Every time I see a Google product, my imagination starts adding components together as if I were drag dropping them from a palette in Openstep's Project Builder and Interface Builder, it is something I cannot help, I am by nature a synthesist and this is how I think.
Google's expanding work is brilliant and a true compliment to the Object Oriented development of the old days of Openstep.
Recently I suggested they add Spreadsheets, Word processor and Database facilities to the new Google Apps for your Domain service, as most of this already exists within Google API's, as do some other interesting tools such as the Maps, Picasa photo tool, 3d tool and so on.
I also suggested a few times now the possibility of allowing users to select CSS templates from Google Page Editor or Blogspot to be set if desired individually, or globally, across Google based services, for example one's search home page, GMail and such.
For those who only use Google's search engine, and possibly GMail, there is a lot more to Google ... they are concerned with information, not just on the web, but the rest of the internet and everything else. To the extent they developed their own Distributed File System and now Optical Character Recognition.
A brief look at Google Labs and Google Code and you will see how busy they are.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
EloneX addendum
Please also see the following well researched article published on The Register :
EloneX: the end of an era By Tim Phillips 18 Jul 2006 13:46
and the preceding articles which may also be of interest :
Elonex sketches phoenix PC plan By Mark Ballard 7 Jul 2006 12:03
Elonex sold to stationer By Mark Ballard 5 Jul 2006 11:15
Elonex deal hits the doldrums By Mark Ballard 3 Jul 2006 12:15
Rank outsider poised to buy Elonex By Mark Ballard 29 Jun 2006 11:15
Centerprise opts out of Elonex bidding By Mark Ballard 27 Jun 2006 12:22
Elonex: administrators lay off 28 By John Oates 15 Jun 2006 08:57
Elonex UK goes titsup By John Oates 13 Jun 2006 14:58
EloneX: the end of an era By Tim Phillips 18 Jul 2006 13:46
and the preceding articles which may also be of interest :
Elonex sketches phoenix PC plan By Mark Ballard 7 Jul 2006 12:03
Elonex sold to stationer By Mark Ballard 5 Jul 2006 11:15
Elonex deal hits the doldrums By Mark Ballard 3 Jul 2006 12:15
Rank outsider poised to buy Elonex By Mark Ballard 29 Jun 2006 11:15
Centerprise opts out of Elonex bidding By Mark Ballard 27 Jun 2006 12:22
Elonex: administrators lay off 28 By John Oates 15 Jun 2006 08:57
Elonex UK goes titsup By John Oates 13 Jun 2006 14:58
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Obituary for EloneX PLC
I learned three days ago one of my favorite computer companies went bankrupt.
This was the one company that cared about the individual customer, and provided tireless aftersales support even on machines over ten years old. They built machines to last twenty five to thirty years, and even their monitor tubes lasted very well. They never told a customer to upgrade to the latest machines of their range, which was considerably good for a small London based company, and one of the first OEM IBM X86 compatible system makers. Furthermore, they supported the use of any X86 operating system the client needed and chose to use ; Windows, OS/2, BSD, Solaris, OPENSTEP, BeOS, QNX and Linux.
Quoted from About EloneX
The company's logo, slab format system designs and website style were also a living tribute to the unique style of NeXT Computer, Inc., as can be seen from the source of the above quotes and their website, in particular their Showroom
This was the one company that cared about the individual customer, and provided tireless aftersales support even on machines over ten years old. They built machines to last twenty five to thirty years, and even their monitor tubes lasted very well. They never told a customer to upgrade to the latest machines of their range, which was considerably good for a small London based company, and one of the first OEM IBM X86 compatible system makers. Furthermore, they supported the use of any X86 operating system the client needed and chose to use ; Windows, OS/2, BSD, Solaris, OPENSTEP, BeOS, QNX and Linux.
Elonex was founded in 1986 to offer computer and related IT services direct to customers allowing them to exercise more control and benefit from improved flexibility. Elonex is now one of the few UK manufacturers to have developed international sales with a strong customer base in France, Belgium, Switzerland and the Russian Federation. UK customers therefore benefit from a broader range of skills and experience.
* A BRIEF HISTORY OF ELONEX
* 1986 Elonex PLC founded.
* 1988 Bradford office opens.
* 1990 Elonex Belgium opens.
* 1991 Elonex Taiwan opens (procurement arm) and is awarded Microsoft OEM status.
* 1992 Elonex France, Israel and Switzerland established.
* 1995 Elonex Solutions Division formed, won MOD contract.
* 1996 Elonex E-Commerce introduced.
* 1997 Elonex wins NHS Supplies Authority (having previously supplied the Regional Authorities) and Gcat contracts.
