Fallen Tech Blog

I work in IT Support and am often on call. As it's a real pain having to cart around a heavy laptop/notebook everywhere I go, I decided to get a mini-laptop/netbook such as the ASUS Eee PC ( http://wikipedia.org/ ). These are great little laptops that weight approximately 1 Kilogram (depending on the model) and measuring somewhere around 225mm x 165mm x 30mm making them hightly portable.

I originally purchased the 701 as they were suitable enough and the only real model that was available at the time. The Linux versions were the most common, which suited me fine as I am a Linux only user anyway (I don't run Windows on any of my machines). I found the screen size a little small however and when the 901 was released, I sold the 701 and decided on a 901.

I checked out many different suppliers but could only find the Windows version. It would seem no matter where I looked, only Windows. I even tried JB Hifi ( http://jbhifi.com.au/ ) but no luck there either. No suppliers would even order one in. It took months of monitoring and contacting various suppliers, and frequent visits to the most excellent price comparison website StaticIce ( http://staticice.com.au/ ). In the end I luckily managed to find one supplier that had a 901 with Linux!

More recently I wanted to purchase a new phone and decided I wanted to combine my PDA and phone into one. I naturally figured that since I'm moving from a Palm ( http://www.palm.com/ ) PDA to an all in one solution, I should investigate a Palm made phone.

Turns out they make them but unfortunately the more recent ones run the horrible Windows Mobile OS - something that I have used in the past and had terrible experiences with.

In fact, there was only one phone still on the market that ran the Palm OS, and it was exclusively sold by Telstra ( http://telstra.com.au/ ) and only as a pre-paid phone, namely the Palm Centro ( http://www.palm.com/au/ ).

So, my search began. I went to approximately 20 phone stores in the Melbourne CBD without success, 5 of which were "Telstra dealers" (I was not aware of the exclusivity at that point), but all had the same reply: "Don't have any, but we do have these ones running Microsoft Windows Mobile". I even tried to order one in without success. In the end I had no choice but to buy a Palm Treo 780 off eBay from America.

What's my point? I had good money to spend on good products yet it was near impossible to do so. Had I have not been so persistant, I might have simply purchased a Windows based Eee PC (installing Linux on myself) and bought a Windows Mobile running phone.

Poses the question, how many people are "settling" for things and ultimately counting to market statistics. No matter how good a product is, if it's not available people cannot buy it (or even see it for that matter)

I recently got a new machine at work and as it's shared between 3 people so installing a custom distribution (ArchLinux would have been my choice) is not really an option. So, as my company default Operating System is Ubuntu, that's what I've got.

I can't really use my normal way of doing things like mounting on this system so I had to work out new ways to do things in the console instead

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Since I made the move to 100% Linux a year or so ago I found myself missing some parts of Windows. This is the thing that causes the most hesitation in people when looking at alternative operating systems - what do I have to give up?

While I have been able to replace nearly all the applications I used with free, open (and usually better) alternatives, there are still a few I missed.

One such application is MSPaint, until now.

UPDATED 2008-03-13

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I went to my Auntie's place yesturday to reinstall her machine (maybe Linux), and work out why her Internet isn't working.

Of course, she'd gone out and purchased a Compaq computer for 10 times more cost than a better custom job AND signed up for Optus ADSL.

Anyway, I needed to take a look at her ADSL modem at my home (see post Optus supplied D-Link DSL-302G for the reason). It's a D-Link DSL-302G, and it's default ip is 10.1.1.1 (class A). On my network, machines are in the address range 192.168.x.x (class C).

In the past I would have simply changed my IP address to something within that range so that I could access the device. I decided this time however, to look into allocating a SECOND IP, to my network card.

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I would like to describe exactly what happened to me over the last 6 years or so, that I affectionately call "The GPL Effect".

Six years ago, I found out about GNU/Linux. I had been using other operating systems such as Novell Netware, Windows, Commodore 64 OS and DOS for years, and had dabbled in VMS and UNIX. While I'd been using computers for many years already, I hadn't purchased much software. I was generally given software from friends and didn't think much about the fact that I was stealing.

I read about GNU/Linux in a magazine one day and was introduced to the concept of the GPL - GNU (http://www.gnu.org/) General Public License. I read that GNU/Linux is "free" and it fascinated me, though I only was thinking of it from a cost point of view. I liked the fact that I could get a distribution, a CD (or now - DVD or set of CDs) that not only contained an Operating System that was greatly superior than most others I'd used, but also a complete set of applications that ran within that operating system, all for absolutely nothing ... LEGALLY.

At this point, I had NO idea how much my life would be changed, because of this.

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