I was rifling through my shamefully disparate filing system the the other day and re-discovered some floppy disk imagery I’ve since spent far too much time dicking about with, still, in spite of a wasted (?) Bank Holiday Monday I’m actually quite pleased with the results, so much so I’ve even re-instated my own personal website with them (it) as a dual-purpose single image (page) desktop or iPhone site.

Obviously floppies “used” as floppies are somewhat of a rarity these days however it’s nice having them about for retro design work and I thought a “Micro-CV/Services” idea was fun. I suppose the logical next stage is to get some labels printed and produce the real deal, we have an open evening coming up at NTI soon and as business cards go they’re certainly more interesting than the usual roach material people pass about.

Looking around eBay it seems you can still source them quite easily although so far I’m struggling to find a beige batch, lot’s of blue, or black (obviously) and I’m presently watching a light grey set of Windows 95 installation disks…! (That would be a bizarre item to bid on).

Anyone out there got a stash they fancy offloading? DD or HD, it doesn’t matter

The video was created by Amitay Tweeto who lives in Bet Shemesh, Israel. The 25-year old freelance graphic designer and UI consultant entered this contest because he thinks Linux is suffering from bad PR and when people think of Linux they think “technical,” gray stuff for programmers only. Amitay wants to let people get to know the other side of Linux, the flexibility they can get with no technical background. I think he did a good job

Entries are open NOW for the 2010 competition > CLICK HERE for details.

Check this out, it’s a Windows XP themed Ubuntu distro from China. Microsoft are “apparently” not going to take any legal action against the producers (Ylmf), although I’ll wager that’s said through clenched teeth

So, what’s the lowdown. Well, Ylmf is built on the latest version of Ubuntu (9.10) and includes all the standard goodies + a few extra niceties to compliment the blend. Here’s a brief run through of the install and a few added shots from the end desktop..

Initial splash, already nicely themed..

The disk partitioning & user info request screens are as per a standard Ubuntu installation however once things get rolling it drops back into character (check out the “interesting” English welcome text..!)..

Installation finished..

Log-in screen..

After adjusting screen-res & choosing a wallpaper things are looking familiar. I purposely didn’t go for the default XP desktop “field”, I just couldn’t do it, it’s just not a very good image (it never was). Check out the nicely matched Office icons for Open Office, even the lowest end user has NO excuses..

Open Office Writer, Terminal (of course) + menu..

And how’s this for attention to detail, they’ve even stuck their own Firefox “Google search” home page in the mix as default, comprehensive (and nice) indeed..

WINE is packaged and ready to roll should you wish to install any “real” Microsoft apps (iTunes or Adobe Photoshop perhaps?)..

Movie Player & shutdown panel..

Ylmf is most certainly a fun & comprehensive Ubuntu distro and whilst obviously teetering on the brink of blatant copyright issues it does highlight a most notable point regarding computer operating systems in general – conceptually they all operate in a more or less identical fashion.

All mouse driven operating systems present a graphical structure offering access to disk drives, folders and files. Within this is a “Home” user folder containing Pictures, Documents, Music and Movies. Searching and saving to these folders from menu drop downs again is standard procedure and the applications themselves all function in a statutory manner (Document formatting is document formatting etc). Cross platform apps don’t vary at all (e.g Firefox, Skype) and operating system config (display properties & file/folder display options) generally offer a list, expanding list or icon view (+ a cover flow option under Apple OSX).

With such ubiquitous operationality coupled to what are now fully cross-compatible file formats any intelligent business platform choice should be decided not for aesthetics but around core factors which do differ and which will affect enterprise infrastructure and service delivery – i.e stability, security, performance and cost, because, and as shown, eye candy can quite easily be added later, it’s what’s under the hood that counts.

Linux is a clear winner here on all counts and with an emerging strain of cutting edge Open Source strategy providers* now helping forward thinking businesses realise the alluring benefits of adoption I heartily welcome “left-field” ventures like Ylmf which concurrently raise awareness, irrespective of whatever reasons the Chinese may have had for creating it..