* 1999 Elonex Gatwick opens as a new base for the Specialist Education Division and awarded NGfL Managed Service status.
* 2000 Elonex's Software Development Division established in Russia.
* 2000 Elonex becomes Microsoft EdLAR.
* 2001 Elonex wins Gcat/NHSCat contract for Hardware & Systems Integration, IT Managed Services and Third Party Maintenance categories.
* 2002 Awarded Becta Accredited Service Supplier status.
* 2003 Elonex wins a contract to supply under the Governments' Laptops for Teachers Initiative, earns supplier status for the Governments NHS National Programme for IT (worth £25m).
* 2004 Contract awarded to supply Intel® Centrino™ mobile technology-based laptops under the Essex e-Learning Foundation Initiative (£150m).
Quoted from About EloneX
The company's logo, slab format system designs and website style were also a living tribute to the unique style of NeXT Computer, Inc., as can be seen from the source of the above quotes and their website, in particular their Showroom
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Unconscious rendered
I've been taking a break from research, and a needed break from the amount of work with source code and OS maintenance it requires.
Instead I've been relaxing, and occasionally playing graphically with molecules that interest me for various reasons, through usage in medical practice, growing them in asia or historical and spiritual association and such.
An example is Lotus. An important symbol in asian traditions of meditation, for it's gentle path between darkness and light, the apparent impurity of sleeping in the muddy bottom of a lake, and awakening a bright beautiful appearance, often white but many other colours as well for some specimens, and each of these equally well regarded, especially red, blue and indigo and purples.
Lotus also was a proposed choice last week for a header graphic for the new web site design of the BioCocoa project. The header can at this time be seen here, Option1 but might be moved or removed. If so, I might ask permission of the project admin and designer to mirror Option1 ... he and I seem to be the only people who like it and Option2 seems to be the design going ahead :)
Among near countless chemicals within Lotus are some genes that are of interest in research, but I have restrained myself from distraction, and loaded one of these gene's Protein Database file into one of my 3d molecular graphics and editing applications. Besides, there are enough highly competent teams in Japan researching Lotus Japonica already.
If I had dedicated machines such as a Silicon Graphics Octane2 I could have generated some interesting animations and Virtual Reality web pages, but last time I tried this on my Thinkpad and old G2 Macs, everything crashed.
Even using molecular graphics applications designed on SGI workstations, compiled and running fine under SuSE Linux, not nearly fast enough. I am used to having 25 computers, and being able to commit many of them to rendering as much as actual computations and simulations. Working with three, all of which need larger hard disks, is like having only one or two of 25 limbs useable.
Also this time I had trouble saving the close up images I had created, as mesh and include file for POV-Ray, to work on rendering the results outside of the molecular graphics suite I was using, and thus have a lot more system resources and be able to do this faster. Instead I had to use the suite's internal renderer.
Below is a small section of a 1024x768 pixel render from the gene 1CT9 from Lotus Japonica. I have edited the colours away from schemes in use for bioinformatics, which are to highlight some particular aspect or other, instead to evoke a sense of the general beauty of the Himalaya, Kasmir in particular, and the jungles at their foot.
1CT9 from Lotus Japonica
I also wanted to play with genes from Fragaria, Strawberry. Purely for the sake of scientific erotica, but this will take some time. Especially, I want to include non molecular elements in the scene, more accurately, a highly tasteful but very evocative female form.
Strawberries have a significance among Italian Sci Fi authors and Journalists I know ...
I want this scene rendered to my artistic aesthetic's satisfaction.
Fragole buone!
Ti voglio coperta di fragole, Venere di Milano ;)
Instead I've been relaxing, and occasionally playing graphically with molecules that interest me for various reasons, through usage in medical practice, growing them in asia or historical and spiritual association and such.
An example is Lotus. An important symbol in asian traditions of meditation, for it's gentle path between darkness and light, the apparent impurity of sleeping in the muddy bottom of a lake, and awakening a bright beautiful appearance, often white but many other colours as well for some specimens, and each of these equally well regarded, especially red, blue and indigo and purples.
Lotus also was a proposed choice last week for a header graphic for the new web site design of the BioCocoa project. The header can at this time be seen here, Option1 but might be moved or removed. If so, I might ask permission of the project admin and designer to mirror Option1 ... he and I seem to be the only people who like it and Option2 seems to be the design going ahead :)
Among near countless chemicals within Lotus are some genes that are of interest in research, but I have restrained myself from distraction, and loaded one of these gene's Protein Database file into one of my 3d molecular graphics and editing applications. Besides, there are enough highly competent teams in Japan researching Lotus Japonica already.
