Review: Zorin OS 7 Core

It has been almost exactly a year since I reviewed Zorin OS 6 Core, which was based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin". The new version is based on Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail", so I'm reviewing that now.

Main Screen + Zorin OS Menu

What is Zorin OS? It is based on Ubuntu, uses a heavily customized GNOME 3 environment with Compiz as the WM and AWN as a panel. It also aims to look as close to Microsoft Windows as possible; at the moment, the target is specifically Microsoft Windows 8. There haven't been a huge number of changes from version 6 to version 7 of Zorin OS, aside from some theme and branding updates along with the usual package updates.

I tried this as a live USB made with UnetBootin; the Zorin OS website warns that the live system may be less stable than the installed system, so I'll see how that plays out. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Read more »

Read More

Review: Sabayon 9 KDE

Main Screen + Kickoff Menu

Over the last several months, I have become a fan of Chakra GNU/Linux. It seems like the best combination out there of stability, newness, and ease-of-use, as it uses KDE and is a rolling-release distribution. But even since before I found out about Chakra, there has been another distribution that aims to do all that, and that is Sabayon.

The last version of Sabayon that I reviewed was version 7, and it has been a while since that review. (If your memory needs refreshing, Sabayon is based on Gentoo and also uses KDE as its primary DE.) Since then, Sabayon has changed its GUI package manager and has of course brought in the usual round of application updates; I think it is now trying harder than ever to appear less amateurish, more professional, and more user-friendly, so we will see how that works out.

I tested [32-bit] Sabayon 9 KDE using a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Read more »

Read More

Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" MATE

Ah yes. I've been wanting to do this review for quite a while now. And now I can! So I will do just that.

Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

Linux Mint has been my OS of choice for the last 3 years now. For the last 2 years, I have been using Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" GNOME. That will be supported for another year from now, but that also means that I need to start looking into replacements for when the old version loses its official support. I've played around with Cinnamon, but it's still a bit immature and unstable and doesn't quite fit my needs; given that MATE is supposed to be GNOME 2 with the essential components simply renamed, it seems like this would be the best candidate for remaining on my computer's hard drive for the next few years.

I tested the live session of the 64-bit version using a live USB made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see if this is a worthy successor to what I have been using thus far.

Read more »

Read More

KevJumba and Google Search Results

I know I'm quite late on this one, but I just thought of a better way to explain this somewhat recent TechDirt post on why US Senators' assertions that Google remove all biases and put up "natural" search results is wrongheaded, because Google's search results are inherently influenced by people's searches, companies' advertising, and Google's own algorithms. The issue, if I remember correctly, revolves around the fact that Google is advertising for Canadian drugs when people search online to buy drugs, and it is in some instances illegal to buy Canadian drugs that are the same type and quality as comparable American drugs. Since then, it has basically become an antitrust lawsuit against Google (or the two cases may be separate, I'm not sure which), despite the fact that Google doesn't seem to have done anything like Microsoft did in its monopoly position to actually bar other competitors from entering or raise costs for consumers, and that's the key to actually making an antitrust suit successful. Plus, the Senators themselves have basically admitted that the issue is to stop Google from growing for the sole sake of stopping it from getting to a certain size (and not actually for protecting consumers), and they've even claimed that Google was destined to succeed and monopolize, which is totally false given that quite a few famous names in computer technology predicted in 1998 that Google would fail and that in 1998, there were about 10 different big competing search engines, and few people thought Google could muscle into the market.
But I'd like to share a thought or two specifically regarding the "biased search results", and show why they would be inherently biased anyway. As I've mentioned a few times before, I'm a fan of the videos of Kevin Wu, who goes by KevJumba on YouTube. In the first video posted here, KevJumba tells the viewers about how searching on Google the phrase "Is KevJumba" yields "Is KevJumba gay?" as the first suggestion. Leaving aside the issues of homophobia and all that, it's clear that happened because thousands upon thousands of users searched for that, and that became the search result most associated with his name. In response, he asked his users to make the result a bit more masculine: "Is KevJumba a heterosexual bear wrestler?" In the second video posted here, KevJumba thanks the viewers for making his dream come true, as "Is KevJumba a heterosexual bear wrestler?" is now the first suggestion not only for the phrase "Is KevJumba" but also just for the word "Is". That only happened because of his legions of fans rushing to Google and searching it repeatedly to make that the best suggestion for the phrase "Is". That already shows in two ways the fact that Google has no "natural/unbiased" search results; for now, I rest my case.

