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August 08, 2009
1:20
Prediction: Android Gains Strength against iPhone in Late 2009 to 2010
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Introduction
Android is not doing as well as I wanted it to. I was hoping that the Linux-based mobile operating system would leave the folks at Apple shaking in their boots.

At the time of this writing, it isn’t like that. There are two major Android phones released in the United States; the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) and the HTC Magic (T-Mobile myTouch 3G).

Reviewers have had disappointing things to say about the HTC Dream, citing issues with the dimensions, battery life, speed, the camera, the “Leno chin”, and so forth. But especially, many considered the physical looks of the phone to be depressing.

“The original T-Mobile G1 was an ugly phone, a boxy clunker with a jutting chin…” –InfoSync

Now, I own an HTC Dream, and it doesn’t seem that bad to me. The battery life is fine, the phone is good looking enough, easy to type on, and Android is a pretty awesome operating system. However, the world does not seem to agree with me. If they did, Android would certainly be a lot more popular.

However, I believe that there is good fortune in the future of the Android platform, and potentially bad news for the iPhone, for two very important reasons that are outlined below.
Moar Android phones!
See, Google states there will be a whopping eighteen new Android phones coming out by the end of 2009. With the amount of promotion that involves releasing eighteen smartphones, consumers are sure to notice.

But the figure of “18 to 20 devices” only covers phones whose manufacturers have notified Google about the production. There could be even more Android phones coming down the pipeline. And even then, Android is coming to more things than smartphones. For example, there are rumors that Android will rejuvenate the Sony Walkman brand, though Android on other things won’t really take away marketshare from other players in the smartphone market.

With the market relatively flooded with Android phones (there really is only one iPhone, that is superseded by a newer model on a regular basis), consumers should be able to find a phone that suits them. For example, I decided against waiting for future Android phones because I really liked the G1’s physical keyboard (and that I needed a phone immediately).

A picture of an HTC Dream with the physical keyboard shown. Original photo on Flickr taken by romainguy.

But if you do not like physical keyboards, then the HTC Magic/T-Mobile myTouch 3G or HTC Hero might be more appealing to you. See how people that like physical keyboards, and people that don’t both can find an appealing Android phone?
More freedom than the App Store
And the sheer number of Android phones is not the only advantage that Android will gain against the iPhone; there is the strict iPhone app store and the relatively lenient situation involving Android apps.

With the well-publicized App Store rejection of Google Voice and related applications, people are getting a bit restless about how Apple controls the iPhone App Store. Hey, even the United States Federal Communications Commission is getting into the issue. That’s gotta mean something, right?

In contrast, while the official Android Market may be censored by the carrier, one can download any Android application file (extension .apk) from the Internet and use it.

The above picture shows the settings panel that allows you to set permissions to install any downloaded .apk file.

Now, what I think will happen is the large number of Android phones being released plus disenchantment with the iPhone app store may result in developers, and then consumers taking an interest in the Android platform.
Potential issues
This is a prediction, not a prophecy. I am not completely sure that events will transpire like I think that they will.

For example, there is potential that Apple could keep more people to the iPhone if they change their App Store policies. Regardless, though, I think that the massive number of Android phones and other devices released still ought to do considerable damage to the iPhone.

And I didn’t even mention how Palm’s WebOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc. even play into this. On top of that, I only gave two reasons why Android could gain significant strength over the iPhone.

So am I right? Am I just another one of those darn Free Software advocates that wish for the iPhone’s popularity to decline? Discuss.
July 26, 2009
3:00
Four Must-Do’s for Giving CDs to Potential New Linux Users
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
So you’re a Linux enthusiast. You love Linux, and wish to spread the love to other computer users. “How exactly can I ensure that they be happy Linux users?” you ask yourself when thinking about people that are about to convert to Linux.

Well, there are serveral things that one must do to ensure that the newbie Linux user will have a smooth computing experience.
1) Make sure it’s a CD–and a LiveCD
Do not give them a DVD, USB key, or a printed bit of paper containing a large mass of 1’s and 0’s for them to install Linux with. Make sure it’s a CD. Why?

DVDs are bad in case the computer they want to install it on does not have DVD reading capabilities. Remember, Linux has the reputation of running on older computers like a champ. Don’t ruin that ability with a DVD.

USB keys are bad because they often require configuring the BIOS to make the USB key bootable. If you are giving Linux to non-technical users, you definitely want to make sure that they do not need to fiddle around with the BIOS.

Direct installation CDs are bad because it does not let the user test out his or her hardware to see whether or not it is supported by default. It may be the case that the user is not interested in a whole lot of configuration, and does not want to install Linux if it does not have perfect out-of-the-box support for his or her hardware.

Also, don’t just point the new user to an ISO that they have to download and then burn. Many new users do not know how to burn ISOs, and may not have the software that is capable of burning them.
2) Put all the necessary information about the CD on the CD
Don’t give the users a separate sheet of paper, a URL, or some other reference to find out information specific to the type of Linux that you are giving them. They might lose or forget the reference that you give them. To solve this, put all the necessary information straight on the CD.

Information that you should definitely put on the CD include:
- Name of Linux distribution. It’s definitely not enough just to label the CD as Linux.
- Version (and if applicable, version codename) of the distribution on the CD.
- Architecture–so they do not attempt to run an x86 LiveCD on an old PPC Mac.
- A place to get more information. I prefer to give my email address for this purpose for the following reasons:
  - If I give them a forum, mailing list, IRC channel, etc. to contact, they may be treated unkindly by trollish Linux users.
  - I know about the CD that I gave them, and they have probably already told me what kind of computer that they are going to run this on. If you give Linux CDs to lots of people, you might need to find some way to manage this information outside of your brain.
  - They do not have to sign up for an account for a forum or IRC serve
If you give your email address to the new Linux user, that does not mean that you have to spend days debugging their system should it encounter problems. You can just reply back with some useful links or Google search terms that they might find useful if they need your help.
3) Show them how to boot and use the CD
Given that most LiveCDs have the ability to install themselves on the disk, and potentially wiping out the entire drive; it is very important for the user to know which options will install Linux, and which options will not install Linux.

Of course, it is very difficult to unknowingly erase data using a Linux LiveCD. The main issue is the user’s potential fear that there may be data loss due to use of the LiveCD. That potential fear may prevent the user from using Linux.

However, if the user is given a quick tutorial on how to not erase a hard drive, then the user can proceed with confidence.
4) Make the distribution and architecture choice based on what they need
Don’t just give them any CD you have lying around. If they plan to run Linux on an older computer, the latest AMD64 Kubuntu might be a poor choice.

Talk with them about what kind of computer they want to run Linux on, and explain to them how you narrow down the Linux distribution choices to find the one that should work the best for them.

—–

These tips, if followed, should reduce the chances that the Linux newbie should have significant troubles. Got more tips? Tell us in the comments below.
July 17, 2009
20:43
Five Reasons FriendFeed Has Made Reading Personal Blogs Interesting
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

I don’t like personal blogs.

No offense to people that do have blogs chronicling their lives, but I do not have the time or motivation to read personal blogs, even personal blogs that are written by my friends.

I probably wouldn’t even be able to maintain interest in reading the personal blog of a person that has a life more interesting than a James Bond movie. (Of course, I mean–such an autobiography would probably do better as a book or movie. Especially a movie.)

These above statements are assuming that FriendFeed, Twitter, and Facebook are not personal blogs for the users that use them. But assuming that those three social networks are personal blogging platforms, then my tune has to change–especially because of FriendFeed.

For the rest of this post, I will focus on the advancements that FriendFeed has brought to the personal blog; advancements that enable me to tolerate personal blogs.
1) Posts that are shorter, but not too short

Click on the above image to see it at full-size.

FriendFeed posts, by far, are shorter than long essays about one’s life. FriendFeed comments do have the capacity for quite long posts, but people generally keep FriendFeed messages short.

On the flip side, FriendFeed does not demand that an individual’s posts be insanely short–like Twitter posts. The advantage a decent message length is that one does not have to resort to hard-to-read shorthand (”goin 2 library”–a very simple example) to get a message to fit in a brutally short character limit.
2) Hiding functionality

The problem with personal blogs is that if I read your blog, you decide what I see. This means that I either scroll through content that I may not like, or just not read the blog at all.

FriendFeed has a little “Hide” link next to entries. I can even use the “Hide” functionality to wipe out vast swaths of content.

To summarize, not only can I avoid seeing one of an individual’s tweets again–I can avoid seeing all of them again!
3) Lists
Let’s say that I want to keep track of all of my friends that live in a certain region, belong to a certain organization, or otherwise can somehow be categorized into one larger entity. FriendFeed’s lists allow me to mix all of their feeds into one page–while keeping their feeds separate from others.

Not only that, I can use the “Best of the day” feature in FriendFeed lists to make sure that I do not miss the FriendFeed posts that have attracted the most attention from other users.
4) Different user interfaces through the API
FriendFeed’s API means that developers can create their own custom user interfaces for the website. For example, I have previously covered on this blog the NoiseRiver interface for FriendFeed.

In addition, there is Benjamin Golub’s fftogo application–bringing FriendFeed to mobile phone browsers. Golub’s creation does not use Javascript at all, because many mobile phone browsers support it poorly. Phones w web browsers, such as the iPhone and Android browsers, can use the non-API-powered user interface at [friendfeed.com].

RSS also enables such user interfaces, but the same RSS feed reader doesn’t usually provide all these interfaces and the opportunity to create more*. In addition, the different user interfaces sync instantly–simply given that all the user interfaces (third-party or not) rely on the same database at FriendFeed. I can add a subscription in the main interface, and expect to see that subscription’s post in fftogo.

*Google Reader comes close, though.
5) Saved Searches

Click on the above image to view it full-size.

The “hiding” functionality is good and all–but it isn’t very precise. I can hide a friend’s Twitter posts, but I can’t hide his Twitter posts that contain certain keywords–such as “iphone.”

FriendFeed saved searches is designed to fix that. One can use the advanced search interface–or type in search operators him or herself–to create complex views that exclude and include certain things.
So what happens when you take the above five reasons and add them together? You end up wtih a very powerful RSS reader that actually transforms personal blogging.

How powerful?

Well, powerful enough to convince a busy Unix geek like me to maintain a personal blog.
June 03, 2009
3:01
From Frankenstein to the Singularity: The Story of Artificial Intelligence — Part One
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

This is the first in a series describing the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence. Check back to find more posts.

