Dennis Ritchie, RIP


I’ve just learned of yet another great loss – Dennis Ritchie, who passed away a few days ago at the age of 70. It’s difficult to describe his contributions and achievements to non-technical people, but anyone with even a grain of knowledge of computer history and modern affairs can appreciate what this man have done. Here is a quote from the Wikipedia page:

Ritchie was best known as the creator of the C programming language and a key developer of the Unix operating system, and as co-author of the definitive book on C, The C Programming Language, commonly referred to as K&R (in reference to the authors Kernighan and Ritchie).
Ritchie’s invention of C and his role in the development of Unix alongside Ken Thompson has placed him as an important pioneer of modern computing. The C language is still widely used today in application and operating system development, and its influence is seen in most modern programming languages. Unix has also been influential, establishing concepts and principles that are now well-established precepts of computing.
Ritchie was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988 for “development of the ‘C’ programming language and for co-development of the UNIX operating system.”

Thank you Sir for all your hard work. Rest in peace.

Flickr vs Google Picasa : The Battle Continues

As some of you know, I’ve almost abandoned my Flickr account. I haven’t uploaded any photos there in the last couple of years. And I’ve also voiced my increasing preference of Google Picasa on several occasions. I’ve even started re-uploading all my pictures to Picasa and tagging people in it. Which is how you probably know about it, since that stirred a massive wave of notification emails.

Anyways. There has been a sudden and unexpected development in this area, which I want to share. Google replaced Picasa link (‘Photos’) in its navigation bar with Google+ Photos. And while Google+ Photos is an improvement over Picasa in some areas, it is an inferior product at this stage. And that was done when I was almost done with my Flickr-to-Picasa migration. I felt it was a blow below the belt. And that gave me yet another opportunity to reconsider my reasoning for the move.

These, to the best of my memory, were my reasons to move from Flickr to Google Picasa.

  • Uploader. This was one of the main reasons. Back a couple of years ago, Flickr web interface only allowed me to upload 5 or 6 pictures at once. If I had to upload much more, the only option was to install a browser addon or a desktop client. Which I tried too, of course. But all of them sucked in general. And required constant permission fiddling. Google Picasa had an excellent web uploader. All I had to do was drag and drop a bunch of pictures into my browser.
  • Mobile integration. Google Picasa had a client for my Android smartphone since the day I needed it. Flickr was a different story. A different story with Yahoo authentication on top of it.
  • Price. Flickr’s Pro account is $25/year. Google Picasa uses my extended Google disk space, for which I pay $5 / 20 GB / year. But those are magic Google gigabytes. Somehow I can fit 40 gigabytes of laptop’s disk space into about 11 Google gigabytes.
  • Image editor. Google Picasa had a built in editor which I could use to do minor editing like rotation and cropping. FLickr didn’t have anything.

Of course, these weren’t all my reasons, but they were the most significant ones I think. So, did any of that changed during my inactivity on Flickr and during my Google Picasa migration process? Yes. Let’s have a closer look.

  • Uploader. Flickr now features an excellent batch uploader. I tried it and it works very well.
  • Mobile integration. Flickr recently released Android app, which works pretty good. It’s not as useful as the Picasa one yet. But it covers the basic needed functionality and I’m sure it will improve in the nearest future.
  • Price. That is always something to consider. In relative terms, Flickr seems to be 4 times more expensive than Google Picasa. But in absolute terms, $25/year is really nothing. $2 or so per month won’t make much difference to me. That was a stupid argument on my part.
  • Image editor. Flickr now has one too.

So why would I want to move to Google Picasa now? There is really doesn’t seem to be any good reason right now. On top of that, Google Picasa is being phased out and replaced by Google+ Photos in which I don’t have any confidence yet.

Therefore, my thinking now is that I shouldn’t really move. Not at this stage at least. I will upload pictures from my camera to Flickr. I will take a bit more time to figure out what I want to do with my mobile pictures – either keep them in Picasa, or upload them to Flickr, or just use them in my blog only. But other than that, I think, I made up my mind about the move now.

What do you think? What is the best photo hosting/sharing option?

Day in brief – 2011-10-12

  • I favorited a @YouTube video http://t.co/7WdVybmV 25 Ways to Wear a Scarf in 4.5 Minutes! #
  • What's the best way to escape the police in a high-speed car chase? – Quora http://t.co/mpkQsPTi #
  • Shared: Matt: What’s Next for Apple http://t.co/71Nyh6Vm #
  • Shared: WPTavern: Plugin Review – Spots By Interconnect/it http://t.co/3of4jP70 #
  • Half of the Greek blogs on Blogger use English for blog names and post titles. Yet content is in Greek. Weird. And sad. #
  • This is my tweet number eight thousand and one. 8,001 that is. #
  • @zebrascyprus The website URL in your Twitter profile is incorrect. I'm interested in location, working hours and the menu. :) #
  • Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful clouds over Limassol. I have a 180 degree mountain view and absolute no talent to capture this beauty. #
  • Steve Jobs on Why He Wore Turtlenecks http://t.co/x0nLvqmo #
  • I favorited a @YouTube video http://t.co/3ShglMOE Canal+ "The Bear" by BETC Paris #
  • Why Startup Hubs Work http://t.co/GAcHKjMR #
  • One of the problems with blogging mobile pictures is that these pictures look way better on the mobile screen than they do on the desktop. #
  • How To Share Google Reader Stories to Google Plus http://t.co/I7L4jyeP #
  • At work http://t.co/flwJD16M #
  • G+: Test. http://t.co/o9TQmitS #
  • G+: Lana Sabletooth and 3 others were tagged in Leonid Mamchenkov 's album. http://t.co/cviKW4XD #
  • We are testing a new collaboration tool at work to replace http://t.co/Oj0XjpCC . The new one is http://t.co/mnXKf5OU . #
  • Corporate social networks make a lot of sense. But companies utilizing existing public social networks for their work make even more sense. #
  • Shared: Hernan Vivani: Dropbox bajo Linux no sincroniza http://t.co/9MpIQaSs #
  • Shared: Uh, uh… who caused that error? MySQL ?! – Internet Super Hero http://t.co/xgEiSPkW #
  • Having a faster Internet connection at home than the one in the office became a tradition for me. I wonder if it will ever change. #
  • I'm at Chester's (Amathountos, In SWEPCO Shopping Center, Parekklisia) http://t.co/0QHc1842 #
  • @timdetone Where are you? I haven't seen you man :) I was inside by the fire place on the left. #