The ‘C:’ device represents the very small, primary internal flash memory present on the phone. The secondary storage device, usually ‘D:’ or ‘E:’ is much larger (in my case 32GB), but unfortunately not everything can be installed to the mass storage. For those applications that truly need to be installed on the primary drive, they can use a great deal of the limited space.

Here are a few tips I discovered on how to help clear out the primary drive’s space. You’ll know if you need to do this if you are receiving constant reminders that your phone is out of space on drive ‘C:’.

1. Any applications previously installed on C: that could be installed on E: should be uninstalled and reinstalled on the larger storage device.
2. Install third party web browser, such as Opera Mobile, to the mass storage and then delete the ‘C:\System\Cache\’ folder belonging to the default Nokia web browser.
3. Change the default ‘Messaging’ storage to mass storage. To do this, open the messaging application and then go to Options > Settings > Other > ‘Memory In Use’.
4. Uninstall any of the uninstallable default applications and widgets that you do not use. I removed the ‘Facebook’ home screen widget and now just use the mobile web version of Facebook.
5. Make sure the Ovi Store is set to install to mass storage by default. To do this open the Ovi Store settings at Options > Account > Settings > Installation Preferences, within the Ovi Store application itself.
6. If you are using Nokia Messaging or Nokia Messaging for Exchange, delete and reconfigure your accounts and this will clear out a significant cache. Alternatively, if you do not mind, remove the Nokia Messaging application entirely and use a web-mail alternative (if possible).

In my case, removing Nokia Messaging was the most helpful. Anyone else had this problem, if so, how did you clear your N97’s main memory?

Related posts:

1. British Space Agency – a possibility?
2. Sony PlayStation 3 Issues Update
3. Firefox – How to easily install Mozilla Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu 9.04
4. Dropbox – Backing up your files in the cloud with Dropbox
5. iPhone Apps Missing from the iPad

So, what is new in Contacular since my last post? Quite a bit actually. It is now at version 0.15 and has the following additional features.

1. Fully bespoke, custom contact forms for your websites, allowing to define custom fields for your contact forms
2. File upload field type meaning your users can upload an image or document to your contact form and it will be quickly e-mailed to you
3. Ability to restrict file uploads to specific types for added security
4. Use of a PHP mailer class to increase flexibility instead of using the default PHP mail() function
5. Added multiple preset form types for near instant integrations.
6. Many code improvements and optimisations

For all other changes that have happened in Contacular, take a look at the Contacular change log.

I’m still getting lots of feedback in about Contacular and am continually working to improve it. So tell me what you think in the comments below, or contact me regarding Contacular directly.

Related posts:

1. Contacular PHP Contact Form

“Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who. Perhaps they’ll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won’t be versions of these apps”

The iPhone apps, when scaled up to iPad’s larger screen, did not live up to Steve Jobs’ expectation, so due to this, they were scraped from the iPad’s release operating systems. Rumours exist that these apps will be added in a later update to the iPad’s operating system. This is quite important too, as the missing applications are simple and rather fundamental computing programs which I would personal expect to be in any modern general purpose device.

Missing Apps on the iPad

The list of applications scraped from the iPad’s operating system is as follows.

1. Clock – Something as important as the clock application is missing?
2. Calculator – Surely a similar app will be released to compensate the lack of a Calculator app?
3. Weather – No doubt a good third-party whether app will take the place of this if no official weather application is released.
4. Voice Memos – Seems it should still be in there? Why remove it?
5. Stocks – Not fundamental to all users by any means, but should still be a nice default.

Questions for existing iPhone users:

• Why would Apple really want these applications removed other than merely that they look ‘weird’?
• If you had an iPad, would you want these applications to be there as standard? If so, which ones?
• Are these applications (on the iPhone) used regularly and important to you already?

Related posts:

1. The iPad and its effect on the Mobile Web
2. Google Chrome OS Raising Awareness of Open Source Software

As assumed by many PlayStation 3 users, the issue was not related to the PlayStation Network but was, in fact, an issue with the hardware in the (non-slim) PlayStation 3 models. The on-board clock on the PlayStation 3 assumed the date on the 1st of March was in fact, the non-existant 29th of February. At the same time, the operating system clock believed the date was, as it actually was, the 1st of March.

We can assume Sony believed the best option was to merely await this automatic ‘fix’ that occured at midnight, rather than to develop, test and release an emergency update to all old model PlayStation 3 models. This is most likely due to a strict policy on testing such system updates. This choice to delay may be looked at as a bad action by some people, however imagine the dangerous alternative. If Sony were to have released a rushed update to all old PlayStation 3 models… and it bricked the consoles (i.e. made them inoperable) – imagine the up roar then?

What do you think Sony should have done?

Frankly, I think they should have been more thorough in the initial testing of the PlayStation 3 components, such as, perhaps, the on-board clock…

Related posts:

1. Sony PlayStation 3 Issues Update
2. PlayStation 3 incredibly confused about 2010

1. Any PlayStation 3 games with associated trophies can not be played.
2. The PlayStation Network (PSN) can not be connected to (error 8001050F), and thus all PSN related functionality, such as the friends list, messaging and the PlayStation store is non-functional.
3. The date of the system is reset to the 1st of January 2000 (error 8001050F) and can not be reset automatically, but can be changed manually.

Sony has recently clarified some of the issues relating to this problem is the latest updates to the Sony PlayStation blog, as follows. It is very interesting to note that Sony is still claiming this is a PlayStation Network issue in the blog posts titles, when it is actually a fault in the synchronisation of the system clocks.

• PlayStation Network Status Update – Original update stating Sony are aware of the issue and are investigating the related problems.

“We’re aware that many of you are having difficulty connecting to the PlayStation Network this evening. Those of you with “slim” PS3s (the 120/250 GB models) appear to be unaffected.”

• Latest info on PlayStation Network Status – A more detailed and recent update on the problem, indicating the symptoms of the issue. This update also admits to the issue is “caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system”.

“We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:

• The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
• When the user tries to sign in to the PlayStation Network, the following
  message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been
  signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.
• When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears
  on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install
  trophies. Please exit your game.”
• When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the
  Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date
  and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”
• Users are not able to play back certain rental video downloaded from the
  PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.”

I’ve previously written about the PlayStation 3 March 1st 2010 issue when I was first made aware of it.

I want to play Heavy Rain and get it finished. Anyone else annoyed?

Related posts:

1. PlayStation 3 2010 Leap Year Issue
2. PlayStation 3 incredibly confused about 2010
3. Nokia N97 – Fixing the Out of Space on ‘C:’ Issues

It seems that the PlayStation 3, the original – not the slim version, is programmed with an invalid leap year reference for 2010. Due to the fact the PS3 believes this year is a leap year, February is being considered to be over 28 days long in 2010. The PlayStation 3 does not quite understand this it seems and the problem is causing significant issues for many gamers. This leap year problem is causing games to crash (even single player games), connections to the PlayStation network to fail, Trophy information to become corrupted, dynamic themes to fail and the inability to launch certain games at all. Some users are also reporting a variety of error codes including error 8001050F.

It seems all these problems boil down to an issue within the original PlayStation 3’s firmware which is preventing many date and time related functions to fail. Luckily, the PlayStation 3’s system software update relies only upon an Internet connection and does not rely on a connection to the PlayStation network. Sony are apparently looking into the issues, and gamers are expecting a software patch within 24 hours.

There is a basic FAQ about this issue, as quoted below.

“Here’s what’s going on right now: something with the PS3’s internal clock has borked in some pre-slim models. This is not a PSN issue; it has to do with your PS3’s clock. This clock is NOT related to the OS clock. It seems to be a leap year bug. Setting your clock ahead will do nothing. All PS3s around the world were affected at the exact same time.

Does this affect me?

-If you have a Slim PS3, you’re good to go. Continue playing it as normal.

-If you have a “fat” PS3, you may be affected. Some fat PS3s have worked ok, but it seems a good majority have been bugged.

What does this bug mean?

-If affected, your date and time has been set to a random past date. This prevents you from signing into PSN, playing any PSN games, or using any DLC. Your trophies will also not display correctly or be able to sync.

How do I fix it?

-You can’t. Even if you don’t sign into PSN, it won’t help. This is a hardware issue.

So, what do I do?

-Wait 24 hours. Other products that have had similar bugs have corrected themselves after the “bugged” day. On Monday around 6pm central time, all PS3s will automatically correct themselves…maybe.

