The doctor is in

[If you think I don't write enough here, I have a good excuse: I've been blogging at the Lindependence 2008 Felton Diary here. I'll get here when I can.]

I’ve mentioned this before in blogs, but it bears repeating: For years, I have hoped to be a thorn in Dell’s side, the pebble in ol’ Mike’s Gucci loafers about dependability and quality of the machines that came from the Dallas conglomerate.

So when Dell decided to see the light and offer Ubuntu as an OS option, I asked for a nice bearnaise sauce to go with the crow I dutifully, and happily, ate.

Fast forward to late last week, when I helped my commercial neighbor Ron at Long Cabinet Company with the memory on his Dell laptop, it was one of those opportunities to show that what we do, hardware- and software-wise, is not exactly some sort of black magic. In addition, it showed Ron how Dell and Microsoft are working together to make Vista unusable.

Ron’s wife had bought Ron a gig of memory and he asked me to install it. Thanks to Dell — more crow, please – adding memory on the laptops is merely a matter of just removing a panel, popping it in, and putting the panel back on; 60 seconds, tops.

This was the easy part: The harder part, and the part I couldn’t explain other than to say that it’s a huge mistake by both Dell and Microsoft, was trying to justify to Ron how Dell could sell a machine that they said was Vista-ready with “only” 512MB of RAM and how Microsoft could make an “new and improved” operating system that . . . well . . . oh, never mind. In the end, both Dell and Microsoft took a back seat to an explanation of how GNU/Linux doesn’t have the same problems that Ron was experiencing.

One more convert in the making? One can only hope.

(Larry Cafiero runs HeliOS Solutions West in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)

When you’re hot, you’re hot

I made a reference to this in the Lindependence 2008 Felton Diary blog today, and for those who know me, you know how I hate to be redundant.

However, it bears repeating: This Miami boy, who still pronounces the city’s name properly as My-am-muh and who picked up and left for more temperate climates in Northern California in the late ’80s, doesn’t handle the heat as well as he used to. Having said this, last week’s heat wave knocked me out.

So while the mercury is starting to ramp up yet again, I need to get going to make up for lost time.

If you’re going to stick around the ethereal realm of the Internet, a good read would be Helios’ open letter to Microsoft shareholders. It’s a good one — one I wish I had written.

61 degrees and rising under clear skies (and a heck of a moon last night, no?)

(Larry Cafiero runs HeliOS Solutions West in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)

Miscellania missive

First things first: Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, including my own as well as my wife, who is the mom of our daughter. Here’s a white carnation . . . .

Thanks, Congress: Most people, including me, thought Democrats were swept into both houses of Congress in 2006 on the wave of correcting the misdirection in which the nation found itself up to then and promote reform measures aimed at helping the people over corporations. Silly me. Unfortunately, this course remains unchanged, and Democrats instead have come up with starting-block totalitarian measures like H.R. 4279, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act (Note: Is there a Federal Bureau of Acronyms which has the responsibility to name legislation? Sheesh). This bill, passed by the House last week, creates a “top copyright cop” at the federal level and does the following, according to the bill’s author, Rep. John Conyers (who should know better): prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government; make changes to IP law to enhance the ability of IP owners to effectively enforce their rights; make it easier to criminally prosecute repeat offenders; and increase penalties for IP violations that endanger public health and safety. IP violations that endanger public health and safety? The only thing the House didn’t do is gift-wrap this for the RIAA and MPAA. Hats off to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who said ” The recording industry has made a business out of extorting money from students” whose computers are used by others for illegal downloading. “This could be the same type of situation.” More on the story here; and don’t forget to write or call your Senator, if you’re so inclined, since the legislation is bound for the Senate.

An aside: This has nothing to do with the digital realm, but it’s pretty awe-inspiring nonetheless. In fact, if this feat does not make your jaw drop, you’re either dead or you don’t follow baseball (which begs the question, “Why live?”). Yesterday, starting pitcher Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants struck out the first three Philadelphia Phillies batters on 11 pitches — three pitches to the first batter, four to the second and four to the third — in the top of the first inning. Wow. That’s what I call “dealing.”

Oh, and don’t forget: I’ve separated out the Felton stuff into its own blog here.

Sunny and clear, 58 degrees and rising — time to go to Mother’s Day brunch.

(Larry Cafiero runs HeliOS Solutions West in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)