DygiScape

Computer system manufacturer, Dell, promises they will deliver Linux support to their desktops and notebooks. Will they deliver and what challenges are they facing?

Offering Linux is great because it can drop the price of their systems by $100 (no Windows license), but at the expense of support. Based on their recent poll, most Linux purchasers are content with online community support rather than the traditional Dell support.

Another concern Dell is aiming to resolve is driver support for a variety of peripherals and making it simple. I can only imagine what their call centers would be like if they released a Linux-based laptop to the masses; who don’t know the differences between Linux and Windows. This would create a negative customer experience, and thus a poor representation of Dell and Linux.

Another business challenge to consider is if offering Linux impact their existing Microsoft relationship? It’s my understanding that as an OEM, Dell receives a discounted price on Windows to bundle with their systems. Let’s say Dell does a rock solid job at offering Linux-based systems, where 10% of sales are Linux. That can be an astronomical value in the eyes of Microsoft.

Ideally, for Dell to sell Linux to the masses, is to sell a dual-boot system that has Windows Vista and Linux. Then just make Grub load Linux first. This can at least provide users the option on what system they want at little or no additional cost. Perhaps a friendly reminder on their sales process that describes what Linux is and explains the differences between them.

Dell is doing well (in the scope of corporate communications) by communicating with customers in their Direct2Dell blog. While I personally don’t own a Dell, I like to see them correcting their mistakes and blogging about a decision to support (or not to) is very noble of them to do.

I fully support Dell selling Linux. What do you think about Linux and bundling that with a large OEM such as Dell?

Blogging, Tech News Help, Linux, Ubuntu, web

This evening, I finally did my oil change on my car. It’s been LONG overdue, partly because of the cold weather. I’ve also managed to annoyed a neighbor in the process.

5:00 PM — Come home, whiz through traffic since some drivers seem to have some difficulty understanding the speed limit is astronomically set for 55MPH.

5:30 PM — Used the local car wash to hand wash my car. Impressed with it looking better, I decide to clean the windows.

6:00 PM — Sarah comes home, and we decide to use her scissor jack to raise my Neon by a few inches.

6:15 PM — Contemplate to work on my car with an emergency jack. Obviously, I went ahead with doing it.

6:20 PM — Unscrewed drain plug, and successfully got the oil into the pan without any mess.

6:25 PM — Put all my strength into my hand to attempt to unscrew my oil filter. Many attempts were unsuccessful. Sarah comes out wondering if everything’s OK. We decide to eat dinner at this time.

7:40 PM — Attempt to do oil filter again, unsuccessful. I finally have to buy an oil filter wrench.

8:00 PM — Drive to Shell (gas station), and they sell everything EXCEPT oil filter wrench. Ditto for Harris Teeter.

8:15 PM — Arrive at Wal-Mart. Partially upset at some s-l-o-w drivers who seemed to be puzzled by the Yield sign. Whatever. I find my way to the back of the store where the Autos section is. Grab my wrench, and hurry back to the register hoping to leave this pit.

8:23PM — My dreams are crushed by the 11 people in front of me at the 10-Items-Or-Less register. I look around hoping there might be a cashier that is free. My chances are bleak, so I just waited. OMG — someone wrote a check. WHO WRITES CHECKS?!! Argh…

8:40 PM — Drive home. The BMW in front of me must have mistaken the 55MPH for a 40MPH for his casual drive home. Well, whatever, he got the red light.

9:00 PM — Use the proper tool, oil filter wrench, and pop that sucker off.

9:05 PM — Installed drain plug, cleaned up my work area.

9:07 PM — Installed my Fram oil filter.

9:10 PM — Began pouring Oil into my valve cover.

9:16 PM — Started car, checked the dipstick to verify the proper level. Finished off my last quart, and its perfect.

9:20 — Cleaning up my work area, and this is when a neighbor three stories up comes down, and we have a little exchange after I started my car to idle and make sure everything is functioning well:

Her: I don’t want to be mean, but…

Me: (I turn around in an open gesture, maintaining direct eye contact)

Her: … it’s past 9PM and do you have to be doing this?

Me: I’m actually wrapping up, sorry for the inconvenience.

Her: … Do you have to be doing this on a Monday night at 9PM — I work nine to five in the morning.

