-[jayabharath-dot-com-]-

Today the Ubuntu & OMAP Community released Ubuntu 10.10 'Maverick Meerkat' Beta images for OMAP3 & OMAP4 at

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook/ports/releases/maverick/beta/

Instructions on using them are at : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/OMAP

Do you have a OMAP development platform- give the images a spin and report issues at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-ti-omap

Question on the images can be posted on #ubuntu-arm or #linux-omap channel.

This weekend I had a chance to try out a post on Lifehacker on how to replace the Ubuntu 10.04 menu with a more usable & elegant 'Linux Mint' menu. It hardly took 5 minutes and the result look like this:

I can't imagine even trying to change a Windows start menu to something different. This just shows the innovation power of 'open-source' and giving real freedom to the users. With the right balance of openness we can give users the power to innovate while still enabling a business to thrive and develop differentiating intellectual property.

What's your take on open innovation?

I have been a GNU/linux enthusiast for over 10 years now and have worked in various degrees with several linux distros includig Debian, Suse, Redhat & Ubuntu. I have installed them a used them on various hardware. However, I never really made a complete switch to Linux due to various demands of my work enviroment. My current job offers me the flexiblity to finally make the switch and I did. I dumped Windows on my primary laptop and started off with a Ubuntu... no more dual boot, no more virtualization - just 100% linux!

My work laptop is a 2+ year old Dell Latitude D620 (2Ghz Core2 Duo, 2Ghz RAM). I started of with a Ubuntu 9.04 that I got from a canonical engineer sometime back. Installation process well smoothly except for the wifi card did not work. So, I had to manually plugin in a ethernet cable, sit near my network router and uprade to 9.10. Even after the upgrade to 9.10 the wifi did not work.. well I thought my 2 year old hardware is still pretty new for Ubuntu 9.10- so I finally upgraded to Lucid Lynx Ubuntu 10.04. This did the trick - Wifi connects smoothly without any problem. Overall the install process was very smooth. Then I went through the process of setting up various packages needed for my work including VPN (via cisco compatible vpnc), Thunderbird email, filezilla (ftp), pidgin (for IRC), webex, Firefox extensions -- all of this was quite straight forward and easy to setup.

Over the last week I found a bunch of issues that I am still trying to figure out:

• Exchange compatible Calendar that actually works: My workplace uses a MS Exchange server and I found that it is a PAIN to get Thunderbird + Lightning talking to Exchange. There is a add-on for Exchange dataprovider that is being developed - but I could not get it to work for me. Thanks to a lot of googling - I was able to find DavMail gateway which after a lot of trial and error talk to Exchange. Most things work except it dosen't let me 'create' new events :) Also, there are several other annoying messages indicating a event has change on the calendar when it actually dint. Also, if you dont enable the experimental (ala buggy) cached mode - it tries to reload the whole calendar every time that can be very slow
• Decent and working & tested bloging client : Being used to Windows Writer Live (a excellent blogging tool) - I was expecting a easy equivalent on Ubuntu. I found that Blogilo is very close to what I want. However, even after installing from 'Ubuntu Software Center' Blogilo fails to start! This issue is also widely reported by others. It just makes me wonder the level of testing that has gone (read not gone)into a LTS release.
• External Display & Projectors dont work out of the box or as expected: I have heard from lot of people that 10.04 has excellent support for external display and I believed them - untill I actually tried it myself. My laptop could not detect the external projector on VGA. I manually configured external display as TwinView via Nvidia setting utility and could pump out 640x480 resolution. I still need to figure out how to get the resolution higher (as it was possible with Windows running on the same laptop)... more work ahead for me on this.
• Visual Effects - still cant enable them: Yes my desktop still looks like it's from the 90's though I have the nvidia proprietry driver installed (via Adminstration-> Hardware Drivers). Trying to enable Preferences->Appearance-> Visual Effects does not work nor does it give any meaningful error or direction to correct the problem. For now - I convince myself to stay without visual effects as it assures me better performance and battery life.. but I am not sure how many people would like this trade off for themselves.
• Network interfaces dont actually listen to what we tell it to do: VPN connect performance is amazingly fast and reliable. Only problem is the each time I need to manually setup the mtu size for the tun0 interface. Somehome having it setup in /etc/network/interfaces does not do the trick at bootup... it a annoyance - untill I figure out how to do this automatically.
• Suspend & Hibernate issues : After installing I tried to hibernate (I was very used to this on windows) - but, my machine never reliably came out of hibernation. This was the same case for Suspend - however, magically without my intervention it fixed it self. For the last 10+ time suspend is working fine -- but, no luck with hibernation.
• Network printing is still a pain! : Yep - I was able to print a page to a SMB network printer - but, somehow after that it never works. The wizard to add a network printer actually asks for the make and model of a printer - imagine at work trying to go the printer getting on the back and finding the make and model :) -- things can be smoother here.
• Connecting to hidden networks is manual: Connecting to hidden wireless AP's is a manual process (may be there is a option somewhere but I could'nt find). This means at work I need to physically connect the wifi whenever I bootup.
• Proxy management: I dont think this is as much of a pain - most likely I believe I have not figured out. There are system proxies, each app has proxies settings and you can change (think messed up) system settings from most app. This has led me to encounter several proxy issues. I still cant get pidgin to seamlessly work without a proxy when a system wide proxy is set. May be I will figure it out eventually.

