Countdown to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

Coming to the PCs near you.

... as I always wanted.

A good way to have Coooool beer at work. :-)

Unified Memory Storage.

I've read via yahoo that there will be a chance to have a unified standard for flash storage: "Universal Flash Storage".


Noiak is reachin Samsung and Sony-Ericsson to try to have those by 2009. Hope they do agree and let Olympus join the club so we all can have one of those nice "mju" cameras with something more ubiquitous than "xD".

First World Wide Format War

First World Wide Format War Map
NOOXML

A hombros de gigantes

"Si he podido ver más lejos, es porque he subido a hombros de gigantes". Esta conocida cita de Isaac Newton es todo un ejercicio de modestia y de reconocimiento a los científicos que lo precedieron.

Algo desgraciadamente demasiado ausente en el contexto restrictivo de la difusión del conocimiento de hoy, lleno de palabras y conceptos como copyright, patentes, propiedad intelectual. Todos ellos basados en considerar que la creación científica e intelectual son hechos individuales. Actos de genios aislados que crean o descubren algo único a partir de la nada. Y como consecuencia se considera que estos 'creadores' pueden tener la propiedad sobre su 'obra' o su 'descubrimiento' y poder restringir a los demás su uso o acceso. Ideas protegidas, cerradas, obras únicas y delicadas como si fueran esculturas de hielo, que pudieran fundirse en cuanto fueran expuestas al sol y al contacto con la gente.

Sin embargo esto choca totalmente con la realidad ¿Cuánto de original hay en cada patente que se concede? ¿Cuánto de cada artículo científico publicado se basa en trabajo anterior de otros? La mayor parte del avance técnico y científico se realiza avanzando a partir de trabajo previo, adaptando, mejorando, combinando las ideas y descubrimientos de otros. La ciencia no avanza desde el oscurantismo, sino del intercambio de ideas. Ningún científico actual podría ni en toda su vida, descubrir o desarrollar por sí mismo y desde la nada todos los principios y conceptos básicos de su área de conocimiento. Se avanza sobre lo anterior, las nuevas teorías complementan las anteriores, a veces las contradicen, o las mejoran, y la ciencia evoluciona. Así funciona el método científico, y así vamos mejorando nuestra comprensión del mundo.

No perdamos esto de vista, y no permitamos que unos pocos se apropien del conocimiento de toda la humanidad. Que ningún enano nos impida nunca subirnos a los hombros de los gigantes.

Mobile common sense (perhaps)

Once every 18 months ... I change my mobile phone. The tendency is to have a cool mobile phone with camera, music/video player and ... bluetooth. The capabilities of the software included in the new mobile phones are getting bigger maken them close to PDAs being sometimes both in one case.

When using my laptop I normally plug my 3.5 mm audio jack so I can hear everything through my simple, good but inexpensive headphones. Many times, I use the laptop during long (and not so long) flights to hear music or watch a movie, so I push the bluetooth/wifi button of it to switch it off. While in the airport, I checked to see how many bluetooth devices where available within 10 meters ... awesome, more than 20!. Some of them so unprotected that their personal data was accesible.

So, here we have three great ideas that (almost) never crossed the border between Laptops and Mobile phones.

1. 3.5mm standard audio jack
2. Bluetooth on/off button
3. USB data (and power) connection
   

Why do cell phone makers not use the standard jack connection?. Is it because of the greed?. Do they make so much money out of non-standard headphones?.
Now that there are so many phones which are audio capable, they should use this connection to make them more attractive to people wanting to use their audio features.

How come now that mobile phones are bluetooth capable, and that almost everything in the phone can be used/changed through it, the designers do not make this function easily switchable?. On top of that, the energy savings for not havin it permanently off could make them more attractive.

And last but not least, only Motorola has used the mini-usb connector to power the devices and also connect them to the computers. Why don't others follow?

Ok. So, if you are a mobile phone maker and want to win my heart forever, use this three simple ideas. Oh, and please, to drive me crazy add a SD card interface.

iWhat?

Solutions for filesharing have been always a been one of the biggest problems to solve when it comes to Information systems.

Many appeared through the way: NFS, CIFS, FTP, SFTP ...
Thanks to the ubiquitous Operating System, the CIFS is now the 'de facto' standard but, due to the las changes in technology its ageing really fast. Bigger disks, internet access almost everywhere, crypto availability and web clients in every system make things different. Now it's not crazy to have more than 20 Gb of data in anyone's laptop. The need goes further than just accessing data, it needs to be stored, syncronized authorized and available online or offline.

Tere are several solutions to this. The ones from Redmond are a bit more than inssuficient, that's why they bought a little interesting company called Groove Networks. Its main product is called Groove, a simple, yet powerful, P2P workspace sharing. Now ... integrated into the world's favourite office suite. (not!)

So, what's the competitor or competitors to this. How can someone achieve similar functionality in an Open Source, Free and Mature manner. This is how we arrive to the iFolder shore. iWhat? ... iFolder. It is a filesharing application written by Novell, multiplatform (Linux, MacOS X, Windows), with syncronization capabilities and now OpenSource. It's not as complete as Groove but has got the main functionality integrated to be the filesharing application of choice.

From their FAQ:

What is iFolder?
iFolder is a solution that allows people to easily share folders of files of any type with other users, whether they use the same or different operating systems. Thus, Linux, Windows and Macintosh users can all use iFolder and share folders. The iFolder client runs in two operating modes, enterprise sharing and workgroup sharing.

What is the difference between the two methods for sharing?
When using the iFolder 3.0 server, the iFolder client first synchronizes the files in your iFolders to the intermediate server, then replicates them to other computers. With the iFolder server, you can also access your files from an Internet Browser, as well as back up your files from the server to suitable back-up media.
Using iFolder to share without the server allows you to synchronize and share files between two or more computers without the requirement for an intermediate server to exchange files. This is accomplished through add-on modules being developed in the open-source community. There are two methods under development to allow users to share using Gaim, the open-source instant messaging client, and using Bonjour (Rendevous).

And now I wonder: can it be integrated into the mainstream opensource world?

Can it be a part of GNOME?
Well, it uses Mono and works on top of it. Now (2.18) comes with it included, as it is needed for Tomboy, so it wouldn't be that much to include.

Can it be a part of Ubuntu?
It would be a great move for it to come with such a simple and GNOME integrated filesharing application. They already include Beagle or NetworkManager so, it would be really easy to include it. They could even give a backup service through their own public/private iFolder server.

So, here it is, the software needed to keep files synchronized in an asynchronous way, will Ubuntu and/or GNOME rescue iFolder from obscurity?

Live Maps

Hi there!

I'm new on this, but I will try to post here the things I use to send by mail (at least, some of them...)

First one :

New competitor to Google Earth, with much better quality in its images. MS is getting up-to-date... impressive, huh?

It's shown in the next link (Burgos Cathedral :-) it's our duty to look after the number one :-P)

Can you find your home (if you have one ...:-)))?

@ Digital Armour : new challenge....will it be published the 3rd post?

The first one ...

This is the first post.
Will it be the last one?

Let's see how it flows.
Through the streets of this town.