One Shot Design

Debian and all the other GNU/Linux distributions based on it are the first lineage of operating systems to support USB 3.0.  Sarah Sharp, a Linux developer at Intel’s Open Source Technology Center explains how to manually enable USB 3.0 on Debian.

The Palm Pre sold out in many locations, during its first weekend on sale. Experts expect Palm to ramp up production quickly before enthusiasm cools. Palm will also have refreshed competition from Apple, which is expected to deliver big iPhone news from the WWDC.

Read the full article at eWeek.com

I started using Apple Inc.’s iTunes back in Italy. The software has many locks-in: it doesn’t play Microsoft’s proprietary WMA or the open OGG Vorbis audio format. When instructed to consolidate the music library, iTunes does it with a logic of its own, separating the audio files and the images in completely remote registries; and the library manager also operates on its own will: it always switches back to the default music library location even though I specified my preferred one.

Pentafoil tangle by Carlo H. Séquin

Despite all its drawbacks, iTunes remains the only solution for a European citizen considering digital music purchase over the Internet. The songs are a child’s play to locate, samples can be played, and it only takes a couple of clicks to get the files on the local disc. Moving them from there is another problem… The biggest drawback I could see was the unability to buy music from other European countries. An abberation considering the many laws safeguarding the free movement of goods across the EEC.

Why cant Apple Inc. sell music licenses across internal European borders? I thought it should be easy. Well it turns out that for the time being it is actually impossible. Andrew Orlowski explains on The Register why the European intellectual propriety laws, or lack thereof, makes it very hard for entrepreneurs to launch a pan-european digital music store.

As this blogs bears testimony, I have been a hardcore GNU/Linux user since 2000. When I migrated from Windows to GNU/Linux, I was well aware that it meant sacrificing certain commodities due to poor (if not non-existing) driver support. The good part is that I became very proficient with open-source graphics and desktop publishing tools like the photo-editing GIMP, the vector drawing Inkscape or the desktop publishing Scribus; to the point where I now use them at work on a Windows® workstation.  I seem to have found the distribution that does it for me (Linux Mint) and from surfing the Internet to managing my music library, everything works flawlessy. I can save and encrypt all my files in open formats, knowing that there will always be software that allows to access the information in a  remote future.

In the meantime, the drivers issue has greatly improved: GNU/Linux now handles most digicams and it is often possible to run a scanner or a printer. Video cards keep getting better support, but sound cards are somehow left out. I am a music composing hobbyist, and the migration from Windows to GNU/Linux left me resourceless. I am aware of all the music editing software available on GNU/Linux, but I haven’t even been able to get it to work because of ALSA problems. I can’t even get Audacity to work properly on my Ubuntu Dell for crying out loud! Edit: Ubuntu Studio now comes preloaded with drivers and applications for audio and video editing. I managed to install it, but there was a bug with the WiFi configuration application.

Apple Garageband on OSX

Which brings me to the point: I would certainly not consider going back to Microsoft Windows, but Apple Inc. seems to offer pretty good proprietary solutions when it comes to music editing, and I am so eager to go back to composing music that I would consider buying a Mac Mini to add to my home setting of 2 GNU/Linux computers. Apple hand-picks the hardware to make sure it works, the BSD Unix-based operating system is pretty stable and the applications are user-friendly. If my main concern about Microsoft is its strong endorsement of closed standards and closed formats, then Apple Inc. is even further down the spectrum. Just think of the amount of effort they put into fighting jailbreak, making sure nobody sells or explains how to install OSX on generic hardware, or rejecting iphone applications based on abstruse criterions.

is Apple good or evil?

So, To Mac or not to Mac, that is the question. Norbert Cartagena is as much mitigated as I am when switching from GNU/Linux to Mac. Eric Fleming wrote a long article explaining why he’ll never switch back from Linux to Mac, while Greg Detre describes some of the differences he observed when switching from Mac to Linux.

Founded in the Baltic area in 2003, Skype released a cross-platform software allowing to carry out chat, VOIP and later, video-calls, over a theoretically encrypted¹ network. The startup was acquired by eBay in 2005 and it steadily grew in popularity to become the World’s #1 chat and VOIP software, boasting over 300 million users. Skype doesn’t charge calls to other Skype users, but the charge for calls to landlines is hard to beat, sometimes amounting to a meager thousandth ($ 0.001) of dollar per minute.

The software has been ported to Microsoft desktop Windows, Windows Mobile, Apple Inc. OSX, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and AmigaOS. A version for Google’s android platform is available since January 2009 and the company announced today that a release of the application will be available on the iPhone application store.

I had reported on a SMC Skype WiFi phone used to make € 0.003 a-minute-calls to landlines in Western countries. Last week I decided to subscribe for unlimited calls to Europe and a real phone number for receiving calls. I can make calls either with my SMC WiFi handset, my Windows Mobile WiFi-enabled PDA or one of my GNU/Linux laptops with appropriate headset. All in all, it costs much less than a traditional phone line from my ISP. The Skype network is still unstable, with a few seconds of communication mash-up every 30 minutes and a communication drop every 2 hours, but the appeal of huge savings makes me bear with the flaws.

Skype for the iPhone (and the iPod Touch) is great news for Apple Inc. product owners, who will now be able to make some phone calls for free using WiFi or their subscription’s unlimited internet traffic. Needless to say, it will leave network carriers who planned to cash in on mobile phone traffic with a bitter taste. they might not let Apple Inc. get away with it.

¹: Reports do suggest that in 2006 Skype agreed to implement keyword filters to be allowed by authorities to run services in China. Several Western governments are talking about attempts to crack down the encryption or simply putting pressure to allow wiretapping; and the proprietary nature of Skype software does fuel suspicion over some sort of backdoor access.