There are ofcourse several things I like about Ubuntu on my laptop:

• It's free and open-source (mostly)
• I like the speed of the system (bootup and shutdown as extremely fast)
• Extremely fast firefox browser startup and performance & memory utilization. It used to Suck big time on Windows and was a memory hog.
• Open office is very usable and functional - it's not as good as MS Office - but, it decent alternative at $0 - you cant beat that.
• Ubuntu Software Center is a great add-on that has a ton of software most people need.
• The Geek factor!

IMHO, Ubuntu 10.04 is a big leap interms of bringing Linux into desktop (home & enterprise). There are certainly several gaps (a few of which I faced) that need work - and there is a long way to go before I install it on my mother's PC or recommend it to friends who just want 'everything' to work out of the box! Let's join the Ubuntu community & contribute to making a better Ubuntu GNU/Linux.

Are you happy with your job? Do your co-workers really look happy & enjoy their work. I see a lot of confused, dissatisfied employees all around. Very few people see to have clarity about what they are, what they actually want to do. And even fewer people actually muster the courage to pursue their dreams. Life is too short to come up with excuses not to pursue your passions.

Here are some steps to get you where you should be:

• Think deep, introspect and find the things that you actually enjoy doing. Strength finder can help you get some ideas on what your natural talents are.
• Find way in your current job that can better leverage your strengths.
• If you conclude that your current job is no good to build your strengths & exert your talents are… find alternate careers that might help
• Ensure your income needs are met in the new career path you consider. Try to cut back on expenses to reduce the income needs.
• Research & talk to people who are already in that career path and get a good understanding of the day to day work.. in most cases the are very different that what you expect. i.e., Get the inside view!
• Try to do it partime to get a real handon experience (e.g., check out Vocationvacations)
• Make the jump!

Are you game?

Apple's new iPad failed to deliver on it hype. Apple seems to have launched a evolutionary product rather that the revolutionary game changing device (like the iPhone, Macbook Air). The iPad is essentially a supersized iPhone/iPod touch.

However, the iPad has the potential to be a revolutionary device. I expect the revolution to come from the 3rd party apps that will be developed to leverage the large multi-touch screen, long battery life and the new Apple A4 processor. This would take time...

I would wait for the next generation iPad (perhaps with a camera for iChat, Adobe flash support, better ebook coverage, display port, multitasking,  true widescreen 16:9 display and tens of apps that leverage the hardware) ... untill then I will depend on my hackintoshed HP Mini netbook.

Most us want to invest in the markets, and we seek to invest to maximize returns. This is a rational desire. We are often faced by the paradox – invest broadmarket and be satisfied with average market returns vs cherry picking stock and timing the market with the hope of better than market average returns.

The market history shows us that over long periods of time you get a decent inflation adjusted, after tax/expense return. Alternative path is an active investing approach which takes time, effort, control over emotions and skill. Most of us simply don’t have it in us to be an active investor – nor can we take the expense & risk of hiring some to do it on our behalf.

So, the trick is to choose low-cost index funds, dollar cost average and stay in the game over a long time.

How many times you walk into a retail store and a sales person immediately asks you “How may I help you?”.  Many stores mandate this from their sales folks – but I say stop this nonsense. Quite often sales people follow you around the store (e.g., most furniture sales people do this) and keep asking you “Are you doing ok?”

A sales person needs to be available when needed and stay behind the scenes when not needed. In short they should be like a ‘friend when needed” – not an ‘annoying uninvited guest’. It takes great training and alertness to make up such a sale person and this is what retail stores strive to achieve..

Most products are required by law to display the country of origin e.g., “Made in China”. Indeed there phrases have functional uses like calculating export duties, IP protection, anti-dumping etc.

