them it does in different ways and the configuration is different. There are procedures for migrating, but is far better to learn how to configure it from scratch if you want to make best use of it’s features.
2. Once Thunderbird is doing your mail and newsgroups, then drop Internet Explorer and move to Mozilla Firefox. Here there are few configuration issues, and Firefox will import your bookmarks for Internet Explorer. Once again, read the users FAQ because Mozilla/Firefox does have some features that IE does not have. You will find a few sites that will only work with IE, particularly e-commerce sites. There is no necessity for this, it is just cost cutting on the vendors part. Major e-commerce sites such as Amazon have no problem with different browsers. I have yet to find a site that only accepts IE who does not have a “competitor” that is not so limited. So don’t bother moaning to the site admin, vote with your feet and surf elsewhere.
3. After a month or so you should be happy with Microsoft free surfing, so it is time to get rid of MS Office. There are a number of Office suites available for Linux, both Open Source and commercial, which will run on Windows. I am going to recommend OpenOffice because it does a good job of being familiar to MS Office users and is open source, but other alternatives could be just as valid for this exercise. Most people use office suites for more than one type of task, even if they only use one application. So, don’t suddenly decide to do everything with the new office suite, learn on a task by task basis. OpenOffice does a pretty good job of import and export of MS Office formats, thought in complex documents some re-formatting is required. OpenOffice is generally able to open office documents sent as email attachments and documents on the web, if you can’t open them then tell the sender!
When you are publishing to the web or sending email attachments, get out of the habit of sending them in Office formats. If they are intended to be ‘read-only’ then PDF format is a good choice for documents that are to be formatted to physical pages, otherwise you could just use HTML. OpenOffice has a handy PDF button for converting the document to a PDF file. If you are sending a document that the end user can edit, send them an OpenOffice version of the document and point out that you have “upgraded”, but you can send them an MS Office file on request.
4. Expect to take at least four months to get all your browsing and office work over to OSS apps. Then look at all the other things you do with your PC and evaluate what alternatives will be available under Linux. One place you could start looking is http://www.theopencd.org or http://gnuwin.epfl.ch.
Your aim is to do everything you do under Windows with software that will also be available under Linux.
5. Having satisfied yourself that you have solutions to all your problems, it is time to find yourself a friendly Linux guru. You should show the guru what you are using on Windows and ask for a recommendation for a distribution. Having established what distribution you are going to install you should make a list of your hardware and check it out for compatibility. You also need to establish how your new system is going to be organised (disk partitions) and booted. Do not rush into this, read about it and think it over. Look for newsgroups and forums for your distro of choice and post a list of your hardware (in particular printer and video) and any unusual applications you will be planning to run… try and find out what the potential problems are beforehand.
6. Nike… just do it. No dual boot! Install your distro and forget Windows ever existed. Any problems you have from now on must be resolved in Linux. If you have followed this procedure then you should be able to come up to speed very quickly using the apps you were using under Windows. With time you will find that you have many more options available to you.
Sounds like good advice to me.
There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about the value that Microsoft provides to the computer industry for the prices it charges. One piece of evidence: based on the current cost of PCs, the article argues, 10% of the cost of each PC goes to Microsoft for its Windows operating system. From the article:
Because these prices are never disclosed, the figures here represent best guesses. But you can start to see the contours of the computer industry in that bill of fare. Specifically, you begin to understand how Microsoft could amass its $61 billion in cash and other assets. It’s easy when you collect nearly 10% of the cost of every PC that’s shipped, while having no manufacturing costs of your own.
Note that the other parts of the computer package (the chip, the hard drive, the case, etc) have significant manufacturing and material costs. The software is basically air; they could easily be made freely available on the net (just like Linux). But MS gets 10% of the cost of nearly every computer sold.
So even the mainstream media is catching on to this idea, that proprietary software in general, and Microsoft Windows in particular, makes less and less sense, especially as Free software alternatives become better and more capable. This idea isn’t new in the Free software world, but I’m glad to see our memes beginning to have a wider circulation.
I got this in my email box today:
*******************************************************
Radio Free Maine
presents
Noam Chomsky
speaking on
The Militarization of Science and SpaceResponse from Noam Chomsky to a question about the
invisible hand in capitalistic market forces.
Recorded by Roger Leisner on February 15, 2004.
To order this recording, go to www.radiofreemaine.com
*******************************************************First of all, you know what we have today does not
remotely resemble what’s supposed to be capitalism.