Read More

Review: PCLinuxOS 2011.6 KDE

Main Screen

The last time I tried out PCLinuxOS was at version 2010.07, and I tried the KDE version then too. I didn't particularly it then because I felt it dropped a lot of useful applications from the 2009.2 release (which I tried out before I started this blog), and because it was pretty slow on my computer. Then again, my perspectives and desires have changed a little bit since then, so don't read too much into that. Anyway, version 2011.6 has been released, and I'm reviewing it.

So what is PCLinuxOS? A long time ago in a galaxy that we are all in, PCLinuxOS was a Mandriva derivative with a custom theme, some changed default applications, and a few customization scripts. Since then, it has grown and diverged into basically its own distribution; really, the only thing it has in common with Mandriva is its package file type, and that is a particular form of RPM used in Mandriva. Other than that, it's basically entirely different, so there's no point in continuing to mention Mandriva after this. Anyway, it primarily uses KDE, though there are GNOME, Xfce, LXDE, and Enlightenment editions available as well. Its selling points include ease of use even for total newbies to Linux, stability, and a rolling-release model. Through it all, it has essentially remained a one-man project, and that man is Bill Reynolds, also known as "Texstar". How can stability be reconciled with a rolling-release model? Well, although packages are sent to the repositories when ready, "when ready" is only after a lot of time and testing. PCLinuxOS is known for its rather conservative stance on upgrading to newer pieces of software; for example, KDE 4 wasn't available for users at large until last year with the release of the PCLinuxOS 2010 series. This is a similar tack Debian-based Linux Mint will be taking by thoroughly testing all incoming Debian Testing packages and only releasing them when ready in monthly packages.

I tested the live session on a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in VirtualBox within that live USB session with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Read more »

Read More

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 July 3

There was one post that got one comment this week.

Google+: Initial Thoughts

Reader Thrash Cardiom said, "I think Google will be pushing it out quite quickly to the public. They need to achieve a critical mass so it doesn't become a wasteland. Too few people in Google+ means few people will use it."

Thanks to that commenter for commenting on that post this past week. This coming week, I hope to have at least one review out, but that depends on the distribution actually being released this week (and me being able to test it as usual). Also, I had hoped to review PCLinuxOS 2011.6 KDE, but it refused to start X/11 in the live session, and none of the suggestions in the forums seemed to help, so I felt that it wasn't worth a review. (Yes, I've learned my lesson from SimplyMEPIS 11.) Suffice it to say that I can't recommend it if I can't get it to actually start KDE in the live session, even when I've followed the proper procedures in creating a live USB. And remember, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Read More

Google+: Initial Thoughts

A couple days ago, my Google+ invite finally started working again, so I immediately signed up for the service.
If you want to know what it looks like and what functions/features it has in depth, I would suggest that you read somewhere else, because these are just my initial thoughts about it.
For the couple days that I have used it, I really like it on the whole. It's very similar to Facebook in terms of its interface, which has certainly made the transition easier. Plus, it has a much simpler privacy policy that's not likely to change much over time, along with privacy tools and options that are much easier to find and modify.
There are only two big issues that I have right now. The first is that not all my contacts on Facebook are using Google+ yet, but that'll probably happen in time once Google+ becomes available to the public, so that's not a really huge issue. The second is that when I decided to enable video chatting on Google+, I had to download a new Google Talk browser plugin and install that. This also overwrote the existing installed plugin; the unfortunate side effect has been that although my webcam and mic capture my video and audio fine, my speakers have suddenly started rendering sounds from the conversation as if both myself and the other person had inhaled helium. I haven't tried this with headphones yet, so I can't say for sure if this is truly a problem with the plugin, and I haven't tried this on other Linux distributions yet (aside from Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora"), so again I can't say if this is truly a problem with the plugin, but in any case, it's a problem, and it's also present in GChat.
Otherwise, I have high hopes for Google+, and I hope to use it just as much as Facebook once it becomes available to the public.

Read More

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 June 26

There was one post that got a few comments, so I'll try to repost most of those.