Ylmf (English version) can be downloaded HERE.

*MEBBI™ Solutions can provide a full consultancy and open source solutions service.

TooMuchGreen has officially regressed to it’s former blog status, it likes being a blog and we enjoy blogging through it.

The “business” side of things is now fully re-branded as the wonderful MEBBI™ Solutions.

MEBBI™ Solutions provide all the services previously offered by TooMuchGreen plus a few new additions, why not visit our lovely new website and have a look around..

http://mebbi.net

Sector awareness for the benefits of open source adoption is rapidly growing amongst the forward thinking enterprise. An open source solution provides not only a comprehensive replacement but delivers added security and performance boosts to existing systems whilst offering huge reductions in immediate expenditure and long term cost of ownership.

Perhaps it’s time you spoke to MEBBI™.

We’ll shortly be holding some integration workshops at NTI in Leeds so keep an eye on the TooMuchGreen blog for details. Areas covered will include..

• Ubuntu Linux client builds
• Network & domain configuration
• User account creation and access
  
• Microsoft application optional installs
• Network share (SAMBA) connectivity & mappings
• Microsoft Exchange eMail & groupware integration with Evolution
• Microsoft Active Directory connectivity & authentication with Likewise
• Active directory enterprise user account management (GUID & OU configurations)

“When business, education, and governments are cost conscious, they move toward Linux. Even in times of economic strength, they want control od their operating systems. Ubuntu Linux saves money. The open source nature of Linux allows organisations to control and customise their operating systems.

If desired, commercial support is available from Canonical. Even with that support Linux saves money, and provides a higher degree of control when compared to Microsoft Windows.

Linux has proven itself in pressure-filled situations. The New York Stock Exchange migrated to Linux. Major corporations, from Home depot to Toyota, and governments such as Germany, the Republic of Korea and Mexico are making the switch to Linux. When faced with a Microsoft audit for licences, the Portland Oregon school system switched to Linux. Major movie studios such as Disney and Dreamworks use Linux to create the latest motion pictures. IBM has invested billions in Linux-and frequently features Linux in it’s advertising, even though Linux is freely down-loadable, Wall Street Technology reported that Linux server revenue in 2007 approached U.S $8 billion, and has gained substantial market share since”

Author : Michael Jang (Source : Ubuntu Certified Professional Study Guide)

Apple were slated by a few people post the September 9th event for not releasing anything innovative enough. All considered I feel this was a touch harsh but I do realise demand of the gadget hungry innovators from the world of media tech doesn’t get any easier to satisfy so I suppose it was only to be expected.

I personally think Apple have produced quite a pleasing array of products recently. Snow Leopard is a superb remodel of OSX (my MacBook Air loves it), the iPod Nano Video is a great little addition which will most certainly now expand it’s niche and the improvements in iTunes 9 for presenting the way we enjoy digital music are most alluring. The double picture disk LP with gate-fold sleeve will never return but perhaps the digital door has indeed opened for an increasingly improved user experience inviting further enhancement come the release of the mystical Apple Tablet?

Ah yes, the Tablet. Too Much Green have previously blogged about this mythical wonder, highlighting perception and faith for the still unknown element yet to enhance its unrealised dynamic as the next must have device. Steve Jobs won’t disappoint. I recently watched the superb independent film “Welcome to Macintosh” in which various Apple products were mentioned which quite literally changed the world and the way we view computing, we’re talking about the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes, Quicktime and the OSX operating system. Each would be a major achievement however for them all to eminate from a single source in such a comparatively short time frame? This is no accident. Critics of the Apple tablet are still viewing it as either an overgrown iPhone or a mini touch screen laptop which is obviously somewhat amusing, they aren’t envisioned enough to look past Facebook into other areas of potential and by writing the tablet off before it’s even released are merely highlighting their own boxed in ignorance. Take a lead, “Think Different“.