-If that doesn’t work, we’ll need a firmware update from Sony, which should be a pretty important priority for them right now.

Did I lose my data/themes/etc?

Your save data/games/dlc/themes are fine. They’ll be fixed when the PS3 is fixed. Trophies are uncertain right now, but they’ll be fine if you’ve synced them before the PS3 was bugged. Unsynced trophies are an unknown right now.

If I have a bugged PS3, can I still use it?

It’s probably not a good idea, as I have no idea what will happen to the trophies you earn during the bugged time. Movies/media will work fine.”

…

“The going theory is that the PS3 is storing some form of date in GMT, then modifying that to get whatever you see in the on-screen clock. That modification process seems to be fine–the system can take 2/28/2010, 9PM GMT, add four hours, and get 3/1/2010, 1AM random time zone.

What’s apparently effed, as speculation goes, is when the internal GMT-tracking rolls over to 3/1. It’s either not rolling, or rolling to 2/29, at which point a system tries to add/subtract from 2/29, which it can’t do because the front-end calendar doesn’t have a 2/29/2010, and shit explodes. Seemed to happen around 4PM PDT, which I think is 12AM GMT, so.

And the PS3 launched in 2006; it’s hit 4 2/28s so far. 2007 and 2009 were odd-numbered years; 2008 was an even, and a leap year. 2010 is the first even non-leap-year the system’s been around for. If some sort of base-level math is choking on itself, it may have ruled out the odd 2007 and 2009 successfully, but is convinced the even 2010 is a leap year (this part I’m less sure of, but is why leap year could theoretically come into play at some point.)”

Neogaf Forums Post

Related posts:

1. Sony PlayStation 3 Issues Update
2. PlayStation 3 2010 Leap Year Issue

I’m quite highly anticipating the release of Google Chrome OS – Google’s net book and appliance cloud operating system. There are a few main reasons behind this.

Simplicity and Openness

Note that I combine the two here. It is very important that both software user friendliness is combined with the nature of free and open source software to prevent device and software simplification becoming a model for restricted development.

Apple do one of these well – simplicity. Apple products are almost always considered to be highly user-friendly and easy to use for all consumers, taking the iPhone and iPad as the latest examples within the consumer electronics market.

However, Apple has a very closed nature to their software models, especially with the iPhone and iPad, where all application acquisition is restricted to a specific Apple controlled ‘App. Store’ and all application developement is restricted to a Apple controlled SDK (software development kit) which is platforme restricted and incompatible with all platforms other than Apple’s own Mac OS X platform.

Promotion of Open Source Software

Since Google Chrome OS is to based upon a Linux kernel, and use many existing Linux systems, not only will this bring improvements to Linux operating systems as a whole due to Google’s code contributions, but additionally it will bring Linux and, more generally, open source software into the light.

The concepts of Linux and open source software are by no means yet the household names of Microsoft, Windows and Apple. Dependant on how Google Chrome OS is marketed by Google, this release could be a great boom for the promotion of Linux as a whole.

Zero Price Operating System

Since Google intends to release the operating system for free (zero price), it will likely also reduce the apparent worth of paid operating systems, such as the paid offerings by Microsoft (Windows) or Apple (Mac OS X). The increased use of web applications and the Internet to do many daily tasks makes Google Chrome OS perfect for the most common uses of computers today. For these tasks, alternative operating systems hold no significant advantages, whilst the advantages for Microsoft and Apple operating systems now lie specifically in the domain of platform restricted software packages, either in the desktop realm, such as Microsoft Office / Apple iWork or the server realm, such as Microsoft Exchange / Mac OS X server software packages.

Even then, with the growth of multi-platform, online productivity and collaboration tools, such as Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Mail, these platform restricted ‘offline’ software packages may become redundant as more and more businesses and enterprises rely upon the Internet and cloud based applications and storage.

What do you think? Will Google Chrome OS be a boom for Linux, and will its competitors’ offerings be hurt significantly by its release?

Related posts:

1. Google Chrome OS – A Simple Explanation
2. OSS – Open-source software and the related freedoms
3. Uptime – How to find out how long your computer has been on – the uptime
4. iPhone Apps Missing from the iPad
5. Linux – A simple explanation of Linux and Linux-based operating systems

The Reddit Alien - a great social bookmarking advantage

Some people think of search engine optimisation as being strictly building links and content, and that was very much the case before the advent of microblogging and social networking. Now being social is very important for search engine optimisation. Using social networking, social bookmarking and other such sites can really help boost your traffic, both via increased rankings and faster indexing in search engines as well as the potential for viral marketing and promotion of your content.

Let’s go over the main points. Using social methods of promotion for your website can help:

1. To get your site indexed faster – Promoting your site via services such as Reddit, Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon and blog pinging services can ensure your site is indexed in search engines as fast as possible.
2. To increase search engine rankings – Although many social bookmarking and similar sites now use ‘nofollow’ rel tags on their links, there are still several services which do not. Reddit, a social news/bookmarking website that I have recently become addicted to, is a perfect example of a social website which does not use the ‘nofollow’ rel tag on any of its links.
3. To virally promote your content – Social bookmarking and news websites are great for promoting websites and interesting or funny website content in a viral nature. This can have a cascading effect for content this people find really interesting. To virally promote content, always ensure you post links to the relevant categories and in a way that makes the content seem interesting, either be being funny, outstanding or highly controversial.

Overall, social networking and bookmarking websites are a fantastic tool for website and content promotion and for improving your search engine results page rankings. Most importantly, you should promote good quality and interesting content without looking incredibly spammy or promote spam like web content… there is enough of that on the Web already!

Related posts:

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2. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx’s Social Networking Features
3. Google making a bit of a Buzz on the Internet
4. vBulletin Fake User Plugin – Good or bad?

"Hi! I'm Google Buzz" - Screenshot of the Google Buzz welcoming screen

Like my pun? I know, I know. It is ingenius.

What is Google Buzz?

Google Buzz is a new social networking venture from the almighty search engine. It is designed to integrate well with their webmail service Gmail. Google have dipped their toes in the social networking marketplace before with services like Orkut and Google Friend Connect. Orkut is a big hit in Brazil and India, but is not as large as many of the other social networking websites such as Twitter or Facebook. Google Friend Connect, on the other hand is a system designed for web developers to quickly and easily integrate Google-powered social elements into their websites via iframe’s, Javascript and AJAX.

From the point of large scale social networking, Google Buzz could really be a hit. It has a huge initial base of users, as all of Gmail’s existing consumer user base is automatically given Buzz as of a few days ago. Roll out of Google Buzz to consumers began on the 9th of February 2010 and has now finished being deployed for all standard public Gmail users.

Google Buzz for Google Apps?

You may be wondering if Google Apps users (Business, Schools, Enterprises or Personal) have the opportunity to use Google Buzz? Sadly not, it seems Google Buzz is not available for Google Apps users yet, but Google have promised this will be available within a few months times. The delay is apparently due to the additional complexities involved with restricted Buzz to an individual business or enterprise environment.

What about the Privacy Concerns?

There have been quite a few people heavily concerned about the privacy aspects of Google’s new social networking system. This focuses primarily across Google’s decision to make information about people users regularly contact public by default. This is done to ensure when you activate Google Buzz, you are immediately following your friends and family and they are following you. However, the people you are following is shared public. Twitter has been doing this since the start, allowing anyone to see who is following who. However, Google stores a lot more information about its users by default.

A lot of people are having doubts initially and there has been plenty of bad initial press related to the privacy of service. This is almost always the case and to be expected with all new social networking systems put online. However there are a few genuine horror stories, such as a story in which Google Buzz auto-followed a woman’s abusive ex. Is this a bad move by Google? What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Facebook – Privacy changes (December 2009)
2. Tweets – Tweets from Twitter soon to be in the SERPs of Google and Bing
3. The Importance of Being Social for Website Promotion and Search Engine Optimisation
4. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx’s Social Networking Features
5. A Social Media Overview – How are you feeling?

You can create a table with a check constraint in MySQL as follows. The check in this example disallows values of the ‘P_Id’ field from falling outside of the condition ‘P_Id>0′. In other words, the ‘P_Id’ field’s values must almost be greater than zero in order for the data to be accepted into the table by the database management system (DBMS).

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255),
CHECK (P_Id>0)
)

You are probably wondering how to add a constraint to an existing database table. This is quite easy, and uses an ‘ALTER TABLE’ SQL query. See the following example for how to add a check constraint to one of your existing database tables.

