Paco's Blog

My last entry of 2005

I read this article and smiled. Here is the email that I sent the columnist:

You do realize that Red Hat uses GNOME as it's main desktop, right?

Novell, is doing good and it will do even better. I will only say, buy yourself a copy of SUSE 10.0 install all of GNOME and then insert a music CD or a memory card like and SD or Compact Flash and watch Banshee for the music and f-spot for the photos kick in automatically. These applications were written using mono and they take full advantage of GNOME and GTK.

Perhaps it would be best to compare what Microsoft does with its consumer OS (Windows 9.x, Windows XP) and later its server class OS (Windows NT, 2000, 2003). A lot of the desktop innovation is pioneered in those consumer operating systems and later is integrated into the next release of the server operating systems after a large user base has tested and reported back bugs. Watch Novell do the same with SUSE and Novell Linux Desktop to later better SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, OES and my personal favorite for 2006, Novell Linux Small Business Suite.

I think Novell is doing real good. They just need to remain true to their vision and not falter due to ill conceived conclusions from market analyst and press members that are not willing to read deep enough into a product and its strategy before creating a distorted view that is later published in the shape of news piece.

Best regards,


Paco

Did any of you see how the market closed this week for these three stocks (MSFT 26.64, RHAT 27.98, NOVL 9.10)? Microsoft has been hovering around the 25-30 mark for the past 2 years while Red Hat has exploded in the past 6 or 7 months. Of course, I personally think that the big story is Novell, who in the past month has made some nice gains.

I said it before and I will say it again, there is no reason why Novell and their product offering could not top those of Red Hat. I believe that 2006 will be the year were individuals as well as corporations will grant Novell an invitation into their computer systems.

A Puerto Rican Christmas Story in Texas:

Paquito had a great friend in high school that eventually got married and now has a baby girl. He works the night shift at a cardboard container factory and has never had a computer. Maria and I had decided to give them a computer as a Christmas gift and I was now getting ready to load the operating system in it. I still have a copy of Windows XP OEM that came back shrink wrap form Iraq that Paquito never ended up installing. I was going to put that in the machine, but then I remember stories of friends in the mono community that had never really had a Windows machine or experience with that OS! Maria my wife and business manager said:

"You installed SUSE for me, and I have been using it for the past year without any problems. Don't install Windows, let them use Linux."

Yesterday, I invited them over to hand off the mid tower case with a 17 inch CTX monitor and an old HP LaserJet 4MP. The system was loaded with SUSE 10 and just before they left I showed them how to use Kino to load and edit video through a firewire connection (and a DV camera). How to listen and catalog music CDs with Banshee and how to import pictures with f-spot.

Paquito's friend and his wife were very happy. I will report back in a few months to see if they can remain true to Linux in a Microsoft Windows centric world.

Happy Birthday Son

Today is Paquito's 21st birthday! This was going to be a very special one for any good all American kid getting ready to party in Las Vegas. I ended going with Monica and Maria to Boi Na Braza for a great lunch before heading out to the cemetery. That Churrasqueria was the last place I took him for dinning out two days before he left for Kuwait. While in Iraq, he once told me that he was going to proposed to Mirela in that very restaurant. Although lunch was as succulent as ever, I kept breaking down and sobbing like that first week after his funeral.

In the end, I figure I give the community a little Paquito Birthday present with a few up to date installers.

Interesting Mono 1.1.11 installer with Cecil and more
Finally, have a Gtk# 2.4 Installer for .NET

I used to question the need for hard drives bigger than 40 GB for end users. Even if you are a developer I would argue that with an MSDN installation and parallel installations of Visual Studio 6.0, Visual Studio .NET 2003, MS Office, Open Office , Cygwin, Mono and a few other tools you still could make due. With Linux, 15 GB was plenty unless you want to have a multimedia content.

I since discovered VMware Workstation for Linux. For the first time I see my self looking in NewEgg, Fry's, Office Depot and others for them big 160+ GB drives so that I can have a native OS of SUSE version 10 x86_64, VMware and a few instances of Windows XP and Windows 2000. Even today as began revisiting Mozilla builds in Windows, I added a "new 18 gig drive" to my Windows XP Pro instance used for Mono Installer builds and research so that I could move Cygwin and host the upcoming bulk of Mozilla source code. Oh, the flexibility!

Syriana is a must see. In a year when so many movies were crap, it was long overdue. King Kong is surprisingly good also.

Solar energy is finally starting to make sense since fossil fuels are now so expensive and their prices will not likely decline again. I am a big Tree Huger so this pimping of clean energy would not surprise any of my close friends. But the the bottom line is Evergreen Solar (ESLR) is going places. Now you can make some money and still be able to sleep at night!

A few Texaricans

I am doing some quick preparations for a Gtk# Installer for .NET Framework that will bundle GTK+ 2.8.6 and Gtk# 2.4. If all goes well, I will then do one with Gtk# 2.6.

I bought my seat for BrainShare 2006! As a lot of you may recall, I only managed to attend the first day of this year's BrainShare 2005 in Salt Lake City. Novell is at a very decisive point in their history, but I am confident that by June-July a lot of public and private enterprises will flock to the company's great product line.

I am also putting together the course materials for a five day introductory course about mono. This course is in Spanish and it will likely be given to a group of professional developers in South America. We are still negotiating this engagement, but regardless of the outcome, I will have this offering ready for future parties interested and will soon begin working on an English version of the course.

On Tuesday, I will meet with my great friend Matt Gutierrez! It will be a short meeting but an important one, since I have not been able to give him the effusive thanks that I owe him since his appearance at Paquito's funeral.

I am very happy to see that both Kevin and Joseph keep collaborating and working towards great .NET/mono content that could eventually be presented at the next OSCON.

Finally, my niece Cari, has relocated to Texas. Cari is the 25 year old daughter of my late brother Cuco. For the exception of my two late brothers' (Cuco and Gabo) remains and that of my dad (Roger Martínez) , we are now all in Texas. Don Roger would have never imagined!