Archive for January, 2007
Since the dawn of the Interwebs, there have been three major activities people online have engaged in:
- Generating content (building websites, uploading media, etc).
- Searching for content.
- Viewing content (created by other people).
People reached content through a process which could generally be described as searching.
Web search had three distinct eras:
The Yahoo Era: They decide the results for your search
A single company maintained directories, and built lists They decided what site fitted in what category.
Why this approach eventually failed:
No single company can decide the relevance or accuracy of search.
This failure led to the second era of search,
The Google Era: Webmasters and algorithms determine search results
Google came up with a better idea - how about we let other people with websites decide - Google currently uses PageRank as a method of deciding the relevance of results (they use other technologies but PageRank is predominantly responsible for assigning the order of results.
PageRank, grossly simplified, works something like this: Websites decide each others relevancy for a particular term.
e.g. a user searches for McDonalds. Google checks its directory to see “which site has the most incoming links labeled McDonalds” and delivers that site.
Why this method WILL eventually fail / what is wrong with this approach:
When you let other websites decide, you are still at the mercy of those websites. (See the concept of GoogleBombing, for example).
Basically, this concept has one major flaw: It’s open to gaming by other webmasters - those with money can buy their way in, and/or game results through many different ways (complex interlinking, paid links, etc).
An ideal search should deliver results which are accurate, not just popular
The Digg Era (Not really search but it’s content delivery still):
You decide
With Digg (Or Reddit, FARK, etc), two interesting things happened to search:
- Search comes to you - Social sites automatically display the most popular content for the day, according to ordinary visitors. So instead of you heading out and searching for content, the content comes to you through a process of statistical analysis by your peers.
- Popularity is decided by ordinary people - Not a single entity (Yahoo) or other people with websites (Google). This makes the results more democratic, but still not perfect.
Note: Digg (and the other social sites) are not search engines but I believe they are used as search engines and the concept might be applied to other sites.
What’s wrong with the Digg model:
- Friend networks: Digg may be considered democratic, but still the vast majority of content comes from a few users or groups. It’s not rigged as such, but it just isn’t perfect yet.
- The Reputation concept: Under digg, something Robert Scoble posts is more likely to make it, than something I post. Yes, this makes sense to most people, but it still isn’t perfect - In a perfect system all content should be equally judged on merit, not just on who wrote it, or what website it was published on.
So how do I want to see the future of Search on the web?
In a perfect system, every piece of content would have an equal weight, and be judged purely on its own merit, not on who posted it, what IP they had, which website they said it on, what their skin color, nationality or political affiliation was, etc.
So how could that ever be achieved? What other concepts do I hope to see in search engines of the future:
- Content existing as itself in blocks, Search Engines of the future should see data independent of creator - i.e. without attribution - so as to remove bias. In this perfect system
- Clustering: complex relationships explored in search, including relevance and relationship between similar concepts and searches.
- Independent formats (microformats?): Data items (for example this post) would exist as an independent unit (data may exist independent of formatting, layout, perhaps even independent of language),
- Future Engines should ‘understand’ data: i.e. a search engine would do more than just copying this to its cache and tagging keywords - it would attempt to place this post and explore the concepts and/or compare it to others in its archives.
- True democracy: a search engine would see content independent of the web site it is hosted on, or the person who created it, and rank it on purely on its intrinsic value.
January 3rd, 2007
Note: please see the excellent comments at the end of this article, which contain many corrections, clarifications and useful suggestions.
DivX playback, Totem player, Windowed.
One of my new years resolutions for 2007 was to use an open source operating system. I don’t mean try it out and forget about it - rather, I want to learn how to use it for day to day work (which I would normally do on an XP powered PC).
And each day I use this new OS, I’m amazed by how easy it is to use. The purpose of this little article is to give Windows XP users a rough idea on how easy it is to use Ubuntu, and see how Ubuntu compares with Windows XP
Pre installation FAQ
- What is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is an open source operating system. What that generally means is, Ubuntu can be downloaded for free, and you can use it on your system without paying for a licence.
- Yes, but isn’t that OS for Linux experts? Don’t you need to know Linux? Not necessarily. Ubuntu works mostly via a graphical user interface (similar to Windows XP, you use a mouse, click buttons, etc). Most operations are completed with a mouse. Very rarely you may have to perform some advanced operations using a terminal/console (like MS Dos window).