ALTER TABLE Persons
ADD CHECK (P_Id>0)

For more information, there are other highly useful example queries relating to SQL check constraints at the relevant SQL check constraint article on W3schools.

“The release of Apple’s ever popular smartphone, the iPhone, back in mid 2007 caused a huge development spike in websites and dynamic web applications designed the mobile devices. Of course, the vast majority of these mobile website were developed specifically with the iPhone in mind, however the results were beneficial to pretty much all smartphones with the capability the browse the web and with some form of web browser application.

So, why do I think the iPad will slow this development in the mobile web market? The iPad is a mobile device itself is it not?

Well, perhaps not. Apple’s iPad does indeed use an operating system very similar to the iPhone, with backwards compatibility with almost all of the iPhone’s downloadable apps, and yes, it is mobile in the true sense of the word – it can be easily carried around unlike a full desktop computer and much more easily than a typically larger and much heavier laptop. However, the one aspect of the iPad which stands out is its native screen resolution of 1024×768″

If you’re interested, feel free to read the full article on how the iPad may affect the development of mobile websites in the near future.

Related posts:

1. iPhone Apps Missing from the iPad
2. Google Chrome OS Raising Awareness of Open Source Software

So, what is Contacular?

Contacular is an open source contact form generator and processor written in PHP. It is designed to be used as either a complete PHP contact form solution, with full validation and e-mailing, or as an initial code base for web development to build upon. I’ve designed Contacular to be really simple to get up and running with and yet still be very expandable. The entire system is object-orientated and open source licensed.

A quick overview of the features of Contacular:

1. Fully integrated contact form solution
2. Simple generation of contact forms
3. Many built-in Contacular contact form types
4. Integrated reCAPTCHA human check / spam protection support
5. Adoption of existing website styling (CSS) wherever possible
6. Form field validation in all forms
7. Automatic validation error reporting
8. Advanced validation – e.g. checking submitted e-mail addresses are from real domains
9. E-mailing form results to one or more recipients
10. GPL licensed, open source, object orientated code base
11. Tested in multiple browsers on multiple platforms
12. Seamless upgrading to new versions – just download and replace the files
13. Easily expandable
14. More on the way…

Take a look at the how to use Contacular guide, and if you’re interested, go ahead and download Contacular. The latest version is always at the top, with that download page also containing the Contacular change log.

Related posts:

1. Updates to Contacular PHP Contact Forms – Now at version 0.15
2. Google Chrome OS – A Simple Explanation
3. Don’t be evil licensing
4. OSS – Open-source software and the related freedoms
5. Dropbox – Backing up your files in the cloud with Dropbox

• A new graphical boot screen manager called ‘Plymouth’ which is to replace the currently used xsplash and usplash boot screen systems.
• The user menu and power/session locking menus have been split into two distinct icons, marking the first steps into the development of Ubuntu 10.04’s social networking features including the ‘Me Menu’.
• Improvements in the manner in which restricted drivers are handled allows you to now have multiple nVidia graphics drivers of different versions installed simultaneously. Activating an individual driver is then only a matter of a few click and a restart.

In terms of application changes, the PiTiVi Video Editor has been added to allow home and professional users to perform various tasks to create new videos or editing existing ones. It comes with a variety of features including different video/audio effects, time-line management, dubbing and the like. A quick screenshot of the PiTiVi video editor is shown below.

Many of the existing default games in Ubuntu are planned to be replaced over the course of the development cycle for Lucid Lynx. gBrainy is the first new game to enter the scene, and is a brain training game, which is essentially a fun and extensible logic, memory and intelligence test. It resembles, it some ways, the brain training exercises and games for the Nintendo DS.

Rhythmbox Music Player, the default music playing application which ships with Ubuntu has seen some usability improvements in the way of a new application indicator. Application indicator’s are a new attempt to standardise and regulate the difference between notification and effective quick access menus for specific applications which require or desire interaction beyond the scope of their main application windows.

On a more heavily technical side, Alpha 2 of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx brings with it the complete removal of ‘hal’, the now legacy hardware abstraction layer. The removal of hal will allow for faster boot up, shut down and improved, speedier resuming from suspend and hibernation mode.

For additional details about Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2 and the changes it brings, see the official Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 testing page.

Related posts:

1. Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1 Released
2. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx’s Social Networking Features
3. New Indicator Applet & Messaging Menu for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
4. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
5. notify-osd – Changes to Ubuntu 9.04 notifications

The Weta Digital server farm or ‘rendering wall’, as they call it, has a disk array capable of storing roughly 2 petabytes of data in total. The individual servers are linked by a 10 gigabits per second networking infrastructure, and in total there are 35,000 cores based in over 4000 Hewlett Packard Blade servers. In the case of Avatar, each minute of rendering equates to approximately 17.28GB of data.

The system is entirely water-cooled, as traditional air and fan cooling systems are not sufficient during near deadline times, due to constant high load on the servers.The photograph below shows the enormous water cooling system cooling a portion of the server farm.

The high power server farm used to render many films computer generated imagery (including Avatar), shown with its advanced water cooling system.

According to Paul Gunn, a systems admistrator at Weta Digital, Ubuntu is at the core of almost all their systems. Ubuntu runs on all of their 3D rendering servers, and at least 90% of all their desktop systems. More detailed information about the Ubuntu powered rendering farm that rendered the CGI of Avatar is available from the Information Management and IT World websites.

Related posts:

1. Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1 Released
2. How to Mount a Disc Image in Ubuntu Linux
3. Linux – A simple explanation of Linux and Linux-based operating systems
4. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
5. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx’s Social Networking Features

When starting a new forum board based on the vBulletin forum (or in fact an forum software), one of the most common problem is making the board popular and getting users to register. The problem most people face is that users will not register on a forum board that looks completely empty! I mean, who would?

So, how can you do this? People will not register if a board is empty – that much is obvious. I’ve recently had to artificially inflate the user count and online users for a vBulletin forum, by request of the forum board owner. Luckily, I found an excellent plugin which does just this. Not only does it increase the counts for online members and guests, but it also lists real usernames.

It is implemented by grabbing the existing member names from the database and appending them to user list at the bottom of the forum home. This plugin is very ingenius and pretty believable – good if you are starting up a new vBulletin powered forum board.

If you wish, you can read more about and download the vBulletin Fake User plugin. Note that you will need a vBulletin.org account and a valid vBulletin license to download this plugin.

Retrospectively, I do not believe this is necessarily the best manner in which to entice new users to any form of community for it provides little motivation to join beyond the active community. If the ‘active community’ (which in this case, would not exist) produces no content worthy of the potential member’s time, why would they feel the need to register or sign up?

I have and still do run a few online communities, including vBulletin forum boards. During this time, I have found new and interesting content to the specific niche (if one exists) is the key for all forms of online social activity and indeed, for drawing in new users. If the content is interesting enough, people will come either in surges for time sensitive content or as a new member registration trickle effect over time.

Related posts:

1. The Importance of Being Social for Website Promotion and Search Engine Optimisation

How are you feeling? View the day’s global mood swings with this fun, social media, Twitter-powered tool. Click here to choose a feeling and begin.

‘How are you feeling?’ is a quick social overview of the feelings that are appearing in the microblogging community. It pulls down hourly updates of today’s microblogs (or ‘Tweets’) based on specific emotional keywords, and presents these microblogs in an appealing and ever so slightly artistic manner.

Clicking an individual microblog will take you directly to the specific Tweet and allow you to see the otherwise hidden author of that Tweet. Take a look at some of the screenshots below and then try out ‘How are you feeling?’ for yourself.

‘How are you feeling?’ is a social media tool/toy/experiment and dynamic web application, created by myself ever so quickly one lunchtime, using PHP running under the Apache web-server. I hope you enjoy playing with it.

Related posts:

1. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx’s Social Networking Features
2. The Importance of Being Social for Website Promotion and Search Engine Optimisation
3. Tweets – Tweets from Twitter soon to be in the SERPs of Google and Bing

Currently, in the Ubuntu 9.10 (the latest stable version of Ubuntu), the indicator applet and messaging menu looks like the following screenshot taken from my computer.

