Getting online

Well, last few months were a bumpy road. I've been on and off on the net. But all of this has the reason.

I got married!!! So all the disappearances are the direct result of this simple fact.

Now I'll probably get online even less :-)

Coming back to life

Hi all

I've been away for a long while. It was kinda unexpected - I just planned a little trip with to Paris, but now I have 2 major shifts in my life:

1. I'm changing jobs
2. I'm getting married!

It is so cool, that I can't explain it all. I'm just overwhelmed by this, so I will get back to this blog, but it will take another couple of weeks to get my head straight and to get re-synced with everything.

So, have a great day y'all.
-A

Cool graffiti shot!

Those who can, create.
Those who can't, erase.

Lizard near the carpet

Last night we've seen a small (2-2.5 inches long) lizard resting near the edge of the carpet. So I took the shot.



-A.

Geeky Al Gore

While I consider myself a some sort of technically oriented fetish person, I never thought Al Gore is one as well.

Take a look :-)

-A

Wireless Cat; An ultimate geek toy

Wireless cats 'bugging" (as in 'listening to') Russians. Read here.

I just can't stop laughing....

Amazing picture!!

From other blog:

In the pic below you can see two faces.A normal face on the right and a wicked one on the left.Now get up from your chair and walk some 8 steps back and see the magic.The two faces interchange their positions:

Neat, isn't it?

Switching Blogger

Hi all!

First of all, this is my 100'th post on this blog! (applause please).

Second, with this post I understood that I've probably overgrown the Blogger's platform, and need a better one. More stand-alone, more of my choice :-)

So, now I'm in blogging platform search. I am looking for the following:

1. Software platform - should I get something online or should I install my own?
2. Hardware - depends on 1) - should I use co-location service, virtual or my own server?
3. What's is the best price/performance possible way to do it? (by performance I would probably mean allowed traffic).

I hope someone can suggest me something great! Thanks all.

Standard Linux - is it possible?

I've read a post by Dana Blankenhorn, who "has been a business journalist for nearly 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985".

Here's a trackback to a story.

He's talking about running a "standard" Linux distribution. Not choosing one, but rather, using one.

I like his way of thinking actually. If mostly used distribution is Ubuntu, doesn't that makes it "standard"? Wouldn't it be easier for all to create and distribute products that would work with this vendor? Wouldn't it be great to optimize ourselves to work with/on it the best way possible?

Well, yes and no.

Yes because all Linux distributions (and Ubuntu in particular) are built alike. All of them include the kernel (it is a kernel what makes Linux after all), basic software, X server system (with great graphics support), management tools and software, which is generally the same on all of them. So, when an application or product is "ready" for Ubuntu, is will not be daunting or hard task to make it work with almost any other Linux distribution.

And no because it seems to me we already been in this scenario. Just imagine: a real alternative to Microsoft's and Apple's OSes, and a good one. It is so good, that many vendors start creating a products for it and based on it. Hardware vendors provide drivers and optimize their hardware. Accessories are made. Software is getting better. Ain't it great? The world, where at least one distribution becomes as good as commercial operating systems?

But that is exactly the world we're trying to change. We don't want the "lock-in" on a single vendor. I don't want to be forced to use something I don't choose by myself. We already have such vendor in our midst. Wanna guess who that is?

Isn't that the reason we do what we do with free software in the first place?

I'm all for innovation. I'm in favor of competition. I am in favor of trying to achieve high goals.

But I can't stand a choice forced on me. Even with best intentions in mind.

Technorati : Linux, Ubuntu, technology

Tagging revised

Recently, I had an idea for a new site of mine. It was a nice idea, and while I was thinking about different aspects of implementation, I tried to outline for myself how would I like to create it.

It was fairly simple. I wanted to post an informational articles/essays on a chosen subject, with categories/labels/tags. I wanted readers to able to comment. I wanted readers to contribute (as actively as possible of course). I wanted it to drive traffic.

I would be ready to invest my time around this, as it is on subject of an interest for me. I would pet this site and care for it as long as it doesn't require too much effort, because otherwise I have rather more interesting/important things to do with my life.

So, while I was thinking about it, I finally decided that the easiest way to start this would be a blog. I'd start a simple blog using one of multiple blog hosting platforms around the web, and then, if when it drives enough traffic or I'd like features that platform would not offer, I'd move it to more private infrastructure, with more features, etc.

Easy, isn't it?

But then it hit me: tags/labels would not do. At least not always.

Let me start with a little bit of obvious stuff: what are tags? Citing wikipedia,
"A tag is a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (like picture, article, or video clip), thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification of information it is applied to".

In general, 'tagging' could be defined as appling a set of semantic labels on different types of fairly complex objects of data, such as text (say, on more text than one word - essays, articles, posts, etc.), video files, audio files, pictures and combinations of all these. We do it for 3 major reasons:

1. To find things faster.
This one is self explanatory. We "label" things in our mind according to our way of thinking. So when I create/absorb a peace of information, I associate few concepts with it. When I want to retrieve that peace of information, it is very probable that I'd use the same associations, so here it is - I semantically create a way for myself to retrieve information I might be looking for.


2. Help other people to find things faster.
The same thing as before, but other way around. I create categories, and when someone looks at all sorts of things I created/found, she'd like to find something particular. So, by looking at list of different categories, she could do it relatively easy. Just like search in library archives.


3. It's easy.
This one is the real deal. I'm starting to believe, that people can develop an addiction to tagging. For seasoned blogger/writer in so-called "Web 2.0" era (definition from Wikipedia), tagging is like second nature. We don't think when we're doing it. It is so easy, that not doing it probably considered weird and strange. Its like we can't help it.

