Talkin' Tech on SENSITIZE ©

[upstate]

Talk about all things ' technical ' in here. This could be about new applications, developments, devices, gadgets, gizmo's, hardware, operating systems, software etc. Start your own threads on all of this here.

Use this section of SENSITIZE © to explore ways new hardware or software will affect / benefit / or act to the detriment of artistic and creative people and/or their work.

[the_leander]

Well, that was fun.

Upon orders from on high, I was given the odious task of installing a new OS that would be more to the missus's liking...

Now, normally I don't tend to mind this, I've played with enough of them in the past to know that its all fairly straightforward.

The problem is however with the quirks, in this case, a single setting in BIOS turned what should be a fully functional system into a gibbering wreck of use to no fucker...

4 days later, a eureka moment in the bath, and everything is up and running...

Am now dual booting with Zeta and a linux distribution called ubuntu.

Thank fuck thats over with though!

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Well, that was fun.

Upon orders from on high, I was given the odious task of installing a new OS that would be more to the missus's liking...

Now, normally I don't tend to mind this, I've played with enough of them in the past to know that its all fairly straightforward.

The problem is however with the quirks, in this case, a single setting in BIOS turned what should be a fully functional system into a gibbering wreck of use to no fucker...

4 days later, a eureka moment in the bath, and everything is up and running...

Am now dual booting with Zeta and a linux distribution called ubuntu.

Thank fuck thats over with though!

Good to have you back Alan mate. Not a lot happening on here at the moment, people all busy with other stuff I reckon... Last year, shortly before the war with the writer's community that I hate mentioning because they're fools of little talent, my pc crashed. For three days and nights I was without access and at a time when Kate (Essexcowgirl) and me were very busy putting finishing touches to many scenes we'd written for The Crafty Fecker... When the system was finally put to rights, a lot of work was missing, including these scenes. The writer's community also kept my work and have still not returned it to me or apologised for the trauma they put me through. They, in effect, added insult to injury and gloated in it. I was devastated by this. Some of them believe in Karma, so they've got a world of misfortune coming their way if they're true to their faith...

There's a reason for me slightly wandering off the theme of this thread and it's this: For Christmas, my Dad bought me an external 80GB hard drive, so I could make back-ups as I went. Everything is much safer now... I've heard people talk about Linux and most sound quite happy with it. Can you, if you have the time, maybe explain the benefits of switching to it or other operating systems please?

I've often thought that artistic and online activities might be hindered if not run on Microsoft, simply because they control so much of the market... I may be wrong though...

[the_leander]

Can you, if you have the time, maybe explain the benefits of switching to it or other operating systems please?

I've often thought that artistic and online activities might be hindered if not run on Microsoft, simply because they control so much of the market... I may be wrong though...

Ok, first off, I'll go with Zeta, it is an extremely lightwieght OS with very interesting media handling capabilities, it handles video especially well, although some formats aren't supported well (WMP4, Flash5+, Real). Most MOV and AVI formats are however supported.

It has a reasonable word processor, and a passable port of Firefox. Though no Java support at all currently (so no Yahoo Games, sorry).

Its main art apps are Refraction and Wonderbrush (Which is multi platform), and they're both pretty reasonable semi pro applications, though niether touch something like Photoshop in terms of all out capability.

Its fast, it tends to be fairly stable... I like it, but then I've always enjoyed a minimalist approach to operating systems.

I would say however that its application library is rather limited.

Another thing I would point out is that it isn't free or open source. I payed.... £75 for it, and I then payed another £10 for an update to the latest one (you get maybe 2 new releases a year, which you can usually get for free as service packs) The £10 is for a fresh CD as an installable OS with all the latest bits on.

Ubuntu, is making a lot of waves in the Open Source world, as a desktop orientated version of Linux, it is by far the most sanely layed out desktop I've ever seen from that side of things, and in many respects very easy to get to grips with, it also has the best, bar none, documentation available for it for any Distribution of Linux I've ever played with.