When asked about the meaning of life, digital physics pioneer Edward Fredkin responded, “I think our mission is to create artificial intelligence. It’s the next step in evolution” (Wright 80). Artificial intelligence, defined by Princeton’s Wordnet is, “the branch of computer science that deal with writing computer programs that can solve problems creatively” (”Princeton University,” par. 1). Fredkin apparently thinks that artificial intelligence is in our future, but what about our past and present? The general concept of making sentient machines has been around for thousands of years, and studying it reflects on who we are as sentient beings. The short, yet paradoxically long, history of artificial intelligence, or AI, can be divided into three main parts: artificial intelligence before the electromagnetic computer, the birth of artificial intelligence (officially 1956), and more recent developments in the field.

First, due to relatively undeveloped technology in the field of computing for most of human history, concepts in artificial intelligence were generally first found in literature and folk tales. In the AI Magazine article, “A (Very) Brief History of Artificial Intelligence,” Bruce G. Buchanan writes “Philosophers have floated the possibility of intelligent machines as a literary device to help us define what it means to be human” (53). One literary example is Mary Shelley’s original story of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. The story illustrates a fictional form of artificial intelligence. The creation of Dr. Victor Frankenstein displays a variety of sentient—even human—behavior. For example, the monster feels misery and even requests that his creator build him a soul mate (McCorduck 20). In addition, there were a variety of literary works that included the concept of intelligent machines. Jean-Paul Richter’s obscure story, “The Death of an Angel,” inspired E.T.A. Hoffman’s, “The Sandman,” the latter being a story with robotic female characters. Hoffman’s work also inspired other individuals (15). The concepts of artificial intelligence have been around for hundreds of years before the field received its name.

But regardless of how primitive the technology was before the modern computing age, there was at least one notable attempt to create a machine that theoretically could achieve intelligence. For example, the Analytical Engine was a machine thought of by Charles Babbage in the nineteenth century. The idea behind the Engine was that it could be programmed to solve any possible logical or computational problem, possibly even including those that would give the machine sentience. Unfortunately, due to the state of technology at the time, Babbage failed to complete an implementation of the machine (Kurzweil 165-6). Of course, not all of the academic attempts that would have brought society closer to intelligent creations were actual machines. Approximately at the same time as Babbage, mathematician George Boole was attempting to figure out the governing rules of thought, and to express thought in symbols. Boole’s laws of thought eventually contributed to the rise of the modern computer (Gardner 142-3). Before Boole was the scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. During the late 1600’s and early 1700’s, he theorized about creating an algebra of thought, which he described as a calculus ratiocinator. Scientists would be able to clearly and rationally communicate with each other, and theoretically communicate with calculating machines too. Hundreds of years later, modern artificial intelligence researchers were interested by the problems that Leibniz worked on (McCorduck 33). Scientists have always been attempting to make the field of artificial intelligence jump from a fantasy to a reality. Therefore, there have been many very serious scientific attempts to get closer to an artificial intelligence, but only very recently have researchers have had much luck.

In the next section of this series, the history of artificial intelligence will get more spicy as the invention of the modern computer will be covered.

(Want the cited sources? Find them here.)
May 17, 2009
4:30
“Why Is It Special?” And Seven More Questions the Non-Technical Windows User Has about Linux
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
Your common, non-technical Windows user has most likely not heard anything more than a cursory mention about Linux. They have questions about Linux that are not always answered easily. Many experienced Linux users are not able to answer questions that interested Windows users have in a manner that the latter party can easily grasp. This post is written to hopefully instruct Linux enthusiasts on how to explain Linux to nontechnical users.

Question 1: Why is Linux so special compared to Windows or Mac?

How to answer: If you’re being asked this question, you or somebody else has probably been over-exaggerating the awesomeness of Linux when speaking to the inquirer. However, to answer this, simply explain that people all around the world have come together to create a wonderful computing experience that can be legally downloaded for free; they’re giving it away.

Question 2: This whole open-source thing sounds like Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is full of vandalism. Is Linux safe?

How to answer: Explain that in Wikipedia, you can make changes without the permission of anybody; people come look at your change later. To make a change to the official Linux kernel, one has to discuss the change for quite a while in advance. Remember to tell them that one can make unofficial Linux-based kernels, and the most popular unofficial kernels (such as those available in Debian, SuSE, or Red Hat) are also somewhat protective of the changes that can be made.

In addition, I advise you to not defend Wikipedia, because that is another battle.

Question 3: Windows works fine; why should I switch?

How to answer: This is somewhat dangerous territory. The best answer is telling them that they don’t have to switch. After all, maybe Windows really is the operating system that they should be using. But don’t forget to remind them about Linux’s security.

Question 4: If I install Linux on my computer that has Windows, I’m not actually saving any money. Why do I install Linux, then?

How to answer: Tell them of the security benefits. Explain that, in the world of online banking, security is something that should especially be worried about.

In addition, you can point them to various places where they can purchase a Linux computer if they are in the market for a new machine. For example, you can point out Dell’s Ubuntu line.

Question 5: What is the easiest way I can try out Linux?

How to answer: The below list describes, from easiest to most difficult, ways to try out the Linux desktop, or something that feels like a Linux desktop.
1. Install Windows-equivalents of popular Linux desktop applications, such as:
  - GIMP
  - Pidgin
  - Geany
  - Inkscape
  - Firefox
  - OpenOffice
  Remember to tell them that this isn’t actually Linux, but it feels like it.
2. Wubi — A tool to run Ubuntu from within Windows.
3. A live CD. Remember to tell them that the live CD does not change their Windows installation, as the above two options do. This is generally more difficult if the user burns his or her own live CD. If the user is capable of getting or buying a live CD from you, or another party. Canonical, for example, will ship you a free Ubuntu CD–though it may take you a long while to receive it.
4. Installing a popular Linux distribution for themselves.
Question 6: How do I choose a distribution of Linux? There are so many!

How to answer: Every true Linux enthusiast has got complex feelings about various distributions. In the past, I have written a post about this issue, and have told enthusiasts to just recommend Ubuntu. I don’t say to recommend Ubuntu for technical reasons, but to recommend it for support, marketing, and other non-technical reasons. I admit my opinion is controversial, but simply recommending Ubuntu makes the sea of distributions somewhat less intimidating.

Question 7: How do I choose a desktop environment? There are so many!

How to answer: This is a bit tricky. What desktop environment I recommend really depends on my mood, the time of day, and what /dev/urandom outputs.

Right now, I believe Xfce has an excellent future for being the newbie user’s Linux desktop. Xubuntu is an Ubuntu spin-off that provides the Xfce desktop.

Question 8: Why do you talk about Linux so much?

How to answer: This is probably another sign that you should scale back on your Linux discussions. Choose a simple expression to capture why you like Linux so much. A personal favorite of mine is that I want to, “share the love.”
May 13, 2009
5:02
State of the GNU/Linux Desktop 2009 Part 3/4: Infrastructural Enhancements
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Again, apologies for the much delayed posting. Finals together with the sluggishness of my backup computer made me unable to write this until now.

For those who don’t remember, we are in the middle of a series on what interesting developments and capabilities are ongoing within the Free Desktop to improve its fitness for both personal and enterprise usage.
Infrastructural Enhancements
This category of purely under-the-hood work is not immediately obvious and thus is often under-appreciated, but yields many useful improvements to the Free Desktop.

One notable entry here is automatic code parallelization in GCC (the main compiler on Linux) through Graphite, which should lead to significant performance improvements for all programs on computers with multiple processing cores. Of course, the scope of what can be done is limited due to this sort of conversion requiring a higher-level view of what a block of code is meant to do, but nevertheless this is very much a welcome feature that will keep our beloved compiler in line with the current state of compiler technology.

Filesystems have always been an area of interest for the Free desktop; from the plain-spoken and default ext3 to the fast ReiserFS and SGI XFS, Linux especially has always had a variety of powerful filesystems available for any task. The march of progress has thankfully not left this critical job by the wayside. ext4, the successor to ext3 featuring much improved performance through more flexible filesystem clustering through extents, and new features such as defragmentation support and checksumming of filesystem journals for increased reliability became stable in Linux 2.6.28.[22][23] Fedora 11 is going to include it included by default, which should come as either a pleasant or a terrifying prospect depending on one’s view on stability.[24] I’d say that I’m psyched, but I’m using it right now on my Arch Linux installation so such a statement would be misleading.

However, by the ext4 project leader’s (Theodore Ts’o) own admission, ext4 is not revolutionary enough.[25] The next major filesystem on the horizon is btrfs, designed to overcome many of the limitations of ext3 and ext4 in filesystem size and administration.[26] Among the interesting features it will bring will be transparent checksumming and compression for files, defragmentation and filesystem checking while the filesystem is mounted, and more sophisticated data striping. If you’re keen to try it out, it should be included with Fedora 11, but be warned that the filesystem format is not yet stabilized or optimized and thus your data may be prematurely ended.[27]
Security
The infamous security framework soap opera is still going on, of course, with the usual politics and petty bickering within the Linux kernel development community. Although the free desktop takes much well-deserved pride in its security, the Unix-like user-group-other security model (Discretionary Access Control, or DAC) traditionally used for managing permissions has proven to be both insecure and distinctly un-Unix-like. Not only was it crafted before any concept of wide networking had really been established, but it also far too permissive and course-grained in its management. Hence the need for a new security system that builds on top of the traditional model; there are many competing modules alive in the ecosystem, but it remains to be seen which (if any; after all, FLOSS is all about choice) will prevail. An important thing to be aware of within this realm is the LSM, or the Linux Security Modules; a common Mandatory Access Control (MAC) security framework API within the kernel.

POSIX File Capabilities, while not strictly a security framework, are a minimalistic approach to security available since Linux 2.6.24. Basically, they use the extended attribute system of modern filesystems such as ext3, ext4, btrfs, etc. to allow a program to do tasks that would traditionally require root permissions. Far short of being a clone of the classic SETUID bit that forces a program to be run as root (an over-simplification), it instead limits what a program can do to the minimum that is needed. The implications of this are invasive and far-reaching; for instance, using file capabilities it is no longer necessary to be root in order to burn an optical disk. LWN as always has a good read on the topic.

SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) is another security framework, only instead of merely being an extra set of permission bits it is a full-blown MAC solution. Developed by the National Security Agency in 2000, SELinux was the first major security framework available for Linux and is now used most notably by Red Hat and Fedora. Although it is generally considered quite secure because it uses an inode-based system instead of filenames (avoiding issues of different restrictions referring to the same file), it is also notorious for being a nightmare to configure.[28]

AppArmor is the main competitor to SELinux, developed originally by Immunix but later released and maintained by Novell after they perchased the former.[29] It is currently used by most notably by OpenSUSE and Ubuntu, presumably due to its ease of configuration compared to SELinux. However, it is considered less secure due to its reliance on filenames instead of filesystem objects, and thus there has been a great deal of controversy both petty and significant to the point that Linus Torvalds himself has had to step into the fray despite his self-proclaimed disinterest in security frameworks.[28] Like SELinux, it is a MAC security framework using LSM, but unlike it, AppArmor has failed to be merged into the mainline kernel tree due to both technical troubles and political infighting.[29]

SMACK (Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel) is a much more recent entry into the security game available since Linux 2.6.25 that promises drastically simpler configuration at the cost of less power and capabilities compared to SELinux. In addition to eased configuration, it apparently also uses a hybrid approach to the inode/path debate.[30]

Lastly, TOMOYO is the latest entry to this… active… environment of security frameworks. It is not yet available in a stable kernel release, but should be available in Linux 2.6.30. Much like AppArmor, it uses pathnames as its basis for handling files, but among other things is designed to be more robust by working around weaknesses in LSM allowing more intellegent handling of file objects.
May 01, 2009
5:32
State of the GNU/Linux Desktop 2009 Part 2/4: Hardware Support
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Apologies for the late posting; a mixture of hardware woes and scheduling issues made getting this post out difficult.

As mentioned in part one of this series, despite the legendary pace of development in the Open Source community, it can be difficult to keep tabs on what is being worked on. I don’t claim to know about everything, or even most things; I do however enjoy tracking these things in my free time, and would like to share what I know to those who don’t share my passion.

Arguably, multimedia is just a subdivision of hardware support, another area where Free operating systems have suffered from a lack of attention. Luckily, vows of support have been sworn recently from AMD/ATI, and Intel has continued on their legendary campaign of support for Linux. This along with more mundane evolutionary work with corporate support and the diligent work of many kernel hackers has led to a much more usable system with a bright future.

Webcam support has gone through several drastic improvements in the past year starting with the release of Linux 2.6.26 introducing a driver supporting all USB video input devices.[13] This success was built upon with Linux 2.6.27 with the introduction of a driver for another popular device. As a result, most webcams are now supported on Linux.[14]

The Free Software community has long had a love-hate relationship to NVIDIA, loving them for their relatively superior graphics drivers yet hating them for their bugs and refusal to play nice with their philosophical demands. This situation has not changed on NVIDIA’s side of the court, but a small team of Free Software enthusiasts finally threw up their hands and began development of the nouveau project: an attempt to design a fully FLOSS driver for NVIDIA-based graphics chipsets. They have made good progress, and most devices are now supported with full 2D acceleration, with a start on 3D for some devices.[15] Interestingly, their 3D driver development is now entirely done in Gallium3D. It’s worth noting that as mentioned above, NVIDIA has released a video decoding framework called VDPAU.

The situation for ATI has been a complete reversal, however. After AMD bought them out in 2006, they swore to release documentation and fund development for their new devices.[16][17] This resulted in not only such radical developments as same-day Linux support but also the official funding of a new open-source driver, radeonhd. As a result of this, ATI cards are now well-supported both with and without proprietary drivers, even with a video decoding framework called XvBA.

A similar effort has come across from S3 Graphics, the maker of graphics chipsets closely associated with VIA.[18] However, their pledge of Linux support has so far been somewhat unsubstantiated, especially in terms of open-source support. The video decoding acceleration framework they chose to implement for their Chrome 500 driver was Intel’s VA-API.

Broadcom, the extremely popular manufacturer of network equipment, still has patchy support on Linux for their WiFi chipsets. Although there is a driver–b43–in the mainline kernel since Linux 2.6.24 (succeeding the earlier bcm43xx driver), the firmware needed to actually initialize and run the device is not open-source and cannot be distributed.[19][20] As a result, it is impossible to use Broadcom WiFi devices on a fully Free system, and it is even impractical–if not impossible–on many systems. Some distributions such as Ubuntu have an automatic setup system for this, but it’s not guaranteed to work.

On the note of wireless networking, there is a development worth noting although it occurred a while back. A somewhat revolutionary update, it dates way back to Linux 2.6.22, and concerns the complete rewrite of how WiFi is done in Linux by the company DeviceScape.[21] This is a mostly internal change, but allows for cleaner and more rapid wireless driver development. It replaces the much older Wireless-Extensions kernel subsystem developed in 1997 to accomplish a similar goal. Because of this fundamental internal API change, it may be that iwconfig and like utilities introduced with Wireless-Extensions are deprecated and may not work with newer drivers; iw its its replacement.[22][23]

Lastly, support for WiMAX has been added to Linux as of the 2.6.29 release through a set of patches donated by Intel.[24] WiMAX is a new wireless networking standard designed for much higher transmission speeds and range compared to WiFi, and is necessary both as a mobility innovation and as a method of internet delivery.
April 29, 2009
19:44
State of the GNU/Linux Desktop 2009 Part 1/4: Multimedia
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 contained over 283 million lines of code, and the Linux kernel development mailing list is of such high message density that even Linus Torvalds himself reads only a fraction of the messages that daily flood the development process.[0][1] Unless one wants to spend their entire lives trawling untold hundreds of mailing lists, they cannot keep track of what is being developed. My intention is to give a summary of what interesting features are being developed in the Free Desktop, especially involving Linux, that I’m aware of to the un-obsessed. My intention is not to give comprehensive technical reviews, however; only an introduction to each development.

Areas of important development in the overall Free Desktop ecosystem can be broken down into several main areas: multimedia, hardware support, infrastructural enhancements, and usability work, and I intend to cover each of these broad categories in the next couple of days.

To open, multimedia has always been the main weakness of the Free Desktop; from patchy and inconsistent audio stacks to unreliable and sluggish graphics subsystems, this is been a major beef for gamers and enthusiasts alike.

Gallium3D is a new API- and operating system-independent driver and purely shader-based stack for 3D video subsystems that has been undergoing much work and has been a major hotspot of thought for the free desktop, especially Linux. It will eventually replace Mesa, the current OpenGL implementation providing 3D acceleration on X.org. While at first glance it appears to be mainly an under-the-hood change, it does have much relevancy to the end-user. As well as allowing more rapid support of graphics hardware and less buggy drivers because of a more clean codebase, it will also provide driver-neutral video acceleration.[2] A usable but early version should be part of the Mesa 7.5 release.[3]

On the note of video acceleration, this is also an active area of development. Xv, or the X-Video Extension, was the classical method of this and is still frequently used. However, despite (and also because of) its maturity, Xv is hardly ideal as it only accelerates resizing and color manipulation in video and does not concern itself with decoding video. This makes it mostly worthless for modern video. XvMC, or the X-Video Motion Compensation Extension, is a later extension that also leverages the graphics card to offload some parts of MPEG-2 decoding. This is mostly worthless for modern systems, however, as not only are there many bugs with XvMC but also because of its lack of support for more modern video compression systems.[4] Fortunately, the Free Software community has not been idle; Intel’s VA-API, or the Video Acceleration API, is currently the favored player by some. Not only is it an actively developed library and standard supporting a variety of video decoding tasks in modern codecs such as MPEG-4. Natively it is only supported by the Intel Poulsbo and several S3 Chrome graphics chipsets, but it can use NVIDIA’s reportedly excellent VDPAU (Video Decode and Presentation API for UNIX) and AMD/ATI’s XvBA (X-Video Bitstream Acceleration) libraries as back-ends allowing any program supporting VA-API to accelerate decoding on most hardware.[5]

Kernel Modesetting is an important feature that has been under development for several years now, and was finally released for Intel graphics chipsets in Linux 2.6.29.[6] “Mode-setting” refers to the act of activating the graphics card on a display with a certain resolution and color mode, and prior to kernel mode-setting this was a complex dance between kernel and userspace that lead to much instability when switching virtual terminals, starting the X.org server, and resuming the system from a state of suspension. Eventually, kernel mode-setting will also lead to a flicker-free boot process as seen in Fedora Plymouth.

As substandard as the graphics subsystem of the Free Desktop has been historically, the audio stack has been… worse. The Open Sound System was the historical API for handling audio on all major UNIXes for years, but eventually development went proprietary and the open source version began to suffer from severe dust collection and a lack of modern features such as hardware audio mixing. Linux 2.6 was therefore released with its own sound API: ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture). Unfortunately, ALSA is to this day notoriously messy in both its API and in its documentation.[7] The situation is however convoluted by the frequency of OSS apps forced to use ALSA’s emulation layer. The end result is… messy and buggy. PulseAudio is a sound server designed to repair the situation. The theory is that instead of having applications directly work with the soundcard, requests are routed through PulseAudio allowing not only better application coexistence but also more advanced capabilities such as playing audio across a network. For a while, its adoption was hampered by high latency, bugs, and incompatibility with all ALSA applications, but it is now the de-facto standard for audio on Linux.[8] However, it is worth noting that OSS has since gone open-source again, and although I have not used it myself, reportedly it is quite superior to ALSA.[9]

Media playback, especially MP3 and DVD playback, has been another area in need of attention for years. However, recently the situation here has improved in part due to the emergence of GStreamer, a fairly solid and extremely powerful multimedia framework. Prior to this, xine and MPlayer were the main multimedia frameworks; while good applications in their own right, they tend to be suboptimal for writing new players. Fluendo was then founded to sell fully legal and licensed multimedia codecs for it, filling an important hole in the Free Desktop ecosystem. In addition to this, they released an MP3 playback codec for free, and are currently attempting to get the rights to develop a legal DVD playback library.[10][11] Don’t get too excited yet, though; as of 2008, they were still attempting to get it approved by the DVD consortium.[12]

Wayland is, to me, one of the most interesting developments here. The X.org display server implementing the X11 display protocol is notoriously buggy and heavy compared to what is needed. Essentially, Wayland is a compositing display server that throws out everything that isn’t needed on a modern system. This is of course most immediately useful on mobile devices where the overhead incurred by a full-blown X11 server would be impractical, but it also brings a refreshing simplicity to a standard desktop system as well. Perhaps most interestingly, Wayland also allows running multiple full-blown X11 sessions within a Wayland window.[13]

EDIT: There appears to be a nice write-up of X.org’s recent work here.
March 29, 2009
22:30
They Just Never Learn; Google Docs Gives Yet Another Example of Why Cloud Computing Is Dangerous
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

In this post, cloud computing is defined as the use of web applications such as Google Docs.