Facebook, Google+, and Centralized Proprietary Monocultures

Reader tracyanne said, "quote:: No matter who you are, if you plan on uploading pictures to these "cloud" sites, don't delete them from physical storage at home. Always keep backups on hard drives, etc. Because if you put all your eggs in one basket and that basket falls into a black hole, you're sunk. ::quote That advice pretty much applies to anything "in the cloud". You leave yourself vulnerable to pretty much anything "they" want to do, and anything that can go wrong, and run the risk of losing YOUR data when you rely on such "services". The only way you can ensure that your data (photographs, images, writing etc) is safe is to keep a copy on your own computers and keep backups of that."
Commenter Sandeep said, "Even with diaspora, there are not many people who are actually going to buy and maintain their own server. They will outsource to someone else who has a pod- which leads to the same issues of information gathering, privacy, backups, etc. I am not a diaspora user, so please say if these concerns are nonexistent."
An anonymous reader countered, "Google is not Facebook. Every company has its own motivations and its own people leading them. Google will screw up in completely different ways than Facebook and in different ways than open source projects. None are perfect."
But then commenter Scio gave another vote of confidence to "Diaspora. You can host your own node while keeping your connections with friends over the internet, without giving up your data. It's all encrypted using PGP keys. I think there's a false dichotomy between utilizing the web for data while losing your privacy and keeping everything on a stale hard drive with no flexibility while keeping your privacy. I think it's essential that we reflect on solutions like Amahi, ownCloud, SparkleShare, etc. to make sure that private data owned on the person's own hardware has a place among the services of companies."

Thanks to all those who commented on that post from this past week. I don't have anything planned for this coming week, but I'm sure I'll be able to write about something. Remember, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing, commenting, and sharing!

Read More

Facebook, Google+, and Centralized Proprietary Monocultures

This week, Google released Google+, which is basically a social network that's a lot like Facebook, but run by Google instead of Facebook. The big deal here is that it's a lot easier to modify privacy settings and configure what information to post to which group(s) ("Circle(s)" in Google+-speak) of contacts. This shows that Google, at least on the surface, takes privacy a lot more seriously than Facebook. I say this because whenever a controversial privacy settings change occurs on Facebook, it's usually in the direction of less privacy, and only when the users get outraged does Facebook do anything at all (and it's usually insignificant), because the truth is that Facebook's business is built upon selling users' data to companies for marketing, advertising, etc. I've also gotten annoyed with Facebook's chat and constant UI changes that occur for no good reason, so I'm a little more drawn in that sense to Google+ because it integrates Google Chat (which I know works), and all of Google's applications have kept pretty much constant, simple UIs over the years. Please note that I haven't actually used Google+, though I have an invitation (it seems like Google can't process that invitation right now); any statements that make it seem like I've used it are actually just my hopes and expectations.

But at the same time, I'm a bit wary of joining yet another centralized, proprietary social network. Why? Because they could screw me over at any time, and that's pretty much what happened to many Facebook users on Linux. You see, this week, Facebook not only blocked KDE applications from uploading pictures to the site (which was among the selling points for KDE 4.6), but it also deleted all pictures that had previously been uploaded that way. That's outrageous! And worse yet, when prominent free software reporters and proponents complained to Facebook, they got a rather cold response, which indicated both that Facebook didn't really care about the KDE users and more third-party uploaders could be blocked soon. Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case, as about a day later, all the KDE applications were allowed to upload to Facebook again, and all the deleted photos were reinstated. It all turned out to be a big mistake/misunderstanding. Whatever.

So the issue is that whether I join Google+ or just stick with Facebook, in either case I'm at the mercy of the company managing that service. No matter who you are, if you plan on uploading pictures to these "cloud" sites, don't delete them from physical storage at home. Always keep backups on hard drives, etc. Because if you put all your eggs in one basket and that basket falls into a black hole, you're sunk. And until Diaspora actually gets going and starts draining users from Facebook (which unfortunately doesn't look likely at all, considering that I haven't heard anything new about the project for a year or so), although I will certainly use Google+ with an open mind, I will continue to remain wary and vigilant.