Looks relatively bland. It essentially list the current communication or social programs for instant messaging, microblogging, e-mailing and general social networking. It also list any recent communications, stating the user name of the contact you’ve spoken to recently (not shown in above screenshot). Many new improvements are planned for the next iteration of the messaging menu and indicator applet (currently at version 0.3). The following design mock up of the messaging menu emphasises the most important and visible changes for the end-user.

As you can see, there is a lot more content in the new messaging menu. One of the important points is the ability to access certain programs actions directly. So, for example, if I wanted to send an e-mail to someone, I could just click the messaging menu and hit ‘Compose New Message’ which would very easily let me start writing and e-mail without the need to find my e-mail application, start it and locate the ‘compose new message’ button, which can easily vary in location and appearance between applications. By adding this action to the messaging menu, this has the effect of not only making the option easier to find, but also – potentially more importantly – it abstracts away the specifics of the application itself and draws the focus towards the user, their desire and their content.

In my opinion, application abstraction is very important. Most users do not wish to ‘use Evolution’ or ‘use Thunderbird’, they want to ‘check their e-mail’ or ‘compose a new e-mail’. Allowing them to do this regarding of the e-mail client they use reduces the learning curve significantly. The same principle applies to many other applications, including those outside of communications, such as productivity applications. Users tend to want to ‘create a new document’, ‘draw a picture’, and ‘check a budgeting spreadsheet’ rather than ‘open OpenOffice Write and create a blank OpenDocument Text file’, ‘open image editing software and create a new blank image’ and ‘open spreadsheet application and locate/open relevant file’. Even saying the specific non-abstracted alternatives takes a long time, but essentially the users content should be priority over the application itself in the vast majority of cases. One says that work is on a spreadsheet, an image or a document and not an Excel, GIMP or Writer file.

The new messaging menu brings on this concept of application abstraction with the instant messaging system. You can see in the second and third sections of the menu, instant messaging contacts and recent microblogging activity (mocked up as messages from ’sabdfl’) are shown as independent of the application which controls them. In this case, it would be likely be Empathy (for instant messaging) and Gwibber (for microblogging) that controlled these sections, but note the application name itself in not even mentioned, as it is not relevant to the actual social actions, which again demonstrates abstraction away from the specific applications and a focus on user content.

The final two sections indicate e-mail notification from GMail and IRC conversations with XChat. In these cases, definitely so with the GMail e-mail notifications, it is relevant to display the application name as this is an important part of the relevant content itself (the e-mail account).

Hope this quite summary gives you a good idea of what changes are coming to the messaging menu and its attached indicator applet in Ubuntu 10.04. More information is available about the new messaging menu at its design specification while these is additional information about the new indicator applet available on the applet’s Lauchpad pages.

What are your opinions on the new messaging menu? Will it affect your social use of Ubuntu? Will it affect your work flow? If so, how?

Related posts:

1. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx’s Social Networking Features
2. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx sees the release of Alpha 2
3. Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1 Released
4. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
5. Firefox – How to easily install Mozilla Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu 9.04

With the currently in development, Ubuntu 10.04, codenamed Lucid Lynx, the development road map is set to take huge advantage of the major social networks. Common social networking actions, such as updating your Facebook status, or sending a Tweet to your friends are set to be integrated directly into the operating system allowing users to keep their friends up-to-date and share information without the need to even open a web browser.

Take a look at the image below. This is a basic mock-up of the new social menu codenamed the ‘Me Menu’, which is aimed to become to a simple, centralised way to manage your social activities. It has options for a user avatar, multiple social networks, instant messaging and microblogging services and the setting and broadcast of custom and preset statuses and microblogs.

This clever menu will link into other social applications, like your instance messaging application. In others words, you set your status in the me menu, and the update is reflected automatically in all your social networks and configured social applications. Related to this, in the diagram above, ‘Chat Accounts…’ will refer to all forms of instant messaging and direct communications, while ‘Broadcast Accounts’ will refer to social networks which allow you to share a status update such as Twitter, Facebook and identi.ca.

The Ubuntu One service will also be integrated into the Me Menu and Ubuntu’s new social infrastructure. This will allow social network information to be synchronised and related to your Ubuntu One login, along with the existing file synchronisation, contact management and note synchronisation services already offered by Ubuntu One.

The Me Menu will be the overall representation of ‘you’ within Ubuntu. If you want more information regarding the Me Menu, which is to become the central social network integrations of Ubuntu, you can take a look at the design specification.

Related posts:

1. New Indicator Applet & Messaging Menu for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
2. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx sees the release of Alpha 2
3. Facebook – Privacy changes (December 2009)
4. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
5. Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1 Released

Douglas Crockford selected the MIT license for his JSMin program to reduce JavaScript code syntax in such a way to make it still functionally identical but smaller in size to enable bandwidth savings when these JavaScript files are downloaded by end-users’ web browsers. Ryan Grove continued to utilise this license for his variation of JSMin called JSMin-PHP, appropriately rewritten in the PHP language. This specific license however, contains a variation from the original MIT open-source license, as it includes the following line of text, originally inserted into the license for assumed comical value.

“The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.”

Since Google’s code hosting solution, imaginatively called ‘Google Code’ only allows hosting of code licensed under very specific open-source licenses, this single modification acts an additional condition which Google is not willing to accept. This means JSMin-PHP can not be hosted at Google Code simply due to this licensing issue.

The developer of JSMin-PHP, Ryan Groove has the following to say about this, on his blog.

“As Google (and some others) interpret it, this additional requirement constitutes a vague use restriction and thus makes the license non-free. Chris [DiBona] explained that if I were to remove that line from the license and ‘return to a proper open source license that we support,’ then jsmin-php could stay on Google Code. Otherwise, he said, ‘we can’t host you,’

… Of course, I can’t change the license, because it’s not my license. It’s Douglas’s license… All derivative works and copies of jsmin.c either include this license or are in violation of it.”

If you are using Google Code to host your project, be warned, Google are very tight on their licensing restrictions. What do you think? Valid reasoning or over the top enforcement of open-source licensing terms?

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1. OSS – Open-source software and the related freedoms
2. Google Chrome OS Raising Awareness of Open Source Software
3. Google Chrome OS – A Simple Explanation
4. Contacular PHP Contact Form

Glad I got my new winter coat recently…

To make good television, that’s why.

Google Chrome OS is a basic operating system built upon the Linux kernel. It uses a custom graphical user interface which is based around Google’s very fast web browser, Google Chrome. It does away with most of the regular operating system and application usage paradigms and focuses primarily on the web browser and therefore Google’s primary domains in the computer software marketplace, search and web applications.

This new operating system is initially designed to run on net book style hardware. Google have been in talks with a large variety of hardware companies and aim to have Google Chrome OS powered computers released to consumers before the end of 2010.

As emphasised in the video, Google Chrome OS is designed to almost exclusively utilise web applications and thus almost all data, excluding locally stored caches, is held on the Internet, thus promoting the use of cloud computing for data storage. With Google Mail, Google Docs and Google Calendar, Google already has a formidable cloud based productivity suite in the form of  web applications.

It will be very interesting to see how well the open-source Google Chrome OS does and how it helps in the general promotion of alternative open-source operating systems as a whole.

What do you think? Is Google Chrome OS good for Linux?

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3. OSS – Open-source software and the related freedoms
4. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
5. Don’t be evil licensing

Simple. Locate the file within your file browser and give it a right-click, then from the pop-up menu click ‘Open with Archive Mounter’. Archive Mounter is a tool which mounts several types of disc images including ISO format as a virtual drive within the system. This work in a similar manner to Windows based disc image mounting tools such as Daemon tools.

Mounting an ISO disc image with the Ubuntu archive mounter

After clicking, and about a second or two delay, you will see a new icon displayed on the desktop, as shown below. This icon represents the mounted drive and the icon will be named the same as the mounted disk image to allow it to be easily identified.

Icon depicting the mounted disc ISO image as a virtual drive

Hope this helps people wishing to quickly and easily mount disc images in Ubuntu. Of course, you can browse disc images via the ‘Archive Manager’ option within the need the mount the disc image first. Alternatively, you can, of course, burn the disc image via the disc burning software ‘Brasero’ which is installed by default in the most recent Ubuntu releases.

Enjoy!