Capitalism is supposed to be what Jagdish Bhagwati
was discussing in this abstract model he had in mind
in the op-ed this morning. And what you study in
neo-classical economics with free markets and
entrepreneurial initiative and consumer choice, what
Greenspan is talking about, but we don’t have anything
resembling that.I should say that even that one quote I gave about
oligarchic competition, strategic integration, etc.,
etc. It said that’s what we have, not the “invisible
hand” of the market.Well, I don’t know how many of you have ever read
“Wealth of Nations”, the famous, what you’re supposed
to worship at. The phrase “invisible hand” does
appear in “Wealth of Nations”, exactly once. And it’s
an argument against what’s now called “globalization”.
It’s an argument against free movement of capital.
Smith argues that argument that although it would be
very harmful to England, what he cared about, it will
be stopped by an “invisible hand” because merchants
and manufacturers will have a home bias. They’ll
prefer to invest at home. So, don’t worry about it,
even though it’s dangerous. That’s the one use of the
term in “Wealth of Nations”.You know, so what we have is nothing like capitalism.
But can we have a system in which the poor benefit and
the rich don’t have to be made happy. Why not?!?There’s not a law of nature that the economy, hence
most of the society and the political system, are in
the hands of high concentrations of capital which are
granted by the state. They’re granted by state power,
enormous rights. You know rights that are granted to
corporations are an incredible blow against classical
liberalism and classical economics. Adam Smith would
turn over in his grave to see what’s been granted to
these basically totalitarian systems. And they have
basically been granted the rights, not only of
persons, which is outlandish, but of pathological
persons. They’re required by law to be utterly
pathological. It’s a legal requirement, deeply
embedded in anglo-american corporate law. That the
managers of corporations must be brutal. They must be
the kind of persons who we would lock up if they were
flesh and blood. They got to, they’re only, they are
legally required to maximize profit and market share
and not to do anything decent. The only exception,
and it’s a long history of corporate law, is they’re
allowed to do something decent if it’s hypocritical.
So, if a pharmaceutical corporation wants to improve
its image by giving free drugs to people in Africa or
something, it’s allowed to do it as long as it’s pure
hypocrisy. That is, it is a way to improve your image
to increase profit. Otherwise, it’s legally culpable.
You’re much more likely to get thrown in jail for that
than, you know, ENRON style corruption. And I think
that’s really the core of the system.Well, you know, that’s just, it’s not even
legislation, these are just decisions by courts.
Which have become the core. Do we have to accept
that?!? Almost like saying that people had to accept
bolshevism or fascism or other kinds of
totalitarianism. Of course not!!!
Makes me want to rush right out and buy the recording….
It’s been over a year now since a decision was announced in the Eldred v. Ashcroft copyright extension case. Lawrence Lessig the chief counsel in that case, has written a retrospective analysis of what went wrong, and why the decision went against the commons and for the copyright holders.
An excerpt:
The morning of January 15, 2003, I was five minutes late to the office and missed the 7 a.m. call from the Supreme Court clerk. Listening to the message, I could tell in an instant that she had bad news to report. The Supreme Court had affirmed the decision of the court of appeals. Seven justices had voted in the majority. There were two dissents.
A few seconds later, the opinions arrived by e-mail. I took the phone off the hook, posted an announcement of the ruling on our blog, and sat down to see where I had been wrong in my reasoning. My reasoning. Here was a case that pitted all the money in the world against reasoning. And here was the last naïve law professor, scouring the pages, looking for reasoning.
I first scoured the majority opinion, written by Ginsburg, looking for how the court would distinguish the principle in this case from the principle in Lopez. The reasoning was nowhere to be found. The case was not even cited. The core argument of our case did not even appear in the court’s opinion. I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading. I had said that there was no way this court could reconcile limited powers with the commerce clause and unlimited powers with the progress clause. It had never even occurred to me that they could reconcile the two by not addressing the argument at all.
Ginsburg simply ignored the enumerated powers argument. Consistent with her view that Congress’s power was not limited generally, she had found Congress’s power not limited here. Her opinion was perfectly reasonable—for her, and for Souter. Neither believes in Lopez. But what about the silent five? By what right did they get to select the part of the Constitution they would enforce? We were back to the argument that I said I hated at the start: I had failed to convince them that the issue here was important, and I had failed to recognize that however much I might hate a system in which the court gets to pick the constitutional values that it will respect, that is the system we have.
