Ya, I know. It's been quite a while since my last post. Things have been incredibly busy with work, and I am also getting married in October. Needless to say, I've had little time to post anything here.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I decided to give Linux as a desktop OS another chance. I've been using Linux as a server for a number of years and I do like it overall. Like any OS, it has it's downsides and upsides, but overall it's been reliable and smooth. However, my past experiences with Linux as a desktop haven't been very successful. Running my own business requires me to use certain software, as well as ensure that my productivity level remains high. Unfortunately, that's never been a strong point of Linux as a desktop.

I only use my laptop for presentations and travel, so i figured this would be a great way to run Ubuntu through it's paces. Initially, I used the LiveCD of Ubuntu 8.04. I was immediately impressed to see that the desktop itself was much nicer than any other Linux flavor I had ever used. I played around with it for a couple of days and was impressed enough to install it.

My first thought was to run XP & Ubuntu as dual boot, since this was supposed to be a supported configuration. Unfortunately, Ubuntu didn't like the way the disk was partitioned and failed here. I didn't really have the time (or inclination) to sort through the logs to find out why, so I settled on starting with a fresh install of Ubuntu.

The install process was smooth and also found all my devices. This was a pleasant surprise! The install seemed to take about the same length of time as WIndows XP.

Overall Linux seemed to be a fairly good replacement for XP. The apps I normally used were available or there was an OSS equivalent: FireFox, Office suite, RDP Client, Collaboration client (email, calendaring, tasks, contacts, etc).

Evolution, the default email client, seemed to work very well as an Outlook replacement, even utilizing Exchange over HTTP. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of client-side spam filtering, especially since it meant I would likely have to do a spam assassin installtion of some sort, which is always frustrating.

There are a few things which have bugged me:

1. Crashes. Sometimes it just plan crashes to the CLI. No error, nothing. Other times it has decided to just shut down. No indication as to why. I was at a conference so I have yet had the opportunity to investigate why. This happens multiple times per day, doing ordinary tasks such as web browsing or checking email. It just doesn't seem to be very stable.

2. Installations suck (still). Seriously, I was hoping this would have been figured out by now. Although I can, I have no desire to sit down and do long, drawn out installations via the CLI. The majority of the software I wanted to install was available via the package manager, which was nice. However, some apps were not and I was forced to go through the whole extraction and manual installation process, as well as resolving dependencies. This is very unproductive. Overall, I'd say it took me, easily, 5x longer to configure Ubuntu than XP. I'll concede to a lack of experience being a major factor in  this, but some things, like Eclipse, shouldnt take 2-3 hours to install and configure.

3. Performance. I am running Ubuntu 64 (Hardy). I would expect the performance to be considerably better than XP 32 bit. I found this to be quite the opposite. Windows are slow to open, Evolution sometimes becomes unresponsive for up to a minute at a time. Other apps, including Firefox, tend to be sluggish at times as well.

4. I hear so many people complaining about User Account Control in Windows Vista. Yet, my experience on Ubuntu hasn't been much different. Anytime I want to change my configuration or do any administrative tasks I get prompted for my password. Yes, I realize it needs to sudo to perform these tasks, and i completely ok and even agree with this. But, why the hell are people bitching about Vista when Ubuntu does nearly the EXACT SAME THING? I'm boggled.

5. The UI has a long way to go. It reminds me of Windows 95 in a way, crude and unpolished. I hope some real designers help implement a theme someday that can compare with the OS X or Vista UI.

All this said, I think I will continue to use Ubuntu. It seems capable of doing what I need it to do, and with some tweaking and R&D I am certain I can resolve most of these issues myself. I can't see myself replacing my Vista 64 desktop with Ubuntu anytime soon, though.

I've been using OpenDNS for about a month and finally stopped using it today. My primary issues with OpenDNS are this:

OpenDNS takes over your web browsing experiencee. If a site is not found they redirect you to THEIR search service. I assuming since this is the case that they are also monitoring your surfing habits, collecting and selling this information. I am not comfortable with this.

Secondly, OpenDNS actively altered DNS. They blocked my DNS host and served up their own records instead, often rewriting them to point to their resources. I discovered this in the process of troubleshooting a DNS issue today. When I noticed this I was shocked and immediately moved off of their service.

Lastly, OpenDNS is slow and unreliable. I have experience more downtime with their service than any other DNS service I've used in the past. My research shows that queries to their service were very slow.

Overall I would not recommend using OpenDNS.