Myself and Lesley were sat in Cafe Tous les Jours the other day playing with the recipe spinner on my iPod Touch, the food element got me thinking about the tablet and I realised how useful a larger wipe clean device might be in the kitchen. Recipe programs are already available for “regular” computers but let’s be honest, cake mix and keyboards aren’t a good combination, a sealed wipe clean device could be given the once over with a damp cloth, cake mix gone and no harm done. If it was latched onto Wi-fi you could download new recipes on demand (or just view them on websites), you could pass on links, modify ingredients, share and re-distribute, view and follow videos of food prep methods all whilst listening to your iTunes and Tweeting your friends an E.TA for when the meal you’re cooking them will be ready. A software cooking application would have no problems converting weights and measures, it would provide an on screen timer and could even IM your iPhone with a reminder to take the cake out of the oven should you get too engrossed in the afternoon movie.

The header shot on this post shows potential for such an application (click the image for more details). It was pulled from a strain of development which seems didn’t reach completion as I can find no progressed information past 2007, perhaps it was merely two years ahead of it’s time? I would most certainly urge those responsible to get back on the case as the term “Cook Book” could have a whole new meaning by this time next year.

I’m no Steve Jobs (obviously) and the “CookBook” idea isn’t perhaps the most visionary scenario for Apples latest design innovation, however it does highlight a world of computing outside the box of business and media, an area Apple have already seamlessly re-invented. What’s next?

Open Source? Many people may have no idea what it means, to some it’s a descriptive tag for certain platforms of community developed free software, to others it’s “lab” computing for geeks, at the far end it’s a comprehensive lifestyle ethos and to a select Facebook few on the flip side of phonetics it’s a bottle of HP with the lid off waiting to be plopped onto their soggy fish & chips. What’s obvious is that the term “Open Source” applies to more than a single area or product, however there is a constant and if we dig down we’re going to end up somewhere around root “collaboration”.

The word collaboration is invariably linked to production of an end result and is further described as being inherently positive (except, interestingly, during wartime), its corroborated companion, “cooperation”, is apparently always positive and the staunch anti-thesis of both comes to us as the dark deceitful back-door concept of “collusion”.

A perceptually large amount of the Open Source community relish the apparent notion we may indeed be at war, a war (for them) against a certain monolithic software giant (who shall remain nameless) and I must admit it does feel like that at times, although in war don’t you have to have two sides fighting each other? If not I believe there’s an escalating scale of aptly applicable descriptions for such systems one could pull on, leading up to virtual despotism! But hey, let’s not get too extreme here, after all we’re the ones sporting beards and sandals remember (or is that just me?) and that’s most definitely not what Too Much Green is about, life is a choice and it’s all about options, ideally

What’s more important in life to you? Security? Purpose? Status? Family? Can they be separated? I don’t think they either can or should, for if you factor in our flair for social interaction you complete the full package for endorsed happiness, with life, as a result, becoming substantially more than the sum of it’s contributed parts thanks to increased benefits attained through a collaboration of needs.

Positive energy flows from collaboration and through open collaboration it flows even freer, you know how nice it is when someone helps you out purely because they want to? Indeed, aside from being the basis for friendship it could even be the crux of potentiality for a truly evolved future of our species (we really have to stop trying to blow each other up). There’s no doubt the production of anything is instilled with a certain something extra if it’s been created from passion and goodwill rather than on the back of a single focused drive to capitalise and make money (remind you of anyone we know? I could pick several examples but if we stick with computers I think you get the picture).

So, where is this going and what does it mean to your daily email and web surfing? Well, maybe you should tell me, all I’m saying is that Open Source software is so much more than just a great way of saving money.

Our choices in life define who we are.

