Stanford CS Youtube videos, an idea…

I had an idea concerning the online Stanford CS courses. Since I will never be able to attend Stanford for a CS degree I was thinking about assembling a group of cyber friends that have the similar goals concerning programming and Computer Science education. And like myself don’t have the means to physically attend.

Maybe we could start a message board and schedule class times or goals around assignments etc. We could converse regularly and help one another out and take advantage of the group setting even if it is over the internet.

Just a though. Drop me a comment or an email if you’d like to discuss further.

jryanitpro@gmail.com

Hope to hear from you!!!

Ubuntu final flash issues!

I finally was able to install Ubuntu 9.10 today final. I was interested to see if the Ubuntu One error was gone and it was.

It seems that I had trouble installing the flash non-free plug-in though.

I installed it from Adobes redirect in Firefox, restarted the browser and nothing. I then tried installing flash from within the new software center and again after installing adobe flash plug-in and restarting, it did not work.

My last option was to install the restricted extras package and woala it works!

Just a friendly suggestion maybe we can just install the restricted extras by default when installing flash. At the very least the install failures I received will be discouraging to new users and will also have the trolls attacking Ubuntu/Linux saying we can’t get even something so simple solved still.

Al the seeming successful install that did not work for me went off wothout a hitch and lead me to believe everything went fine. Too many options and especially when they do not work will only make the world question can Linux ever get it right on the desktop. Why does it seem that we get something solved only to have it reveal it self in another bug or use case.

Believe me I want Linux to succeed and I plan to help wherever I can I just have not been able to get assimilated in to a project to help yet.

I’ll keep you all updated

As I said in the previous blog Ubuntu has done some real special things in this release in spite of flash install issues I had.

Joe

Ubuntu 9.10, Awesome!

I have to say this current offering of Ubuntu is very impressive.

To name a few items I’m most impressed with would probably do little justice to how far Ubuntu has come.

1.The boot time and overall look of the graphical boot.
2.OpenOffice opens very quickly when opening a document, presentation etc.
3.UbuntuOne service is just what I have been looking for since I seem to lose my USB storage very often.
4.The system overall is very snappy.

Oh did I mention this is the last alpha release I’ve been using, so it isn’t even the final!

With that being said there is a few bugs I have ran across
1.UbuntuOne began last night to show an error concerning a “capabilities mismatch”. Not sure what the issue is yet.
2.I believe Windows shutdown improperly and since I have had a grub2 boot error that will not go away. I have to delete a certain boot parameter to get Ubuntu to finish booting. I did some investigating and noticed that there were bug reports filed but the status seemed to be up in the air currently. It is probably fixed in the final bits anyway.

Keep up the good work Canonical and community!!!

Now if I could only find a project that is looking for a new programmer I could really help out aw well!

My brain storming on the Desktop of the future…

Desktop abstraction idea.

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My idea simply is to use the 3d capabilities of modern processors and operating systems to make the idea of the desktop expand to a more usable less confined workspace. Think of the desktop work areas replacing or becoming an ordinary part of desktop icons allowing users to see there work areas as tunnels. This allows the illusion of items closer to the surface being larger etc and possibly alleviating the cluttered look to current desktops.

 

To think more precisely of this abstraction would lend itself to being almost workspace like. The work-spaces that have been used in Unix and Linux for years and to some extent third-party Windows add-ons.

 

The idea could go further and sort of use the virtual views that are used in Second Life and game applications. Where a user could literally navigate to their “file cabinet” in their office “workspace” and physically work in the environment as playing a game.

The collaboration needed between applications and such could bring endless ideas and possibilities to the desktop abstraction.

 

This also brings a new visual futuristic approach to computing seeming to only be taken advantage of by game programmers and designers. The ideas for users of various handicaps could be endless as well as the navigation doesn’t involve so much “digging” in and out of items or icons that you are looking for.

 

Obviously something of this level of interaction would be a monumental undertaking but could ultimately bring computing to the next level and move us away from the current eye-candy war being fought by designers and technologists alike at this time. The future is Virtual Desktop Rooms, OS domains on the client. That will at times integrate very well with the distributed nature (think internet) of our office and work area space today.

 

On a side note my programming skills are at let us say at a stage of development which would only go to confirm my inability to think inside the box. So much for a first time learning project for a program.

By Joseph Michael Ryan Sr. Baltimore ,MD jryanitpro@gmail.com