Ubuntu Netbook Edition has dropped OpenOffice in favour of Google Docs. One of my friends asked me if this was because a netbook’s resources were not enough for Ubuntu and OpenOffice.
I doubt. We were able to get 55MB of RAM usage with plain Openbox and some XFCE accessories on a stock Ubuntu installation (so that the machine could still use the local repository). Even with Abiword or Gnumeric it did not exceed 90MB, and that worked quite swiftly on a machine with 256 MB RAM and old enough to be low-powered than today’s netbooks. All this with font anti-aliasing and pretty window decorations.
So I think that this decision is either because of the trend of choosing browsered applications over desktop applications, or because netbook users do not see office suites as necessary.
I witnessed yet another debate whether Web development was art, or engineering, or both. I personally believe that it is a combination of both, which requires close collaboration between corresponding experts. To think of it, this is true about every design. Different individuals might choose different starting points, but in the end it has to reach a balance. Many argue that Web design is no different than other art streams, like painting. [Continue]
I have picked up some interesting new tools last year. Some of them have changed the way I work. xmonad: A wonderful tiling window manager that has found a place in all my monitors, with different resolutions dmenu: IMHO the best launcher out there centerim: Console or not, this is the best and least intrusive way of chatting GNU Screen: An immensely useful terminal multiplexer git: A version control system that lets you code first and worry about version control later Chromium: It just sped past all the existing browsers. Some others are sitting in my experimentation lab: uzbl: A Webkit based browser, which has changed my perception of a Web browser zsh: A powerful shell, though I am still finding out what I stand to lose if I move away from bash. Which ones have you picked up?
Microsoft has agreed to offer its users a choice of Web browsers. This has ended of a long antitrust case started by the European Union. Now Microsoft will offer a ballot screen to its European users who have Internet Explorer as their default Web browser. It is commendable that Microsoft is complying with the Europen Commission policy and is doing its job. However, as a Web community, we face a bigger challenge in educating the users and corporates who do not care about getting rid of IE-specific applications or working with a better browser. [Continue]
Google profiles can be now used as OpenIDs. Unlike the federated login, now Google will allow the profile URLs will work with any site that accepts the generic OpenID. Though this is good for OpenID, I doubt of the average Joe is aware of Google profiles itself. I do have a profile, but I have never used it, nor has anyone requested it. Unlike other Google services, Google profiles is hardly visible visible to a Google user. [Continue]
Whether it is one of the smallest decisions, or those of the higest stake, it is the decision that is talked about and recorded. If your decision leads to success, it gets celebrated. However, if does not, you can very easily become the victim. This is the time when the reasons assume higher significance than the decision and help you clarify your stand. More importantly they can help you analyze your decisions at a later time and help you learn from failures. [Continue]
Packt Publishing has selected WordPress as the overall best open source CMS for 2009. The thing to note here is that it is in the category of overall CMS, not just blogging. Hopefully this will make it easier to convince those executives to consider WordPress for web sites. It really makes sense.
OpenOfficeMouse (via Paul Mison) does appear strange. We are not used to seeing hardware built around specific applications. Nor are we used to seeing 18 buttons on a mouse, it is almost like keyboard on a mouse. I am biased by the current tools I use and so I did mock it when I first read about it. But, like every new design, this has the potential to redefine human computer interaction.
C++Next is a new site focusing on C++ language. Nowadays a programming language need something more than its own features – a community that can illustrate its benefits through applications and writings as it evolves. And if there is any language that needs it the most, it is C++. I hope that C++Next will provide that boost!
Though we see users yearning for better products every other day, being only better is not enough for a product to be popular. Being better brings in change, and usually the resistance to the change beats down the enthusiasm for betterment. Then there is also the first-mover advantage, by virtue of which your competitors, though not as good as you, get a bigger market share and user community that is already active and familiar with the product. Betterment, by itself, is not an effective weapon to fight this. Another perspective is that by virtue of being better, its benefits can be shown only as a comparison against the worst counterparts. [Continue]