Read More

Practical Alternatives to Skype (For Me)

(Before I start, I'd like to apologize for the lack of a "Featured Comments" post this week. I saw that there were comments on my article about Mozilla and the DHS, but I didn't have time to thoroughly read and respond to them immediately; by the time I did have time again, Blogger had temporarily shut down, and all the comments got erased. Once again, I apologize to all those who commented on that article and to those who wanted to read it but couldn't because of Blogger issues.)
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Microsoft has just bought Skype for $8.5 billion. That's a lot of money! But the bigger issue is that it's Microsoft, and we know how Microsoft and interoperability go together (hint: they don't).
Microsoft has said that they are committed to maintaining the Skype program and services across all existing platforms for the foreseeable future. That means that I can use Skype on Linux Mint for at least a little while longer. However, that probably won't be the case forever. Why? Well, Microsoft hasn't released things like Microsoft Office for Linux, though it has released them for Apple's Mac OS X, which means the worst thing that could happen is that Skype is retained for Mac OS X but is dropped for Linux at some point.

As I use Skype quite frequently, this is bad news for me. I remember getting a few comments in my review of Trisquel 4.0.1 "Taranis" chastising me for using Skype, which is proprietary software. While I certainly do support the principles of free software, at the end of the day I want to get things done well. I'm using Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" because it's customizable, fast, secure, safe, and free, and it's certainly more customizable, fast, and secure than the comparable Microsoft Windows 7 installation I also have on my computer. Yet, I've retained that because I still do occasionally play some games that don't work in Linux. Similarly, I'm not going to stop using Skype just because it's proprietary; it works really well for me, and convincing my (often computer-averse) family and friends to switch to free software alternatives like Ekiga or Empathy is much easier said than done.

So why am I bringing up Ekiga and Empathy? Well, a lot of articles I saw in the Linux world suggested Ekiga, Empathy, and a few other similar free software VOIP clients as alternatives to Skype. I'm just saying right off the bat that those programs won't work for me because in all likelihood, my family and friends will be loath to switch just to talk to me. So I need other, more popular alternatives.

One is Google Chat with Voice & Video. This will certainly work because almost all of my Skype contacts also use Gmail, so it'll be easy to switch that way. Plus, it has worked flawlessly for me in Linux Mint.

The other that I can think of is the recently released AV by AIM. Basically, this is a free, in-browser VOIP client (with video capabilities too) that allows you to generate a link that you can share with up to 3 other friends to have a secure conversation without needing to install any extra software (other than Adobe Flash). I tried this last night, but because I don't have the very latest update of Adobe Flash 10.3, the website hung trying to detect my laptop's integrated webcam and mic. I'm guessing this is another of the Adobe Flash troubles similar to the one I had with Hulu, so I'll try AV by AIM again using a 32-bit live medium of a different distribution to see if Adobe Flash works well there.

Well, there you have it; these are the alternatives to Skype that I am currently considering, and these are things you can consider too. I hope you found this post helpful; I also hope to write (later in the week) about why there are so few successful free software projects that have come entirely from the community (maybe — don't hold your breath). I also plan to have at least 2 new distribution reviews out. Stay tuned!

Read More

Why I Think All Browsers (Mozilla Firefox Included) Will Survive

Mozilla Firefox 4, as customized by me

Mozilla Firefox 4 is out, and I'm using it now. It's now fast enough and stable enough that it has rekindled some of the old excitement I felt when I first started using Mozilla Firefox and when I started using a new version of the browser. At the same time that I started using it, I saw this article (Ed Bott, ZDNet) which posits why Microsoft Internet Explorer will survive and Mozilla Firefox won't, and I felt like I should respond to it.

Before that, there are two things I should disclose. The first is that I initially considered titling this post "Review: Mozilla Firefox 4" but I decided against it because it's more my opinion of the current status of the browser and my excitement about the new release. The second is that I am probably quite biased in favor of Mozilla Firefox, considering that I have been using it since version 0.8. Please keep these in mind when reading the rest of this post.

Basically, he posits that Mozilla has done wrong by letting Firefox sit without a major release for two years, while in two years Google Chrome has gone from version 1 to version 10. Furthermore, Microsoft has been ramping up its Internet Explorer release schedule and coming closer to how often Google releases Chrome and will make bigger strides in market share thanks to integration with Microsoft Windows Phone 7. And finally, both Microsoft and Google have a whole host of web applications coming with Internet Explorer and Chrome, respectively, while Mozilla has nothing of the sort for Firefox, so Firefox is the loser here. Follow the jump to read my take.

