BSOD(roid)

I published my first Google Android application today: BSOD(roid). The application is an adaptation of the BSOD XScreenSaver hack that simulates crashes from various operating systems. I've squeezed in 20 crashes for about a dozen operating system. If you have an Android phone, please give it a try! It's free and licensed under the GNU GPL.





Get Application
Source code

Positive reviews!

Bing Ding? Microsoft vs. Google

Microsoft unleashed it's new Google killer called Bing. At first glance, Bing is remarkably like Google, and seems to work fine with Firefox on Kubuntu 9.04.

Of course, I had to put the engine to the test, and try a couple of searches. Similar to Google, Bing offers suggestions as you type. However, the suggestions seem remarkably biased. Take a look at the followings suggestions after entering Linux as a search criteria.

Google:


Microsoft:


Looking at Microsoft's own product, you can't help but feel that they're trying to sell you Vista instead of encouraging you to wait for Windows 7.

Google:


Microsoft:


As nice as Bing is, I predict that ultimately, it will fail. Not because of any technical or financial reason. It will fail simply because it will not serve the needs of the majority of surfers.
Here's why. Try the following search.

Google:


Microsoft:


Oups? Where are the suggestions? Porn does not give any results either. Shucks! Looks like Microsoft is on the prude side.

Starting PPPoE on boot in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty

I spend three hours trying to make sure that PPPoE started at boot time on my mothers computer. PPPoE works normally after running pppoeconf or pon dsl-provider, but for some reason would not reactivate on the next boot.

Turns out, I had to change:
iface eth0 inet manual
to
iface eth0 inet dhcp

in /etc/network/interfaces

After the change, PPPoE now starts automatically on boot.

If you need a hand:

• hit ALT+F2.


• Enter the following command:


• gksudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces


• Find the line that read iface eth0 inet manual.


• Change the word manual to dhcp


• Save the file and reboot!

Birth of Experi

I've kicked around some code for the pass two or three month to help me develop a couple of game. As the code became stable, I published it on SourceForge.net. the library is named Experi. The name comes from the word experimental but without the mental. In other words, it's an mindless experiment ;).

Experi is a simple game library written in C. It wraps SDL and OpenGL to provide simple APIs to assist in the development of a game. Experi does not strive to reproduce existing game library like Allegro or Crystal Space 3D. Instead, it aims to be lightweight, low-level and minimalistic.

Of course, it's a work in progress, but I'm hoping to showcase a few demos soon. For anyone interested, visit the Experi project on SourceForge for more details.

Get rid of all URLs in an OpenOffice document

I just stumbled on a really neat trick that I have to share with everyone. Recently, I had to take an HTML document and format it for printing. The act of transforming an HTML document to ODF was remarkably easy, thanks to styles and the find & replace command. However, I learned that getting rid of a URL (link) is not a trivial as I would have liked — especially if you want to get rid of all of them at once!

Purely by accident, I stumbled on the fact that replacing the link address by a space is the equivalent of deleting the URL. Yay!

Thus, to (cleanly) remove all hyperlink in a document without loosing the format, here's what you need to do:

1. Select the entire document (CTRL+A or Edit->Select All)
2. Open the format character dialog (Format->Character)
3. Click on the Hyperlink tab
4. Type a single space in the URL field
5. Click OK!

Voila! No more URLs in the entire document. I've tested this with OpenOffice 2.4 and 3. Also, please note that this only works from the Format->Character menu command. The same does not work from the Edit->Hyperlink menu command.

Hope that's of use to someone out there!

J-F

Java (does|doesn't) suck

I use Java programs all the time: jEdit, Eclipse and ArgoUML just to name a few. As a programmer, Java has served me well for over a decade, and I've never once wrote a piece of Java code of which the performance was unacceptable.

However, I keep hearing other user complain and snicker about the performance of Java. Though I try to defend the performance of one of my favourite programming language, I continue to hear the same chant again and again.

Once and for all, let me say: Java is not slow. If you don't believe me, come to my Java Performance Tuning course. I'll be happy to write equivalent Java and C code and time the execution of both.

An article on Phoronix.com brought to light something that I never expected. It would seem that Java on Windows Vista actually runs slower that Java on Ubuntu. I have to admit that this was a great surprise for me! I always assumed that Windows being the larger market for Java it would be optimize for the platform. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Maybe that's why there are still a lot of folks out there who are disillusioned by the performance of Java.