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2. Avatar film rendered with enormous Ubuntu server farm
3. Linux – A simple explanation of Linux and Linux-based operating systems
4. Mono – Ubuntu Technical Board – Position on Mono and the integration of applications
5. Ubuntu 100 Paper Cuts Usability Initiative – Professional focus on one hundred usability issues within the Ubuntu operating system

Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia from the Wikimedia Foundation

I just donated to Wikipedia’s latest fund raising attempt. Being one of my primary resources for information, and an authority on almost any subject under, including and above the Sun, I feel the donation is well worth doing. I recommend anyone who can afford to make the donation and values the information and functionality Wikipedia provides, makes a donation, however small to the Wikimedia Foundation.

I donated £10.00 GBP, and received the following e-mail. I am tempted to donate more.

Dear Jordan,

Thank you for your gift of GBP 10.00 to the Wikimedia Foundation,
received on December 14, 2009.

Your donation celebrates everything Wikipedia stands for: the power of
information, freedom, sharing, learning and discovery.   Thank you so
much for helping keep Wikipedia freely available for its 330 million
readers around the world.

Many people love Wikipedia, but surprisingly few know it’s run by a
non-profit.  Please help us spread the word, by forwarding this e-mail
to a few of your friends.

If you have questions about your donation, please send a message to
donate@wikimedia.org.  To learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation,
visit our blog at http://blog.wikimedia.org/ or our website at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/. Or, follow us at
http://twitter.com/wikimedia, http://identi.ca//wikimedia, or
http://bit.ly/wikiFacebook.

And again, thank you.  I’m really, really happy to have
your help.

Sincerely Yours,

Sue Gardner
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation

When donating, you are asked to provide a public comment to go alongside the record of your donation if you so wish. I, along with many, took this opportunity to state my appreciation and thanks for Wikipedia project, and the Wikimedia Foundation in general.

I use Wikipedia almost daily. It is by far my most used Internet information resource.

I still find this idea to be fascinating along with all the moral, scientific and philosophical arguments that arise from such a concept. Already small rodent brains have been successfully modelled in computer systems. Henry Markram states that many of the mysteries of the human brain can be solved by computing modelling. Mental illnesses, memory and perception are all made of the neurons and electrical signals within the human brain, this is a given. However, Markram plans to find all of these links via a supercomputer software simulation of all ~ 100,000 million synapses within the human brain.

What do you think about this topic? A full simulation of the human brain and that of many other mammals – will this put an end to animal brain testing and will it assist in finding cures for various mental illnesses and memory problems in human beings?

Related posts:

1. AI Brain – Possible within ten years time according to Henry Markram

Personally, I have great hopes for such a project. NASA is a massive and very impressive force for space exploration in the US and perhaps more importantly  it is an icon which encourages younger generations to learn and educational institutes to teach in related science and technology topics.

A British space agency would certainly have the same affect in this country as “Mummy, I want to become an astronaut” would become significantly more plausible for British kids. Hopefully, such a space agency would also raise the next generations overall enthusiasm for the related sciences, such as physics, chemistry and of course, rocket science.  Let us just hope this British space agency project acquires the necessary funding and goes ahead as Space Minister Lord Drayson really wishes.

Also, what would such a space agency by called? What do you think about space exploration and the hope quantities of money spent on these space exploration endeavours?

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The Open Source Initiative, which works to promote open-source software and ideals

What is open-source software?

Open-source software is software which is under a special type of license in which the source code, which is usually copyrighted, is instead open to all. Specifically, this refers to code which meets the Open Source Definition for code licensing or is released to the public domain, and thus available without any licensing terms.

Why is this good?

Since the source code of open source software is available to all, this allows anyone to modify and adapt software to their needs. It also promotes innovation and reduces the need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ which is present in most proprietary software solutions simply due to the licensing and copyright issues involved.

It is good for businesses, enterprises and consumers as well. A report by the Standish Group states that the adoption of open source software models worldwide  has resulted in general savings of approximately $60 billion USD annually to consumers.

How does open source make money?

Since the source code of open source software is available for anyone to modify, people often wonder how businesses that utilise open source ideals can make money, since any theoretically distributed software could be legally copied based on the terms of most open source licenses.

For these reasons, a lot of companies which produce open source software offer priced high-level or enterprise level support for their open-source software. This enables them to charge for a service which keeping the software product free, open and able to adapt and innovate along with other open source software. Another example is consumer services, of which is good example is Ubuntu One, a new consumer level service, which allows Ubuntu users to share and synchronise files, contacts and notes using built into the Ubuntu operating system. This service is seamless and the file synchronisation, although only a small part of Ubuntu One, acts in a very similar manner to Dropbox.

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4. notify-osd – Changes to Ubuntu 9.04 notifications
5. Google Chrome OS – A Simple Explanation

A Lynx - basically just a wild cat

The first alpha version of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, which will be known as Ubuntu 10.04 LTS  (long-term support) upon release, is now available for download. Want to get it immediately? See the Ubuntu Lucid Lynx alpha download links below.

• 32-bit Desktop Edition – x86 Desktop edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 64-bit Desktop Edition – AMD64 Desktop edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 32-bit Server Edition – x86 Server edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1
• 64-bit Server Edition – AMD64 Server edition of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 1

If you wish, there are other versions of this alpha available for download. These include the Lucid Lynx alternate install CD for x86 and AMD64 architectures, the ARM platform installation disc and the BitTorrrent files for all Lucid Lynx alpha 1 disc images.

Although Canonical’s servers and the various mirrors have huge bandwidth limits and very little in the way of speed restrictions, I still recommend the use of the BitTorrent files for download of Ubuntu’s disc images as, due to the nature of BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer protocol, downloading Ubuntu via BitTorrent will relieve some strain on the download servers.

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4. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx’s Social Networking Features
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Twitter is closed, proprietary system. Of course, this does not matter to most of its users as it works fine as a fully integrated system. However, due to my advocacy of open-source software, I discovered and signed up to identi.ca, a very similar micro-blogging service to Twitter, but based upon the open-source micro-blogging solution laconi.ca. For several months now, I have actively been ‘tweeting’ on Twitter, and ‘Denting’ on identi.ca. You can follow me on Twitter, or subscribe to my updates on identi.ca if you so wish. I frequently micro-blog my opinions on events and often use micro-blogging as a promotional tool for this blog and other websites I’m interested in.

From speaking with many existing users of micro-blogging services, and those who have never used such a service before, it has become very apparent to me that there are two huge extremes of opinion regarding micro-blogging. What do you think about micro-blogging and the recent influx of users coming to services such as Twitter? Do you see it is a valuable addition to regular blogs or as something completely different? Alternatively, does keeping people up to date with daily events via micro-blogging services seem pointless and utterly futile?

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The operating system itself makes minimal references to the code name, and mainly tries to refer to the release by the year and month version number. This certainly provides a more professional appearance to the product than the animal-based development names do, however, as so many tutorials and instructions found online refer to the development name, the animal name itself becomes more useful as a keyword for research than the official version number itself. This brings forth a dilemma of whether users should refer to Ubuntu releases by their development code names or their official version numbers. Whilst the official version number appears more professional, the development name is often referenced in articles such as ‘How to Install software-package on Jaunty Jackalope’. For example, the Miro download page primarily references the development name with the version number bracketed. Yet other software packages refer only to the version number (excluding the necessary inclusion of development name in the apt software repository line), such as the Dropbox file synchronisation program.

This naming ‘inconsistency’, if it can be called that, also exists in Mac OS X. The Mac OS X operating system consists of a name such as Leopard and also the version number. Apple, however, utilise the development name of their operating system as a marketing tool. An example being on Apple’s website, where Apple actively promote their computers as coming with ‘Leopard, the latest release of Mac OS X’. This seems unusual, to utilise the development name as a way to market a product, but does appear to work. Microsoft however always refer to their operating system by a definitive release name or number, ‘Windows 95′, ‘Windows XP’, ‘Windows Vista’ etc. Microsoft do not have an inconsistency in the release naming convention of their operating system and there is rarely confusion over which version of Microsoft Windows is installed on a system, as all Windows versions have a definitive, single name.

The reasoning behind this article is to provoke discussion and thoughts regarding how Ubuntu, and the Ubuntu community, should handle the issues of referring to any specific version of the operating system. Is ‘Jaunty Jackalope’ just as suitable as the more official sounding ‘9.04′? Should one format be utilised more than the other? Should the community, as a whole, refer only to development releases by their development name, and official releases by their release version number? And finally, could the multiple namings currently used confuse or irritate new users and thus be a possible barrier to adoption?

