Software Freedom Day 2009

What is Software Freedom Day?

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business — in short, everywhere! The non-profit company Software Freedom International coordinates SFD at a global level, providing support, giveaways and a point of collaboration, but volunteer teams around the world organize the local SFD events to impact their own communities.

Many thanks to our Sponsors and Supporters without whom we could not make such an event happen.

• Find out more about Software Freedom International and SFD.
• Read about how Software Freedom underpins your human rights from our President, Pia Waugh
• This Go-OpenSource FAQ has a lot of good information as well.
• Also find out more about Free Software

Our Vision & Objectives
Vision

Our vision is to empower all people to freely connect, create and share in a digital world that is participatory, transparent, and sustainable.

Objectives

• to celebrate software freedom and the people behind it
• to foster a general understanding of software freedom, and encourage adoption of free software and open standards
• to create more equal access to opportunities through the use of participatory technologies
• to promote constructive dialog on responsibilities and rights in the information society
• to be inclusive of organizations and individuals that share our Vision
• to be pragmatic, transparent, and responsible as an organization

http://www.softwarefreedomday.org

My Windows 7 Experience

Seems that they have taken out the BS that was making Vista unique.
It still feels like Vista, but only slightly different.
If Vista came out with a patch, this is what you would basically end up with.
I find that Windows 7 64 bit to be almost identical to Vista with its hard to find stuff attitude, and its lack of innovation. But hey, I have only been beta testing it for about a hour now…

Speaking of “beta” here is the default screen after a fresh install.

Is Windows is trying to look like KDE…?

Sooner or later I think Microsoft is going to make their own version of Linux.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I am beta testing it on my laptop.
Size of Windows 7 after update(s) yes, they have them already…
And one NVIDIA video driver install. 14.7 GB.

Seems they are trying to hide the system functions running in the background, and making everything “auto-magical” for the end user.

Nine days later…

OK, here is my story as I am using Parted Magic right now on my laptop. I am finished with my beta testing of Windows 7.

I am partitioning my laptop to dual-boot Linux. The way it was before I was beta testing. I will be dual-booting openSUSE and CRUNCHBANG Linux.

I was going to beta test Windows 7 for two weeks, but I only lasted nine days. It did not end well.

Windows 7 is almost identical to Vista with slight improvements. If you know somebody using XP, tell them to wait until Windows 7 is out and bugs are fixed before upgrading. Or, just stay with XP… Especially if you are a gamer.
It took XP seven years of patching to make it as solid as it is now. Which is why Microsoft is having a hard time beating its own product.
I was going to try and stick it out for a solid two weeks with Windows 7, but I was not strong enough… I had a few issues that were very annoying…

It was a memory hog… it used anywhere from 32% – 39 % of my ram while IDLE!

Oh, I am sorry, I forgot to mention I have 3 GB ram on my laptop, so basically it takes 1 GB ram to sit….. and do nothing except its normal 45 background processes.
The CPU reserves were better than Vista’s, and during idle it would use no more than 03% CPU power, even with Vista I have seen it wander around up to 19% while idle.

The battery life was extended by about 30 minutes compared to Vista. It actually runs slightly cooler, and my battery lasted 1 hour 58 minutes, at idle.
This is with the screensaver off, and any power saving features off.
Vista 1 1/2 hours.
CRUNCHBANG Linux is still the winner for me for battery life, with 3 hours 55 minutes.

So the small issues which made me drop Windows 7, I am sure they will attempt to fix them before they release it.

My printer… which is connected to my desktop PC, running dual-boot Debian / XP is a printer server. All other PC’s can see and print from it, including XP, CRUNCHBANG Linux and openSUSE. Windows 7 did not see the printer on the network, but it did see the printer when I connected it directly to the laptop, BUT it still does not have a printer driver for it. So that was a big disappointment.

Oh, for more annoying issues which shortened my beta testing….

I started a backup function to see how well it worked, but I noticed I had no Cd’s to write to, so I canceled the back-up, and it continually kept asking for me to insert a blank CD about every 20 minutes to resume back-up.

Another HUGE issue… after a FRESH install of Windows 7 and a NVIDIA driver, it took up 14.4 GB of drive space.

14.4 GB is not a typo.

I did not even attempt a dual-boot, even though I was planning on it. But it was just slowly getting on my nerves. Yesterday… last day using it, even though I planned on 14 days, I only needed 5 more days.

Rewind back to the beginning… After the initial install and the nvidia driver install. Would you believe it already had updates available? and after updates 14.7 GB

OK, back to yesterday, last day…. there is a update available! it said it was for nvidia…. I downloaded the update, and received a error stating the update failed. I had two options [Retry] or [Cancel] I clicked [Retry], so it went through the entire process of downloading the update once again, and yet again I had a fail. I retried about 5 times….

I kept getting the updates are available, and please insert CD to resume backup… So, I decided to attempt a RESTORE back to the day I installed it.

The Restore said it went successful, I selected the very first restore point, before I installed the nvidia driver, and any updates. So, I went through the process of installing the nvidia driver once again, and then a reboot…. The screen resolution looked the same as before the driver install! I checked out the driver version installed, and it was not installed! So, there I was… upset at the fact that the video driver did not want to install, and the little reminder that popped up and told me to insert a CD to resume backup every 20 minutes…. That is when I ended my Windows 7 experience…

Yes, it started nice and all, but it reminded me of the OS airlines.

Good points?

• Wireless worked flawlessly for me
• Battery life has been extended slightly
• Windows 7 runs slightly cooler than Vista

Bad points

• Driver support
• Failed update
• Annoying pop-up reminder for something that was CANCELED

Alien Arena new release

“COR Entertainment, LLC has released version 7.21 of it’s open sourced freeware game, Alien Arena 2008!

Version 7.21 features another long list of enhancements, bugfixes, and as always, some new arenas in which to frag in. Some of the new features include new GLSL water shaders, skybox cloud layers, improved particle/event effects, vegetation shaders, improved in-game server interface, and much more.

For a condensed changelog visit – http://icculus.org/alienarena/changelogs/7.21.txt

To read about Alien Arena, see new media, and download the game visit http://red.planetarena.org“

Politically correct Holiday Greetings

To all the Politically Correct out there:

“Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.”

To Everybody Else:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

American jobs

John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6am.

While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG).

He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA)

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today.

After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) filled it with GAS (from Saudi Arabia) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his Computer (Made In Malaysia), Joe decided to relax for a while.

He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in AMERICA.
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On a serious note: purchase products Made in USA and possibly save an American Job.