Me: (Oh please. Drop the pity party.) Yeah, so do I. Whether it’s Monday or Tuesday is neither here nor there. I work nine to five as well, and I have to change my oil. I don’t believe I’ve made any unreasonable noise, have I?

Her: It’s monday night –

Me: If you wish to formally file a complaint, please feel welcome to contact Loudoun County Sheriff. Have a good evening.

Oh, for sweet Christ. I pay the same $1000+ a month as you do, I can damn well change my oil and idle my car if I wish. I’d probably be more gratified if she did call the police.

That is one thing I miss about Tucson — someone can freely work on their American Muscle, and tune their carburetor without any distraction from neighbors or the Po’, thus, not being stuck up. Hell, I’d be impressed to hear that dude with a Camaro down the street tuning his car. It felt like home.

BTW, Loudoun Co. Sheriff seems to not have enough crime to fight lately. An officer drove through our apartment complex (private property, mind you) and issued emissions tag compliance citations. I guess that officer seems to not have understood how to check an out of state plate’s registration. AUG - 07 … that means I’m legal. In any case, more on how this shakes out in the future.

I’m sweaty, tired, and I have oil on my hands (5W-30 = man’s moisturizer. Off to take shower.

Personal Automotive, Help, Rants

Yes. I did it. Most Linux geeks would ask why — I just wanted to see what’s involved to get AOL working on Linux.

Screenshot:

How?

1. Download and Install Ubuntu.
2. Install Wine
3. Download AOL from OldVersion.com
4. Right click the executable, and click “Open with”
5. Type “wine” and click OK.

And now you are presented with the installation for AOL. Proceed through it as you normally install AOL.

… and sign on.

Blogging, Funny, Geeky aol, Linux, Ubuntu

No. Nor, did he claim to inventing it either. I thought about this, as I came across some allegations about his so-called quote of him claiming he invented the Internet.

These outlandish claims came from his political adversaries who wanted to tarnish his credibility. His statement was completely taken out of context during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. His context was that he was one of the only candidates who supported the growth of (what we know as) the Internet. He isn’t claiming that he created, but from a politician’s role, did his part to help make it accessible to everyone.

Like most rumors and life’s uncertainties, go ahead and check out Snopes and read it yourself.

Blogging, Geeky, Politics Government, internet, memes, Politics, web

Are you a competitive shopper?

If you recall my previous entry, ‘10 + 4 Reasons Why You’re Not Rich,‘ one of my tips was to research and become active in comparing prices online. Consider adding CouponChief to your arsenal due to their intuitive navigation, variety of coupon codes and user interface. Saving money with internet coupon codes has never been so easy!

When purchasing items online, I make every effort to squeeze out every last cent in saving money. To accomplish that, I use comparative shopping Web sites such as PriceGrabber and PriceWatch. The drawback to those sites, is they have exceptionally long navigational processes to find the deals. CouponChief; however, does not make the visitor go though this process. That said, finding the right Web site to help you save money will prove to be beneficial to keep your dollars in your pocket — where it belongs!

My favorite feature of the site is to browse all merchants. I found some awesome deals on computer related stores such as Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and McAfee. This ease of use is unparalled against other price comparison Web sites.

I would suggest for them to expand to the next level, is to implement user-generated content such as comments, ratings, and other tools to help users connect to each other. One simple way they can start this, is to facilitate an online community with a message board.

This post was sponsored by PayPerPost.

Blogging, Geeky, Tips

I came across this interesting piece of linkbait on Digg, 10 Reasons Why You Aren’t Rich. I found it to serve as a base coat, but I have four more reasons why you still aren’t rich. I agree, its not the lack of money; its our consumer behavior in handling the money.

Here are 10 possible reasons you aren’t a millionaire:

1. You Care What Your Neighbors Think: If you’re competing against them and their material possessions, you’re wasting your hard-earned money on toys to impress them instead of building your wealth

2. You Aren’t Patient: Until the era of credit cards, it was difficult to spend more than you had. That is not the case today. If you have credit card debt because you couldn’t wait until you had enough money to purchase something in cash, you are making others wealthy while keeping yourself in debt.

3. You Have Bad Habits: Whether it’s smoking, drinking, gambling or some other bad habit, the habit is using up a lot of money that could go toward building wealth. Most people don’t realize that the cost of their bad habits extends far beyond the immediate cost. Take smoking, for example: It costs a lot more than the pack of cigarettes purchased. It also negatively affects your wealth in the form of higher insurance rates and decreased value of your home.