Due to an increase in project work lately I’ve had to review and produce various bits of documentation sent to me in MS Word format, and nice as iWork 09 is (and it IS nice) you have to face it that the two still aren’t 100% compatible regarding the finer points of formatting (very close, but just not 100%), so, last week I gave the groovy little MacBook Air the shock of it’s iLife by by installing MS Word on it just to see how it compared to the open source offerings, I should have known better, from the *word* go it just didn’t feel right.

Firstly you’ve got the general size of the app itself, bloated is an understatement, not only that but after install it decides it wants to update it’s updater (?) then proceeds to hog all your bandwidth by downloading the actual SP update itself, which at 180mb is certainly some service pack (indeed, and some).

Anyhow, I installed it and despatched the documentation off in both Word and PDF format (I love PDF’s, but that’s another story, ask me about archive Digitisation formats sometime), and as it all went OK I decided to have a butchers around Entourage too, just out of curiosity, and just to see how the other half lives (as you do), I fired up the .DMG and tried to add it to the installed packages, but it didn’t want to know, nope, not playing at all. It seems if you do a selective install of only certain packages and upgrade to the latest service pack you’re snookered for adding the remainder as they’re seen to be from an older version of Office (which I suppose they now are of course), there’s no way round it other than to de-install, sift through and manually remove all the operating system and preference entries (a laboriously challenging job in itself) and run through the whole process again (complete with huge service pack download to update), hmm….no, I don’t think so, Neo Office it is then.

Neo Office is an evolved version of the superb open source office suite “Open Office“, it’s ported and tuned for the Macs (OSX), is free to download and drops in substantially smaller than the service pack alone for Mac Office 2008. It offers true and seamless cross compatibility and if you don’t use it you honestly must be some sort of retard, seriously, why on earth anyone would shell out $250+ on a piece of software which does exactly the same as a similar application which you can download for free is beyond me (I’ve even seen Mac Office 2008 listed at $499, come on now, you really HAVE to be kidding here people).

Once again it’s merely down to monopolistic marketing and fear of the unknown, imagine the cost savings gained throughout all our schools and hospitals if each computer ran an Ubuntu desktop operating system with an accompanying open source office suite, even with *educational discount* you’re negating license costs of at least $200 per unit, money which could be re-purposed into infrastructure and service upgrades rather than lining the pockets of a presently self perpetuating monster who seems aggressively intent on extending its global dominance through forced software upgrades and extortionately priced software, software which as oppose to being intuitive is convoluted to use and without adequate patching (at further cost) is no more than a frustratingly unstable and dangerous security risk rather than the enabler it professes to be.

There shouldn’t even be a considered choice here for anyone with at least half a brain. Ubuntu is a free and uber stable operating system for your computer, Mozilla offer their Firefox web browser and superb Thunderbird e-mail client also for free, couple both with the free Open Office suite and you have a robust, scalable and inherently secure platform for any and all variations of enterprise I.T, and all for nothing.

This is the logo (and link) to The Pirate Google website, how long it will stay active for is anyone’s guess

Pirate Google is basically a search site dedicated to pulling back results of torrent searches ONLY from Google, which, as the site shows, you can do yourself through the actual Google search page merely be prefixing any entry string with filetype:torrent.

Now, I’m not saying that pirating movies and creating/posting the resulting torrents should be something which is freely accepted, of course not (however nor am I going to start throwing stones from sections of my *glass* house), plus I’m also a huge Google fan, the reason for me posting this is just to reinforce the issue of double standards (as highlighted by Pirate Google themselves), yes, it’s always the little guy who get’s nailed in life (by the Big Guys with money that nobody dare touch).

One rule for us and and ‘none’ it seems for them….(where is that rule book anyway? Can I get a copy from Amazon?)

Vive Le Revolution…! LOL

Here’s a quick heads up for the free monthly online (or downloadable) Ubuntu magazine from the guys at Full Circle.

It’s a cool little 30-40 page PDF desktop read covering most bases from high end tech to first time new user with archives going back to May 2007, I think you’ll like it.

Do yourself a favour and subscribe.