In the Washington Post, Gertrude Himmelfarb writes:
I have experienced a conversion of sorts as a result of “The Passion of the Christ,” although hardly the conversion Mel Gibson had in mind. I hasten to say that I have not “personally” seen that film (rather like not having “personally” read a good many books that I have the illusion of having read from a multitude of reviews). But my own reaction to it has to do not so much with the film itself as the phenomenon — what it represents in the culture and what it is making of the culture.
I agree with this observation. The phenomenon around this film — which I have been sucked into myself — is very intriguing. But my thoughts on the subject have taken a new turn.
Mel Gibson is getting quite a bit of attention, some good, some bad, for the spectacle of violence on the silver screen. Rumors of the pope saying “it is as it was” about the film gives it a certain amount of legitimacy. Others are outraged by the gore, and can’t get past it to judge the film on other merits.
But I am wondering about the spectacle factor. Crucifixion itself is a spectacle, albeit a horrific one. In the film, and possibly in the Bible, one can see Golgotha (“the place of skulls,” the site of the crucifixion) from the city walls. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment, given only to non-Romans. This historical fact, combined with the spectacle, means that the primary function of crucifixion is social control. “Watch youself under Roman law, or this could happen to you.”
It was horrible then, and it certainly looks horrible on the 100′ screen. So something I’ve been thinking about: to what extent is this movie, portraying a horrific method of social control, also itself a method of social control?
There are many layers to this question, one of which is to examine the extent to which Christianity — or indeed organized religion on the whole — is a method of social control. This is a legitimate question, but to me is not primary. I am more concerned with the political implications of the crucifixion itself, rather than the theological implications of Christ’s death and rebirth.
I’m sure I’ll think about this some more…
Steve Hogarth of marillion sent an email today. It’s a new chapter of a very interesting story of a band and its relentlessly loyal fanbase. Their new album, marbles, is mixed and mastered:
Mr h here.
The mixes are done, the mastering is done, folks – have we got an
album for you.. sounds like not one second of the last two years
were wasted.Now then – you know how whenever we send you an email, it’s usually
because we want something from you.. well this is another one of
those. Only joking! In fact I’m only joking about only joking!
OF COURSE we want something from you!We’re going to release a single, it’s going to go in the charts,
and with a little help from y’all we think it could go Top Ten
here in the UK. (At the moment the UK have committed to a single
release, but if it charts high here, then other countries may well
follow on.)The single is our new baby “You’re Gone”. It’s released on April 19th.
The single will be available in 3 separate versions, all track listing
are available at www.marillion.com/singleBy our calculations, in the current UK single market, if you go out
and buy one single each, we’ll go Top 40. If you go out and buy two
versions, we’ll go Top 20. If, however, you’d like to make an old dog
very happy, you could dig-deep, get into eight quids-worth of debt
and buy 3 copies or more of our single, in which case, we’d almost
certainly go Top 10 and I’d have my first ever Top 10 single just
before my 45th birthday!! (bizarre, or what?!) Marillion would become
a household name and not simply remembered by Mr and Mrs Joe Bloggs
for “Kayleigh”. There is no better time for this to happen, as it
would set up perfectly this PEACH of an album that we’ve just
finished, and this PEACH of a tour that we’re about to embark upon.We are currently spending the pre-order dosh on the best marketing
campaign we’ve had in a decade. Hopefully, you’ll see evidence of
this soon – it includes our hiring of a radio plugger who assures us
we chose the right single, and is confident of airplay at national
radio. Obviously the higher up the chart the single goes, the greater
our chances of airplay and the odd TV appearance. Basically, Marillion
would be introduced to a new generation of music fans and you lot
could welcome them to the family and show them how we do things
round here.So now we’re off to shoot the video for “You’re Gone”..
Exciting times..h
OK, so books have been written about Marillion’s history. And I confess, I’ve been a fan of this band since 1985. But it’s a remarkable story.
Recently, they let it be known via the Internet that they were taking pre-orders for the next album. They ended up selling well over 10,000 preorders at 28 pounds (about $40US). So that’s about a half-million pound budget for the album. As far as expenses, the same preorder scheme from their last album, anoraknophobia, financed the business venture (a cottage industry). Now marillion has a recording studio, shipping department, and an in-house data center. They also have a small staff to run it. Bottom line, anoraknophobia was a practice run. They learned how to distribute an album that time, but perhaps the more valuable lessons were those on how not to. They built and ironed-out, in other words, a viable infrastructure. Now they’re ready to use it.