If I had dedicated machines such as a Silicon Graphics Octane2 I could have generated some interesting animations and Virtual Reality web pages, but last time I tried this on my Thinkpad and old G2 Macs, everything crashed.
Even using molecular graphics applications designed on SGI workstations, compiled and running fine under SuSE Linux, not nearly fast enough. I am used to having 25 computers, and being able to commit many of them to rendering as much as actual computations and simulations. Working with three, all of which need larger hard disks, is like having only one or two of 25 limbs useable.
Also this time I had trouble saving the close up images I had created, as mesh and include file for POV-Ray, to work on rendering the results outside of the molecular graphics suite I was using, and thus have a lot more system resources and be able to do this faster. Instead I had to use the suite's internal renderer.
Below is a small section of a 1024x768 pixel render from the gene 1CT9 from Lotus Japonica. I have edited the colours away from schemes in use for bioinformatics, which are to highlight some particular aspect or other, instead to evoke a sense of the general beauty of the Himalaya, Kasmir in particular, and the jungles at their foot.
1CT9 from Lotus Japonica
I also wanted to play with genes from Fragaria, Strawberry. Purely for the sake of scientific erotica, but this will take some time. Especially, I want to include non molecular elements in the scene, more accurately, a highly tasteful but very evocative female form.
Strawberries have a significance among Italian Sci Fi authors and Journalists I know ...
I want this scene rendered to my artistic aesthetic's satisfaction.
Fragole buone!
Ti voglio coperta di fragole, Venere di Milano ;)
The Secret of the Four Pillars of a Screenshot
Many centuries ago, in a remote monastery in the Himalayas, the technique of visualising different things, in real time, was mastered and refined. This when portrayed on silk framed canvas is known as The Four Pillars of a Screenshot.
These Four Pillars represent the full capability of diversity and potential. Traditionally, monks would visualise a Video player, a Waveform Editor, a 3d Molecular structure viewer, and a Fractal generator.
Alternately, some monasteries preferred the classic Word Processor/Spreadsheet/Database suite, Graphics/Photo suite, Web Browser, and Media Player.
These Four Pillars represent the full capability of diversity and potential. Traditionally, monks would visualise a Video player, a Waveform Editor, a 3d Molecular structure viewer, and a Fractal generator.
Alternately, some monasteries preferred the classic Word Processor/Spreadsheet/Database suite, Graphics/Photo suite, Web Browser, and Media Player.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Drivel
Then last night I find the header from TicTac template works again, and my dashboard is back to it's usual scheme.
This journal entry was uploaded using Drivel, a GTK blog client supporting Blogger, Atom, Advogato, LiveJournal and Moveable Type.
Drivel is available for SuSE Linux users as an RPM, Gnome-blog is also but it wouldn't work, and I don't feel like compiling either Gnome-blog or BloGTK from source code.
This journal entry was uploaded using Drivel, a GTK blog client supporting Blogger, Atom, Advogato, LiveJournal and Moveable Type.
Drivel is available for SuSE Linux users as an RPM, Gnome-blog is also but it wouldn't work, and I don't feel like compiling either Gnome-blog or BloGTK from source code.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Oh well
Fixed it myself ...
A reproduction of the original image, made on SuSE/GNUstep, from a cached top_div.gif.
Please don't change things when we're not looking ... many GNUstep developers use blogger.
Half their blogs could look a total mess right now depending on how many style elements have changed without warning :)
A reproduction of the original image, made on SuSE/GNUstep, from a cached top_div.gif.
Please don't change things when we're not looking ... many GNUstep developers use blogger.
Half their blogs could look a total mess right now depending on how many style elements have changed without warning :)
Template Header
Now the header's gone. No warning, it's just gone.
The templates are changing. The dashboard as well.
Why is it 80% of the times I'm using a website, that's the time they choose to upgrade it ?
Last winter continual updates and server problems prevented me from being able to continue my work, due to continually borked CVS and SVN servers for Objective-C and other Biotech code.
No one considered the chaos and delays created by not telling anyone before hand.
This went on for several weeks.
When I take down my servers, or reorganise, rewrite and compile the code they run on, I warn people.
Running molecular dynamics simulations and various distributed filesystem/applications servers, I have to.
Now I have to write a template, or create and upload my own header graphic to fill the space left ? I'd rather have the original back.
It is a major reason why I chose the TicTac template to start with, since I'm running SuSE/GNUstep and apart from a CSS style that's a perfect Mac OS X Milk theme, or Openstep/Rhapsody theme ... TicTac was the only one here I like.
Oh well ... yet again I spend a little time on something, and the result is negated.
