What Eee PC is ideal for

Linux Journal on Michael Anti and his Eee PC:

In sum, Michael said he has found the Eee PC ideal for three things: 1) hacking, 2) doing journalistic work and 3) watching TV. (In fact, he believes it is “the future of the TV”.)

Ethan Zuckerman, who was at the same meeting, added, “I’ve seen these all over the place. I ran into (some) Asian businessmen in Amsterdam last week. And they were all carrying them. It’s caught on really, really fast.”

His one caution is adaptation. It took him a week to get used to the smaller-size keyboard. Plus, he adds, “You should have some five minutes to get used to it” when you’re coming from a normal-size keyboard. Seems like time he’s willing to invest.

In my experience, after the total number of USB ports, the next most frequent question I encountered about eee pc is whether the size of the key board makes it difficult to use the machine; my answer is the same as that of Anti; it takes some time; after that, even when I alternate between a normal size key board and my eee pc several times a day, I do not find any difficulty.

Singing paeans to Python!

Phil Hughes does the honour (and along the way there are also some other nice comparisons — like the one between C and awk+sed that I quote below):

In a more “awkish” venture, my old boss who was now at a company that made microprocessor hardware emulators, asked me if I could do a project for him. They were converting from a 6809-based emulator to a 68000-based one and needed to convert thousands of lines of instruction set encode and decode tables from 6809 assembly language to C. He had estimated a month to do the task assuming it would be done in C. I did it in about three days using awk and sed.

…

So, I was now a C programmer and an awk scripter. The problem was that there was a gap in my toolset. Unlike Fortran V where I even found a way to build and execute assembly language code within the Fortran framework, if I wanted to do anything other than process characters, I had to write the code in C. In most cases this wasn’t bad but sometimes 99% of a task could easily be done in a few lines of awk but would require a lot of C.

Well, in 1999 I had the opportunity to interview Guido von Rossum, the father of Python. While I had already been playing with Python, my chat with Guido (a lot more than an interview) inspired me to get more serious. The interview actually addresses what is wrong with awk and Perl so I won’t go into more detail here.

While my life in the last almost ten years has not been primarily programming, I do turn to Python as my tool of choice. Some of what I have done can be called scripting but not all. For example, I implemented a credit card processing system for Visanet (the nastiest of all possible credit card protocols) in Python. I also have done some work with Karrigell, a web framework implemented in Python.

Ok, I talked about awk’s limitations and Guido helped me beat up Perl in the interview. Note that my default comment about Perl is that if you don’t know regular expressions and UNIX/Linux shell programming, Perl is not the best way to get to knowing a scripting language. So, what’s left? The obvious choice is Ruby.

Well, this is where my long, boring history of my Pascal experience fits in. First, let me say that I like Ruby. It is a nicely-designed and very clean language. If you don’t already know Python, you should seriously give it a try. But, is it better than Python? I think not.

Ruby, while not really new, just hasn’t done as much work as Python. Much like Pascal 30 years ago, Ruby looks good on paper. Pascal’s claim to fame was that there were no surprises. Ruby’s is that it is pure object oriented. Those are both good things. But, as Ruby does more heavy lifting, it seems likely to me that it will have to evolve. That is, its purity will get subverted much like the purity of Pascal did.

In any case, I will stick with Python. It has certainly evolved over the years but that evolution feels like taking a solid base, seeing what makes it more useful and cleanly handling the evolution. To me, Python 2.5 is easier to explain to someone that Python 1.5.2.

A very interesting piece; take a look!

A time sink called Firefox

On my coming back to India, for the first time, I have been using a computer which is not connected to the internet most of the times; and, I can vouch for the different feel that Paul Graham mentions in his latest piece:

If you try this trick, you’ll probably be struck by how different it feels when your computer is disconnected from the Internet. It was alarming to me how foreign it felt to sit in front of a computer that could only be used for work, because that showed how much time I must have been wasting.

Wow. All I can do at this computer is work. Ok, I better work then.

That’s the good part. Your old bad habits now help you to work. You’re used to sitting in front of that computer for hours at a time. But you can’t browse the web or check email now. What are you going to do? You can’t just sit there. So you start working.