- How easy is it to install? Basically, you boot off the CD and follow the prompts. Installation is via a GUI.
- How do I get the CD? You can download an ISO image of the CD from http://www.ubuntu.com/ - burn this image onto a CD and boot off that CD.
- Will it recognise my hardware? Ubuntu recognised all hardware on my test PC without any problems. Contrast this with XP which required me to download additional drivers for VGA and Sound! Does this guarantee all your hardware will be recognised? No, but most of the time, it just works.
- Does it require a lot of space? Actually I was told (during the installation process) that you will need around 2.5GB of space, which is not bad considering that Ubuntu comes with many applications (e.g. Open Office), unlike Windows XP.
- But I only know how to use XP? How can I retrain myself to use Ubuntu?? The most surprising thing is, you don’t have to retrain yourself - most of the functionality of the desktop/etc is very similar to Windows XP. I don’t mean to say Ubuntu mimics Windows (they don’t), rather, if you are familiar with XP you should be able to find your way around Ubuntu easily. Actually, it’s more accurate to say both XP and Ubuntu are intuitive and follow common concepts and logical processes in their graphical user interfaces (translation: if you can use XP, you will probably be fine with Ubuntu).
The Ubuntu Experience
To give you an idea of what it’s like to use Ubuntu, I’ve got some screenshots here - click a thumbnail to open it on Flickr.
I was amazed at how many applications are included with Ubuntu - right out of the box, this OS seems to include everything I could think of - office software, DVD/CD Writing software, Email and Internet browser, graphics, etc, all included, fully functional, and ready to use.
The Desktop
I’ve tweaked the menu to start from below (like XP) because I’m used to that 
Old habits.. You can see a screen shot of Ubuntu’s ’start’ menu here
As you can see, it’s a lot like XP - you have your “Computer”, and a taskbar which shows Tabs for windows, a clock, and a menu to launch programs, accessories, etc. Yup, just like XP - so nothing to relearn here as such!
Included Software:
Unlike Windows, Ubuntu includes a range of popular Linux applications for various tasks such as Graphics, Wordprocessing, etc. Most of these software packages are equivalent to (or better than) similar commercial Windows applications
Graphics Software:
GIMP is a professional graphics software, similar to Photoshop.
Office software:
Ubuntu includes Open Office which is similar to Microsoft Office - it includes applications for Spreadsheet, Word processing, database, and presentation.
Games:
Ubuntu includes a large collection of preinstalled games
Security:
One big plus point of Ubuntu is, as with most Linux distros, it is very secure. Virus and spyware generally are not much of a threat (compared to Windows environment) as most attacks are directed against Windows.
Also, users aren’t automatically set up as administrators - and most admin operations require a password, so it’s harder for a malicious application to attack the system.
Also, as Ubuntu is open source, the code is regularly checked by thousands of people worldwide, and bugs are quickly fixed.
Summary
Ubuntu is professional operating system, it’s simple to use, includes freeware versions of most Windows software, and, did I forget to mention, happnens to be FREE?
Over the next few days I will write more articles on my Ubuntu experience.
PS: Hi to everyone at http://www.groklaw.net/
January 2nd, 2007
Introduction
Linux XP is a linux version (distro) that is designed to behave like Windows XP. The theory is that a Windows user should be able to easily use Linux XP, if they are comfortable with Windows XP.
But does it work? And what is the user likely to experience? Here are my observations:
- Installation: quite easy actually. Aside from setting up the partitions which might be hard for non linux users, the installation process was easy (also, the partition setup had an automatic mode).
- Startup: startup is in typical unix style, with lots of system info whizzing past. Eventually the desktop will load.
- Desktop: the initial desktop presented when LXP loads is similar to Windows XP. A lot of effort has been put into mimic the XP desktop, and it pays off: At the bottom you have the taskbar with start button (and various other icons).
- Menu system: Like windows, there is a start button - clicking this enables you to open various applications, also adjust various system options via a ‘control panel’
- Control Panel: LXP has a control panel, similar to XP. Through this you can adjust various options related to the interface, hardware, network, users, and also add/remove applications.