The difference is, this time they can use roughly the same amount of capital in promotional expenses, to gain visibility for their product. Last time, they bought the infrastructure and couldn’t afford much else.
I hope they tour the states. I’d love to hear them live again.
I really wish them well, and hope marbles is successful, in whatever way the band define as successful. I’ll be watching, and of course listening when they ship the album in a month or two. I really liked the last album, especially quartz and this is the 21st century. I wonder what direction they will go with marbles?
Last night, Matt and I were riding back to my place after having done some Freakwitchery in our studio. We had on NPR, trying to gauge how “Super Tuesday” had gone. They introduced a Congresswoman from Silicon Valley, Zoe Lofgren.
Well, in the state of mind we were in, we both thought they said “Zoloft Grin.”
Maybe you had to be there…
I’ve been a fan of Utah Phillips for several years now. His album, made with Ani DiFranco, called
The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere is one of my all time favorites. He sent Ani 20 years worth of cassette recordings of his rants and speeches while performing, and Ani compiled them, picked out the best parts, and set these spoken word snippets to music. It’s a brilliant collaboration.
I recently came across
An audio letter from Utah Phillips, which is available as mp3s (part one, part two, part three, part four). As explained on the website, “Utah prefers to communicate in the spoken word. The tape was going to be transcribed, but the printed word is a poor representation to the feeling and emotion expressed in this spoken form.” I agree completely with this assessment, however a few transcriptions of some relevant parts are, in my view, in order. Especially since my main goal is to entice some of you to go get the mp3s and take a listen on your own. Here are some snippets from part 3 and part 4:
I’ve always said that the long memory is the most radical idea in America….
So, yes, it’s pretty dire. What we’ve experienced is a corporate takeover of the executive branch of the government. The megacorporations have always tried, through lobbying, through outright bribes, through campaign contributions and so on to control the government. Well now, they’ve sort of staged a coup on the executive branch, and it’s behaving like a corporation. Corporate fascism, we’re in it, we are in it, and we are of it….
Are corporations democratic institutions? Well, of course not. No, they’re not. They’re hierarchical institutions. It’s shut up and do what you’re told institutions. Are corporations anti-democratic institutions? Do they hire companies to help bust the union, do they try to drive the unions out, do they try to get the wages down as far as they can without any benefits? Well, yeah. That’s true….
Fascism is here. It’s not something we worry about coming. Fascism is here. The question is, what are we going to do about it?…
I do know now that these people in Washington are not Republicans and they are not Democrats, they’re a different kind of thing. They’re fascist ideologues. And they’re the most dangerous people the country — and maybe the world — has ever seen. And they’ve got to get out of there, we’ve got to get them out of there….
It is long past time when every progressive organization in the country — from animal rights, to the feminist movement, to peace, anti-nuclear — every progressive force in this country has got to come together, for once, in one united front, we stop hammering on each other, stop confining ourselves to our own gig — “oh that’s not my issue” — no, this is all of our issue, right now, and if we don’t build a united front, and if these Democrats don’t sort themseleves out pretty damn fast, we’re going to marching lockstead into heavy-duty fascism. That’s looking at it from the top down. That’s looking at it from the national news, from The Nation magazine, and of course I get frightened when I do that, I get frightened when I take the world from the top down….
I have to realize that there are too many good people doing too many good things for me to afford the luxury of being pessimistic, so I’m not and I won’t be….
They tell me that those under the crosses in the military cemetaries made the ultimate sacrifice. There is a world of difference between sacrificing, and being sacrificed. Those who lie under those crosses, and those found frozen to death in the street, were sacrificed on the altar of human greed. Those who benefit from that sacrifice, in the workplace, in the field, in the prison, on the battlefield, those who benefit from that sacrifice, have got to understand that the harvest of greed is not wealth but rage. And it can’t go on. It all has to be repaid. It all will be repaid. I am a peaceful man, I am a man of peaceful means because I have to be. I don’t want the world to blow up. But that rage is there, and it builds and builds. And if it is not repaid, those who benefit from these sacrifices are simply going to perish. I don’t know when. There’s no way to predict what time. But I’ll tell you, they fight with money, and we fight with time, and they’re going to run out of money before we run out of time.
OK, enough transcribing. Go get these files and listen.