Ubunto Automatix Installer

My friend is having some problems while installing mplayer on ubuntu, he found a solution to install the mplayer using automatix installer, and his mplayer is working fine now.

Anyone having the same problem should check out the ubuntu forum for automatix.

Bart Decrem

Bart is very active in open source world, he co-found Eazel in 1999 (together with some former apple employee like Andy), working on Nautilus File Manager, Miguel de Icaza was one of the board of directors, they work closely with the gnome community. Unforturnately Eazel was unable to secure additional financing and shut down in year 2001.



Bart has a korean wife, and he want to lean Korean Language. He move to Korean and work in Linux One (Korean company) and Hancom, after Eazel was shut down. Hancom is popular for it hancom office suite on Linux operating system, including a mobile version on Zaurus PDA.

He is the founder of Flock and leading the development of Flock browser.

You can find Bart's biography here.

Link:-
An interview with Bart on his working in Hancom.

Flock browser

This is a new browser base on firefox, expected to be an opensource browser (but not yet, still very beta), you can download from here to have a early experience of the browser. The development team is lead by Bart Decrem. Bart is popular in opensource world, he was active in Mozilla foundation. He is a co-founder of Eazel in 1999, Eazel close down in 2001, after they fail to raise another capital fund for its operation. Flock is ambitious, and it will not just be a browser but more. Flock is still very new, let see how it will perform in the future. Eazel is the company behind of the development of Nautilus, an open source file manager.

WINE is 12 years old

I always do not believe simulator or emulator will work well, especially those standard set by Microsoft, that's the reason I don't think WINE and Mono will work well.

WINE has been developped for more than 10 years, expected to be beta soon (what! just beta!?). Yes! The software is alpha now, there is a news from NewsForge.

Software take time to be matured, 10 years is not that long for a matured product, hope WINE progress well in the future, then we have more choices.

Opensource project with commercial support develop much better than those without commercial support. Crossover office (from codewevers) build from WINE, work better than WINE, when running application like Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer.

PS.
WINE, WINE Is Not Emulator (It is a Windows emulator)

Link:-
LWN.net, Wine to Reach A Major Milestone

Wa! Online radio

Wa!FM, the chinese radio channel stop broadcasting on 15th October mid-night (exact time should be 16th October 1.00am), it will temparary stop for one year for re-organize, but is not sure it will be back on air again. Many audience try to save Wa!FM, they even sign petition online, but still still can't save the radion station.

I told my friend, they should try internet broadcasting or even Podcast. My friend told me, is not easy, and I agree, but I was wrong. In about one week time after Wa!FM stop broadcasting, they setup a website and start broadcasting through internet, 24 hours non-stop, but is repeating program every 8 hours.

The streamming through microsoft format. Why don't they provide more option like in realplayer format or Ogg Vorbis (an opensource audio/video format). Podcast is a good choice as well.

"Life found their way!" and Wa! Online found their own ways too!

PalmSource join opensource effort

Finally PalmSource has a goal in their future, and is clearer, this is good for those who develop PalmOS software, atleast they know where is this company moving now. OSDL (Open Source Development Labs) launch Mobile Linux Initiative, and PalmSource is one of the members. We hope that by working together will grown the market of Linux and PalmOS in mobile or PDA market. PalmOS was a well written software, simple and stable, fit in just nice for a PDA device, but their new version of the operating system (version 6, Cobalt), doesn't get much acceptance in the market. My personal comment to PalmSource is the software are poorly written, the new version of the software (eg. PalmDesktop) is worst that the earlier version, is less stable and not user friendly, the jpilot (an opensource palm desktop) work better than the original PalmDekstop software. The support on MacOS is poor. I hope they may change after joining the Mobile Linux Initiative and OSDL. Other paticipant in mobile linux include Trolltech(Qt), MontaVista Software, Motorola and Intel. PalmSource was acquired by Access co. (Japan) recently. Link:- What's not in cobalt

Jimmy Wales

Oh! Jimmy Wales is the co-founder (together with Larry Sanger) of wikipedia, you can find some history of wikipedia from their page on wikipedia too. I like wikipedia, is an online encyclopedia, you can find a lot of information out of it. Jimmy Wales's blog.

Two New Palm Device

I didn't notice that Palm came out with 2 new product-- Palm TX and Z22.

Palm TX. Finally palm have a PDA with build in Wifi, Tungsten C and LifeDrive support Wifi but is not really a PDA for me. Palm always don't have a Wifi because they claim that wifi will drain the battery. You can install a SD IO Wifi on some of the Palm product. Many user prefer SanDisk Wifi card than the original Palm Wifi card, because the SanDisk card has an integrated card with flash memory(256Mb?), and is cheaper but many people have problem with the driver. Can you imagine the Wifi card from Palm is selling at USD129! The new Palm TX with high resolution display, Wifi, bluetooth, fast CPU, selling at USD 299, what else you can complain with it?

Z22. I though Zire 31 will be a good device to replace my Palm Vx, but seems like Z22 is even better, selling at USD99 only, with 20MB memory, less that 100g, just my ideal weight for PDA.

Google hire gaim developer

According to this blog, Google hired Sean Egan, main developer of gaim, from the gaim website, seems like Sean is already working with Google for quite some time. Google have its own instanst messenger just like Yahoo and Microsoft, google's IM is very new (and still in bete version), compare to Y!Messenger and MSN, which already available on the IM market for many years. Google's messenger is base on a open protocol--Jabber.

Since Google Talk client only available on Windows platform now, other operating system users have to use 3rd parties IM client. I am using AdiumX on OS X to connect to Google Talk, it is working fine. AdiumX is base on gaim engine. (The setting of Jabber for AdiumX and Gaim is a bit different, please refer to the Google talk help center for gaim and adium)

The advantages of hire opensource developers and using opensource software, allow google to go into some areas like instant messager with less effort. Google just provide the IM client for windows but software on other platform (eg. OS X and Linux) is already available. Take a look at Yahoo! Messenger and MSN, their clients on non-windows platform is still struggling, is either the version are too old (compare with the software available on Windows platform) or is not working properly(Yahoo messenger have some problem executing on OS X 10.3 Panther, after patched with os online update).

Google hired Firefox lead developer-- Ben Goodger early this year.

Zombie computer

Learn a new term today, 'zombie computer'. It refer to those computer control by the hackers (or crackers), using virus or install trojon horse program. These zombie computer are use to send spam mail, invade computer system.

Max Levchin

Max Levchin is the co-founder (together with PeterThiel) and former CTO of PayPal, he could have retired at the age of 28(?), after PayPal was sold to eBay for 1.5 billion dollars in year 2002, but he didn't and start another company-- Slide.com, online digital photograph management company.

eBay bought PayPal because PayPal has the ability to prevent fraud case on internet.

Max Levchin on NerdTV.

iPod video

Is a long time I didn't blog. As all the rumors on the street says, iPod play videos. At the beginning of October, Apple send an invitation letter to the media, for a special event on 12 October, call "One more thing...". This is a usual phrase Steve Jobs like to use for introducing Apple new product. Expected to be an iPod video and yes, it is a iPod video. If I am not mistaken, this is the 4th time, Steve Jobs review new apple product, after MacWorld, Worldwide Developers Conference, special event for iPod nano, and now iPod video. I have not watch the video this time (is here), but I watch the pass three events, Steve Jobs speak on the stage, no doubt, he is good. No, I should say, "This is fantastic! Amazing.". Just like what Steve used to describ Apple's new product. Is important to have new product every year, especially for technology company. Apple is doing a good job this year.