firefox file-open speed and other gnome rants

If you've ever had to ask firefox to open a file from a directory with lots of files, and find that it takes forever, go to about:config and then set ui.allow_platform_file_picker to false!

Some of the other comments flowing off of http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/278995/ae9fdab7c07b90d6/ are worth reading, from the point of view of a guy like me, who doesn't like Gnome.  Here are a few choice extracts, with URLs:

http://lwn.net/Articles/279398/ - My prolonged exposure to GNOME has resulted in apathy: I don't care about the desktop settings anymore. I guess it's inevitable. To caricaturize: if I like a setting, it's almost certainly gone in the next release, so there's no point to set oneself for disappointment

http://lwn.net/Articles/279345/ - From the brief and unpleasant interactions I've had with GNOME developers, I would conclude that they do not like their users. Well, I voted with my feet. XFCE for me, and my kids independently chose KDE after trying GNOME and KDE.

http://lwn.net/Articles/279449/ - [...]if you're not part of the GNOME Universe, you may as well not exist, which is the most objectionable aspect of GNOME anyway!

http://lwn.net/Articles/279420/ - I think they mostly like Microsoft's users, which is where a lot of the discontent comes from.  It's a lot easier to keep make-believe users that you don't really have happy than it is to please the ones that are actually using the software. As a result, features are added (and removed) that no-one actually requested.

And finally, an *excellent* analysis of why Nautilus is such a bad idea (or at least seems to have been done from the developers' point of view rather than the users'): http://lwn.net/Articles/279344/ (though this sort of stuff probably happens in KDE also, maybe to a lesser degree)

(criminal,malware) money talks -- very loudly

http://topicmaps.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/the-norway-vote-what-really-happened/

Disgusting story of how one bureaucrat changed Norway's OOXML vote to yes.

(criminal) Monsanto -- the other "M" company!

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/14/017258

(law,funny) damn near brought tears to my eyes...

...from laughing!

http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-strikes-back

(security) Guarding the guardians: a story of PGP key ring theft

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4207

Nice article demonstrating the need to keep private keys on a device rather than on your hard disk! But apart from that, it also demonstrates a non-targeted attack can start focusing into a targeted attack. Without manual intervention.

Scary...

I also like this quote: "When we use strong encryption, attackers will not try to "break" that encryption. They will move to the endpoints to steal the keys that are used to encrypt it. Ensure sufficient security is implemented on key storage."

linux kernel development

"How Fast it is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It"

https://www.linux-foundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php

Good article.  Seems long, but has nice graphs that are actually understandable; makes for easy reading.

Amazing numbers...

(security) fingerprints and privacy

People who advocate using biometrics for all sorts of stuff usually say there is no privacy risk. In retaliation, a German computer club published the fingerprints of the German "Interior Minister" (sort of like the Home Minister in India I guess).

So now he plans to sue the club. If there are no privacy implications with using fingerprints, what is he suing for?

"The article says a ministry spokesman alluded to possible legal action against the club. ", says the article, at http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/29/1941206&from=rss

And even more important: you can sue these people because they are doing it openly. The real criminals will do it secretly.

(git,funny,quote) on using systems that scale well...

not sure if it makes sense in all contexts but I found this quote really funny:

"Saying you should use systems that don't scale well when your project is tiny is like saying you should use Roman numerals for calculations involving small numbers."

(from http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~blynn/gitmagic/)

Comparision between EEE, OLPC, and Classmate

^{from http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/notebooks/0,1000000333,39359143,00.htm warning: one photo per page, too many mouse clicks needed, and JS needed}

Just from the size aspect, which is after all the whole point here, the EEE wins hands down over the other two. But here're some more details:

• EEE is the smallest of the lot
• EEE is the only one with a VGA connector (yeay!!!)
• EEE comes with 512 MB RAM (as opposed to 256 on the other 2)
• EEE has the largest keyboard, even though it is the smallest of the 3.
• God is actually talking to me here and telling me which to buy :-)

• OLPC has the largest and best screen (as if this was news!)
• OLPC doesn't have a fan (hopefully the EEE will follow suit soon)
• my wife would love the OLPC keyboard (feels like popping bubble wrap, apparently!)

• Classmate looks like the pregnant mother of the other two!
• and the EEE is soooo slim – always loved the slim ones :-)
• see comment at the start!
• Classmate is very hard to get into (motherboard)

[Update: just heard that Asus has announced a version with a larger screen (9 inches, 1024x600 instead of 800x480 – the horizontal size is what really matters by the way) in almost the same size body (only a 0.1 inch increase in the size of the body!) So that's the one to go for. The trouble is, by the time that comes to India, there'll be an even better one announced. WHEN DO I BUY THE DAMN THING???????]

more to drool at...

http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_What%27s_New#Asus_Eee-friendly

If there's one thing that used to worry me about these "low power" machines I've been drooling about, it was that mainstream distributions might take too much tweaking to work on them.  So it's great to see this sort of support, and from my favourite distribution too!

Now all I need is that Eee PC!