Four short links: 6 November 2009

Barcode Scanning, Downloadable Community Book, Gov Hack Day, Android Kludges

1. Red Laser -- "impossibly accurate barcode scanning". Uses Google Product Search to identify products that you scan using the camera on the phone. I remember Rael and I talking to Jeff Bezos about this years ago, before camphones had the resolution to decode barcodes. The future is here and it's $1.99 on the App Store ... (via Ed Corkery on Twitter)
2. The Art of Community For Free Download -- Jono Bacon's O'Reilly book on community management now available for free download (still available for purchase!).
3. Gov Hack -- Australian government ran a hack day with their open data, this is their writeup.
4. Android Mythbusters -- slides for talk by Matt Porter at Embedded Linux Conference Europe. A (long) catalogue of the kludges in Android.

Four short links: 29 October 2009

Learning Programming, Functional Javascript, Controlling Firefox, Kicking Ass (with SSDs)

1. Julie Learns to Program -- blog from our own Julie Steele as she learns her first programming language. The point is: it’s in me. I wasn’t sure that is was, and now I know—it is. And what, exactly, is “it”? It is the bug. It is the combination of native curiosity and stubbornness that made me play around with the code and take some wild guesses instead of running straight to Google (or choosing to stay within the bounds of the exercise). That might sound like a small thing, but I know it is not. I was determined to make the program do what I wanted it to do, I came up with a few guesses as to how to do that, and I kept trying different things until I succeeded (and then I felt thrilled). As much as I have to learn, I know now that I really am hooked. And that I’ll get there.
2. underscore.js -- new Javascript library of functional programming primitives (map, each, inject, etc.). (via Simon Willison)
3. WWW::Mechanize::Firefox -- Perl module to control Firefox, using the same interface as the WWW::Mechanize web robot module. (via straup on Delicious)
4. Anatomy of SSDs -- teeth-rattlingly technical Linux Magazine article explaining the different types of SSDs (Solid State Disks--imagine a hard drive made of rapid-access Flash memory). Artur Bergman told me that installing an SSD drive in his MacBook Pro gave the greatest performance increase of any computer upgrade he'd performed since he went from no computer to one.

Four short links: 8 October 2009

DIY Baby Rocker, Unix Systems Glory, Encrypting Ephemera, and Explaining Creative Joy

1. Linux Baby Rocker -- inventive use of a CD drive and the eject command ... (via Hacker News)
2. I Like Unicorn Because It's Unix -- forceful rant about the need to rediscover Unix systems programming. Reminds me of the Varnish notes where the author explains that it works better because it uses the operating system instead of recreating it poorly.
3. Encrypting Ephemeral Storage and EBS Volumes on Amazon -- step-by-step instructions. (via Matt Biddulph on Delicious)
4. You Have No Life -- if a video smacks even slightly of concentrated effort or advance planning, someone will inevitably scoff that the subject has a) "too much time on his hands" or b) "no life." Ten times out of ten. [...] After six years I lack a succinct, meaningful response to my students' defensive, clannish embrace of mediocrity, though I'm grateful for this tweet, which comes pretty close: dwineman: You say "looks like somebody has too much time on their hands" but all I hear is "I'm sad because I don't know what creativity feels like."

Four short links: 14 September 2009

NoSQL, Gov 2.0 Videos, Linux Conf, Geodata Grump

1. WTF Is A Supercolumn? -- Cassandra is a NoSQL database, a triplestore that scales superwell. Because it's not the usual relational thing we're accustomed to, the language can be a barrier to learning: ColumnFamily, SuperColumns, and more. This post explains what's what, with examples. (via joshua on Delicious)
2. Gov 2.0 Summit Videos -- When I grow up, I want to be Clay Shirky, Tom Steinberg, and Carl Malamud. Some videos are up, others coming up soon--stay tuned for Carl's, which received the only standing O of the show. [updated with link to Carl's talk when it was released]
3. linux.conf.au Schedule Posted -- bring the thunda down unda in 2010. The schedule was just released.
4. Transport for London Does Not Like the Ordnance Survey -- an Official Information Request yielded the Transport for London response to an Ordnance Survey "strategy consultation". The OS should appoint an independent body to review their licence documents and pay them based on the number of words deleted. Sound advice too--OS have crippled the geospatial industry in the UK by charging for their (admittedly finely-detailed) data. (via mattb on delicious)

Four short links: 12 June 2009

1. New Media Challenges: Legal and Policy Considerations for Federal Use of Web 2.0 Technology (Center for American Progress) -- report on the issues around Web 2.0 use in Government, which include privacy, security, Public Records Act, advertising, etc. See also It's Not the Campaign Anymore: How the White House Is Using Web 2.0 Technology So Far from the same group.
2. Government Data and the Invisible Hand -- Ed Felten has written a fantastic piece on the relationship between data, presentations of the data, and the government departments that produce the data. It is full of powerful recommendations: The best way to ensure that the government allows private parties to compete on equal terms in the provision of government data is to require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large. (via timoreilly on Twitter)
3. Fast Modularity Community Structure Inference Algorithm -- This algorithm is being widely used in the community of complex network researchers, and was originally designed for the express purpose of analyzing the community structure of extremely large networks (i.e., hundreds of thousand or millions of vertices). The original version worked only with unweighted, undirected networks. I've recently posted a version that works on weighted, undirected networks. (via mattb on Delicious)
4. First Driver for USB 3.0 -- After a year-and-a-half's worth of work, Intel hacker Sarah Sharp announced that Linux will be the first operating system supporting USB 3.0. (via deusx on Delicious)

My Netbook Took Me Back To Windows

When I left Microsoft I switched to a Macbook Pro and didn't look back. I never thought that I would use a Windows machine regularly again. Then I got an Asus Eee PC 1000h (10.2 in screen, 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, upgraded to 2GB RAM; I judge it to be on the larger end of a netbook). For three weeks it was my sole computer. It runs XP and that is just fine for what I expect from a netbook.

