Monday 29 March 2010

OS v OS A Battle of Nerdish Proportions

My almost Borgish drive for cleaning up and sorting out my computing needs have further branched out towards the long over-due task of tidying my Netvibes Start Page. The usual routine of booting the host, running the guest virtual machine, starting Firefox and watching Netvibes load my Start Page and automatically go to my news feeds and that was OK, in a way, I was able to read the overnight news while having a cup of coffee.

But still, there was something a bit annoying about it too, which I discovered to be, I wasn't getting anything done! My calender was on one tab, my TO LIST on another and I was spending more time flipping from one tab to another that actually producing anything or being on top of anything. What I needed was access to a basic set of tools which I could access from any computer which would present the same information, files, articles, email communications, web design, whatever!

So, mulling over this while food shopping I picked up a copy of Webuser (Issue 235) which had an article on Online Operating Systems and Glide Browser OS had been given the Silver Review award and seemed just what I required.



"But what's the point of having another desktop running in a browser when you are using one on the computer already?" 
The first question which enters your thoughts and, at first consideration, a valid one. Surely if you are working at your computer you have email, image editing software, a word processor and communications software, why would you want to run one in a web browser?
But what if you are not at your computer? What if you are visiting friends for the weekend, have an article or an email which need to be sent, or need to touch up your website or check or make a calender appointment and your a PC and they are a mac? Or if you use a variety of OS configurations such as Linux Ubuntu on different machines in different locations? Or you want to do those activities from your mobile?
The beauty of the 'cloud computing' OS is, as long as you can get to the Internet, your computer is available along with all your files, your WP documents, your contacts, your images and media files, stored in the generous 30 gig storage in your free account. However, one serious drawback is if either you are unable to get online or the remote storage service is down, so it would be prudent if you didn't commit vital information without keeping a copy yourself. If you don't mind not losing it, or not getting access for a while, it is a great way of getting extra hard drive space at no cost.

"But doesn't the likes of Google offer these type of services already and Google are bring out Chromium OS?"

Yes and yes, but neither Google's current offerings, iGoogle, Google Docs and GMail, powerful and as effective as they are, match the slick, unified interface which Glide offers, and Chromium OS is currently under trials, well, not currently, as I am writing this..you get the idea. Must say, at the moment, I have not been as impressed by COS as I have been with GBOS.

The GBOS desktop interface is clean and intuitive to use with large immovable icons which does take the feel of being able to personalize your work area away, though you do have some limited ability to customise the background. When one of the icons are activated, a pop up window opens with the application running inside.

There are several utilities available for GBOS.

The first is an add-on for most major browsers which gives you access to many of the applications and feature of the desktop, your email, your calender, your WP, your image editor and file uploads.






The other is a desktop application which synchronizes between your PC and the file storage in the cloud and this may involve downloading some updates from Microsoft but there are links on the Glide website which make this procedure painless. A few hours after installing these updates, I received a further security update for one of those packages from Microsoft.

There are also two very comprehensive, pdf manuals for getting the best out of GBOS also available to download.

I did have had some initial problems with this, the pop-up window opened but failed to show the application, this was not a problem directly caused by GBOS as I have had this with other applications and appear to have located the problem to the Firefox extension Torbutton, and was forced to disable it.

The word processor



is rather colourful and responsive, It is able to export to a variety of standard file formats, PDF,Word,
Word 2007 and RTF



to several destinations and import links and media, thought the spell checker is somewhat confusing, marking any errors in yellow and presenting a dialogue box with a selections of options which is unfamiliar in it's sparsity and sometime disappears, and you have to start the spell check from the beginning. However, if you access your document via the toolbar rather that through the desktop, it opens in a tab, giving you access to a toolbar spell checker such as Google.

GBOS has given me a few niggles which can be somewhat frustrating.If you navigate away from the home page you have to log on again before it will reappear, annoying if you like to work flitting between open tabs.

The major difficulty that I have encountered has been with the down-loadable desktop synchronisation which just locks up and refuses to do anything, a major frustration. The inability to easily upload file to the OS will hamper productivity just what I don't want! I have already commented upon this problem on GBOS's Engage, a forum/communication room and await some feedback.

My first impressions are that Glide Browser OS will be a productive tool, and will integrate into how I write articles and blog posts, help organise my work-flow and keep me aware of when, where, who and most importantly, the Why of it all.





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Saturday 27 March 2010

Fat, bloated executive seeks larger base machine. Contact......

