UBUNTU - Offerings from DELL

"Dell expands Ubuntu Linux desktop offerings" by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, ComputerWorld 7/27/2010

Excerpt

The latest panic in desktop-Linux-land was that Dell would no longer be selling Ubuntu pre-installed on laptops and netbooks. Alas, for those who love drama, it wasn't true. In fact, Dell is expanding its Ubuntu desktop offerings.

Gerry Carr the marketing manager for Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, told me that the stories that Dell will no longer be offering Ubuntu pre-installed on its hardware were "NOT true." Now, Anne Camden, a Dell PR manager, tells me that far from moving away from Ubuntu Linux, Dell is offering more Ubuntu choices than ever.

At present via the DELL link, they offer Ubuntu v9.04 on Laptops (only choice via Customize), v10.4 on Desktops. If you want v10.4 on their Laptop, you should use phone ordering. We use DELL systems at work and there is usually wider customization via phone than WEB.

UBUNTU - Goes Cloud

"Ubuntu Linux brings IBM DB2 to the cloud" by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Computer World 7/21/2010

Excerpt

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has always had many user and developer fans. Enterprise business fans? Not so much. Canonical hopes to change that with today's, July 21, launch of a virtual appliance of IBM's DB2 Express-C software running on the Ubuntu cloud computing platform, in private and public cloud configurations. The company also announced that IBM has validated the full version of DB2 software on Ubuntu 10.04.

This is all part of Canonical's plan to make Ubuntu just as much of an enterprise business player as Novell or Red Hat. Quietly Ubuntu has already, according to the company, "become one of the most popular guest operating systems on cloud services like Rackspace and Amazon EC2. Increasingly, it is also being deployed as the host cloud infrastructure layer by private organizations and ISPs. IBM DB2 Express-C software will be available however Ubuntu is deployed on a cloud."

If you don't trust the public clouds, you can use Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. This combines Ubuntu 10.04 with the open-source Eucalyptus cloud software so creating your own cloud requires little more than plugging in USB-sticks and running installation routines on your existing servers.

WIN XP - Power Point Presentation to Movie

This post is about ways to convert a Microsoft Power Point Presentation to a movie.

I wanted to do this on occasion but did have the means 'till now. My problem is I do not have Microsoft Office on my system at home. I use Open Office Suite (open-source aka freeware).

I found a Convert PowerPoint To Video: Guide To The Best Free Services page which lists applications for conversion.

Problem, most I tried REQUIRED Microsoft Power Point Presentation to be installed to work.

The exception (NOT requiring Power Point) was Xilisoft PowerPoint to Video Converter.

It worked quite well, and does not need Power Point because it loads MS Power Point Reader as a plug-in.

There ARE drawbacks:

• I HAD to buy the Personal version (vs Free) because I didn't have Power Point installed


• It is a real resource hog once conversion starts, don't use ANY other application

This is just one Power Point Slide Show I converted.

UBUNTU - ECM Vendor Expands OS Support

My old readers may notice I've expanded this blog to include news about Ubuntu (Linux-Desktop OS). Ubuntu is what I use on a Notebook (aka Laptop) system to learn about Linux and Ubuntu.

I've deiced that Ubuntu is very good and worth mention. But I will restrict posts to news about Ubuntu, since I am not expert enough to give advice on Ubuntu.

"Alfresco certified for Ubuntu" by Maxwell Cooter, TechWorld 7/14/2010

Excerpt

Enterprise content management vendor Alfresco, has been certified to work on the Ubuntu stack. The company's Enterprise Edition 3.3 is now certified on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server.

Ubuntu owner Canonical has been pushing the Linux distribution hard in the past few months so this move appears to support the growing acceptance of Ubuntu as an enterprise operating system.

"When we surveyed our customers about what future platforms to support, Ubuntu was the overwhelming choice," said Paul Hampton, Alfresco's director of product marketing.

ON THE LITE SIDE - Our Matrix Future

"Building One Big Brain" by Robert Wright, New York Times 7/6/2010

Excerpts

For your own sake, focus on this column. Don’t think about your Facebook feed or your inbox. Don’t click on the ad above or the links to the right. Don’t even click on links within the column.

Failing to focus — succumbing to digital distraction — can make you lose your mind, fears Nicholas Carr, author of the much-discussed book “The Shallows.” At least, it can make you lose little parts of your mind. The Internet, Carr suspects, “is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.”

He’s not alone in his fears. Since his book came out there have been lots of ruminations — including one or two or three in The Times alone — on whether online technology is friend or foe, good for our brains or bad.

But maybe the terms of the debate — good for us or bad for us? — are a sign that we’re missing the point. Maybe the essential thing about technological evolution is that it’s not about us. Maybe it’s about something bigger than us — maybe something big and wonderful, maybe something big and spooky, but in any event something really, really big.
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Don’t let the title of Kelly’s book terrify you. He assures us that he doesn’t think technology is conscious — at least, not “at this point.” For now, he says, technology’s “mechanical wants are not carefully considered deliberations but rather leanings.”

So relax; apparently we have a few years before Keanu Reeves gets stuffed into a gooey pod by robotic overlords who use people as batteries. Still, it’s notable that, before Reeves played that role in “The Matrix,” the movie’s directors gave him a copy of Kelly’s earlier book, “Out of Control,” as preparation. And Kelly does say in “What Technology Wants” that technology is increasingly like “a very complex organism that often follows its own urges.”