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The first issue I came across is that notifications with high textual content often displayed for too short a period of time for them to be fully read and comprehended. The original notify-osd design specification stated that the notifications system would adapt the on-screen time of each notification because upon the number of lines of textual content present. After reviewing the code for notify-osd, it seem this code is not yet implemented on the version of notify-osd which ships with Ubuntu 9.04. Henceforth this is the first modification I made to the package, increasing the display time from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.

The second change was to alter the code such that notifications would display regardless of whether a video was actively playing. With the default set-up, notifications will not be displayed if a video is playing or the notification system deems you to be busy. The disadvantage this presents in its original state, is that even if the notification area (top right) is not obstructed by video playback, such as the situation where a video is being played windowed, rather than full-screen, the notifications will still not be displayed. This behaviour was modified so notifications display regardless of video playback.

Summary of changes to notify-osd:

• On-screen notification time doubled from 5 seconds to 10 seconds
• ‘Do not disturb’ notifications functionality removed so notifications will display regardless of video playback status.

Download links:

• Ubuntu 9.04 (32-bit) Debian Package
• Source Code

I hope this is of benefit to people who are having difficulties with the defaults of notify-osd. At some point, I believe it would be beneficial to remove the existing hard-coding of the delays and other such options, and I may personally take on this task at some point. Please feel free to offer any feedback or ideas in the comments section.

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3. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
4. /home/ – Ubuntu Home Directories are world readable by default
5. How to Mount a Disc Image in Ubuntu Linux

If you feel the default set-up of world readable home directories is not to your liking you can deny other users access to your home directory with one command, as follows:

sudo chmod -R 750 /home/*

This command, when entered, will give other users no access permissions. When browsing via Nautilus or a command prompt, other users attempting to access your home directory will receive an ‘access denied’ error message. This will stop read access, write access and even file listing of your home directory from other users. It should be warned that this restricted configuration could potentially cause issues with programs that attempt to access configuration files in your user directory in an unusual manner (such as when being ran in the name of another user on the system). However, from personal experience I have not encountered any related problems.

If you wish to make this configuration the default for all newly created users, you must reconfigure the ‘adduser’ software package. This can be done very simply by running the following command and selecting ‘No’ when asked whether or not your want world/system readable home directories.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure adduser

It is my opinion that home directories should be set with these permissions and the adduser package should be configured in this manner by default. Researching this as an issue, I have discovered many others also feel this way. For example, see Ubuntu Brainstorm idea #6106 and note the debate in the comments between default configuration versus user choice. Although user choice is always important, surely a more secure/privacy-protecting default which can be changed if required, is the more desirable option?

What do you think? Also, has anyone ever encountered any problems with a non-world readable home directory configuration?

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4. notify-osd – Changes to Ubuntu 9.04 notifications
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“…the Ubuntu Technical Board sees no reason to exclude Mono or applications based upon it from the archive, or from the default installation set.

Since the Mono stack is already a dependency of the default installation set for many remixes of Ubuntu, including the Desktop Edition, there is no reason to consider a dependency on Mono as an issue when suggesting applications for the default set.”

Since the Mono stack is already default in the most common remix of Ubuntu (the Desktop Edition, based on download statistics), it makes sense that the official position should reflect this. One of the main curiousities is that the release of this statement brings up, is why it was released. Fingers point towards to obviously new Mono based C# application being released as default packages in Ubuntu. Perhaps one of these applications will be Banshee as a replacement for Rhythmbox, which is a replacement continually discussed on Ubuntu Forums with each new release.

One of the main concerns of using and including more C# programs in the default Ubuntuinstallation is the software patents Microsoft hold. If Microsoft were to force all free implementatons of C# to discontinue, we would suddenly loose the ability to (legally) use such applications. Although we would be able to use, manipulate, and distribute the code for these applications, interpretation of a free C# implementation (and more specifically, the use of the implementation) could be that which is deemed illegal. This would have the effect of taking a bite out of the software library until these programs are rewritten in any other language which does not require the use of Mono.

Relying on Mono and C# is very risky due to the Microsoft held software patents. The substantial risks have been discussed siginificantly by others also stating why you should not use C# due in part to the Mono reliance. Although there is a convinience associated with C# programming, I’d personally rather not take the risk for any project I’d want to make public and usable by others in case it was suddenly unable to be used in my prefered operating system.

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2. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
3. Google Chrome OS Raising Awareness of Open Source Software
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5. Ubuntu 100 Paper Cuts Usability Initiative – Professional focus on one hundred usability issues within the Ubuntu operating system

This initiative is great, not necessarily in implementation (although I do applaud those working on it directly), but in planning and mode of thought. It shows that Ubuntu really is striving to become the most usable and user-friendly distribution available. Some of the usability issues are very simple problems that are easily fixed, making them ideal to be defined as paper cuts. For example, the unexpected scrolling through available workspaces, a simple mis-leading tooltip, a proposed change of the file manager’s (Nautilus’) default toolbar layout or even an issue as simple as shipping more or less screensavers by default. Almost all of these usability bugs are incredibly simple fixes, in many cases (such as the ‘unexpected scrolling through available workspaces’ issue, the fix was a simple toggle of an existing boolean value. For the most part, these bugs have had much more time dedicated to discussion of the issue, and its intended resolution from dedicated community members, that the time required to fix them.

I personally think that this is fantastic way to tackle all the small issues with Ubuntu that can really annoy first-time users, but do not concern the more experienced or seasoned users of Ubuntu. It looks from the Launchpad interface for One Hundred Paper Cuts, that this initiative will be continued into further releases of Ubuntu. Hopefully, this is the case and not only will each release have more features, speed and stability, but also an ever increasing usability factor for new Ubuntu users.

There is plenty more information regarding 100 Paper Cuts, its initial progress and integration/planning for Kubuntu. Please comment and tell me, what do you think of the initiative? Do you think it should continue with each new release of Ubuntu, and should there be more focus on the core product Ubuntu, or should it be split more equally with Kubuntu and Xubuntu?

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Henry Markram, the director of the AI Blue Brain Project, has already simulated many parts of lower life-form brains, such as rat. He announced at this year’s TED Global conference that “It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years,” and comically added that “… if we do succeed, we will send a hologram to TED to talk.”

One of the primary uses of this artificial brain, it is stated, will be research into and the hope for cures of various mental illnesses. This is an admirable goal indeed and shows how projects that initially seem set in motion initially for research purposes, can be directed to a humanitarian cause. This is fantastic is my opinion, but it was certainly not the first thing that crossed my mind regarding the idea of the creation of a functional human.

If you are like myself, and believe that we (as humans) are the sum of our parts, you most likely do not believe in a ’soul’ or spiritual presence that defines us as who we are. In which case, you believe our personality, memories, our will and those things often referred to as being part of a ’soul’ are all in fact, stored within our human brains. All our actions, decisions and motivations as a species have therefore been dedicated by the neural impulses within our brains, ignoring overriding environment factors. Assuming this is indeed the case, if we were to create a fully functional human brain (be it artificial), then what would we actually be creating?

If you believe what was just assumed, we would be creating an ‘entity’ capable of actions, decisions and motivations and would have a personality, memories and will. In which case, could it be deemed to have a ’soul’ if such things are to be believed in? It would, regardless of spiritual meaning, have all the attributes we commonly refer as being part of a ’soul’. What does this mean? If fully functional, the brain would be conscious, be capable of thought, decisions and learning right from wrong. Would this give the ‘entity’ rights?

I expect the arguments that this ‘entity’ is only artificial, but then again, many humans who have electronic or mechanical implants are, in part, artificial. It could also be said that the ‘entity’ is merely a computer. The counter-argument in this case is obviously that so are we. We may be biological in nature, but the human brain is merely that; a biological computer, even using electronic impulses sent from neuron to synapse to neuron, causing all of our own personal processing and data storage in the form of thoughts and memories.

Please, feel free to give your opinions. What do you think of the idea of an artificial brain? Should it be seen a life form, of sorts? Or do you simply not believe that the creation of an artificial human brain will be possible within the next 10 years, or indeed ever?

Related posts:

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However, Firefox 3.5 is available in Ubuntu 9.04’s software repository by the package name of ‘firefox-3.5′. The application is named Shiretoko, which does not sound very ‘Firefox’ but is in fact Mozilla’s internal development name for Firefox 3.5. To install the firefox-3.5 package in Ubuntu 9.04, just click here, run the command below or install the package via Synaptic Package Manager (found in System -> Administration).