I’ve written a post about why cloud computing is dangerous.

I’ve written another post about why cloud computing is dangerous.

And now I’ve written EVEN another post about why cloud computing is dangerous, and that post is the one you are reading right now.

But regardless of my opinions on cloud computing, I felt that completely abandoning cloud computing or creating one’s own miniature cloud would be too difficult for nontechnical users. Perhaps the nontechnical users should avoid trusting random startups with data, but keep using the services of larger providers, like Google. Such larger providers couldn’t possibly be a poor choice to keep one’s data, right?

Well, apparently I’ve been proven wrong.

A security flaw has been found in Google Docs. Don’t get the idea that this is a small flaw; a minuscule crack in a great wall. Sticking with the wall metaphor, the security issue with Google Docs is a massive, gaping chasm where a wall should be. Sure, Google has well-read engineers that can quickly patch up security holes, but apparently the same excellent engineers could not have patched up the security issue in the first place¹.

This raises an important question: If Google’s world-class engineers cannot prevent a user’s data from being stolen, who can?

Well, actually, anybody can prevent a user’s data from being stolen. Not putting the data online (even in a private online place) results makes it far more difficult to steal the data.

Granted, data often has to be put online for collaboration purposes, but there are still more secure ways to hold important data online. For a few USD a month, one can obtain a shared web hosting plan to install wiki software on². The shared host should also provide support and features to help one secure his or her data³. Keep in mind that with shared hosting, one’s data is still on far-away servers, but one gets partial control of the system.

Now, I would like to finalize in saying that there is nothing wrong in using Google Docs or even a random startup’s cloud computing services; neither must be completely abandoned.If you are fine with anybody in the world reading what you put on far-away servers beyond your (at least partial) control, and are prepared for the unlikely situation that you lose your data, there is no harm in cloud computing.

¹ I would like to point out that the engineers are Google are far better programmers than me, so this should be considered as an insult or a claim of superiority. I deeply respect the Google engineers, but do not think that far-off servers are a good place to store one’s data.

² It is possible that there is a security flaw in the wiki software that one may put on a shared hosting server, but choosing open-source wiki software and using good security practices should hopefully mitigate this.

³ Granted, with a shared hosting plan, it is possible for the system administrator to look at your files, but the risk of having your data stolen is still lower with a reputable hosting company than a random startup.
22:30
Does the Linux Desktop Need to Be Revolutionized Android-style?
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

So, a few days ago, I got a spankin’ new T-Mobile G1. This has resulted in a lot of hands-on experience with the user interface of Google’s Android platform. I can’t help but compare the Android OS to Openmoko Linux. After all, both use Linux kernels.

No offense to the Openmoko developers, but I think that Openmoko pales when compared to Android. Below are reviews of two Openmoko user interfaces.

OpenMoko Train Wreck from Dave Fayram on Vimeo.

More OpenMoko Train Wrecking (Now with Qt!) from Dave Fayram on Vimeo.

The main problem I see with Openmoko is that it has attempted to borrow too much from desktop Linux. For example, Openmoko uses the X11 protocol, which is far too bloated for a mobile device. Because Openmoko borrows so much from desktop Linux, some of the problems of desktop Linux have been inherited by Openmoko, and the less-powerful hardware of mobile devices makes the problems worse.

In contrast, the Android platform uses more of their own code, and I think the results are visibly better.

At the same time, there is talk of Android on netbooks, because Android beautifully does many of the things that you would expect from a typical netbook.

Combine all of this, and you get an interesting question.

What if, Android, having shed the problems of an Openmoko-style phone operating system, overtakes traditional flavors of Linux in netbook marketshare?

It could happen.

If it does happen, could the same Android-style wheel-reinventing bring Linux more marketshare in the area of more powerful laptops and desktop computers? After all, didn’t Apple do the same thing by creating Mac OS X from FreeBSD?

Perhaps desktop Linux needs to see the same Android-style revolution. Android itself will probably not expand beyond the netbook. It remove the need for “creative” methods to bring a system to visual consistency.

I believe open source software can easily be superior than a costly, proprietary equivalent, but perhaps the fact that many communities are involved in working with desktop Linux has been harming it’s ascent to the common user’s desktop.
February 27, 2009
5:26
Why Linux Users Should Try Ubuntu First
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Note: This post was originally published without the word “new” in the title. As the brackets denote, this error has been corrected.

If I had a penny for every seasoned Linux user whose eyes are currently bulging in anger at this title, I would have… still not much money, considering the poor level of web traffic this blog gets. But if you are among those that sharply disagree with me, hear me out so you can more finely craft your criticizing comment.

Below are some reasons why Ubuntu should generally be the distro that new Linux users try first.
Popularity Large number of users, especially new users

Ubuntu’s community is unlike many other Linux distributions in the sense that it is so much larger than the communities of other distributions. Ubuntu’s community is also unusual in the sense that a good chunk of it is made up of converted Windows users.

As some successful drug rehabilitation programs have recovering addicts talk to those that have successfully broken the addiction^{[citation needed]}, it is also useful for a person considering switching to Linux to talk to a recent successful Linux-convert. Ubuntu can supply large masses of those recent-Linux-converts.
Large number of Ubuntu-specific tutorials
New Linux users attempting to solve a problem with their system will usually need to follow a tutorial or advice that it specific to their system (distribution, desktop environment, and so forth) as they cannot be expected to translate a tutorial for their distribution (example: using different package management systems to install the same software).

Thus, Linux users need to learn concepts on-the-go because they don’t have the time to stop and sit down to learn these concepts. After all, a newbie Linux user that is desperate to get X.org working in order to finish a report will not be willing to sit down and learn the syntax for the X11 configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf).

The large number of Ubuntu specific tutorials reduces an Ubuntu user’s need to translate a tutorial for his or her system, resulting in getting the job done in the least amount of time as possible. While being knowledgeable about one’s operating system is important, when one’s printer is in immediate need of fixing is a bad time to have to learn about one’s operating system.
Large repositories One place to find software
One of the reasons that Linux users constantly trumpet about their operating system is because of the brilliant invention that a package manager is. Now, a package manager is more useful and easy-to-use when there are large repositories backing the package manager.

Some distributions, like OpenSUSE, just don’t have that much in their default repositories compared to Ubuntu*.

* It depends on how you look at it. I am only counting the packages that one can find in the default repositories, but OpenSUSE uses may want to include the packages in the OpenSUSE Build Service.
No hunting and/or compiling dependencies
Sorry for picking on OpenSUSE, but I’ve noticed that I’ll frequently attempt to install a package in the repositories, but then discover that a dependency outside the repositories is needed. I’m not sure whether or not this occurs with Ubuntu’s default repositories, but it has not happened to me. The concept of dependencies is immensely confusing to former Windows users, who are used to going to Download.com and running installers.
Media coverage
(This is somewhat along the lines of the Popularity section)

To the seasoned Linux user sadly shaking his or head at this blog post, stating that media coverage of Ubuntu is a reason that it should be recommended to users switching to Linux is silly.

How I see it is that attempting to get a Windows user to use a lesser-known Linux distribution is a bit scary for the Windows user. From the viewpoint of the Windows user, another person is offering some strange operating system that will provide some benefits that the Windows user doesn’t understand completely.

The difference with Ubuntu is that there is a much greater chance that the Windows user has heard of it, thus the Windows user thinks that he is trying out something safe and beneficial, rather than entering a strange and possibly dangerous (to the Windows user’s hard drive) world. It is important to remember that the attitude that a former Windows user approaches Linux with can affect his or her feelings regarding Linux.
Final notes
I don’t mean to say that all users should use Ubuntu.

I don’t mean to say that Ubuntu works for all users.

I don’t mean to say that a user should try Ubuntu, even if it is explicitly obvious that Ubuntu will not fit the user’s needs (Example: Running on very old hardware).

I don’t mean to say that other desktop Linux distributions are terrible. I’m writing this on OpenSUSE 11.1 because of Ubuntu problems.

I don’t mean to say that Ubuntu is technologically superior to other Linux distributions.

And lastly, I understand that diversity is an important part of Linux.

But regardless of all that, I think that if a user could face a difficult time choosing Linux distros, Ubuntu should be the first, but not always the only, path taken.

UPDATE: If you want to see somebody with superior writing skill make similar points, you can check out MaximumPC’s article called “Why (almost) Everyone Should Try Ubuntu“
February 14, 2009
1:57
Safe Passwords
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
Recently the database at PHPBB.com was hacked, exposing the passwords of all 20,000 users on the popular site. Of course, PHPBB.com is mainly used as a trouble-shooting forum for the software itself. This basically means that most people registered there will probably be fairly tech-literate. However, you wouldn’t think so based on the red-alert list of passwords. The number one password was “123456″, followed by “password”, then “12345678″. “1234″, and a word which would be best left unsaid to preserve the integrity of this site.

So, why such poor passwords? Well, people probably don’t feel that their account will ever be hacked (and in this case it was the whole forum that was), or at least worth hacking. However, you should always play it safe and go with a good password. Though for many people these key points will be common sense, I feel they are worth some ink:
1. Compose your password of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters (!@#$%^&*<>|{}).
2. If you are good at remembering, choose random strings (ek:yqEO*>#6hWb) or, if you (like myself) could never remember that, then go with l33t speak; replace letters with similar looking special characters and numbers. Also use a pattern to alternate lower and uppercase letters. Also make sure that the phrase you base it off is not common, like password (so don’t go with p@5sW()P,d).
3. Avoid using patterns on the keyboard, like !@#$%^&*(), 134567890, qwertyui, asdfghj, zxcvbn, qazwsxedc, and the list goes on.
4. Always make sure to use different passwords for different sites, just in case one of the logins is discovered.
5. If you have a problem remembering passwords, don’t store a list electronically. Instead, keep all logins on physical paper and locked in a safe. Certainly don’t use the key-under-the-mat trick, or, in this case, store your password on the back of your computer or under your keyboard.
6. Don’t tell anyone else your passwords. Obviously, there are people you can probably trust (like your best friend since junior high school), but still be careful.
7. Be extra careful with sites containing sensitive information, like bank accounts. To a lesser extent, sites like Facebook and Myspace should also be closely guarded.
8. Finally, change your password every so often.
Really, to sum things up, use common sense and you should be safe.
January 18, 2009
21:54
The Dangers of Telling a User Switching to Linux That “Linux Is Just like Windows”
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
Many Linux users, including myself, are quite desperate to get people to switch to Linux, or at least use more open-source software.