- Applications: LXP includes applications under categories similar to XP. These categories are accessories, graphics, Internet, Multimedia, and Office.
- Included applications include various utilities (under accessories), a PDF viewer, GIMP (for graphics) Firefox (for surfing) and much more. Strangely, Open office was not included in the installation, which is a pity.
Possible Bugs
I found the following problems during the install/usage - whether they were due to my hardware or errors on my part I can’t say for sure:
- Installation: The initial boot screen displayed by the CD had garbled text (tried changing graphics card/monitor no luck)
- Screen resolution: After installation, the screen resolution could not be adjusted beyond 800X600 @85hz. Tried changing monitors, and graphics card but no luck.
Final thoughts:
Linux XP does an admirable job of mimicing Windows XP’s behavior, so a typical XP user may find switching to LXP very easy. At the same time, the more fundamental question I’d ask is, if you are switching to Linux, why bother retaining windows XP layout, when Linux has better options?
The second problem with LXP (in my opinion) is that it is a paid OS - i.e. you have to pay to obtain a licence. Some will say this is a good thing but it makes me wary as it goes against the principle of open source (IMO).
Lastly, LXP is still relatively unknown, isn’t as popular as some of the more well established Linux distros.
Conclusion
Having used Ubuntu, I think it is vastly superior to Linux XP, besides being true FOSS (Free and open source) it can also be tweaked to look and feel like XP (if you want to). See my review of Ubuntu here.
January 1st, 2007
Linux XP
As we move into 2007, I’ve decided to review three operating systems: Linux XP, Ubuntu, and Vista. To kick off my reviews, I will be starting with Linux XP.
Introduction
The main problem most ordinary people find with switching to Linux is that Linux is not Windows. Most Linux users don’t find a problem with this as they consider Linux superior - HOWEVER, typical Windows users find the idea of switching to a new OS or way of doing things simply too daunting.
Linux XP seems to be aimed at solving this problem. Basically, this OS tries to mirror XP’s look and feel. In this review I will install LXP, and see how well it functions in terms of performance, ease of use and compatibility.
Note: Unlike typical Linux distros, Linux XP is not free - you can install it and use it around 99 times after which it will require Activation - I guess they copied this feature from Windows XP also 
. Thankfully Linux XP costs only around $19, which is relatively affordable.
Quick Installation Guide
- Download the ISO image of the installation disk from http://www.linux-xp.com/ - and burn that image onto a CD. Thankfully Linux XP requires just one disk
- Boot your PC off that CD.
- Welcome: At this point, you will get a welcome screen showing “Linux XP desktop 2006″ - for some reason the text was garbled on my monitor (a Viewsonic LCD). I tried another monitor, AND another graphics card, but no luck. Anyway, pressing enter here will take you to the installation screen.
- Partitioning: (image) next, you will be asked about how you want to set up your partitions - you have the choice to select automatic partitioning or manual partitioning. I selected manual - if you select manual, remember you have to set up (at least) a root partition (think of it as your “C:” drive) and a “swap” partition (unlike windows which uses a swap file, Linux can use a whole partition as a swap drive - this approach makes more sense really. I set up a 2GB root partition and a 1GB swap partition. (Tip: click New and select / for root partition, and enter size, click OK;, for the swap partition, select swap under file system type).
- Boot loader - LXP uses GRUB which is fine. Click next.
- Network config (If you have a network card). I just clicked next here, you can edit the options if necessary for your network.
- Time zone - select your time zone.
- Root password - this is the root account for administration - enter a password and click next.
- About to install: LXP is now ready to install - at this point you will get a warning that this is the last opportunity you will have to chicken out (so far nothing has been changed on your computer). Click next to continue.
- Installing Packages: LXP now starts the installation process - first, the partitions will be set up and formatted, after which LXP starts to transfer an image to the hard drive. Like XP, the installation process is graphical with a status bar showing completion of each project.
- System Installation Progress: (image) At this point, a taskbar will show installation progress.
Note: My installation froze and popped up an error message complaining of a problem in the CDROM. I fixed this by burning another CD and continuing the installation (did not need to restart).
- Reboot - after installation completes, the CD will eject and you must reboot.
Coming up next: a review of Linux XP.
January 1st, 2007
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