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.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on Adobe.com, most of it is pretty negative. Many of the folks I see bagging on the site the most really have no design skills or experience. Frankly, I am no designer, nor do I claim to be. However, I have led a number of projects and guided the design and won awards for these sites. I'd like to think I know good design and UI and I think my clients tend to agree for the most part. However, I've been told that people who have a positive view on the Adobe redesign are only saying this because "they want to make others look stupid". Quite the contrary. I think I would prefer to hear from folks the positive things about the redesign in addition to the negative things. I've waited a while to express my views so that 1. I could really examine the site and how I felt about it and 2. Because I didn't want to express myself based on my irritation with folks who can't give a fair analysis.

My initial impression of Adobe.com is mixed. I really like the navigation and how easy Adobe has made it to find the information I need. One of my biggest complaints with Adobe prior to the new release was how much time I had to spend on their site to find the information I was seeking. Adobe has succeeded in cutting this time in half. To me that makes the redesign worth it. I do not think many folks consider this when firing off their criticism.

I also really like the new color scheme. The contrast adds to the readability and the site no longer reminds me of a newspaper. The typography is excellent. Compared to the old site its much (!!!) easier to read. For someone like me who spends 1-2 hours a day gleaning information from Adobe's resources I find this very important.

Now onto the bad stuff.

The Flash animation on the homepage is humongous. I do not know what is up with that, but I would be happy to see it 30% smaller at least. It consumes too much real estate, especially for folks who do not run high resolutions like tech folks do. I often send clients to Adobe.com to research the technologies we use in their solutions. It's not a great impression when a Flash movie overtakes the page.

The backgrounds have to go. A simple gray gradient like the homepage has is nice and elegant without drawing the eye away from the content area.

The content areas need to be widened and centered. The left alignment is not good in high resolutions. Also, I think designing content for 800x600 is a disservice to the web. 800x600 is an archaic (IMHO) resolution which needs to be forcefully pushed off the web. Sure, there's a lot of people still running 800x600 because they claim that in 1024x768 or larger the text is too small for them, but this is because they haven't really been configured correctly. A screen with a higher resolution is actually far easier on the eyes.

The search box needs a submit button. Seriously! I was on a browser last night that didn't have much functionality and no keyboard, it was a touchscreen. I couldn't tell you what browser as it was a proprietary system, attached to a stationary cycle at the gym. However, there was no ENTER button and I was unable to search the Adobe site. This could prove to be an issue with kiosk systems.

Lastly, the site degraded miserably on the above browser. The navigation failed to work properly (which is why its critical to have search that works in deprecated browsers) and many of the content areas were not at all displayed. Im wondering how well it degrades on other older browsers. While I am a proponent of keeping up with technology, some of these older kiosk systems are still in operation in airports and other public places. Although side-scrolling and lack of plug-ins such as Flash will make browsing tougher it is critical that content always be displayed in these older browsers and readers! It's OK to make a site that doesn't work perfectly in deprecated browsers, but always, always always make the content available.

While it seems like I have a lot of criticisms about the site I think most of what I am criticizing can be easily fixed with not a whole ton of effort. Overall I think Adobe is on the right track with the new design

For the past few years I have really not had a need for a land line. I have a single mobile number that serves me well for personal and business. In 2005, to reduce the number of minutes I used, I ordered a SpeakEasy VoIP line. I was amazed at the quality of my calls, and the cost was a flat $30 a month (on top of my internet costs).

Over the last 8 months many of my clients have considered moving to VoIP. Naturally, due to my experiences with SpeakEasy's excellent customer service and high quality VoIP, I recommended my clients to them. SpeakEasy also offers a small business numerous lines without the expensive hardware requirements of Enterprise-level VoIP. The system hosted by SpeakEasy but the client has full control over call-flow and other management features via a web portal. I assisted two of my clients in moving to the service and received rave reviews about call quality, even calls from the US to Australia. I thought "VoIP is finally here!".

Recently, with this influx of new business, I have noticed VoIP vendors becoming less and less responsive on the customer service side. VoIP promised within 30 days is not scheduled for three weeks after signing a contract. The ball is dropped on telephone number transfers. Client questions about contracts are brushed aside. It seems the VoIP industry is overwhelmed and understaffed. The client suffers and there seems to be a lack of concern among the VoIP vendors about this. It seems the important thing to them is getting as many contracts signed as they can.

Many of these vendors are traditional ISPs, so it begs the question" Do these vendors have the infrastructure, manpower and experience to handle the mass transition to VoIP?" . In my recent experience, they do not.

I am constantly being asked, almost expected by these vendors to become a VoIP installation partner for them. I do not have the desire to do so, it's not a core offering of my business nor is it as profitable. Additionally, service offerings from VoIP vendors are changing constantly, making it difficult for one to actually know what to recommend to clients.

Given these circumstances I have had to take a step back from VoIP and really analyze whether or not it is a good time to recommend VoIP to clients. I have realized that for my clients now is not the best time to start making the transition. Considering the horrible experience during the last installation I have decided it will be worthwhile to wait until the industry has settled down and can again go back to offering excellent customer service, something I expect from all my vendors. Although I realize VoIP is an excellent technology that can save my clients considerable sums of money and offer more features less expensively than traditional PBX system, it simply is not worth putting the client through the aggravation of dealing with a vendor who simply has too much business.

I would love to hear your experiences or your thoughts on this too, have any good stories?