From prior experience, I suspect that Java application take up much less memory on Linux than Windows, but I haven't investigate that yet.

The State of the Operating System Market

Here's exiting news. For the first time in 15 years, the Windows market share fell below 90%. On the upswing is Mac OS X with 8.87% of the market, and Linux at 0.83%. Source

These numbers are important for a number of reasons. For starters, Microsoft is gradually loosing it's grasp on the operating system market. Apple is doing a fantastic job of nipping Microsoft's monopoly.

As for Linux, you may noticed that it enjoyed 0.93% market share in August. I suspect this has been due to the release of UMPCs like th Eee PC. As the fad cooled down, chances are the sales cooled down as well. However, while visiting Future Shop on the weekend, I saw five UMPC with two of them running Linux. That's a 40% market share for Linux just there ;). As I predicted earlier, the rise of cheap computers will continue to hurt Microsoft as they are struggling to compete against free and open operating systems.

To put the numbers in perspective, here's a little report I put together with my trusty OpenOffice Calc:


A couple of interesting trends to notice.

Windows has been steadily loosing ground. This year alone, they've lost 2% of their market share. The year before that, 1.94%. Ouch! I can see why Microsoft was in a rush to deliver Vista. They needed something to help them regain the ground that they are loosing to other operating systems.

Apple has more than double their market presence over nearly five years. I personally attribute this to Mac OS X and Steve Job's marketing genius. Mac OS X is a true Unix operating system with a gorgeous interface slapped on top of it. This means that newcomers to computer have a system which is simple and inviting, while power-users have a solid Unix machine to hack. Personally, I feel that this has been a stroke of genius on Apple's part. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, or adopting Windows, they took advantage of FLOSS to custom build a rapidly growing operating system that is leaving Windows in the dust.

Linux is still barely a blip on the radar, but is still growing. Between this year and last year, Linux enjoyed a growth of 30%. I feel that this is important, since Linux is already well established on the server, but is struggling to gain traction on the desktop. I'm of the opinion that this increase is due to the UMPC explosion earlier this year. Linux is slowly by steadily spreading to the desktop.

What remains to be seen is how next year will play out. Windows 7 is due out in mid 2009, and sounds like Microsoft may actually get this one right. I don't expect to see the same level of anticipation as there was with Vista, since Windows 7 sounds like the Windows Vista that customers where expecting to get in the first place.

Linux has definitely penetrated the market. It is becoming more and more of a household term but retains a mythical aura. It has become one of those buzzwords that folks like to throw in conversation.

I'm a very poor prophet of the future, but I would like to predict some exciting movements next year. I believe that Mac OS X will continue to climb. I suspect that Linux may drop a bit, now that the UMPC buzz is dying down. Windows may regains some of it's share. I would even go so far as saying that Windows' market share will remain stable next year — that is, no significant drop or rise.

However, in the years to come, as cell phones are starting to overlap desktop computers in terms of functionality, I suspect that this is where we will see Linux shoot up. Reading about the buzz on Windows 7, I'm getting the impression that Microsoft is positioning Windows to be a competitor not to Linux or even the Mac OS X, but for the iPhone. Unfortunately, I don't think they are going the right way about it. Microsoft's vision seems to be focused on the tablet PC. Windows XP running on a tablet PC was introduced in 2001 by Bill Gates. However, seven years later, tablet PCs failed to make a dent in the market.

The reason tablet PC have not replaced laptop is due their limitation. As cool as they look, they are nowhere near as useful as a regular laptop. For instance, most do not have a keyboard, or a cover for the screen. Also, a tablet PC cost considerably more than a regular laptop. As for competing with cell phones, a tablet is simply too bulky to haul, and whip out whenever you need it. Thus, the tablet PC is not the best of both world. It's just an expensive toy.

I have no doubt that multi-touch displays a-la-iPhone will become de facto in a few years. But once again, Microsoft is playing catch-up since Apple has already invested heavily in the technology, and has already benefited from the fruits of their research. Linux is also multi-touch aware, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the community builds with the technology.

One more OS to note is OpenSolaris. When Sun Microsystem initially decided to open-source their flagship operating system, I was skeptical. My original impression is that Sun was hoping to breathe back life into the venerable but ailing SunOS before it sputtered and died. To my surprise, it looks like OpenSolaris could quickly become competition for the likes of Ubuntu. As much as I like Linux, I'm please to see solid competition on the horizon. I would go as far as to say that OpenSolaris is an operating system you may want to keep your eyes on.