Computers

Although a lot of software is available for GNU/Linux and not for Windows, I am always happy to see new ones developed for GNU/Linux but not for Windows (at least not yet). One last example: Zfone. This software “intercepts and filters all the VoIP packets as they go in and out of the machine, and secures the call on the fly”. The public beta version is already available for GNU/Linux and MacOS. Windows version will be available in mid-April (only). It would be great if Philip Zimmermann releases the source code under a free software licence ( other comments and ideas in this Slashdot news). ...

Today was the last day to get rid of all the old computers and electronic devices we could “store” in our lab. As you can see below, they are mainly broken screens …

Since I moved my desk in another room far from the ethernet plugs, I needed a wireless access to the laboratory network (and internet). I tested two PCMCIA card on a laptop with Fedora Core 4. The first card I found at home was an Acer card without too much information on it (it was sold with my wife’s laptop). When inserted, a lspci tells me that it’s a Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8180L 802.11b MAC (rev 20). But the Fedora Hardware Browser doesn’t recognize it. There is an open project to support this card but it’s still experimental ( they are saying it on their own webpage). My lazy nature asked my hand to eject the card. This card is recognized but not working ‘out-of-the-box’. ...

In this blog, Andy Dornan takes us from a simple demonstration of Lenovo laptops new “abilities” to the fact that the real owner of documents with DRM is the software company and not the owner/creator of the document. You can create a document and claim ownership on it with DRM systems. Unless you can open it with or export it to a software coming from another company, you’ll be dependent on one company to open your document. Imagine you create a text file and protect it with sofware X. If you cannot open it in another text processor/editor and that the maker of X decides that you cannot open your document anymore (for whatever reason: you live in a dangerous “terrorist” country, your name sounds too different, you didn’t pay your monthly fee on time, etc.), your are stuck. ...

I installed MS-Visual Studio 2005 this evening (I had to). The installation took around one hour. During this time, three persons are telling you the new tools and advantages integrated in their product. One is Indian and the two others are Asians. With a Vietnamese mother and an Indian wife, it’s a strange feeling when an occidental product takes Asians to advertise their product. (Well, even if you are not Indian nor Asian, you can still use VS2005 ; it’s just a post at 00:21)

There is a story on how Steve Jobs prepares his talks for Apple’s keynotes in the Guardian Unlimited. Well, it doesn’t say much about the preparation in itself. But I can feel the stress Mike Evangelist is experiencing: he had to talk in front of hundreds of people, in front of his boss and present software not yet finished. And I thought I had stress before my presentations … Of course, there is another reading of this article. OK, Apple is a small technology company. But it developped a good sense of communication. When you are buying an ipod, your are not only buying a portable music player (btw including imprisoning DRM): you are also buying a feeling (of hype, of having the last gadget, …). When you are buying a Mac computer, it’s also a feeling of being part of “another” community, … Apple cultivated this feeling since the beginning with slogans like “Think Different”. And, of course, this article, the book Mr Evangelist is trying to write, … even this post on this blog, they all participate in the “buzz” around Apple keynotes. Finally, if this noise (*) wasn’t there, Apple will only be another computer-selling company. ...

Gentleware recently released version 4 of “Poseidon for UML” (an UML modeling tool). They said it now respects many more features of UML2 but I am not proficient enough in UML to clearly see all the advantages. But there are still some strange things. Two examples: 1. The default graphics format of Poseidon installed on a Fedora Core 3 is PNG. The default graphics format of Poseidon installed on a Fedora Core 4 is JPG (same with SuSE). I tried to look in the config files (in fact, in all text files in the installation path) but I didn’t find anything related to this topic. It’s probably an OS default setting but I didn’t had the time to check. ...

My webcam is finally working with Fedora Core 3. Thanks to Luc Saillard’s page on Philips USB Webcam Driver for Linux, I was able to download and put a new module for my webcam (a Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000). I first tested it with GnomeMeeting and it worked fine. Thanks to camE, I was able to take this snapshot (and get rid of any unnecessary GUI ; snapshot is a reduced version of what I get). ...

If you are looking for free (as in ``free speech") C/C++ source code, csourcesearch.net could be interesting for you. Apparently, Robert Schultz spent one year using various tools to enter millions of lines of C/C++ code from free software in a database. Most of the code come from software under GPL (more than 40% ; see all the licences parsed and all the packages used). And results are color-coded for the pleasure of your eyes. ...

I’ve recently discovered that a grid computing service was available at the University of Liege (where I am working), inside the Alma-Grid structure. The “Alma-grid” name is quite confusing since, if I understand correctly, they offer lab solutions for genomics, proteomics, etc., and bioinformatics is only a part of it. A Grid is a network of many computers sharing their unused ressources (CPU and/or disk storage) to solve large-scale computation problems. We can see that like a distributed computational and/or storage system. Well-known “grid computing” projects are, a.o., SETI@Home or Folding@Home. The main advantage of a grid is that you reach the power of mainframe computers in terms of CPU power and/or storage, without the cost of buying one since a grid usually uses common desktop computers distributed around the world. ...