2011-05-30

Microsoft & Skype

I guess you have not missed the news about Microsoft aquiring Skype. Although Microsoft told they will continue development on all versions of Skype I have my doubts - and so do others too.

Recently Digium, a company that develops an integration for Skype with Asterisk, had to give up because Skype/Microsoft is stopping the partnership - read here.

You are free with your own interpretations on this but I am already searching for a replacement for Skype.

The very sad thing these days is: As soon as a software got really good and really adds value and/or increases your productivity, it gets destroyed somehow - being prices getting too high or not being continued. This way we will never step out of the bronze age of IT...

What you can see here as an example: People often say that in Open Source world you don't have a guarantee that the software is supported and continued. As you see here, proprietary software is not different here. But in open source world there is always the option to fork (see OpenOffice->LibreOffice). This option is missing in proprietary world. So basically in Open Source world you are more safe!

Related post: The Open Source movement.

2011-05-24

OpenOffice and LibreOffice starts slow

Sometimes there can be even annoying problems with Open Source software.

A few days ago I got annoyed by OpenOffice starting slow. Then I decided to switch to LibreOffice and first thought it helped. Then a day after it was slow again.

Finally I found out that it starts slow whenever I have the VPN connection open (using SonicWall NetExtender).

After searching the internet a lot without finding anything that helped I landed at LinuxQuestions at this thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/double-clicking-on-open-office-files-leads-to-very-slow-opening-808048/

Running
sudo tcpdump -nnl -i any -s 1536 dst port 53

on the commandline discovered that LibreOffice was searching for .(none) via DNS and the VPN inserts it's DNS servers right in front of every other DNS entry in /etc/resolv.conf - grmpf!

So similar to what is mentioned in the thread above, I had to add
127.0.0.1    myhostname.(none)

to the file /etc/hosts - done. This and some other small, but annoying changes in reality need to be done at each install of a new system. - Of course, there are even more of those annoyances on Windows, but it seems you can't get rid completely of those... :-(

Related posts: Ubuntu 10.04 & docking station part 1 + part 2, Locale configuration on Ubuntu, Firefox change default page format.

2011-05-03

IT fallout and buddhism

Today I had two thoughts about today's usual IT landscapes:

  1. Windows is like radioactive fallout on the IT level. People accept it and somehow knowing about the problems and then get killed (through stress and burnout for example) by the effects - slowly and without them either noticing.
     
  2. I need to take buddha as an example to accept the common IT flaws. Although he has seen the light, he returns in his free decision to this world to help people in their endless suffering. I somehow also feel to have seen the light because I see how things could be done better, but anyway I face Windows again and again at customers. I need to see this as an opportunity to assist people in their suffering. In most cases people are not able to finish their suffering and see the light... ;-)
Related post:  The truth about software.