So i just got an email I found rather funny, but also exemplifies to what lengths these people will go to in order to infect your PC.

The email, with an attachment, states:

"hello.
i work in a private detective agency. my name is not important now.
I'm warning you that i'm going to watch you and monitor your telephone line.
Do you want to know who paid for shadowing you? Expect my next e-mail.

P.S. I know, you don't believe me. But i think that the record of your yesterday's telephone conversation will assure you
that everything is real. The record is in archive. The password is 123qwe"

So I discovered a bug in a piece of software a client uses. It's Java-based with a SQL backend. The problem has to do with their formula for converting dates. Since the software is supposed to be compatible for all timezones, if you import data into the system the Julian date bug they have makes it so that its completely inaccurate in anything but the original time zone the event was created for, unless you use a non-standard function for converting your Julian dates. The fix is easy, and bringing customers already using the system up to par would be simple with a small sql update script.

When I reported this to the software vendor this was their response

"So, I would just go through and do a database update and change everyone's data, and also anyone that already has working interface code, tell them to modify it?

No. Some bugs don't get fixed. Sorry."

WTF?

Another great Adobe event, I'm sure! The camp will cover topics including Flex, AIR, AJAX and Flash. PayPal and Yahoo will also present. The event is in SF, CA on Nov 5, so sign up now!

http://www.eventsadobe.com/devcamp

Two days of completely justifiable and guilt-free gaming. How does it get any better? I took my son to E for All (ya, that's my story and I am sticking to it) in L.A., CA this past weekend. We had a ton of fun, and it was a pretty good bonding experience, considering how much we both love video games.

My first impression of E for All was a trying to mask a bit of disappointment. Overall, the show was pretty small. There were maybe 50 vendors present. The major force present were gaming PC manufacturers, followed by game developers. There were a sprinkling of peripheral manufacturers and some miscellaneous companies. 5 Hour Energy was there, I must have snagged 12 bottles of the stuff (which I might add, lives up to their claims. No buzz, no crash. Taste great.). However, the size and range of vendors just wasn't there like shows I have been to in the past. It took us only about an hour to really see everything at the show.

Everyone was showing off their $4,000 monster systems, which of course I tested a few. I would say the most impressive was was probably the HP Blackbird. This is one thing HP is doing right, with a very solid all aluminum case and built-in liquid cooling. I played Unreal Tournament 3 on this machine and a Fatal1ty system. While both seemed to perform very well the Blackbird seemed the most responsive. A few times, on two different machines, I had serious lag during game play on the Fatal1ty machines. The Blackbirds performed flawlessly. I do not think the Fatal1ty machines are available for purchase yet, so hopefully this was a good test platform for them to resolve some of the performance issues.

One of the coolest peripherals I tested was the Novint Falcon. It's a controller based upon Haptic technology, much different than using a mouse as you can "feel" things going on. My son seemed to really enjoy this for gameplay. He had never played Halflife before and I was impressed at his ability to use the Falcon to control the game. It's a great idea that will hopefully grow, as it's very comfortable and has some cool capabilities (like recoil for weapons). Unfortunately, the entry-level price of $239 seems a bit steep for a first-generation device that has little support for any serious games.

It seems that console gaming is putting a big dent in the PC gaming world. There were far fewer PC games present than past events I have been too, and XBox games were a show of force.

Overall, it was a lot of fun. We spent the remainder of the time playing free play Halo, Halo 2 and 3, Gears of War, watching some of the MLG tournament matches, and testing the various machines and new games out there. Would I do it again? Well, considering the cost was not that high, about $1k for the whole trip, and the value of spending quality time with my son for two days, I'd say yea. Hopefully the show grows (it was the first) and the prices don't go up (fat chance).

Oh and if you are in LA and are considering taking a taxi, DON'T. I paid $60 (tip included)  to go from LAX to downtown in a cab. Mind you, the driver got us there in a timely manner and was friendly enough. However, we asked the hotel to call us a cab and they called Corderos Limousine Service. The ride, tip included, was $55 and we rode in an immaculate 2003 Lincoln Navigator. A very comfortable ride. i highly recommend Mauricio if you need to be shuttled around LA. You can call him at 213-675-8555. Sorry, i don't think they have a website.

Sys-Con Media has lost Adobe as a sponsor, the community seeing this as a side effect of bad advertising practices and outright poor business management. A primary reason Sys-Con has lost the ability to continue publishing the ColdFusion Developer's Journal is because, without Adobe's backing, their advertising team is ineffective in placing ads in CFDJ. Calls for ad placement  had gone unanswered for weeks and when requests were fulfilled the wrong information was often given.