Take a look!

A couple of Linux links!

Oh! It feels so good to be back with a Linux (or, should I say Gnu/Linux?) machine after using Windows and Mac for nearly two years (the only times I did use  a Linux machine, it was via remote login and not at the console). In any case, I am happy to be back with Linux and editing files, the instructions for which, come with the warning — Beware: you should know what you are doing, if you are editing these files — the good thing about such warnings is that, even though I may not actually know what I am doing, the very thought that I am editing a file which warrants such a warning gives me such a kick! Any case, you can expect more Linux links in these page from now on. Here are the first couple:

• Does professionalization of Linux matter? Tom Slee at Whimsley argues that it does; for one thing, according to him, with recent changes, the Cathedral and Bazzar model might be breaking down. His punchline:
  

  Open source, like any new phenomenon, is changing. Our understanding of it has to change too. The Linux Foundation report prompts us to re-examine some of the neat and clean dichotomies that were floated around ten years ago and see if they still hold water. A few do, but many don’t.

• Should Linux have a standard, single distribution? It is only natural that with professionalization, you will get such questions; the short answer is no. And, that is precisely what Shawn Powers argues for, over at Linux Journal in this short post.

Happy linuxing (and happy tux racing!)

I have an eee pc!

Got an 8 GB one; started loading gcc, gsl, fftw3, gnuplot and so on. Did some more tweaking to change the user name and hostname; in the process, screwed up something that I had to go back to the factory settings. Blogging from it now. Will try and post more information about customizing it soon!

Update: Figured out the problem is when I change the user name (which, by default is called user) to guru, the start-up hangs. I need to figure how to do that successfully, or at least create another account with my name for login. Apart from that, I could change the hostname, use apt-get install to load gcc, gsl, fftw3 and gnuplot. What is more, I could attach an USB hard disk I had (120 GB) and run a basic Cahn-Hilliard code (512×512) system — It takes nearly 10 minutes or so for 1000 time steps, which, I think is cool. Am now trying to run a more intensive code — Cahn-Hilliard on a 512×512 system for an elastically inhomogeneous solid. I do not perceive any visible slowing down of the system. In fact, I am blogging as the code is running in the background. I just love this — Here is a less than one kilogram machine, which is ideal for writing code, debugging, running tests etc. The machine does heat up a bit — but not terribly. More updates to follow. Keep tuned in!

Update 2 : A 512×512 system of Cahn-Hilliard with inhomogeneous elasticity takes nearly 1 hour and 30 minutes to do 1000 time steps; that means, some of the figures that went into my PhD thesis could be generated in a day on this machine! Wow!

Update 3: Loaded LaTeX. What else do I need ? Cannot think of any at this point. I guess I am good to go. I will try and figure out how to do a vlog post next!

Update 4: Figured I need a mic for good quality sound recording to go with my video; so, vlog posts have to wait. But, got the pc working with voice commands though!

Linux is Grandma ready!

Greg Laden explains why!

It is one of the ways I contribute to OpenSource: I keep my Linux Laptop handy and come to the rescue when someone’s PC won’t perform, or when they can’t get their Mac hooked up right, for a presentation. Then, of course, I briefly gloat about it.

My wife’s grandma lives not too far away, and there are family gatherings at her house every several weeks. The most recent was for a couple of birthdays, last Sunday. Grandma’s son, my father in law, had the task on this trip of carting away Grandma’s old computer, which needed to be replaced in order to run a more current Windows operating system. Grandma uses her computer for exactly two things: Writing memoirs and using email.

Every single time there is a family gathering at Grandma’s her son has some important task regarding the computer, something he has to do to make it work. One day the “send/receive email” button disappeared and he had to find it and put it back. There have been problems with hooking to the internet, and there have been other software problems. The Windows operating system and the Microsoft software have never really worked properly for more than a few weeks, apparently, or when it does work, there is some kind of hardware incompatibility. But between tweeks and repairs, Grandma does get some of her writing and emailing done.