4. You Have No Goals: It’s difficult to build wealth if you haven’t taken the time to know what you want. If you haven’t set wealth goals, you aren’t likely to attain them. You need to do more than state, “I want to be a millionaire.” You need to take the time to set saving and investing goals on a yearly basis and come up with a plan for how to achieve those goals.

5. You Haven’t Prepared: Bad things happen to the best of people from time to time, and if you haven’t prepared for such a thing to happen to you through insurance, any wealth that you might have built can be gone in an instant.

6. You Try to Make a Quick Buck: For the vast majority of us, wealth doesn’t come instantly. You may believe that people winning the lottery are a dime a dozen, but the truth is you’re far more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery. This desire to get rich quickly likely extends into the way you invest, with similar results.

7. You Rely on Others to Take Care of Your Money: You believe that others have more knowledge about money matters, and you rely exclusively on their judgment when deciding where you should invest your money. Unfortunately, most people want to make money themselves, and this is their primary objective when they tell you how to invest your money. Listen to other people’s advice to get new ideas, but in the end you should know enough to make your own investing decisions.

8. You Invest in Things You Don’t Understand: Your hear that Bob has made a lot of money doing it, and you want to get in on the gravy train. If Bob really did make money, he did so because he understood how the investment worked. Throwing in your money because someone else has made money without fully understanding how the investment works will keep you from being wealthy.

9. You’re Financially Afraid: You are so scared of risk that you keep all your money in a savings account that is actually losing money when inflation is put into the equation, yet you refuse to move it to a place where higher rates of return are possible because you’re afraid that you will lose money.

10. You Ignore Your Finances: You take the attitude that if you make enough, the finances will take care of themselves. If you currently have debt, it will somehow resolve itself in the future. Unfortunately, it takes planning to become wealthy. It doesn’t magically happen to the vast majority of people.

And here’s my four additional reasons:

1. You buy into pop-culture. Why buy brand-name items? Most generic products have about the equal value as brand name products, minus the cost of advertising.
2. You don’t maintain your possessions. Even I’m a glutton of not maintaining my possessions. A $20 oil change every few months is cheaper than a $500 repair down the road. Maintaining your stuff is cheaper than replacing it. Simple as that.
3. Your passive approach to comparative shopping. If you happen to “walk past” a sale, then thats pretty passive. Doing your homework, and even purchasing online is an easy way to save a few bucks here and there. You don’t have to buy, but just look to have an idea of how much something is and check elsewhere.
4. You spend now, not save. I’m a victim of my own compulsiveness to “spend first and research later.” Maintaining your self control to save now, research now, and spend later will save you invaluable amount of money and stress.

That’s my four addition reasons you’re still not rich. If you have any you’d like to add, then share them in the comments!

Blogging, Tips Blog, Lists

A few things. I’m a little busy with work and all, but besides that…

I added some basic blog comment policies here and listed my blogging disclosure. I’m trying to use twitter more and more, but the site is just so slow… (ack!). I’m also doing other stuff too but it’s probably not interesting. (…or is it?)
I’ll be happy to field questions from readers tonight. If you have any questions for me, share them in the comments.

Blogging, Personal Blog, Personal, Work

If you haven’t learned already, small changes bring big results. The small change in regards to enforcing school policies, now leads into a larger case of Freedom of Speech. Joseph Frederick, a high school senior, displayed a 14-foot banner in the name of humor, “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”

As a result of Frederick’s display, the sign was confiscated by his principal and he was suspended from school. The student is contesting this response, and has escalated to the United States Supreme Court regarding how far a school’s right to interfere with a student’s right to free speech can reach (such as onto public property).

While I agree that schools need to have policies against harassment and must have a stance on discouraging use of illegal substances, I don’t believe the school’s principal is just in suspending the student from classroom time. If I want to write a sign that says “It’s Miller Time!” then I damn well should retain the right to display a sign like this on a public street. Even a conservative blogger agrees. As long a public display is not slandering or advocating direct substance use, it should be permitted under school jurisdiction.

I fully endorse and support Joseph Frederick’s fight for his civil right to free speech. Damn, I wish he had a blog, cause he’d get some mad hits right about now.

