There are two things that bug me about Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron - the one is the new “feature”, which changes the System / Administration / Network window to pop-up without asking for a password, as it used to do, but instead offeriing an “unlock” button after which a new password dialogue appears - and this does not keep the setting for a a pre-set time as the previous password dialogue did. Instead you have to fill it in again. Now, I wouldn’t call up that window without wanting to change something (so there is now one more click and repeated password hurdles to changing my network settings) - notice the perfect red circle:
These two issues are enough to prevent me from fully, happily embracing Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 - it feels like my freedom to choose has been downgraded ….
“Some people say that if you play a Windoze Vista install DVD backwards you will hear demon voices commanding you to worship Satan. But that’s nothing. If you play it forward it will install Windoze Vista.”
Hardy Heron is a Long Term Support release (supported until 2011 - quick overview here) so the focus is on something durable, yet commencing with a severely crippled beta release of Firefox. But the Heron is smHardy and flyes on strong.
Rafael Correa is taking quite some critical heat for his double standards or disregard -even- for the general livelihood of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and the rain forest that they live in - but here’s something that he’s got right: use Free Software, says the President (naturally speaking in Spanish):
But take a look at this video, too, and consider the natural beauty that will have to be destroyed in order to pave the way, literally, for the Latin American integration, as the neo-socialist improvement or progress based on capitalist commodity forms is called (in English):
The YouTube initiatives are part of the hip strategies of Correa’s government, appealing to a whole new demographic class in Ecuador - a middle class consuming the remittances that their migratory family members send back from, mainly, the U.S. and Spain. Both the cash and the migrant workers are in the millions - only oil and bananas in that republic are greater posts in the economy. These are the people behind Correa - and they want more cars, more roads to drive them on (Quito is already suffocating with cars, which have more then doubled in recent years!) and more plastics from China and more sausages from Spain - that is the essence of Latin American integration: global capitalism and commodity circulation.
Seeking refuge in Europe, to breathe and to reflect, the long, light evenings and the friendliness of the forest (that is the absence of the eternal threat of creatures out to get you) have besieged our imaginations.
The loved ones, the long-time friendships and the new friends are the medium of reflection - telling stories, observing reactions and thinking about it all at a distance ….we get high on our own anecdotal supply with a little help from our friends.
I am using Thunderbird for email. Used to use Evolution, which has some nice features, but which is a serious hassle to migrate across system updates. Thunderbird is very easy to move between systems - whether across to a a new version of GNU/Linux or from Winblo$e or to/fro wherever (I should think?).
However, Feisty Fawn has seen the break of dawn without the new Thunderbird 2.0 (TB2), which is a shame. But just as it is easy to move your configuration, preferences and mail from one system to another, it is easy to run two versions of Thunderbird in parallel within the same system. So while we wait for a .deb of TB2 to appear, check this out…
Cyberspace is like the rain forest - full of indigenous peoples. Tribes and groups, roaming about, creating spaces and exchanging ideas. Community.
Cyberspace and the software that makes it possible are like eco-systems, vast complex messinesses of interaction; and like the forests they threatened by hostile take-over. Companies like Micro$oft and Appl£ (which is really just another word for Disney) are to cyberspace what the oil and mining companies are to the rain forest (and Iraq!); but let’s not worry about those dinosaurs anymore - let’s be positive and instead go grab the new Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04:
http://us.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04/ - for most users this is the .torrent to get (if you’re on 64 bit or other platforms, you’ll probably know what to do):
While doing some tag search for Ecuador photos I came across Paki Nuttah’s Ecuador set on Flickr, which is a nicely varied set in a collection by what appears to be a prolific, cosmopolitian photographer. I particularly liked this one:
Unfortunately one cannot download or link straight from a regular blog entry to her photos because they seem to be under a form of Digital Restrictions Management (she protects them somehow, haven’t figured out yet exactly how and why), but they’re certainly worth a look (and now I know how to “blog a photo” from Flickr, which then gave me an URI for the picture, -whatever good that’ll do me?!?!?!).
Been testing jUploadr, which is a convenient tool that allows for drag-n-drop and automagic resizing of photos. It has an authentication method that takes place via your browser so that it simply connects to your photo album and adds your new stuff. jUploadr also works with Zooomr, which is the new hot thing, coded by a teenager and modelled in great part on Flickr. We tested Zooomr with jUploadr, which has some clear advantages over Flickr, such as a much bigger upload allowance if you blog. However, the “graphical user interface” (GUI) of Flickr appears a bit more simple, easy for your mother to navigate, as it were, and the slide show function is quite neat without being tacky.
Zooomr looks promising and Yahoo! has bought Flickr, so why stay with Flickr? Well, it was basically the way that the slideshow works and the simplicity of the GUI (which might well be a very subjective issue) - but one final point worth mentioning may be that, yes, Flickr is owned by Yahoo! and so be it, Zooomr, on the other hand, is still young, fresh, hip and in Beta, but that really means that anything could happen: Rupert Murdoch might buy it tomorrow. I do not wish to engage further with the Flickr/Zooomr politics, have to get on with my life and upload some photos that my mum on the other side of the planet can easily look at.
With regards to jUploadr, still have to file a bug: it cannot upload more than one photo at a time, if you drag-n-drop several and choose upload it just stalls…. And ohh, we are fasting before our Yule Ayahuasca ritual tonight, so no dead birds or feast: we will be here tonight:
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Free Software, ubuntu | Tagged: gnome, hardy heron, preferred applications, ubuntu 8.04 | 
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Posted by colono
