Year: 2010

Where did all the Linux netbooks go?

Adam Williamson asks the question after doing a bit of research across several major vendors and online shops.

where the hell did all the Linux netbooks go? In 2007 you couldn’t buy a netbook with Windows; in 2008 to 2009 you could still walk into a big box store just about anywhere and pick from a few with Linux; now, you can buy one from one store in England with an Android dual boot, one from a hidden page on Ubuntu’s site with an inferior configuration to its equally-priced Windows equivalent, and one from a very well hidden bit of HP’s site with a $132 premium over its identically-specified Windows equivalent.

I am not a big expert in this matter, but I tend to agree with some of his conclusions:

the cynical side of me can come up with a lot of explanations as to where all those pre-loads went, and all of them involve large amounts of money going out of Microsoft bank accounts

And I think that’s pretty reasonable.  After the netbook market is different from the desktop one.  In the desktop world, Linux has a number of ongoing problems, such as office applications, games, and so on and so forth.  But most netbooks aren’t powerful enough to run those applications.  Their primary use is of a simple Internet device – browsing the web, reading email, chatting, etc.  And for this purpose, the operating system is pretty much irrelevant.  Most of these tasks are done in the browser.  And browser-wise Linux is rich – Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and more.

So, how come all these netbooks are now selling with Windows and not Linux.  It can’t be just Microsoft Internet Explorer.  After all, most end users don’t even know what the browser is.  There must be another reason.  And probably it’s not a technical reason.  And as Adam says, it must be some of those reasons that involve large amounts of money going out of Microsoft bank accounts.

If you have any other ideas, please do share via comments.

Shell keyboard shortcuts

I came across a very useful post with the listing of many shell keyboard shortcuts.  The article covers a mix of bash, csh, zsh, and Cisco shell keyboard shortcuts.  The article is in Russian, but I think it will be helpful for more people, so I took the liberty to translate it.  Continue reading for the translation.

Continue reading Shell keyboard shortcuts

AgentPress – WordPress theme for real estate websites

Some time ago I mentioned StayPress plugin for WordPress, for those people who need such functionality on their real estate web sites.  Today I have something else to talk about – AgentPress theme for WordPress designed and implemented by awesome people at StudioPress (too much Press in this sentense, isn’t it?).

AgentPress is a commercial theme, but at a reasonable price of $99.95 USD.  StudioPress themes are built on top of their own Genesis theme framework, which provides a nice separation of code into a parent and child themes.  Child themes are small and manageable.  Genesis, by the way, is included with your AgentPress theme purchase.

What I liked about AgentPress theme was that it doesn’t only provide the design for a real estates website, but also an administration interface to manage the properties.  It uses standard WordPress posts for properties, with some additional fields.  You can control which fields you want to have and in which order.  There is a way to have both public and private fields, in case you don’t want to display everything.  It’s also easy to expand the functionality using the WordPress categories and tags.

The front page of AgentPress theme is awesome.  You have options to provide navigation either via pages or categories or both.  There is a nice looking slider with selected properties.  There are featured properties.  And you can even have featured articles there as well.  AgentPress theme supports multi-agent web sites, but I haven’t tried it, so I won’t say much about it.  There is a simplistic property search, which is good enough if you have up to a hundred properties or so. The theme has a number of widget areas, so it is pretty easy to control what goes where.

I tried the theme before a much improved WordPress 3.0 came out.  So I hope StudioPress will update this theme to utilize a number of the new features in WordPress, such as customizable menus and custom post types.  If they do, it will be much easier to extend the theme to your liking, with, for example, advanced search.  You can do things now as well, but some of them are no trivial.

Overall, if you are looking for a solution to a real estates website, I suggest you have a closer look at AgentPress theme.  There are plenty of options in both Genesis framework and in the theme itself.  It does the job and it takes seconds to setup.  At least you can buy yourself some time to build a more customized solution.

Одинокий абрикос

Сегодня я слегка опоздал на работу.  Когда пришёл, все уже были на своих местах.  И на моём столе лежал сюрприз – одинокий абрикос.  Он просто лежал и ждал меня.  У него не было ни салфетки, ни тарелки.  Не было у него ни друзей, ни родственников.  Он выглядел абсолютно одиноко. Я не знаю кто его положил мне на стол, когда и зачем.  Или за что.

Я отодвинул его слегка, чтобы разложить комп, мышку, и раскидать провода в рабочий беспорядок.  Он полежал ещё чуть-чуть.   Молча.  Видимо ему нечего было сказать.  А может он просто наслаждался последними минутами жизни, лёжа на деревяном столе, обдуваемый прохладным ветерком из кондицеонера.

Но вот комп запущен, почта просмотрена, и наступает время кофе.  Перед кофе можно и съесть одинокого бедолагу.  Я сполоснул его на кухне, в надежде не подцепить какую-нибудь столь популярную при нынешней жаре заразу.  Протёр его слегка, чтобы вода не смешивалась и не разбавляля вкус его сока.  И откусил.  Первый кусок был огроменным.  Я ворвался, вцепился, вгрызся в него.  Откусил ровно половину, по экватору.

Спелая мякоть, сок, и аромат!  Внутри была маленькая косточка.   Она уже не держалась за абрикос, а просто лежала внутри – такой он был спелый.  Лёгким движением руки, я избавился от неё.  Потом, дабы растянуть удовольствие, откусил половинку от оставшейся половинки абрикоса, и медленно прожевал.   Посмотрел на остаток, задумчиво посмотрел в никуда, вздохнул, подумал о том, как всё-таки жизнь хороша, и положил остатки абрикоса в рот.  Прожевал без промедления, ибо удовольствие уже было получено в полной мере.

… и принялся наливать кофе.

Big picture of same-sex marriage

The latest post in Big Picture blog covers the subject of the same-sex marriage.  Being a huge fan of the blog, I feel responsible to share these pictures too.  The pictures themselves are beautiful, irrelevant of what you think about the subject.  That’s just great photography.

Now on to the subject.  There are a few things that I want to make clear, and even if I said them before, I want to emphasize them once again.

  • I am not against gay marriage. If that’s your thing – knock yourself out.
  • I am against calling it marriage. Maybe it’s just me, but the word “marriage” has a very precise meaning.  The same way I don’t call people who live together and have children together married, unless they went through a specific process, I don’t want to call same-sex unions “marriages”.  Just find another word for it.  That’s all I’m asking, and I don’t think that’s too much.  You can enjoy all the same rights married people do.  Just don’t call it “marriage”. Because it’s not.
  • I consider the argument “Why do you care if it does not involve you?” stupid. Not dumb or silly, but stupid.  Gay marriage is not about me or you.  It is about the society in which we live.  And that does involve both me and you.  Asking why I care is similar to asking why I care about the Gulf oil spill or a tsunami in Asia.  Those things do not involve me, and do not directly affect my daily life.  But they have big impact on the society in which we live.  And that’s why I care.  Even if I can’t do much about it.

I think that’s all I wanted to say today.  But feel free to continue the discussion in the comments.