Nothing wrong with that. The problem comes in when Linux users say the wrong things in an attempt to convert other users to Linux. The latest example of such a mistake is the tale of Abbie Schubert, a Wisconsin woman that dropped out of college due to troubles with Ubuntu. From the article, Woman blames Dell for missing online classes, describing this:

Schubert says she never heard of Ubuntu until learning that she accidentally bought it. She called Dell the very next day and says the representative told her there was still time to change back to Windows.

But she says Dell discouraged her.

“The person I was talking to said Ubuntu was great, college students loved it, it was compatible with everything I needed,” said Schubert.

So she stuck with it.

Later, she discovered Ubuntu might look like Windows, but it doesn’t always act like it.

Her Verizon High-Speed Internet CD won’t load, so she can’t access the internet. She also can’t install Microsoft Word, which she says is a requirement for MATC’s online classes.

This story is similar to so many other stories as it fits this general framework:
1. Average computer user gets a Linux computer, expecting a Windows one.
2. Average computer user is told that “Linux is just like Windows” (or some variation of the phrase). In the example story, the representative, by saying that “[Ubuntu] was compatible with everything [Schubert] needed,” implied that tasks could be completed on Ubuntu in the same manner as the task would be completed on Windows
3. Average computer user gives Linux a chance, and is disappointed because something went wrong.
4. Average computer user now does not trust Linux.
In this cycle, the second step is what really damages the reputation of Linux. Rather than saying “Linux is just like Windows,” what should be said is, “Linux can do everything Windows can, but a little differently. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll save time and money. Let me help you get started.”

Note: If you happen to be interested, read the followup article about Ubuntu, from the news organization that wrote the above article
January 16, 2009
1:08
Suggested Tips for Taming the Extreme Side of the Linux Community
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Sometimes, I feel that Linux is so very close to making it on the desktop. Sometimes that I feel that there are only few barriers to populating the world with a massive amount of cheap, secure computers running Linux and other open source software. Though, the few barriers that are left are considerably challenging. The barrier that will be discussed in this post, as obvious from the title, is the side of the Linux community that is cold and unfriendly to new Linux users.

It is absolutely necessary to tone this side of the Linux community down. Users new to Linux feel like that they are in an alien world in which it is dangerous to navigate, and fearing getting flamed from angry Linux users is simply just going to drive them back towards Windows. How can the angry Linux users be soothed?

The traditional method is to lightly discourage such angry behavior, and that is close to my solution. What I am planning is nearly waging war against the extreme side of the Linux community and use anti-spam methods, such as IP banning and filtering, to handle angry users of forums, IRC channels, and other online places where Linux newbies seek help. There are already a few places that do this, but the problem is that there are only a few places that apply this type of policy regarding hostile Linux users.

Critics of GNU/Linux often state that the Linux community (including the communities of distros, desktop environments, various applications etc.) can’t seem to pull themselves into a single entity. Personally, I think that it is time that the friendly majority of the Linux community should disprove these critics and band together to silence the extreme side of the Linux community.
January 15, 2009
2:16
It’s So Tempting to Blame the Beta
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Note: This post has been updated in several places. Those updates are denoted by starting with “UPDATE”. Some smaller updates are not denoted in this manner.

This is a tale of my own mistake; because this is the sort of tale that I have plenty of lying around, and because I think that people enjoy laughing at me.

So, anyway, I was experimenting with the KDE 4.2 beta, and checking out how Amarok music player was going. Before, I have hated the new Amarok. The user interface, a departure from what Amarok used to be, seemed unnatural to me. Besides, I couldn’t figure out how to get the darn piece of software to play music anyway. “Amarok Nightly, and the entire 2.x series of Amarok for that matter, was useless to me, and I would never adopt it,” I told myself. “Dumb, buggy Amarok betas are not worth my time. I should just use Exaile.”

I hate being wrong.

It turns out that the reason that Amarok 2 didn’t play my music was because I did not install the MP3¹ support².

After finding that the music now worked in Amarok2, the user interface magically seemed to make more sense, as if the disappeared frustration allowed me to see the good parts of the new Amarok. “Amarok 2 is certainly more pleasing than Amarok 1!” I told myself now.

Click post to view image in full-size.

By the way, I encourage you to check out KDE 4.2 betas, they work amazingly well³.

The lesson I learned? Never lose faith in KDE developers; they always pull through for you. UPDATE: A more relevant lesson to learn would be that one should check if the problem is i the chair before blaming the code.

¹As an open source enthusiast, it would make sense for me to have my music in OGG Vorbis format, but I gave up on that when I discovered that while using Rockbox enables me to play OGG Vorbis files, I still couldn’t play the OGG Vorbis files on unconfigured Windows and Mac installs.

²I had installed the MP3 support by playing the MP3 file in Amarok 1.4, and then clicking the dialog that will autoinstall the MP3 support. UPDATE: I used the Amarok 1.4 MP3 codec installer because I had already assumed that I had the correct files.

³How well the KDE 4.2 nightlies work for you may depend on your hardware and when exactly you try the betas out.
January 10, 2009
3:25
Why I Like USB Flash Drives
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Few people realize the full potential of a USB flash drive. Not only can you take your files on the go with you, but you can do so much more. Here are a few examples I find just too useful:

Portable Linux - Many Linux distributions can be run entirely from flash drives. Perhaps one of the most common examples is Ubuntu, which has several different applications available for LiveUSB use. Other popular distros, including Fedora, Knoppix, Gentoo, and Debian also can be used on a USB flash drive pretty easily. And, of course, the best part might be the fact that you can run the entire Operating System solely from your thumb drive. Or, for those who want to prolong their flash drive’s life, only the home directory can be modified.

Your Favorite Applications on the Go - For many people it can be frustrating not being able to take your favorite applications to school, work, the library, or your mother-in-law’s house. This can easily be done with a USB thumb drive. In fact, some very prominent applications and not-so-popular applications have unofficial and official builds ready to be used on a thumb drive.

Easy Backups - Flash drives can be an incredibly easy way to backup the most critical files quickly. Though there are obviously faster and better methods, this can also usually be used most anywhere, be overwritten when the backup is old, and is rather cheap compared to a whole new hard drive.

Full Control - Perhaps the best use is the ability to have a web server right in your pocket, or a powerful programming language like Python. Since these many times aren’t available to you elsewhere, with a USB flash drive they will be.

So, what uses do you have for flash drives?
1:36
Yet Another Windows 7 Wish List
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

I personally am not a huge fan of Windows, as I feel it has its fair share of problems. Though, what OS doesn’t? Mac, Linux, and Windows, they all have their problems. However, Windows is made by Microsoft, a huge company capable of doing great things (though you probably already knew that). So, it certainly can improve much quicker than other operating systems who don’t have quite so much available funding. Thats why I think its fair to have a million Windows 7 wish lists out there; We all know what we want, and we also know that there is some possibility of it actually happening with Microsoft behind the wheel. Many of my ideas aren’t all that new, some I think are. So, without further adieu, here it is:

A Built-in Office Suite - It seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it? I’m not asking for a full-fledged office suite like Microsoft Office; I just want a few applications that can act as a word processor, spread sheet, and slide show. I would of-course expect they could read and write Microsoft Office file types as well. Now, let me reiterate, I don’t expect it to be the real deal that you pay 200 dollars for, rather just something that gets the job done.

Better Foreign Support - What I mean by this is that I wish Windows 7 would support a greater deal of Linux and Mac concepts (for lack of a better word), such as media filetypes like Ogg Vorbis in Windows Media Player, complete read/write support for file-systems in the ballpark of HFS, ext3, and Resier4, and finally Open Document support in any fitting applications they do choose to include, such as WordPad (if they include nothing else).

Built-in Virus Protection - Its common knowledge that Windows has a big piece of the Virus pie. Yet, it still does not have built-in protection for them. Not only would this make people feel safer to use it, it would also cut down on the cost of third party products.

LiveDVD Version - I really would like to see both a non-installable Windows 7 Live DVD that is offered for free as well as the standard installation DVD having the ability to boot it into a “Test drive” mode like you often can various Linux distributions.

Customizable Aero Effects - It would be much easier and more satisfactory for both my eyes and be fingers to be able to control what Aero effects are used and which ones aren’t. This would also make it possible to include a wider variety of effects.

Multiple Desktops - Its been around in Linux for ages, hasn’t it? Well, I would really like to see it in Windows as well. It is very convenient, makes it much easier to stay organized, and can be a great way to add extra screen real estate.

Custom Safemode - Well, perhaps its not something everybody would want, but I would like to have the ability to go into a safe mode that fits my needs strait from the boot screen. This includes different options regarding drivers, graphics, network support, and other things like that.

Web-like Password Recovery - It is not uncommon for me to change my passwords every so often, and after a while I forget the old ones. Now, I would obvious not forget my main computer’s password, however I have several other computers I use for testing that go dormant for months at a time. So, to not have to worry about this problem, I would like to be able to recover a forgotten password by answering a series of questions regarding myself.

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts - I tend to like to personalize my keyboard shortcuts to what I can remember best. However, with Windows everything is set in stone; you can’t change them, yet when I go into KDE I have no such problem.

Everywhere Spell Checker - I use a spell-checker for everything. However, it isn’t always available for everything. Well, why can’t it be? I think it would be much easier to have a built-in spell-checker whenever you have to enter text through a form.

IM Safety - The Internet is an unsafe place for kids now-a-days. I think it would definitely be beneficial to add an artificial intelligence to IM programs like Live Messenger to make sure that things aren’t getting dangerous. Perhaps this could take a while to code, however it would be greatly appreciated feature for many parents.

Better CD Burning - Finally, one thing that has caused me enormous trouble is the lack of CD Image burning in Windows. I would really like to be able to get a new computer, then immediately upon unpacking it burn Linux and dual-boot, though I suppose that might be what Microsoft doesn’t want me to do.