That said, at least on this system, and from googling, many others, its not nearly as stable as it should be. Quite frankly if they can stabilise it in the way that SUSE or Debian have, they will be a force to be reckoned with.

In terms of software, I'd say that it has more software in sheer numbers then say MacOS 10 has, but it does lack killer apps like photoshop, also its not really got much by way of video editing tools, though its sound editing tools are quite interesting.

In general day to day use however, web browsing, IRC, Instant Messaging, Word Processing, are all very well covered by the Open Source Software movement, applications such as Firefox and Thunderbird came from this movement.

I've also played with some supremely cool demonstration stuff, like running your desktop entirely off of the 3d portion of your graphics card, instead of using the 2d bits, the speed up, even on an older card like a Geforce 2MX is incredible, on my Geforce FX 5200, which is by no means a powerful graphics card, the speed increase was insane. Truly, if I attempted to describe it to you, I'd end up dribbling and throthing at the mouth like a nutter, it is THAT good, and XGL, which is the software that does it (linux only, sorry) even at Alpha (The first stage of software development, everything is in place, but its not been debugged, and if you use it, well, its on your system that could be hosed) stage is more stable on this hardware then a recent version of Vista I managed to aquire for... testing purposes, not to mention several orders of magnitude faster.

Linux offers superior hardware compatability and support over Zeta.

Solaris, now, unless you're into seriously geeky stuff, its unlikely you'll have heard of this. In short, as far as security goes, no one can touch them, their OS is by far the most secure Desktop/Server OS around. In terms of software, limited by say Linux standard, but it does have a lot of scientific stuff available to it. Now free to download...

MacOSX... What can I say, its a very pretty OS, with a huge amount of automation. But, as it has grown in popularity, it opens the risks normally associated with windows - virus's etc, currently OSX has been pretty lucky, but as it gets a bigger market share, expect more concerted efforts to break into it.

The OS costs lots, and the hardware costs a shit load...

In sumary, each OS offers benefits over its counterparts, Windows does however have the lion share of apps and the best hardware compatability overall of any of the other OS's there in terms of a build it yourself setup like mine.

I don't use windows personally because I find the interface clunky, I refuse point blank to surrender money to a company that been found guilty multiple times of using illegal monopolistic practices to quash competition and to a large degree styfle hardware and software innovation for the past decade.

But in many cases, there is simply no alternative to using this.

Take note however, and I cannot emphesize this enough: Changing OS' is a time consuming process - transfering and backing up files, installing new software, and simply getting to grips with the new system. It should never be entered into lightly, ever.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Microsoft announce 11 new upgrade patches, some critical. Read more here.

[the_leander]

Microsoft announce 11 new upgrade patches, some critical. Read more here.

They're slacking off, past few patch thursdays have had whoppers in em.

11 by their standards is pretty light.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Decidedly weird;

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/03/1 ... mic-1.html

Give it another 10 years and they'll have biped droids as free range as this...

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Message for Andy West aka Meltminder

Hi Andy

If you click that hyperlinked title above it will take you to a post I made for the attention of Richard Hedley Atkinson aka Ack. It concerns microphones and basic essential kit for recording artists and I thought maybe you could signpost Ack to reasonably priced gear he might one day use...

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=091ugdiojEM&NR=1

I got this link from Sean Óg about a month ago and have been exploring all the related links since then. At the moment these things aren't that interactive, but given the leaps and bounds taking place in technologies, it's not that far off at all. Consider these encounters with Jules and Eva:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rNXUwhc ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuxFJcG9 ... re=related

Are they the air host/hostesses, counsellors, doctors, soldiers and space explorers of tomorrow? How long before something genuinely lifelike as described by Issac Asimov in his robot novels and short stories comes on the market?

Here are a few other related links - possibly good for sampling (Andy):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLOxxugB ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psAMNhMq ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmCRY76e ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vArdTJfT ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kThr6CML ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJZTWwy6eUw

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

http://www.wearechange.org/2008/11/cool-facts.html

^ should we be worried?