The templates are changing. The dashboard as well.
Why is it 80% of the times I'm using a website, that's the time they choose to upgrade it ?
Last winter continual updates and server problems prevented me from being able to continue my work, due to continually borked CVS and SVN servers for Objective-C and other Biotech code.
No one considered the chaos and delays created by not telling anyone before hand.
This went on for several weeks.
When I take down my servers, or reorganise, rewrite and compile the code they run on, I warn people.
Running molecular dynamics simulations and various distributed filesystem/applications servers, I have to.
Now I have to write a template, or create and upload my own header graphic to fill the space left ? I'd rather have the original back.
It is a major reason why I chose the TicTac template to start with, since I'm running SuSE/GNUstep and apart from a CSS style that's a perfect Mac OS X Milk theme, or Openstep/Rhapsody theme ... TicTac was the only one here I like.
Oh well ... yet again I spend a little time on something, and the result is negated.
Webcode
Hello again Blogger, Hello interface and backend code.
I have to update and revise my html skills. Ok, this looks like SuSE's website, manual and install CD cover because I want it that way ... be grateful I didn't make it like BeOS's bootscreen :)
Too lazy and plain tired of code to write and maintain my own servers anymore.
WebObjects, Webware, OpenGroupware, SDS/SWS, Trac wiki, PostGreSQL, Apache ...
waaaaaaa
2006, and computers still feel like riding an elephant across an ocean of molasses ...
It's summer, and I have it on very good authority I'm too sexy to be living like Howard Hughes, hiding behind a wall of computer screens ;)
I have to update and revise my html skills. Ok, this looks like SuSE's website, manual and install CD cover because I want it that way ... be grateful I didn't make it like BeOS's bootscreen :)
Too lazy and plain tired of code to write and maintain my own servers anymore.
WebObjects, Webware, OpenGroupware, SDS/SWS, T
waaaaaaa
2006, and computers still feel like riding an elephant across an ocean of molasses ...
It's summer, and I have it on very good authority I'm too sexy to be living like Howard Hughes, hiding behind a wall of computer screens ;)
Saturday, August 14, 2004
What Haiku OS means to me
I was originally asked to write this article by Chris Simmons, aka Technix, Administrator and Editor of Haiku News Network (HNN), formerly The BeOS Journal (TBJ), a website focussed on Haiku-OS , the opensource implementation of BeOS that was formerly known as OpenBeOS.
He published it in his name, only mentioning I had submitted it, despite my having a journalist account on HNN and having been a contributor and moderator of The BeOS Journal. Furthermore any remarks regarding the German development upon BeOS called Zeta, from yellowTAB , were removed due to a strong bias against it that still persists today.
I am to this day not happy with the closure of TBJ's forum and disappearance of several years discussion of BeOS relevant to both Intel x86 and PowerPC platforms, including many valid and informative posts on the system's architecture, legal status, origins and future. The article was translated into several languages and republished in many countries in Western and Eastern Europe, and South America. Here is the article as I originally wrote it.
What Haiku OS means to me at this point in time, from the department of
"What do you mean did I run the OS before writing an article about it?"
To know this, I have to be clear what BeOS has meant and does mean to me now. It will always mean a young operating system that installed quickly and impressed me immediately after my first time booting with the R4.5 Live Demo CD ( I had BeOS since R3, but it was the R4.5 demo that really impressed me).
At that time I was using SuSE Linux, DR DOS, Windows 95, Rhapsody and Mac OS. It became my Media OS and I was happy working in BeOS. The media capabilities and speed of BeOS still impress me today.
I spent some years in Asia, away from computers and news until very recently. When I returned and began reading The BeOSJournal, I was shocked. Be, Inc. was no more, the BeOS was not available and there were no more upgrades to be found.
I learned that Haiku was to be the open source clone of BeOS R5 on x86 only. Ok.
I hope it can live up to the (perhaps excessive) expectations I have. The fact that BeOS doesn't run so well on my modern IBM ThinkPad, (except in Virtual PC 2004 in Windows 2000 where it rocks!), as it did on the earlier compatible equipment I used for BeOS before, does not change my high opinion of BeOS or expectations of Haiku.
I am looking forward to Haiku being my media OS, on modern hardware, with multiple fast CPUs and high memory. I am also looking forward to better networking than I know BeOS has now. In my earlier use of BeOS I never used it for networking or connecting to the internet, and had no knowledge of the problems others had and continue to have with it.
I have always felt BeOS was brilliant for scientific visualisation, as is done often on SGI and Sun workstations, especially for biochemistry. To use Haiku for the same purpose(s) is to me logical, and I hope this becomes a real possibility one day.