It is also believed that the majority of persons subscribed to CFDJ actually never requested or paid for a subscription. In order for Sys-Con to increase their "subscriber base" they simply spammed the community with free subscriptions. This is common with all of the Sys-Con Media family of publications.

Obviously this was not enough. Potential advertisers, tired of dealing with poor response and customer service from the advertising department at Sys-Con, failed to purchase enough advertising to keep the journal in circulation. As a result Sys-Con was forced to seek out Microsoft as a sponsor.

Sys-Con's major fear at the moment is the loss of other major sponsors. These sponsors, potentially wary about Adobe's decision to pull out of Sys-Con, may in turn decide to remove their sponsorship as well. In turn, Sys-Con has decided to attack Adobe's ColdFusion product as well as the ColdFusion community, trying to downgrade the obvious discontent among the ColdFusion community as a whole over Sys-Con's underhanded practices.

The previous editorial team from the ColdFusion Developer's Journal has also shed light on the subject, explaining how poorly Sys-Con handled the publication as a whole. Matt Woodward stated "The editorial board--such as it was--didn't serve as an advisory board at all, but rather was seen as a standing pool of free labor for writing articles.". Brian Rinaldi also writes "I was a part of the unfortunate CFDJ Editorial Board, which was kept both uninformed and ignored (so much so that none of the members I am in contact with had any idea this was happening). Therefore, I feel that I know firsthand that Sys-Con as a company could care less about improving CFDJ for quite some time now."

Sys-Con is a failing media company. They know it and are using dirty tactics in a last ditch effort to keep themselves afloat.

note: this story is a parody on the recent Sys-Con "news" that states that "ColdFusion is dead as a doornail". As a media outlet, Sys-Con holds the responsibility to ensure factual and unbiased reporting, which they have not done. As such, they have become the target of this parody, which in actuality, is probably not very far from truth anyway.

If you're not familiar with DealDotCom and you are interested in internet marketing then you need to check this out. The folks from Woot! are starting a new site which opens for business Tuesday. The site is much like Woot! in the fact that they will offer a single deal each day. In terms of advertising this could mean some incredible deals on marketing your site.

They also have a nice affiliate program, so signing up now is your best bet.

I'm excited. As a long time Woot! fan I can't wait to see what sort of deals there will be on DealDotCom!

Ok, this isnt Flex or even ColdFusion related. It's a PHP site called ShackBrackets my traitor friend (cuz he doesn't write CF anymore) Adam Podolnick created. However, for a sports newbie like me who also doesn't have the time for fantasy sports games it seemed like an easy way to enjoy an online sports game and learn some stuff about sports I don't know. And maybe win some cash prizes.

It's pretty cool because the prize pool for each game is based upon the revenue generated from ads, starting at a $100 minimum prize. The more ad clicks he gets the more he can add to the prize pool, which I thought was a pretty neat idea.

The site is in it's infancy but I thought Adam did a great job setting it up to be so simple. You can set up your picks in a few minutes with a nice AJAX interface.

I know he will be adding a few more sports (pro/college basketball and pro soccer) and from the sounds of it some cool features. Anyway, just a quick plug, cuz I think he's got a cool thing going there.

My son has been begging me to take him to E For All, the extension of E3 for the public. So I decided to order tickets online. He had been sent a "VIP code" that allowed earlier access than the general public and a discount on ticket pricing.

Now mind you, this even is $65 per person for a weekend pass. Not cheap. Considering the amount of revenue this venue probably generates one would think that they would spend the cash to have a nice user-friendly registration process. Not so.

During the registration process there are two codes you can enter. Neither of them matched the code I had. There was also a notice that I could enter another code later in the process. I never saw this. Upon calling customer service I was told "Oh another company was doing registrations. We aren't using those codes anymore, anyone who registers before tomorrow gets VIP access". OK, Im cool with that. Would have been nice to put that info on the site and save me a half hour.

So I start the registration process again. WTH? I can only register on person at a time. So instead of saying I want a quantity of 2 tickets I have to go through the entire process twice. Each time filling out a lame, long survey that I am pretty certain is going to get me on a massive number of junk mail lists. Weak.

Moral of the story: make your web applications easy to use. NEVER FORCE THE USER to complete two orders to get a single product. It just irritates them.