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5

Although most users who have installed software via the command line will already realise this, the use of ’sudo’ to elevate the command to superuser privileges will prompt you for your user password prior to installation.

After installation, you’ll find Firefox 3.5 available under Applications -> Internet -> Shiretoko, or can be executed via the command ‘firefox-3.5′. If you wish to make Firefox 3.5 your default web browse under Ubuntu 9.04, first open Preferred Applications which can be found under System -> Preferences. Under ‘Web Browser’ (on the ‘Internet’ tab) select ‘Custom’ and then enter the command below in the ‘Command’ box.

firefox-3.5 %s

Now, all new links clicked should open Firefox 3.5 / Shiretoko instead of the previous default.

The inspiration for the article was the many discussions I’ve already had with users regarding how to install the latest version of firefox in Ubuntu 9.04 and also discussions regarding the gerneal update policy of update, i.e. the lack of backporting of popular applications. This is great for stability, can be mean reduced functionality and in the case of the Firefox, performance, in which Firefox 3.5 heavily out performs Firefox 3.0. However, discussion of update policies and release cycles is another topic entirely.

I hope this basic installation guide comes as a help to those users who want Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu 9.04. Feel free to discuss below, and add comments regarding any alternate installation methods or even your thoughts on whether or not Firefox 3.5 should have been ‘officially’ backported to Ubuntu 9.04.

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2. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
3. Mono – Ubuntu Technical Board – Position on Mono and the integration of applications
4. notify-osd – Changes to Ubuntu 9.04 notifications
5. Spotify – How to get Spotify links to work in Linux

However, Linux has, quite recently, gained a significant boost as a desktop operating system. This increase in popularity of Linux on the desktop can be said to be partly due to the rise of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. In addition, the increase in the use of low power personal computers, such as netbooks, has also prompted an increase in the use of Linux systems. Some netbooks are now being shipped with stripped down, simplified Linux operating systems, to enable faster boot times and reduced power consumption, resulting in lower battery consumption over time on these smaller computing devices.

Another advantage of Linux systems is their relatively low vulnerability to malicious software such as viruses and spyware, when comparing to Microsoft Windows based systems. This is one of the major reasons, amongst others, that Linux is used on many servers and the advantage is becoming more and more evident as desktop adoption of Linux becomes more prevalent.

One of the major incentives of Linux on the desktop is true customisability. Since, as a general rule, all the code used in the majority of Linux desktop environment is open-source, it can essentially be modified precisely to the end-user’s liking. Of course, for most users, reprogramming their desktop environment entirely is not an option, and thus most desktop environments and their provide many options customisable via configuration files or more commonly a graphical configuration utility of some kind.

This is a very broad introduction of what Linux is, and due to that aim, it contains very little in the way of details or specifics. I have written more articles and several tutorials regarding Linux systems in the Ubuntu / Linux section of my website, which you are free to read.

More general information about Linux is available from the Linux Wikipedia article or if interested in specific Linux distributions, visit the DistroWatch website. My personally recommended and regularly used Linux distribution is Ubuntu, which is generally considered fine for new users and experts alike.

If you want to request an article about any Linux or open-source software topic, feel free to make your request in the comments section below. Also, any constructive criticism or general on-topic discussion is entirely welcome.

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2. Google Chrome OS Raising Awareness of Open Source Software
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5. Ubuntu 100 Paper Cuts Usability Initiative – Professional focus on one hundred usability issues within the Ubuntu operating system

1. Jordan – It is a concert hall, a country, much more and a person… me!

If you are looking for the country Jordan, then boy are you lost.

However, if you are looking for the Canadian lacroose player, then you’ve come to the right pl… wait, no, you haven’t.

My name is Jordan Hall and I am the author, programmer and if you will take a trip to the early ninties with me, ‘webmaster’ of this website. For more detailed information about myself, please see my biography.

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If you are unsure as to what Spotify is exactly, stop right there and read what I have written about Spotify.

These instructions refer to getting ’spotify://’ links to function, as expected, within Firefox. To do, this we will create a basic script to launch Spotify via Wine and then we will modify Firefox settings in order to make it correctly handle the Spotify protocol.

1. First, create a new file in your home directory, calling it ’spotify.sh’ or a name of equal meaning.
2. Paste the following code in to this file. This code launches Spotify (providing it is installed in the default directory) via Wine, and passes through the first argument, in this case, the spotify URL data.
   

   #!/bin/bash
   
   wine “$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Spotify/spotify.exe” /uri “$1″

3. Make the newly created script executable (i.e. give it the executable permission), which can be done using the following command or if using a file manager such as Nautilus, via the Properties window.
   

   chmod +x spotify.sh

4. Add the following two values to Firefox. This can be done be opening Firefox and typing ‘about:config’ into the address bar, clicking past the warning message if necessary, and right clicking the central area and choosing ‘new’ from the pop-up menu then choosing the type of value you wish to create.
   

   Type: string
   
   Name: network.protocol-handler.app.spotify
   
   Value: /home/username/spotify.sh
   
   (Replace ‘username’ in the value above with the username you use to login to your Linux system)
   
   
   
   Type: boolean
   
   Name: network.protocol-handler.external.spotify
   
   Value: true

After following these instructions, you should be able to click ’spotify://’ links within Firefox, and have Spotify open (within Wine) to the relevant track, album, artist or playlist. Enjoy and feel free to use the comments sections below!

Related posts:

1. Spotify – What exactly is Spotify? A fantastic steaming music service, that’s what.
2. Wine – Wine is not an emulator – it is a Windows compatibility layer
3. Spotify – Spotify gets an offline mode, so your music can play even when offline
4. Linux – A simple explanation of Linux and Linux-based operating systems
5. Firefox – How to easily install Mozilla Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu 9.04

More information is available about Spotify at the following links:

• Official Spotify website
• Spotify wikipedia article

The following Spotify guide is available on this website.

• How to get Spotify links to work in Linux

Related posts:

1. Spotify – Spotify gets an offline mode, so your music can play even when offline
2. Spotify – How to get Spotify links to work in Linux
3. Wine – Wine is not an emulator – it is a Windows compatibility layer
4. Ubuntu 9.10 Release

If you wish, you can visit the official Wine website to get more details about this excellent free piece of software and download instructions.

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1. Spotify – How to get Spotify links to work in Linux
2. Linux – A simple explanation of Linux and Linux-based operating systems
3. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
4. Versions – Ubuntu versioning – names or numbers?
5. Google Chrome OS Raising Awareness of Open Source Software

• systeminfo | find “Up Time”
• net statistics server (Note that this command displays actually shows the last boot time from which the uptime can be calculated)
• Uptime (This command is not included in the operating system, but is an uptime utility provided by Microsoft)

Also, it is worth noting that Windows Server 2003 systems and above record their uptime in the System event log at midnight every night, as Event ID 6013. See the screenshot below from a Windows Server 2003 uptime event.

In Mac OS X, Linux, Unix and other Unix-like operating systems, simply enter the following command into any terminal and the current system load values and uptime will be displayed.

• uptime

In OpenVMS systems, the following command provides the system uptime.

• show system /noprocess

Hope this helps you find the uptime of your system regardless of the running operating system, be it Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix or any other system.

If you know uptime commands specific to any other operating systems not listed, please use the comments system and I will update this article accordingly. Of course, feel free to post your uptime(s) as well – a good bit of competition is always healthy!

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2. Wine – Wine is not an emulator – it is a Windows compatibility layer
3. Linux – A simple explanation of Linux and Linux-based operating systems
4. Henry Markram discusses computer simulated brains
5. 10/GUI – Reinventing desktop human-computer interaction

Originally released in September of 2008, Dropbox has grown to be an enormously useful and popular online storage solution. Although Dropbox functions as a storage solution, its most welcoming features are the live synchronisation and sharing features the software and service provides.

For those who have been missing out, Dropbox is incredibly simple to use. Essentially, you simply download a small application which runs in the background on your computer. This program creates a ‘Dropbox’ or ‘My Dropbox’ folder on your computer, and any files and/or folders placed within said folder are automatically synchronised to the online Dropbox storage service.

Most importantly, the Dropbox application can be installed on multiple computers allowing your files to be synchronised rapidly and automatically between many different computers. This can be immensely useful to users of multiple different computer systems, such as a home desktop PC, a work PC, a laptop and so on. Dropbox therefore replaces the need to carry around USB sticks and/or e-mailing files to yourself.