Our country’s forefathers would be turning in their grave, knowing that government institutions continue to impede a student’s right to free speech, rather than embrace our rights in the great country. That’s the point.

[tags] Bong Hits 4 Jesus, Supreme Court, Freedom of Speech, Civil Rights[/tags]

Blogging, Politics debate, freedom, Government, Rants

The buzz since SxSW (I didn’t go, but the blogosphere wraps it up nicely) is that Twitter is the next “big thing” to hit the Web since MySpace. I beg to differ. Anytime someone says this is gonna be the next big thing, it never is. I created my Twitter account a few days ago and used it as much as I feasibly could and here’s why I already lost interest.

Twitter fails to engage users to connecting by not making it clear how to interact with each other. Even as I joined, I got the feeling I was talking to myself. I even added it on my AIM Page with their widget, but still I couldn’t find an easy way to connect with others. Why not have forums or a spot to find other users?

On the good side, I will say their interface is simple. There is nothing I dislike more in a social network, is a complex Web site. However, I believe the sidebar can be a little more robust. Having the ability to customize the page with simple CSS (it guides you though it) makes it perfect for people who are picky with their digital color palette.

Online versus Real-Life? I’ve yet to convince my girlfriend to create an account because of the “why?” factor. We can classify my girlfriend as the above average Web surfer - she will join a site if her friends are, she downloads music, watches online videos, and occasionally blogs. Not a total geek like me — far from it. So I’ll make a brief case study based on her expectations. Aside from the busy person who does a lot of daily (or hourly) accomplishments, Twitter lacks the “reward” for noting their status. What’s the reward for most social networking users? Popularity. Twitter doesn’t really focus on that probably due to privacy or other reasons.

Judging from O’Reilly’s definition of Web 2.0 online services, Twitter doesn’t build strength based on their user’s contributions or network size. In fact, this evening (Internet-Prime-Time), it appears users killed it. They were pulled down for maintenance — another phrase for “Oh Ish! The Webservers are melting!!1” Twitter isn’t as scalable as once previously thought. Twitter doesn’t build strength from their user-generated content, except for the homepage.

I’m not alone. Many other Web 2.0-aware folks are interested in Twitter and have debated whether or not Twitter will die or have proclaimed this the Web’s diamond in the rough, or are countering both sides and sharing their opinions on Twitter. I concur with the praise of Twitter’s interface. They nailed that one all the way, it’s rather innovative that users can read and post their events on the same page.

Anyhow, I’ll still try to stick with Twitter as long as I can, but frankly, they need to add more features. I’d love to see it track your Instant Messaging status, so I go away on AIM and it posts my away message to my Twitter page. Their verification for my AIM screen name didn’t work either, so they need to work on connecting to open IM services such as AIM more effectively ::cough:: Open AIM ::cough:: Open ID ::cough::

What do you think of Twitter? Share your thoughts in the comments.

[tags]Twitter, Internet, Social Networking, Web 2.0[/tags]

Blogging, Geeky, Social Networking Engagement, OpEd, Rants, social media, Social Networking, web 2.0

Microsoft is offering their larger customers an opportunity to cash in on a partner’s employees using Internet Explorer 7 and their BHO. It seems interesting that Microsoft is on the verge of a potential revenue sharing opportunity, but I aim to know more about how much an individuals search data records can potentially be worth?

John Battelle talks about Microsoft’s plan to pay large corporate partners based on how many computers and the volume of search data. In exchange for this, the company can earn “credits” for MS products and services. The major drawback that I find is their requirement to uninstall any other third-party browser toolbars (such as Google or Yahoo) and must use Internet Explorer 7. How does this help the employee? What type of disclosure is there about their search data being logged?

In any case, I aim to find the answer of how much someone’s search data is worth to a search provider, such as Microsoft. In their examples, they stated they would pay $2 - $10 per PC depending on usage per year. So roughly, based on that formula someone’s search data is worth $0.83 per month.

83 cents?! Now if they only intend to use that data to improve their search results, then that’s money well spent if you ask me. However, how many of you think that is their sole purpose with this data? I suspect Microsoft is probably going to use that for improving their targeted advertising and measuring their effectiveness.

I believe my search data is worth much more than $0.83 … and I should retain my right to opt-out of this program. How much do you think YOUR search data is worth? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Blogging, Geeky internet, microsoft, News