Edibility - Oh yeah, I would really like to be able to eat my computer when I’m done with it like Seinfeld does.
January 03, 2009
5:34
The Internet in 2099, an Original Tale from CodingExperiments
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Sure, it’s the start of the year, and all the tech blogs are making their own predictions (that usually end up untrue) about what is going to happen this year. I decided that I ought to make my own predictions about what is going to happen in the future. I’m not going to predict what is going to happen in 2009, but instead 2099.

But instead of coming up with a flowchart or five-paragraph essay about my predictions, I present you with a fictional story.
“Professor! Come quickly! We have found a glyph that apparently represents a cheeseburger in these ancient ruins!” shouted a student.

“It’s worse than I feared. Get me the President.”

” Professor, the President?”

“Yes, get ME the PRESIDENT! DON’T YOU REALIZE WHAT IS AT STAKE HERE?”

“Sir, it seems a bit drastic to call the Pres–”

“WE NEED TO ACT NOW! YOU’VE BEEN IN THE BRIEFINGS! YOU KNOW THE DANGER WE ARE FACING!”

The student ran into a nearby tent and fetched a satellite phone. “Here you go, sir.”

The professor snatched the satellite phone from the student and stared at the phone’s touchscreen.

“P…R…E…Q–no-S!” muttered the professor while pecking at the keyboard on the touchscreen. “These iAwesomePhones touchscreen keyboards are so inaccurate! I wish they ran Linux!”

“Don’t they run Linux already?”

“No, but they will soon,” answered the professor as he continued pecking at the keyboard.

“Really? Why?” inquired the curious student.

“Oh, GooHat is forcing the world to use Ubuntu Paragon Penguin.”

“GooHat?”

“Didn’t you hear? Google and Red Hat had a merger. You kids should read the news more.”

“Right, but doesn’t Ubuntu belong to Novell after they bought out Canonical?”

“But then Red Hat bought out Novell.”

The satellite phone’s screen flickered, flashed the words “Incoming Call,” and a woman’s face appeared. “Ender, is it you?”

“No, Jane,” sighed the professor. “Wrong plot universe.” The woman disappeared off the screen, and the professor continued muttering and clacking away at the touchscreen. “E…N..T–enter.” The phone’s screen flickered again, and a man’s face appeared.

“It better be important!” barked the President.

“Oh, it is,” the professor spoke as he nodded gravely. “I have a student that has found a glyph of a cheeserburger.”

The President buried his face in his hands for a few seconds, then he dropped his hands to his sides and sighed. “Lolcats, right?”

The professor nodded gravely again and said, “Yes, the amazing quantity of these lolcats are likely to make exterminating them much more difficult.”

“But you know what will happen if we don’t get rid of these lolcats.”

“Yes, I know.” The professor sighed and nodded gravely for a third time. The student that had found the cheeseburger glyph looked dumbstruck.

TO BE CONTINUED
December 31, 2008
16:36
Things I Will Be Tracking And Graphing in 2009
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
The year 2008 is ending, and there is a flurry of blog posts with an end-of-year theme, be it resolutions, predictions, or something else for the new year.

I’m horrible at keeping resolutions and predicting, so for the year 2009, I’ll be, as the title so clearly states, tracking and graphing things.

Credit: Randall Munroe of xkcd.com. Click the image for the comic’s page.

So, what will I be tracking?
- Length of time spent playing BZFlag (an open source 3D tank battle game) — I really need to cut back on playing it. Tracked via this simple shell script I made.
- Length of time spent browsing the web. Tracked via Usage Counter Firefox Extension.
- Length of time computer is left on. Tracked via Unix ‘uptime’ program.
- Number of Delicious bookmarks posted in the year (via Delicious API app that is not yet completed).
I won’t be the only person tracking statistics in 2009. Yuvi outlines his plans to restart The StatBot, which is a website where he blog about all sorts of interesting statistics he measures.

Will you be tracking anything in 2009?
December 18, 2008
23:01
The Danger of Web Apps; How a Bug in Gmail Locked up My Account
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

I haven’t been too excited about web apps. Sure, I use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, and various other online tools, but I’m rather cautious about their use.

So, I log into my super secret mail URL, as I use Google Apps for Your Domain to check my email. I see that I’ve been sent an email from a friend containing a Word document.

To view the file, I click the View as HTML link that Gmail displays next to the attachment. In a new tab, the HTML rendition of the Word document is supposed to appear, but it doesn’t.

Not discouraged, I click Download Original Attachment, not knowing what is to come.

Click on the image to view it full-size

Yes, Google says that my account is now locked. Although I have planned for such a lockdown, Google denying my access to the account shocked me. Fortunately, the account was unlocked in a few minutes.

I repeated the test three times (not wanting to test it further due to Google possibly getting suspicious), and my account was locked down each time I tested it. I conclude that it is a bug within Gmail that set off the alarms, causing my account to be temporarily locked up.

The lesson? Depending on web applications to keep data secure or accessible is dangerous.

The sad part is that my story isn’t unique; many people have faced similar problems with a variety of web applications.

Remember, friends don’t let friends use web applications unsafely.
December 17, 2008
1:50
Dear Ubuntu Installer: For the Sake of Usability, Could You Have the Colors Make More Sense?
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

The Ubuntu Linux installer is pretty user friendly compared to, say, the Slackware installer.

Yet, I still have something to complain about it. Yes, I know! My complaint is rather silly, and perhaps ought to be ignored by the world. Keep reading this post and decide whether or not I’m crazy.

Wait, what is my complaint? See the below screenshot and explanation.

Click the above thumbnail for the full size image.

See those multicolored bars in the screenshot? You know, the ones that are giving a graphical representation of the partition layout. The coloring of the partitions are inconsistent. Green represents the new Ubuntu installation, and /dev/sda6 (a Fedora Linux installation). Oh, not to mention that green also represents /dev/sda5 in the top bar.

Is that it? No, I’m not finished.

Click the above thumbnail for the full size image.

See, another example of confusing inconsistency! First of all, simply switching the radio button changed the color representing Ubuntu from green to blue. The color representing /dev/sda1 (Windows Vista) still remains blue, though.

Are my complains silly? Yes, but I think that a confusing diagram is one of the worst things to put into a software application capable of destroying one’s hard drive with a misplaced click, especially when operated by technophobes (what, you haven’t told your mother to switch to LInux?).

So go ahead, think that I’m simply complaining because I feel the need to publish a blog post. I’ll just sit in my corner and continue complaining about colors.
December 04, 2008
1:26
The Sudden Epiphany of Understanding I Received from Blogging
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Update: Note that the thoughts I describe in this post ONLY apply to my blog posts. Three other authors have contributed to this blog.

Today is the one-year anniversary of my first post on this blog. Please do not read my first post, or any of the 136 other posts (not including this one), because you will be sorely disappointed.

A long time ago, I wanted to create a website where I could talk about some interesting tech-related ideas and see if anybody liked those ideas. Eventually, I registered a domain name for this blog and attached it to my web hosting account at Bluehost.

Was I successful?

Yes and no.

I’m a bit of a pessimist, so first I’m going to explain why I think I failed. My goal was to write many high quality blog posts centering around programming. The posts would include actual code examples. I’ve deviated far from my goal. With the difficulties I had with displaying code examples, I talked about other topics, such as blogging. (Although my posts on blogging and social media did get A-List blogger Louis Gray’s attention.)

I also took way too much time to develop certain consistencies, such as the capitalization in the title (Prepositions are not capitalized).

But, I did succeed beyond my wildest dreams.

Although I started the blog in December 2007, I only started tracking statistics in the middle of May 2008. By the end of the (not completely tracked) month, about 134 MB of my bandwidth had been used by non-bot visitors. I thought that this was a good start.

In June, I had used more than a gigabyte of bandwidth. Now, this had really excited me. Because all I post is text and some images, the fact that I had used up a whole gigabyte of bandwidth made me feel giddy.

June made me feel giddy, but July had me shocked. On the first day of July, I had nearly reached the total bandwidth used in the entire month of June. On the second day of July, I had used up eleven more gigabytes of bandwidth. A poorly written blog post of mine hit Digg, Reddit, LinuxToday, TuxMachines, and countless blogs in many languages.

Most of the hundreds of comments (spread across the websites listed above) that my post received were negative. I felt a little disappointed that my most viewed post of all time had to be one that made me look foolish. But then I stopped skimming over the comments and started reading and analyzing them. I discovered that I could learn a lot about the Linux community from the comments, and I decided that in the end, it was good that I had published the post.

In the end, I didn’t accomplish my original goal of having others see my brilliant ideas. Instead, I found the brilliant ideas of everybody else.
November 29, 2008
1:46
Look at This, Mac Users! User Interfaces on the Linux Desktop Can Have Consistency!
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
Mac users are very proud of their oh-so-shiny operating system and hardware. They have to be. Mac users paid good money for their system, and it would be quite a big waste of they weren’t proud of it.

The more extreme Mac users will go around and talk about how inconsistent Linux is and how the entire Linux community doesn’t give a hoot about consistency.

While it is true that not all applications have consistent user interfaces, due to different widget tookits, it is possible to achieve basic consistency with either one of the below methods:
1. Only use applications that use the same widget toolkit as all the other applications on your system.
2. Use something like GTK-Qt to achieve consistency with multiple widget toolkits.
The second option listed doesn’t work perfectly, so to both get access to all the best applications on Linux and still have consistency would be to apply the first option until one encounters a totally awesome app that uses a different widget toolkit, and then use something along the lines of GTK-Qt to make that awesome app look consistent with the rest of the system.

Below is a screenshot of a GNOME desktop in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. There are small differences, such as the icons added by Firefox extensions being inconsistent with the other applications, but the desktop in general is pretty consistent.

Click the thumbnail for a full size image. The Pidgin IM client looks unusual because contact names have been blurred.

Now, what about the second option? Below is a demonstration of GTK-Qt in Kubuntu Hardy (KDE 3.5.10). Note the conspicuous lack of eye candy, relative the the above screenshot.

Click on the image to view it full size. Kate is a KDE application, and Gedit is a GNOME application.

Kate and Gedit look remarkably similar, right? Gedit’s user interface just looks a little bit simpler than Kate’s. The two editors also use slightly different fonts in the editing box, but besides that, the two editors look pretty consistent.

Of course, consistency is not just about the way things look, but also the way things act. If consistency was just looks, then there would be little need for Human Interface Guidelines. The point of this post was to demonstrate that Linux applications aren’t inconsistent to the point where it is extremely annoying.