The area of artificial intelligence has always interested me, as has clustering; I am convinced Haiku could fulfill this application as well. I have often mused that if Be, Inc. had shifted focus to a "BeAI", instead of a "BeIA", things might have evolved differently.
An embeddable appliance-oriented Haiku? Why not, if people need it? A server/router/gateway OS? If it is possible I would use it.
What of Zeta ?
In the future is it possible to unite an opensource OS and a commercial one ?
Different kinds of licensing in a combined OS of Haiku and Zeta interests me.
Reading the official Haiku OS website FAQ and what is said in various chat rooms regarding Haiku, I can say all of my expectations are reasonable. It is open source and can be compiled to suit any specific set of purposes or needs. So far Haiku is an x86-only Operating System, but I know it can be compiled for other platforms such as Power PC.
What does all of this add up to? I think Haiku will impress me as much as BeOS originally did, and I look forward to seeing it develop into a full-fledged Operating System. I have made a point of not discussing any technical details of OS design here, without too much emphasis or analysis. Instead, I have discovered the inherent beauty in how BeOS has changed the way I use all operating systems completely. To that end, I feel Haiku will change the way many people use their computers.
He published it in his name, only mentioning I had submitted it, despite my having a journalist account on HNN and having been a contributor and moderator of The BeOS Journal. Furthermore any remarks regarding the German development upon BeOS called Zeta, from yellowTAB , were removed due to a strong bias against it that still persists today.
I am to this day not happy with the closure of TBJ's forum and disappearance of several years discussion of BeOS relevant to both Intel x86 and PowerPC platforms, including many valid and informative posts on the system's architecture, legal status, origins and future. The article was translated into several languages and republished in many countries in Western and Eastern Europe, and South America. Here is the article as I originally wrote it.
What Haiku OS means to me at this point in time, from the department of
"What do you mean did I run the OS before writing an article about it?"
To know this, I have to be clear what BeOS has meant and does mean to me now. It will always mean a young operating system that installed quickly and impressed me immediately after my first time booting with the R4.5 Live Demo CD ( I had BeOS since R3, but it was the R4.5 demo that really impressed me).
At that time I was using SuSE Linux, DR DOS, Windows 95, Rhapsody and Mac OS. It became my Media OS and I was happy working in BeOS. The media capabilities and speed of BeOS still impress me today.
I spent some years in Asia, away from computers and news until very recently. When I returned and began reading The BeOSJournal, I was shocked. Be, Inc. was no more, the BeOS was not available and there were no more upgrades to be found.
I learned that Haiku was to be the open source clone of BeOS R5 on x86 only. Ok.
I hope it can live up to the (perhaps excessive) expectations I have. The fact that BeOS doesn't run so well on my modern IBM ThinkPad, (except in Virtual PC 2004 in Windows 2000 where it rocks!), as it did on the earlier compatible equipment I used for BeOS before, does not change my high opinion of BeOS or expectations of Haiku.
I am looking forward to Haiku being my media OS, on modern hardware, with multiple fast CPUs and high memory. I am also looking forward to better networking than I know BeOS has now. In my earlier use of BeOS I never used it for networking or connecting to the internet, and had no knowledge of the problems others had and continue to have with it.
I have always felt BeOS was brilliant for scientific visualisation, as is done often on SGI and Sun workstations, especially for biochemistry. To use Haiku for the same purpose(s) is to me logical, and I hope this becomes a real possibility one day.
The area of artificial intelligence has always interested me, as has clustering; I am convinced Haiku could fulfill this application as well. I have often mused that if Be, Inc. had shifted focus to a "BeAI", instead of a "BeIA", things might have evolved differently.
An embeddable appliance-oriented Haiku? Why not, if people need it? A server/router/gateway OS? If it is possible I would use it.
What of Zeta ?
In the future is it possible to unite an opensource OS and a commercial one ?
Different kinds of licensing in a combined OS of Haiku and Zeta interests me.
Reading the official Haiku OS website FAQ and what is said in various chat rooms regarding Haiku, I can say all of my expectations are reasonable. It is open source and can be compiled to suit any specific set of purposes or needs. So far Haiku is an x86-only Operating System, but I know it can be compiled for other platforms such as Power PC.
What does all of this add up to? I think Haiku will impress me as much as BeOS originally did, and I look forward to seeing it develop into a full-fledged Operating System. I have made a point of not discussing any technical details of OS design here, without too much emphasis or analysis. Instead, I have discovered the inherent beauty in how BeOS has changed the way I use all operating systems completely. To that end, I feel Haiku will change the way many people use their computers.
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