Read more »

Read More

Why I'm Sticking with Blogger

This semester, I'm taking a class on web design. The name itself is misleading, as this class is also a humanities ("HASS-H", in MIT parlance) and communication-intensive ("CI-H") class; therefore, the emphasis is more on working together as a team and writing high-quality proposals and reports, and the professor expects that each group have at least one member proficient in web design. Neither myself nor my group members are proficient enough in web design to be able to build a dynamic website from (essentially) scratch, and all of us want to get this project done ASAP. To that end, we found that a student group at MIT really needs a new website, as the current website is a few years old and isn't even complete. To quicken and ease the creation of the site, I initially suggested that we use WordPress, due to its extensibility and its professional-looking sites; plus, one of the members of my group is good enough with programming that learning PHP (a near-requirement for WordPress) wouldn't take too long. However, as I later discovered, downloading and editing the PHP files is cumbersome, and we would have to pay if we wanted to host it on our own domain (!) or edit the CSS pages (!!). Wow. I think it's bad that WordPress isn't more up-front about what exactly will require payments. Naturally, we searched for alternatives. Then, I realized that Blogger would be a great tool to create a website and can be made to look just as professional as WordPress sites.
Blogger makes editing a site's theme as easy as pie; with WordPress, one must know PHP. In Blogger (as far as I know), it is free to change domains; with WordPress, one must pay. The story is similar for CSS. That's why we've settled with Blogger for our site. It's friendly towards newbies and non-technical types (like myself), and it's easier to customize (at least on the surface). Hence, I'm glad I went with Blogger for starting this blog.
Of course, these things weren't on my mind over a year ago; it's just that I had a Google account and was commenting on a few Blogger blogs, so I figured the easiest way to create a blog would be through Blogger. I'm sticking with what I know works for me.

Read More

It's Official: Free Online Content Distribution Helps Analog Counterparts

As a few readers of this blog have noticed (judging by my blog statistics), I have modified the layout slightly. I have removed the "Popular Posts", "Labels", and "Archives" widgets from the sidebar to clean it up; I have created pages in their stead (and replaced them on the sidebar with a "Recent Comments" widget) — "Archives" is now its own page, while "Popular Posts" and "Labels" have been combined in the "Popular Posts" page (but each has its own subheading). Furthermore, I have created a "Useful Links" static page, and this is where the content of this post comes in: the "Useful Links" page has a collection of links that I would recommend readers of this blog to read for a better understand of the economics relating to open source, free culture, etc. There are also 3 useful videos (dealing with similar things) that I have embedded on that page, one of which I will also embed in this post, as it has to do very much with the topic. I got the idea for this post from TechDirt's article on the same, which also includes this video:

A Presentation regarding Online Content Distribution's Impact on Analog Counterparts

TechDirt's article does a very good job of summarizing the key points of the video (as it's a long video), so I won't repeat them here. Please do read that portion of the original article (and if you are so inclined, by all means watch the video).
A couple commenters on the TechDirt article said things like, "Of course things like this would be presented at a Google conference because this is exactly what Google wants to hear!" At first, though I generally disagreed with this statement (as the research itself doesn't appear to be funded by Google), I couldn't shake the possibility out of my head. Then, I found this Washington Post article written by Howard Kurtz about how online news articles and videos supplement newspaper/newsmagazine readership and TV news viewership. The article goes on to discuss perceptions of bias (among other things) in the mainstream media by people of various ideologies and political affiliations. I think it's interesting that this story should come out so soon after TechDirt's publication of the video on its website, as it talks about how people get their news (which the video does not discuss) and it does not seem to be funded by major Internet companies. The article does note that while newspaper readership is down by quite a few percentage points from just a few years ago, this doesn't seem to be caused by the presence of online counterparts; in fact, the online counterparts is in some cases increasing print readership, which is an effect similar to one discussed in the video where a TV showing of a movie increases its DVD sales almost immediately.
Mr. Murdoch, are you still thinking of taking your websites off of Google's indexes? If so, I can say (with a fair amount of confidence, especially when compared to before) that you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Read More

FOLLOW-UP: Murdoch's Folly

I know that the original post was many months ago, but it still bears some relevance here.
A few news articles have reported on some ACTA analysts' warnings that ACTA will be detrimental to search engines' businesses.
I can only say that with Rupert Murdoch's moves in the past, I saw this coming. Murdoch has been the only (pre-ACTA) high-profile businessperson to remove the holdings' websites from search engines' indices due to copyright violations. All ACTA is doing is essentially legitimizing this and opening the door to more people removing websites from search indices.
Let's just see how this plays out. I doubt many more people will actually follow Murdoch's suit in the age of Google.

Read More