Conclusion? Linux users enjoy consistency, though consistency is not handed to Linux users in the way that it is to Mac users.
November 17, 2008
1:05
A Brief History of Build Systems #1: Introduction
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
The ancient practice of putting various monsters in unexplored regions of maps and the phrase based on that, “Here be dragons“, applies still to programming. Personally, I’ve always had a dragon the size of a moon (or battlestation, if one prefers) on my own mental map in the area of build systems. Hopefully, this should be a series, with several tutorials succeeding this brief summary of available options.
What is a Build System?
Just a quick introduction for those who are uninitiated into these rgb(0,0,0) arts. A build system offers a relatively easy way to automate building and packaging of a software system. While something as simple as a one-line shell script could supposedly be written for smaller projects, this has several problems. Firstly, it would tend to redundantly and naively recompile objects that have already been built and have not been changed. Secondly, this has no portability system; that is, it has no way to analyze the host system and find the appropriate utilities and libraries on differing platforms. There are more reasons, of course, but these are the crux of the matter.
Current Build Systems Make
Make is one of the oldest build systems, having its first release in 1977 at Bell Labs. It is extremely simple, but pays the price; it has no configuration system, nor any automatic dependency analysis. This makes it a decent choice for smallish projects with any advanced portability needs, but most likely you’re better served by a more powerful tool. However, it should be noted that various projects such as Autoconf (see below) serve to expand this utility.
Autoconf
Autoconf and Automake together form a framework for generating Make scripts. Autoconf provides the portability configuration system, while Automake will automatically analyze your program structure to determine the order that things need to be rebuilt in. Unfortunately, on some level, this is merely lipstick on a pig (which is an idiom I used to be able to use without shifting my eyes), and due to the obscure language (m4) used to write Autoconf scripts, this is both a finicky and difficult option to use. Configuration is slow, and is extremely awkward if you wish to target Microsoft Windows. Last but not least, it is legendary for being extremely difficult to learn. It is, however, the most common build system on the Free Desktop.
SCons
I’ll get my bias off of my chest now: SCons is my current favorite build system. The scripts are written in Python, so you have a very powerful programming language to work within. The API is a bit less than ideal in some ways, but is still quite usable. Compilation is fast and portable, as well as being in one step (as opposed to the two-step compilation as used in Autoconf). The GNOME project is currently considering switching to it from Autoconf.
Waf
Waf is a descendent of SCons, and thus shares the power of Python. However, it is expanded in several ways: the API is retooled and is more intuitive in design in some ways; the configuration stage has been spawned into its own step; and compilation is quite pretty. Despite all of this, it does suffer from a lot of API irregularities and absolutely intolerable documentation. It is also important to note that Waf is unique in the build systems that I’m aware of in that the preferred way to use it is to actually ship it with the application itself instead of using a system-wide installation
CMake
CMake is the build system for KDE 4, and is a very nice and simple build system for projects of any size. However, this clean and simple design is detracted from by the simplistic (though not to the Make extreme by any means) language used to develop for it. If you can get past this weakness, however, very nice things lie inside, such as an integrated unit testing framework. It is worth noting that rather than being a base build system, it instead generates files for the native build system (Microsoft Visual C++ on Windows, Makefiles or KDevelop on *NIX, etc.)
Others
This is where the real dragons are; the previous build systems I have at least some experience with, but these are build systems I have only heard of. Despite this, I would feel remiss in my duties to you the reader if I did not at least mention some of the lesser-used options.
- Apache Ant is a build system is aimed at Java projects, and has its project files written in XML.
- Perforce Jam appears to be a C/C++ build system with a syntax reminiscent of Make, but with portability features, control structures, and automatic dependency ordering.
- QMake is a Makefile generator not unlike Autoconf, only with a much easier-to-learn syntax. It is part of the QT toolkit.
This list is by no means complete. If you have a favorite build system, please do mention it in the comments.
November 09, 2008
3:56
Why Web 2.0 Applications Deserve the Permanent Beta
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

The web application in permanent beta is the latest fashion in today’s Internet world. Some folks believe that after several years of testing, that web applications ought to shed the beta tag and call themselves stable.

I disagree.

Open source desktop software is significantly more flexible than a closed source web application in terms of giving what users want. Desktop applications have extensibility through plugins, extensions, themes, and so forth. Web applications currently have only a weak extensibility through Greasemonkey.

Facebook Apps are closer to true extensibility, but Facebook remains in control over Facebook Apps, which results in rumors that Facebook is going to close down third party apps. Developers creating extensions of desktop applications usually do not have to worry about their extensions being wiped off the face of the Earth.

Also regarding Facebook, some users are not happy with Facebook’s transition to a new user interface. There is even a petition for the old user interface to return. I suggest you compare Facebook to Wordpress. Nobody is going to force a blogger to upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress, but there is little one can do if Facebook decides to switch to a different (and worse, in the mind of the user) UI.

Does my blog post ring a bell? Oh yeah, this blog post sounds roughly similar to Richard Stallman’s opinions on cloud computing. Stallman is dead right. One should only truly trust open source software on hardware within the ownership of the user.

So where does the whole “keep Web 2.0 apps in permanent beta” idea come into play? My point is that Web 2.0 apps ought to keep themselves in permanent beta as a reminder to users that no Web 2.0 app outside of the user’s control is as safe as an application within the user’s control.

Use Web 2.0 apps responsibly™.
November 04, 2008
2:28
The Windows 95 / FreeBSD 7.0 Tradeoff I Faced
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

A year or two ago, I dug out an old Compaq Presario 4508 with the task to get Ethernet working on it. After multiple failed attempts, I was successful. But my efforts were worthless, because I couldn’t find a decent browser for it.

Last week, I dug out the old Compaq Presario 4508 again to install Linux on it. I booted up the Slackware CD, and found that none of the kernels on the CD would work on the Presario. Rather than spending time debugging error messages or creating a custom kernel, I moved onto FreeBSD, which succesfully installed the first time around. Because of the very limited RAM that the Presario had, running xorg wasn’t, and still isn’t, an option. So I peacefully went to work trying to install Python and a terminal web browser.

Yesterday, when I successfully installed the web browser, the issue hit me. I sacrificed a somewhat ancient operating system with a working GUI for a more modern, stable, and secure operating system without a graphical user interface. Did I make the right choice? Most software that I care about is available or can be easily compiled on FreeBSD, but I cannot use anything that requires a GUI. With Windows 95, I had a graphical user interface, but a limited set of modern applications that still can be run on Windows 95.

So what choice would you make? Would you go with the old OS with a GUI or the modern, stable, secure, and graphics free OS?

Not counting this footnote, the blog post is exactly 248 words long.
October 30, 2008
3:05
A Second, Quick Glance at Microblogging Service Kwippy Shows Promising Improvements
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

I have previously written about Kwippy, and that was pretty much the best post ever on this sad little blog.

Why?

Because I actually managed to publish an email interview with Kwippy CEO Mayank Dhingra . That’s right! An email interview, like those big A-list bloggers do all the time! Yeah!

So, what improvements have gone into Kwippy? How is Kwippy better since last July?

The Kwippy team made it easier to invite Twitter friends to Kwippy, but got some negative publicity. The Kwippy folks quickly modified the feature so it would not spam Twitter users, and then wrote a blog post apologizing.

Kwippy also made some user interface improvements, including the ability for Kwippy users to customize their page with themes. Below are two screenshots comparing the old Kwippy with the current Kwippy interface.

You will notice that in the newer screenshot, Kwippy has the word “Friends” visible in the sidebar. This is part of a new feature that allows you to define who is your friend and who you are just interested in. Think of Kwippy’s “Friends” feature as a primitive version of FriendFeed lists.

Kwippy also added an employee. Matthew Phillips, known as Kestrachern, is Kwippy’s community manager. You can find short bios of (currently, the four) Kwippy employees.

I conclude this (very) quick glance at Kwippy with a note on the small, vibrant community that has appeared there. The lack of a character limit for messages on Kwippy (called kwips) or comments on kwips has led to a manner of discussing that is a bit of a hybrid between a forum and Twitter.
October 17, 2008
1:06
Nine Smart Tips for Becoming an Anti-Linux Troll
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Introduction
You have seen those extremely brilliant ant-Linux anti-Linux trolls that demonstrate their brilliance on IRC channels, message boards, and blog posts, right?

(No, I’m not talking about the Linux Hater. He is a different kind of animal. The Linux Hater is actually useful to the Linux community.)

Now, I bet that you’ve always wanted to become one of those trolls. You probably think it is grand to spread around misinformation, right? If you didn’t, you probably shouldn’t be reading this post.
General tips 1) Study the work of other trolls.
Other trolls have done a lot of fine-tuning of their flamebaiting skills, and you should observe their techniques in order for you to become a top-notch troll.
2) Be an anti-Mac OS X troll too.
GNU/Linux and OS X are both Unix-like operating systems. It is difficult to be a hater of Linux, a lover of Max OS X, and still look like a realistic troll. Loving Mac OS X and hating Linux is something that you might get to graduate to when you become a more advanced troll.

Though, should you ever become among the trolling elite and decide to be pro-Mac and anti-Linux, remember to register new accounts at all your favorite websites and chat rooms, or people will notice your change.
3) Be knowledgeable about Linux, but not too knowledgeable.
If you clearly know nothing about Linux, people aren’t going to listen to you. If you know a ton about Linux, then people are going to wonder why you know so much about Linux when you clearly hate it.

The goal is to get to a happy medium where people trust your opinions on Linux, but don’t suspect you to be secretly pro-Linux.
Account-related tips 1) Use multiple accounts.
People on the Internet aren’t very likely to listen to just one anonymous commentor, so remember to register at least five accounts per website or IRC server. You should also be registered on at least ten different websites/IRC channels, which hints at a total of at least 50 accounts per troll. Really good trolls, though, might need more accounts.
2) Choose strong, unique passwords for each of the accounts.
You might be tempted to choose the same password or same pattern for the passwords to your (at least) 50 accounts. This, of course, is very bad behavior because it would be catastrophic if even one of your accounts was accessed by a pro-Linux or even OS-neutral person.

Choosing long, unique, and hard to predict passwords is a good strategy to make sure that all of your trolling accounts are kept safe. Try using password managers such as Keepass to keep track of all the passwords you will have.
3) Aim for high or low karma.
Many websites and social networks have the concept of karma. That is, users can vote the comments of other users up or down. Comments with high karma are sometimes more visible on certain websites. Comments with low karma are usually hidden.