Here are few examples when we use tagging:

1. Blogging/Blogs or News reading
   
Heh, that's the easiest. We all blog. We write journal entries. We know what are they about, right? So we 'tag' or label them with our own associative words/labels. Those labels are tags. When someone wants to read what we (or someone else wrote), she just has to choose an appropriate 'tag' (like choosing a genre in a library).

2. Thunderbird 2.0
This is a new one. Released practically few days ago, this is an email client software. This new 2.0 version supports email's tagging. What is that? Well, instead of putting my mail message to one specific folder, tagging allows me to keep all my mail messages in one folder, hidden somewhere in the system, but at the same time it allows me to have "virtual folders" defined by tags. This, in turn, allows me to see/find the same message within multiple "virtual folders". This is the feature I've been always missing; I was craving to find a program which can provide it. Such emailing software exists for awhile now, and it is, of course,

3. Gmail.
The problem with tags/labels in Gmail was greatly resolved. You only have one "Inbox" folder and multiple "label" folders, and every message can appear in any such folder you like. The problem with Gmail though, is a limitation on a number of labels (which may not be a bad thing after all - how many folders do we use anyway?), and, of course, it is not connected to my corporate Exchange server (yeah, I know....please don't comment on this).

4. RSS readers.
Recent development of "Web 2.0" bubble, and as a result of it - all sorts of content management systems, we came to a development of aggregations.
I can get a short list of recent changes on a particular site in a text file. So, when I follow multiple sites for essays, news, articles - or just changes, I just "sign-up" to that file, and then I read everything in one place using a special program which aggregates all these files in one centralized place. It is convenient and it is very easy.
Almost every time we use this technique, each of these files will be created automatically, based on chosen 'tags' (or labels, or categories).

But this time, I thought tagging is failing.

I will explain myself here. I like wandering around the city (it doesn't actually matter which one, all cities around here are bordering each other), looking into stuff, such as graffiti, streets, buildings, and people. I like to see things that other people don't, or just don't bother.



So recently, I started noticing some sticker in different places. On bus stops. On power stands. On power closets on streets. On trees. It was a sort of armadillo picture, and that's it. Nothing more.


A couple of weeks later, I was walking down the street in central Tel Aviv, and saw the same animal on the window. You know what? It was a bar - coffee shop (cafe as we call it here). I really liked the "commercial" - they stuck all those cute stickers around, without saying what they are, and then when I finally saw it somewhere else -I was really and genuinely intrigued.

Whether I ate at that cafe or not, is besides the point. What I really digging to, is this:
If I were to blog about this cool "sticker" campaign, and would like to "attribute" tags/labels to it, I'd be really tempted to use this exact image. Not some general armadillo picture - this specific one.

So, here it is. This is what had hit me. I would like to use nearly the most basic "feature" of most recent and up to date content management software available, and it is not enough. Because all of them allow only text tagging.

So this got me thinking. If we're using tagging to simplify our own minds way for searching things - even that we had barely started doing it en masse, we might be already overloaded the feature many times over. We may have overgrown it much faster, than it got really adopted.

How can it be "resolved" (if there's anything to resolve at all)? I was thinking about that as well.

If modern content management software regards tags/labels as metadata, maybe this metadata needs its own metadata as well. So, instead of using text tags/labels for 'tagging' our content, we could use metalabels/metatags to 'tag' our tags. So, in the end, I could use a picture (or any complex object) to tag my information.

Wouldn't that be handful and interesting?

Gentoo, FOSDEM07 and stuff

Well, after not being successfully able to orginize the trip with work, I'm almost decided to go by my own.

So its now 85% chance that I'll be at Fosdem!! I've talked with diox (who's organizing things on Gentoo's part), and I might get help with accommodation, which would be totally awesome!! And then I'll be at the event itself and I hope that I'll catch that beer Friday as well.

As to a more Gentoo-related things, I've been asked by Steve to help him out running this very planet, which I agreed (for a time being at least for foreseeable future). So, until we update the site with our details, you can talk to me if you're experiencing problem with our world.

So, all seem good, some userreps answered my wake up call, and I hope to get us back in short time.

Have a great time all!

Coming back

Phew!

For a looong time I haven't written anything in my blog. There are multiple reasons for that, mainly being sick a little, and holidays.

But now I'm starting to feel the urge. Writing is calling me, and I have to restate myself for that.

So, first of all - Userreps Project, which seems to be in deep deep deep hibernation is not dead. We (me and few others) had a talk about it, and decided that project lives on, and we will just get back on track with the resources we have. And then, we hope it will go smoothly.

There is also one more pleasant note for myself: I might go to FOSDEM conference!! I can meet Gentoo devs at last. So if you're a dev and reading this and don't want to see me - let me know as soon as possible. Then we can arrange something to not to bump into each other :-)

So, the new year started 1.5 months ago, and I haven't been active on Gentoo front. I sure hope it is temporal. I'm getting a laptop from work (with Windaews. yikes) in a few days, which should make me much more mobile than I'm now, so I could be more productive.

So, have a nice year everyone and we will push it forward!!

43things - find what do you want

Hey, its not supposed to be an ad for anything, and its not Gentoo-related, but anyway. I just found this site, called 43 Things. The cool thing (and thats why I'm writing about it), is that on the front page there's a tag cloud, and most highlighted ones sound like a good life plan (order by me):

• Get organized
• Get more sleep
• Exercise regularly
• Get a tattoo
  
• Learn French and Spanish
• Travel the world

This just proves that good things in life are universal.

Very cool.

++ in my book.