With a free account, you get 2 gigabytes of online storage space. Dropbox also includes a full revision control system and backup of deleted files, allowing files that are deleted accidentally to be restored via the web interface from any computer. The revision control system developed by Dropbox also allows you to restore files to earlier versions again using the simple Dropbox web interface.

I have personally been using Dropbox for many months now and can highly recommend it, both as a synchronisation service and a reliable backup system that has saved my important files on at least one occasion in recent memory. If you wish, you can download the Dropbox application here for Windows, Linux or Mac.

Copyright: The image in this article may be copyright to Dropbox, and is used under terms of fair use in good faith.

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Later today (1st October 2009), the Spotify client will be activated with a new feature – offline mode and the ability to syncronise playlists to your computer’s hard drive. The mobile Spotify applications, for Google Android phones and the iPhone, had this feature upon release and it is now being integrated into their primary product, the desktop Spotify application.

Update: Spotify have sent offline mode live and made an annoucement about offline mode on their blog.

The image above displays how Spotify will show tracks which are currently downloading to your computer’s hard drive and the playlist icon indicating whether or not a playlist is set to the ‘Available Offline’ status. To set a playlist to be available offline will be a simple matter of right-clicking the desired playlist and clicking ‘Make available offline’ from the right-click menu. The chosen playlists and all their tracks will then be downloaded to your computer’s hard drive (encrypted of course) and be available to play if your Internet connection goes down temporarily or even if you have no connection at all. I would imagine, although this has not be confirmed, that users will be required to login (online) to Spotify at least once a month so the client knows the Premium subscription is still active.

Spotify themselves announced the following regarding Offline mode.

“We’re proud to announce that later today we will be extending the popular ‘Offline mode’ that is available on Spotify Mobile and bringing it to the desktop version of Spotify.”

“Beginning later today, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to select their playlists and set them to be ‘Available offline’. Those playlists will then be synced to the computer so you can listen to your favorite tunes even if your internet connection goes down or if you’re at summer house with no connection at all.”

It appears this idea was originally submitted by a Spotify customer on Spotify’s idea pages, as ‘Offline Spotify’.

“It would have been great if it could be turned on “Offline mode”. So the music that we listen to most, could be listen to, even in offline mode.”

More information about Spotify’s new offline mode is available from TechRadar, the Telegraph and Times Online.

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1. Spotify – What exactly is Spotify? A fantastic steaming music service, that’s what.
2. Spotify – How to get Spotify links to work in Linux
3. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
4. New England Conservatory (NEC) of Music

From the 10/GUI website

The 10/GUI project’s concept video (as shown above) is described as aiming to inform, inspire, and start discussions. It is a indeed, a fascinating concept. The ideas behind increasing the input bandwidth of direct interaction is very unique, considering most similar ideas work only to increase the visual options available graphically to the end-user, rather than to increase the number of controls with which the end-user can simultaneously interact.

The video displays many graphical user interface controls with which we are already familiar, such as the scrollbar. With a multi-touch, or equivilent system of controls, where there are multiple points of interactions, many of these old control concepts may become redundant. In some cases, such as with the ‘kinetic’ scrolling/zooming present in many new touch-screen mobile phones (for example, the Apple iPhone, Nokia N97 and HTC Hero), this is already very much the case, and the older controls, that are retaining, are often done so only for familiarity and legacy purposes.

The hardware technology for the concept shown in the 10/GUI concept video is already possible, being an effective multi-touch sensitive panel without a screen. The only aspects that missing are the development of such a device, the writing of driver software for the portrayed multi-touch device, and a window manager built and configured to deal with the concepts. In many ways, the interfaces built for small screen net-books, in which all active windows are forcibly maximised to the full size of the screen (as in the Ubuntu net-book remix), is the closest we currently have to the 10/GUI concept.

What are your thoughts on 10/GUI? Also, what about the general future of human to computer interaction? Will we stick to the regular keyboard and mouse way of interacting while the graphical user interface remains in flux, or will there be huge developments in new interaction devices, such as the multi-touch system the 10/GUI concept proposes?

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This deal will mean tweets will appear from Twitter alongside normal Google and Bing search results. Without a doubt, this will make Twitter an even larger SEO tool than it already is. Constantly the microblogging service is bombarded with spam bots attempting to promote their services, which is certainly an issue when those the tweets those bots submit provide very little in the way of useful information or news.

With blogging slowly being seen as an activity which can be done professionally, this deal could potentially open the doorway to professional microbloggers, a promotional medium which has so far been the realm of mainly automated agents (or bots) and celebrity/government public relations agencies.

Regarding this deal, Microsoft have already make a move to set up a separate, standalone search page on Bing for microblogging results from Twitter. This is likely to be a preceding step towards integrating the tweets into the main Bing search results. Google will be doing the later from the start, when its microblogging service is rolled out “in the coming months”according to Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google in a recent blog post.

For both companies, this deal will mean the search engines will have direct syncronised access to the tweets almost as soon as they are posted on to Twitter’s microblogging site.

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It turns out this fix was a very minor adjustment to a font offset within the code relating to the rendering of micro-blogs. Locating and changing this offset, recompiling and packaging was complete in under half an hour since it was a simple fix.

I uploaded the bug fix to Launchpad Bug #460069 as gwibber-2.0.0~bzr476-0ubuntu2 prior to the release of Ubuntu 9.10, but sadly the change was rolled back by gwibber-2.0.0~bzr476-0ubuntu3. This roll back was justified by the reasoning that this should be fixed upsteam properly, rather than the implemented quick fix of a simple font offeset adjustment.

If you are using Gwibber and experiencing the large font sizes issue, feel free to make use of the following .deb package which fix the issue. This package is also available from the Launchpad bug discussed above.

• gwibber-2.0.0~bzr476-0ubuntu2_all.deb – Gwibber 2.0.0 Debian package, for both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) architectures, with fix for large font size issue (via change in font offset)
• gwibber-2.0.0~bzr476-0ubuntu2.debdiff – Gwibber 2.0.0 .debdiff patch of change from gwibber_2.0.0~bzr476-0ubuntu1 to gwibber-2.0.0~bzr476-0ubuntu2

Please note that if you make use of this package, it will be considered out of date by your system and your package manager will attempt to update it to gwibber-2.0.0~bzr476-0ubuntu3 which will roll back the changes, so you will be back on the larger fonts. Until an upstream fix is pushed out to Ubuntu 9.10, I recommend retaining gwibber-2.0.0~bzr476-0ubuntu2 and not allowing your package manager to update to the latest version of Gwibber.

If you wish this change to be reapplied officially in the Ubuntu software repositories, please comment here and, more importantly, on the relevant Launchpad Bug #460069. Even though I agree the change should be fixed properly upstream at some point, I believe this package works well as a temporary fix of the aesthetic font issue, until the upstream fix is complete and distributed.

As always, any comments or questions about the subject of this article, Gwibber, micro-blogging or Ubuntu in general are always welcome.

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This versatile apparel has come a long way from its beginnings in 1920. The t-shirt has evolved from a simple short-sleeved crew neck design to the now in-demand t-shirts with V-necklines, long sleeves, and with or without caps or hoods.

The first step in creating t-shirts involves the selection of the appropriate clothing material for the specific type of shirt you have in mind. T-shirt design is basically the same for all manufacturers except for a few variations in the sleeves and pockets.

T-shirts are made of different materials including polyester, cotton or a combination of these two materials. Those made of cotton are however much-preferred by people living in the tropical areas as they are much cooler. Lately though, t-shirts made of knit fabrics, rib knits, jerseys and interlock rib knits have become popular. Jersey t-shirts are much cheaper and are thus more popular among the masses. Consumers who are conscious about the environmental effects of the products they wear however opt for t-shirts made of cotton that are grown organically.

They look so simple but have you thought about the hours of work and creativeness exerted in the process of creating the t-shirt you are wearing? Thanks to the industrial revolution t-shirts are fairly easy to make and the process is highly automated.

Even small establishments that manufacture t-shirts already rely on machines that have been specially designed to perform the different steps in creating t-shirts from the cutting stage, assembling and then sewing. T-shirts have very simple patterns and this consists of the separate sections for the front and back parts plus the sleeves and pockets when it applies.

T-shirts are like blank canvasses that are manufactured to give artists a chance to dabble with paint. Mass-produced t-shirts however have identical designs and patterns.

The final stage in making t-shirt is the attachment of the label at the neckline

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