April 2004 Archives

If you have a small company website, the chances are strong that whether you know it or not, one of the major sources of outside traffic is Google. Today they become a public company by offering an IPO 2.7 billion dollars.

The founders of the company have developed a loyal following of users by supplying services that are useful. The following is so strong that their product like Kleenex or Jeep has become a part of the lexicon: "I Googled the site for the place we're going to dinner." (I looked the restaurant up on Google.)

The 2.7 billion dollars also caught our eye because its very much the same as what these fellows at another famous Internet startup did. Hopefully Wall Street will take heed of the attitude they are getting from Sergey and Larry, and let the guys continue to do what they have done so well already. They earned a profit of over 100 million dollars in the first quarter of this year on sales around 750 million in the same period.

We will watch with interest what happens to our favorite search engine. If you want to read more on this story, why don't you Google it?

http://news.google.com/news?q=Google+IPO&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=nn

Photo by me, image manipulations by the GIMP

One of the truely cool things you can do with computers these days is make wonderful images. The price of entry for high end image manipulation software need not hold back any aspiring digital artists. GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a freely distributed piece of open source software.I downloaded the GIMP 2.0 for MacOS X to see if it ran the same as GIMP 2.0 for Windows, and I was pleased to find everythign was just as I remember it.

Sometimes it can be a challenge to figure out where everything is if you are used to some other program. Most simple tasks like shrinking and cropping pictures are a breeze. If you poke around long enough you'll find everything you need and a few graphical toys I can't even begin to figure out.

I was looking around at how to launch a product for a web site marketing project I am working on. I came across the hoojum site. I thought I would point it out for all of the following reasons:

• I like the design and marketing of the site
• They integrate the slide show feature of Gallery very nicely.
• It's a COOL looking PC.
• I always point out any sites with pictures of cats and computers to my sister.

Take a look at the Dell OpenManage Server Assistant the next time you find yourself re-installing a Dell server. It was my own fault that I found myself in this situation. Dell must have supplied the disk so I didn't get too depressed, thanks.

I was highly amuzed to note that the setup program to install the drivers and setup the RAID devices boots the machine to Linux, installs a web server (for sure not IIS) and runs the whole install from an X Windows browser session.

One of the issues that will have to be overcome before Linux can become the desktop Operating System of choice is the real and percieved lack of applications. There are simply more applications out there for Windows. That is why it is a "real" lack.

Advocates such as the Open Source Directory, would like to overcome this somewhat unfounded perception. They publish a comprehensive listing of Open Source software that is available, and not just for Linux. As mentioned here in Advisorbits, there is Open source software in the Windows world too. This "Editors Choice Awards of 2003" article is a bit old, but when I found it it made me look at a few applications I hadn't known about. (I am also proud to be a user of many of the applications mentioned, including Moveable Type. )

I was confused at first, because I am also familiar with the http://dmoz.org/ Open Directory Project. These sites do not seem to be directly related.

One software projects that caught my eye was the Open Office project. I am going to start evaluating Open Office as an alternative to many components of MS Office. Its time to upgrade my business PCs, and cost is a factor. The evaluation will center on interoperability with MS-Office 2000 files, and usability. How much training will be required to make the transistion? We'll find out and let you know.

A friend of mine who is an editor by profession called me this morning to ask what a DS1 is. She also mentioned an article on eWeek that tipped us to this:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix/ is Microsoft's first open source project. (No kidding.)

The author, Steven Vaughan-Nichols, sees it as a page from the Evil Empire's playbook described in the Halloween documents.