As you may imagine, every time my father in law is busy messing with Grandma’s computer I’m always there to assist with helpful advice like “Hey, if that was a Linux computer, you wouldn’t be doing this right now. You’d be in the living room with me sipping some 35 year old Scotch….” and similar wise cracks. Indeed, almost exactly two years ago (in preparation for his daughter’s wedding … to me … ) he had been so frustrated by Microsoft PCs that he went out and bought a Mac (so he could make the obligatory Ken Burns style retrospective slide show for the wedding reception). It turns out that the Mac did not work well for him. As is the case with many long time PC users, the Mac does not really feel right. The Apple Mackintosh motto is “It just works.” If you are a long time PC user, that is not true. The reality for many is “It just doesn’t do anything like I expect it to… I can never get it to work, and it looks funny.” His Mac now serves as a pretty good quality small TV, and of course my daughter uses it because, as a 12 year old, she’s pretty competent in all operating systems.

Greg goes on to show how, when it comes to installation, and Grandma’s use of computer for checking mails and writing her memoirs, Linux is the best option:

When it comes down to it, Linux is fully grandma ready, and if Grandma uses Linux she gets more time on the box and everybody else gets more free time for sipping the Scotch…

Take a look!

Eee pc and xkcd!

After lots of market search, I have zeroed in on getting myself an Asus eee pc; so, this xkcd cartoon comes at the right moment!

Couple of Open Source/Linux links!

Four Commandments of Open Source:

My favorite part of Passover, however, is the mandatory re-watching the classic 1956 academy award-winning film, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as the Pharaoh Rameses. The special effects and the miniatures and sets on this movie would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce today, and it just wouldn’t be the same done in CGI and with “new school” Hollywood actors. My favorite scene in that movie is when Moses goes up to Mt. Sinai and receives the tablets from the Lord, which are inscribed with lightning bolts shooting down from the sky by the Almighty, Blessed be He. Publishing on demand! Cool.

While I would hardly classify myself as a monotheistic deity on the level of the God of Abraham or even worthy of making statements of such cultural magnitude upon high, I would like to take this opportunity, perhaps, as we approach the Passover season, to make some suggestions for Commandments that future generations of technologists and technology companies wishing to pursue Open Source community activities might want to follow.

Which Linux distribution to choose?

I can’t begin to tell you how many people over the years I have consulted with about choosing a Linux distribution. And even with my own personal loyalties to one distribution or another, it always amazes me how certain distributions are better suited to various users and needs. So when I set out to write a 10 Things article, it only made sense that my first one be related to choosing a Linux distribution.

Of course, times and opinions change. For nearly 10 years I road the Red Hat/Fedora wagon. And then, after considerable thought, I jumped over to Ubuntu. Why? Because it fit my evolving needs. Many will argue that one Linux distribution is just like another — and I agree, on fundamentals. But when it comes down to everyday use, each distribution is different from the next. So why would you want to use Debian vs. Fedora or Ubuntu vs. Mandriva? Let’s dive into this and find out.

Both links via Greg Laden.

Exploring nano-world and the birth of electronic computers

LII recommends two sites: the first is the University of Wisconsin, Madison site on nanoworld and the other is the story of the birth of ENIAC, the first electronic computer. Take a look!

A promising way of handling information

Some time back, we spoke about BibDesk, Tellico and Jabref; Philobiblon points to another called Zotero (for storing net records, mostly):

… what looks like a very good way of storing Net records – everything from Jstor articles to Flickr photos! I’ve been thinking for some time that someone really needed to sort out the vast amounts of information that we’re all handling, and Zotero looks like a promising way to do it.

Here is from the Zotero About page:

Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways. An extension to the popular open-source web browser Firefox, Zotero includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as formatted references—and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways. Zotero integrates tightly with online resources; it can sense when users are viewing a book, article, or other object on the web, and—on many major research and library sites—find and automatically save the full reference information for the item in the correct fields. Since it lives in the web browser, it can effortlessly transmit information to, and receive information from, other web services and applications; since it runs on one’s personal computer, it can also communicate with software running there (such as Microsoft Word). And it can be used offline as well (e.g., on a plane, in an archive without WiFi).

Sounds cool, isn’t it? Take a look!