My PC recently developed the characteristics of the company car of a fat bloated executive, who didn't get the promotion they thought they deserved and didn't get the larger, more powerful company car required to drive the Windows executive's once sprightly athletic body, sadly now saddled with the weight of so many files, and jaded by one too many update, struggling with a five year old machine.

As the current financial situation bested my wallet the idea of a new one has had to give way to the reality that the car's insurance is due shortly, and faced with a pc whose operational parameters I have been trying to exceed, which is slowing down to a crawl under Windows XP, I spent the past week on servicing my pc and installing Ubuntu 9.10, running as a virtual PC under Sun Virtualbox, and the transformation has been extraordinary.


Ubuntu fires up in a quarter of the time, Firefox boots in seconds instead of minutes and resource demands on the the host PC have dramatically reduced.

I sorted out my home page and my Twitter and chat/IM applications and within a very short time, it was the old environment I was use to, but without added lag.



Even this blog post was compiled under Ubuntu and Open Office...




If this continues I might even move Ubuntu onto my host machine and forget Windows 7 and keep this machine a bit longer.....


A bit of TV.....



Read of the old blog...





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Sunday 14 March 2010

Old Holborn Says......

Who needs Lame Stream Media fed humour when you can find such cutting edged wit as this...
Old Holborn says:
March 13, 2010 at 10:28 pm
I don’t disagree
An elected 2nd Chamber (with the caveat that if you have served in one house, you cannot serve in another), a written constitution endorsed by a referendum (available in Urdu, for course), the abolition of the whip and fixed term Parliaments would do me just fine.
Oh, and the removal of Sovereign Law on Royal Palaces. A Policeman told me to take my hat off in Parliament as normal doesn’t apply there and only the queen can wear a hat. No. Really. I then pointed out to him that if normal laws don’t apply in royal palaces, he is just a prat in a costume. Just like me
He was not amused.
Reply
    *
      48
      No Credibility no Integrity !! says:
      March 13, 2010 at 10:34 pm
      Superb OH.
      Reply
          o
            67
            Old Holborn says:
            March 13, 2010 at 10:44 pm
            He was carrying a Heckler & Koch MP5.
            Reply
                +
                  Engineer says:
                  March 13, 2010 at 10:53 pm
                  So long as you don’t actually belt him one, he doesn’t really have a reasonable excuse to use it.
                +
                  Brazilian electrician in Heaven says:
                  March 13, 2010 at 11:01 pm
                  that’s what I thought

Guy Fawkes1aOH

Ah! The British! So Funny!
Taken from Guido Fawkes site by the way!




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Monday 8 March 2010

So ya, Thought ya, Might like to go to the show. (Nod to Floyd)

(Nod to Floyd)

So ya
Thought ya
Might like to go to the show.
To feel the warm thrill of confusion
That socialist glow.

I’ve got some bad news for you sunshine,
Brown isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel
And they sent Lucifer Mandelius and The Blair Babes along as a surrogate band
We’re gonna find out where you electorate really stand.

Are there any Libertarians in the theater tonight?
Get them up against the wall!
There’s one in the spotlight, he don’t look right to me,
Get him up against the wall!
That one looks English!
And that one’s Geoff Hoon!
Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
There’s Dave smoking a joint,
And another with spots!
If Harriet had her way,
She’d have all of you shot!

Mother do you think should I drop the bomb?
Mother do you think they’ll like this song?
Mother do you think they’ll try to break Ed Balls?
Mother should I build the wall?
Mother should I run and hide under the president?
Mother should I trust my mates in the government?
Mother will they put me in the firing line?
Mother am I really so trying?

Hush now baby, baby, don’t you cry.
Mother’s gonna make all the people’s nightmares come true.
Mother’s gonna put all her fears into you.
Mother’s gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She wont let you drive, but she might let you listen to Sting.
Mama will keep baby cozy and warm.
Ooooh baby ooooh baby oooooh baby,
Of course mama’ll help to build the wall.

Mother do you think Tony’s good enough — to me?
Mother do you think Tony’s dangerous — to me?
Mother will he tear your little boy apart?
Mother will he break my heart?

Hush now baby, baby don’t you cry.
Mama’s gonna check out all your affiliations for you.
Mama wont let anyone sane get through.
Mama’s gonna wait up until you get in.
Mama will always find out where you’ve been.
Mama’s gonna keep baby healthy and clean.
Ooooh baby oooh baby oooh baby,
You’ll always be baby to me.

Mother, did the deficit need to be so high?

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