If your comment has high karma, other users like how you phrased your point, which means that you are a good troll. If your comment has low karma, it means that people do not like what you are saying and wish that you would not say it. Having comments with low karma is a sign that you are a good troll.
Website-related tips 1) Get your own websites (and domain names).
While posting comments or sending messages on other websites/IRC channels is a good strategy, there is always the chance that your comments will get deleted and/or you will get banned.

Having your own website is a better strategy. Getting a domain name is not necessary for having your own website, but it makes your website look more believable, which in turn makes you a more efficient troll.

Getting a website at Freewebs or another host is not recommended, due to the lack of control you have over the webpage. Buying shared hosting, and some domain names too, is the best way to create a troll website.
2) Remember to use SEO tactics on your websites.
Getting your websites into high ranking positions in search engines maximizes your visibility as a troll. The ultimate goal of an angry anti-Linux troll is to have every major search engine return anti-Linux webpages when the keyword “Linux” is searched.
3) Remember to follow usability guidelines on your websites.
Making sure that your website works well when it is read by screen readers and such seems like a waste of time, but it is necessary for the troll that wants everybody to hear the anti-Linux message.
Conclusion
While the life of a troll isn’t for everybody, these tips can make it easier for beginning anti-Linux trolls to get started.

No trolling in these comments, though.
October 05, 2008
16:27
Winning the CodingExperiments Worst Website of the Year Is… Every Website Coded Entirely in Adobe Flash!
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
Introduction
Adobe Flash, while it appears to be buggier on Linux, is a neat thing. I can watch animations and play games right through my web browser. Now, I would prefer that Adobe Flash not be put to the use of making entire websites, or even major parts of websites, such as a navigation menu.

Flash usability hasn’t had major improvements in eight years, as evident by Jakob Nielsen’s similar article on Flash and usability.
Why too much Flash is bad 1) The user interface is nonstandard.
Flash websites have a tendency to make their own (shinier) scroll bars to help me navigate large amounts of text.

A web designer creating his or her own scrollbar, and then refusing to let me use the browser’s scrollbar is like the web designer poking holes in my car’s tires and replacing the tires with cardboard boxes. Well, perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic with the metaphor.

Interaction with the user interface also totally gives the user unexpected surprises. Most Flash websites do not allow me to right-click*, middle-click, or use my web browser’s scroll bar.

*Whenever I say, “no right-click”, I mean that the user cannot access a context menu from right-clicking.
2) Flash websites often take longer to load.
Oftentimes, I want good ol’ fashioned text coming down the pipeline to my screen. I do not want:
- text animations.
- animations of somewhat related images.
- sound.
- a screen that tells me that the above three are loading.
3) Ctrl+F doesn’t work on Flash websites.
I cannot use text manipulation tools to edit or search the webpage. I cannot type Ctrl+F and then search the text of the page. Greasemonkey would not work well in all-Flash websites. Neither would bookmarklets or Firefox extensions that allow me to manipulate the page.
4) OS-specific Flash Player bugs
I recently visited a website that had a bug with an embedded Flash slideshow. The bug was only visible when using the Linux Flash Player. On Windows, even on Firefox, the Flash slideshow worked perfectly.

The bug was that the Javascript drop down navigation was being hidden under the Flash slideshow on Linux, which made most of the menu inaccessible.

Designers shouldn’t have to test on multiple operating systems, because the vast majority of designers probably do not have the time or resources to do so.
5) Redundancy
Plenty of website designers will provide a plain HTML version of the content on the website for users that do not have Adobe Flash. I just don’t understand why there needs two versions of a webpage, with one being flashier than the other.

The main usability issue here is that any text or link pointing to the HTML version is often in very small text and sometimes only visible to users that do not use Flash. Users that do have Flash and want to use the text version might have a hard time finding the text version.
6) Redundancy
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Conclusion
I would rather visit an ugly webpage full of HTML hacks that were inserted by a poorly coded WYSIWYG editor than an impressive looking (but completely unusable) Flash website.

Why?

Because in an HTML website, the defaults are more usable because defaults in HTML pages are what most users are used to. In an HTML page, developers would have to go out of their way to create some of the annoyances that are common on Flash websites.

The vast majority of people that create HTML pages don’t have an impulse to disable right-clicking in the browser, or to make their own scrollbar when the browser has a scrollbar that works just fine.

So, please. I beg you to start an HTML page with a DOCTYPE tag, end it with </html>, and make sure that the only uses of Flash in between are not for displaying text and images.
September 29, 2008
5:01
Seven Questions That All Newbie Programmers Should Be Asking When Writing Programs
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

Edit: The people on Reddit informed me that some of my questions go against the idea that premature optimization is a bad practice.
Introduction
“Listen. Easy now,” said the old man gently. “I know, I know. You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was younger I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instruments had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn. [...]”

–Fahrenheit 451

Newbie programmers, when set to complete task, will often complete the task in the worst way possible. Of course, most programmers graduate beyond newbies. This post will detail some questions that newbies can ask in order to build better programs.

The below questions are things that all newbie programmers should be asking themselves so they can produce good programs. The questions can also be used as a very simple litmus test to see whether a programmer is a completely lost newbie or not. The Five Essential Phone-Screen Questions has a set of questions that help find good programmers.

<insert image here>

Photo credit: Flickr user anomalous4
When coming up with ideas for solutions 1) What patterns or algorithms can help me solve the problem?
Computers work well with numbers, and numbers are full of patterns and sequences. A simple example of a sequence is the Fibonacci sequence, where every number is the sum of the previous two numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…).

A simple and useful algorithm is the Sieve of Eratosthenes, which is used to create lists of prime numbers.
2) Has somebody else already solved this problem or a similar problem?
Google called; they said they have the answer to your problem.

For those that can handle looking at the possibly messy code of others, looking online for open source code that can partly, mostly, or completely fill a need is a good idea.

A somewhat recent example is that I was looking for an open source Digg clone in PHP to make slight modifications to, and managed to find Pligg. Unfortunately, Pligg didn’t manage to fit my needs, but I managed to find PHPDug, which I like better.
3) What are potential issues I could run into when solving this problem?
It is important to think ahead about what issues could be faced when solving a problem.

For an important website, the power of the hardware, the power of the software, and the precautions taken for data loss and downtime, and more should be considered.
When looking at possible solutions
The first group of questions are things that newbie, or n00b, programmers should ask themselves when looking at a source code or a way to solve a problem.
1) Is this method fast as it can be?
Writing fast programs is a very important thing. Too many people are not patient enough for slow programs, and writing programs that can easily be made faster is not going to make users happy.
2) Is this method secure?
I sometimes wonder if it would be more beneficial to beginning developers Baller shouted “Security!” instead of “Developers!”.

Some common, but dangerous security mistakes that n00bs make are:

1) not escaping user input

2) not using file permissions properly

Chmodding everything is 777 is bad. Very bad.

3) using improper encryption to store things

3) Is there a simpler way of solving this problem?
If a person has two solutions to solve a problem, that person should always choose the simpler solution. The more complexity there is in a system, the more difficult it is to use and maintain that system.
4) Is this method scalable?
Creating software that works perfectly, with the exception it not being scalable at all, is setting up the programmer(s) for some major headaches down the road. A classic example is Twitter’s severe instability a few months ago.
Final notes
All programmers ought to subscribe to Coding Horror, a blog with far more useful content than you’ll ever find in this waste of disk space.

Also remember to ask questions on mailing lists, forums, and so forth, but only after several hours of experimenting with Google keywords.
September 25, 2008
1:19
Blogging Tip: Work on Posts One at a Time
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com

You know why I haven’t posted in a while? No, it is not because I’m really busy, but because the CodingExperiments team has been churning draft after draft and ping-ponging back and forth between them to make updates. The result is a massive amount of half-baked blog posts. Working on posts one at a time and not starting another post until you have finished or given up on an existing post is a good way to prevent a barrage of blog post drafts from raining down on you.

While plenty of people say that producing good content is more important than posting regularly, plenty of new bloggers, including me, feel guilty when they do not post regularly.

Now, there have to be exceptions to this rule. Bloggers that write mostly time-sensitive material, then following this rule could possibly hurt them by delaying the publishing of the posts. Taking a look at this blog’s archives will show that whenever I try to cover something time-sensitive, I always end up covering it a few days later.

Also, if you would like more extremely obvious (or extremely brilliant, depending on your perspective) tips on blogging, you might like reading some of this blog’s other posts covering bloggi–oh don’t bother, I know nothing on blogging.
September 08, 2008
2:31
My Plans for a New RSS Reader
» ‎ CodingExperiments.com
Sorry I was unable to post for a while. I wasn’t busy, but wrote a bunch of drafts and decided I wouldn’t publish them.

I shouted to the Internet that I am unhappy with existing RSS readers. Now, let’s use our prediction skills to see what will happen next.

Hmm… Programmers like to solve problems. I appear to have a problem with RSS readers. The title also gives a hint that I’m making plans for an RSS reader. Considering all that evidence, it is pretty likely that I’m going to make an RSS reader, right?

Yup. You guessed correctly. I’m going to build an RSS reader.

Because I want to access my RSS reader from anywhere, I will be creating a web RSS reader.

Below is the list of features that I have planned for the RSS reader.
- Tagging of feeds as well as individual posts.
- A recommendation engine for posts.
- Integration with:
  - Google Reader
  - FriendFeed
  - Delicious
  - and possibly more
- The ability to experiment with possibly dozens of user interfaces.
Wait, “experiment with possibly dozens of user interfaces”? Now why would I want to do that? The main reason that I want to experiment with a large amount of user interfaces is because no user interface for an RSS reader (both desktop and web-based) have ever satisfied my need for large amounts of data to come down the pipeline and be displayed in a good looking manner.

I am also interested in getting feedback from users to see which user interface is the most easy to use.

Now all I have to decide is what language to write it in. I’m thinking of either writing it in PHP or Python. I’m leaning towards PHP, as I haven’t actually done any real web programming in Python. I might try Ruby on Rails, as I know a small amount of Ruby.

Because of my limited resources, my RSS reader would be restricted to private alpha, though making the RSS reader open source would allow other folks to try it out on their own servers.

Any comments and suggestions on my RSS reader? Comment below.

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