However, they have become a brand by themselves. As with any brand there is a perception & usage e.g., “Made in China” is typically taken to be cheap foreign product & “Made in USA” is often used by people in USA to buy products & support local industries. 

Recently, we have begun to see longer phrases “Designed in California, Made in China”; “Made in China with software from Silicon Valley” etc . This just an attempt at diluting the brand image that “Made in China” brings with it.

Recently, I was reading a blog post by Allan Young titled “I Can Only Seel What I Like”. This lead me to think deeper and write this post.

Often time we find ourselves in situations where we have to sell (a product, an idea, a concept etc) to others that we don’t fully believe in or understand. We run into these situations at work, home and other places. I say “ Sell only that which solves your customers problem!”

It is true that the product may have a different appeal to you and the person you are selling to. But, what really matters is not the act of making a ‘sale’ but, the satisfaction of helping someone find what is right for ‘their’ needs.

When you are tasked to sell something I would recommend to first ask the following questions and understand the product:

• What is this product/idea/concepts etc?
• How will it help someone?
• What are its limitations?
• Would I buy/use it myself?

Once you are convinced of the benefits and limitation of the product that makes it easier to sell and the sale will leave a feeling of positive impact on you. So,

If you are building a community – do you get energized by the goals of your community and did you join it yourself?

If you a selling a gadget – would you use it yourself, do you understand the limitations?

If you are selling an idea or a concept – do you fully & truly believe it will work – what are its limitations & assumption?

And most important thing then is to understand the needs of your customer and find the right solution for them – that could as well be your product!

A lot of people make a living based on sales commissions  - and I would like to hear their perspective. Also, what does this idea mean to you?

I have been playing with a Nokia N900 for the last 1 day. Here are my first impressions...

Package and Hardware

The pacakge was very similar to other Nokia N-series devices... I was a little afraid to hold a 181 gram device in my hand - but I was suprising deligted to see it is not as heavy as the number might indicate - it feels good in the hand.

I was suprised that this device had ARM Cortex-A8 written on it.. I dont expect a common user to know what this is.... BTW this is powered by OMAP3430 platform (which has not only a ARM Cortex A8 but a SGX540 Graphics hardware, a TI C64x DSP, Dedicated camera HW etc).... this marking lead me to belive the device is targetted at linux phone hackers!

Usability

Over all usabilty has been pretty good. The hardware is very capable and can easily handle multiple application and effortlessly switch betten mutiple apps (something that iphone does not do still). However, I was not fully satisfied with the multiple operations/steps needed to do simple things e.g., if you need to move from a full screen browser to start a media player you need atleast 5 taps. The UI transition efforst are nice and beautiful.

The 3 row keyboard is a painful to use - but, as with most small keyboards it may get better as I get used to it.

Software

The device browser is a awesome to say the least with native support for Flash 9.4 (iPhone is lacking this critical feature). The lack of potrait mode support (except in phone app) is a big -ve .. but I have heard that it will be fixed in a software updated comming soon.  I have been trying to get fully functional on this device (I have been using E71 and Blackberry curve in the past) - but I cant - Nokia missed out 2 key features that make it work for me:

• Lack of SyncML via HTTP - to enable to sync my contact with Ovi.
• Poor support for Exchange email - Does not work with Exchange 2007, does not work with various provisioning features that IT admins required (e.g., non numberic device lock) - overall it does not work with my corporate email account.

The camera is good with Carl Zeiss optics and it nicely geo tags and uploads pic to various services with ease (I have tested this with flickr). I have used the email client with Gmail and it work very well .. it does support HTML email!

The media player is rock solid and has support for almost all format I need or will probably need in near future. The audio quality is very good... I really like the built in 32GB memory ... (Apple you need to work hard to beat this media player!)

I also really like the  desktop feature with like and updating widgets - this is really cool and very handy. I am predicting that apple with steal this feature for a future iPhone SW update... ;)

The browser is so good that you can easily use google docs (for your office software needs), google wave (yes it works in N900 browser.. )

Misc

I have tried the FM transmitter feature - but it was not very clear on my audio system - I need to test it out further.

I think N900 is a great next step in the evolutions for internet tablet and some of the issues I have mentioned here can certainly fixed via software update which I am sure Nokia is working on  - but it is not the device I want to carry in my pocket at this time (without exchange support that works with my office exchange server). But, this may be a device for a lot of hackers, Nokia entusiasts, Bleeding edge technology adopters, and people having a need to fit a mobile computer into their pocket!.

Update1: 27-Nov-09

• N900 works great with Nokia PC suite (not the Ovi suite)