How is the netbook different? It is a secondary machine that knows its place. It is not as powerful as my Macbook nor is the workspace as big; I am definitely less efficient on it. I got it for its size and price. The 10 inch screen (1024x600 resolution) is fine for most work. The weight (3.2 lbs) is a relief for a traveller. And ringing in under $350 (with discounts and Live Cashback) it is an affordable luxury. In fact the price makes it almost disposable. Not disposable in a throw-away fashion, but in a if it gets stolen, lost or ruined while I am on the road it will not be the end of the world or a costly item to replace. It's a machine that I can throw in my backpack when I go out for the day and not worry too much.

During my three week of travels I used the machine primarily for browsing the web, answering email, managing photos and watching video. It has a tiny screen, but I sought software that left as much room as possible in the workspace. Chrome, for example, takes up very little screen space with toolbars. I switched from the clunky Zimbra Desktop client to Windows Live Mail (a really well-designed mail client if you can overlook the lack of smart folders and a couple of quirks).

My other major criteria for software was the ability to sync off the machine. Other than when managing media I tried to never save directly to the file-system and only to the web. The netbook will never be my main machine and I do not want to "forget" a file on it. I relied on Evernote to record my notes and save them to the cloud.

To make the machine more reminiscent of my Mac I installed Launchy. It's an extendable application launcher like Quicksilver. With Launchy I never use the Start Menu.

This is not to say that I didn't find the computer limiting. I was unable to install Valve's Portal (most likely due to the integrated graphics card) and video occasionally stuttered on the machine. I try to keep a minimum number of apps open to prevent the machine from slowing down.

Instead of XP I could run a Linux variety or Mac OS X. I do dual-boot with Ubuntu-eee, but it is not my primary OS. As you can see in the screesnhot it is very icon heavy and does a good job of being user-friendly. However, the OS lacks the client software that I need (no Chrome or Evernote client). Soon there will be another Ubuntu designed specifically for netbooks. According to Techcrunch Tariq Krim is developing Jolicloud, but without more information I am not certain how it is different from Ubuntu-eee - based on screenshots they look very similar.

I ultimately chose XP because it stays out of the way, it has the software I want and it lets me get the job done. I am not sure that it will keep me. Chrome will be coming out on Linux. Evernote (and other clients) could opt to develop across all platforms. New netbook-oriented OSs are going to be designed with a netbook's characteristics in mind.

(It's being reported that Dell will start penalizing users for selecting XP over Vista to the tune of an extra $150. It's interesting to note that Dell does not offer Vista as an option for the Dell Mini, its netbook offering.)

(Ubuntu-eee screenshot courtesy of ubuntu-eee.com)

Update: In the comments Corey Burger provided some interesting information on Ubuntu-eee: The icon-heavy launcher is built by Canonical and is called the netbook-remix-launcher or ubuntu-mobile-edition launcher, depending. Ubuntu-eee is basically just that plus a few tweaks. Coming with Ubuntu 9.04 will be official images/isos for all sorts of netbooks.

Linux Kernel Worth $1.4 Billion

The Linux Foundation has released a report estimating the Linux kernel to be worth $1.4 billion, and the Fedora 9 distribution to be worth just over $10 billion. The report is an update of a 2002 report estimating the worth of Red Hat Linux 7.1 (Fedora is the community edition of Red Hat Linux, renamed in 2003). The report doesn't attempt to estimate the worth of the total Linux ecosystem, as some early speculators suggested it would, but instead sticks to the hard facts. The estimation is an industry standard formula-based analysis of current lines of code in the Linux kernel (7 million) and Fedora packages (200 million), calculating what it would cost to develop the kernel and Fedora distribution from scratch under present-day developer salaries and operating costs. The original and updated reports both include the kernel in the calculation of the distribution as a whole, but the new report breaks out a separate figure for the kernel, highlighting its significance within the distribution.

One important perspective to carry away from this report is the astounding pace of Linux development. The 2002 report, which used the same tools for counting lines of code, and the same formulas for calculating total cost of development, listed Red Hat Linux 7.1 as worth $1.2 billion. There was some variation in the Fedora packages used for the the two reports, and for the sake of comparison the current report offers an alternate calculation using the lower operating costs of 2002 ($8 billion instead of $10 billion). Even so, we're looking at a distribution that's worth seven times what it was worth six years ago. Averaged out, that would mean every year sees an investment of time, money, and effort roughly equivalent to the entire history of Red Hat up to 2002.

In acknowledging the community and corporate contributions that made development of the Linux kernel and distributions possible, the report briefly touches on broader implications for open source development in general.

The companies and individuals who work on Linux-related projects and build this value profit by sharing the development burden with their peers (and sometimes competitors.) Increasingly it’s becoming clear that shouldering this research and development burden individually, as Microsoft has done, is an expensive approach to building software. While monopoly position in the past has allowed them to fund this massive development, we believe that in the future competition from collaborative forces will make such an isolated position untenable.

More and more companies are turning to Linux and open source software to radically cut R&D or licensing costs. In the current economy, that trend is sure to increase.