ATI and NVIDIA: secretly become great friends

Based on my experience with ATI and NVIDIA, it appears they have become great friends.

I recently witnessed ATI kindly sharing the market with NVIDIA. While the Windows market is still a fierce battle ground, ATI has obviously handed NVIDIA the Linux market by not putting forth much of an effort at all to get their graphics cards to work under just about any distribution of the operating system.

Those with new kernels, such as the kernel that ships with Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger), will be hard pressed to get hardware accelleration to run, even with the recent release of version 8.18.6 of ATI's linux proprietary drivers.

I'm sure ATI is working hard at getting things to work under Linux, but as with most proprietary software, having it developed in a closed source office rather than the open source community, it just doesn't have much of a chance of keeping up with the development and growth of Linux.

For most software applications, this is fine, because you rarely have to upgrade applications because of a kernel upgrade, but hardware drivers and core modules are a different story.

My personal reccomendation is if you use linux, or think you might use linux, then stick with an NVIDIA card. If, however, you love Windows and will probably never even try Linux, stick with whichever card has the best advertising campaigns. (all the open source geeks are laughing at that one... at least I think that guy in the back row is laughing.... no wait, choking on a jolly rancher, my bad)

Set In Stone

Well, it is officially set in stone, this will be the new logo of Woven Thorns Productions. Yesterday I had this sandblasted by some relatives, and it couldn't have turned out better.

This tile will be backlit and serve as "that cool thing on the wall" until I am able to create a larger one. (this is exactly 1 square foot)

For a sneak preview of where else this logo might appear, check this out.

A new day, a new logo

If you have followed the progress of Woven Thorns Productions at all, you would know that we have undergone at least 4 logo changes and 10 corporate image changes. (It wouldn't be a normal Friday without one.)

So now that we've had the same logo for over a year, and it has been placed on hundreds of business cards and thousands of documents, we have once again changed our logo. This time, we have taken our original logo, designed in 1997, and have outlined it to create a solid black and white logo. The text below the logo will be our official wordmark, and the official release of the logo at http://www.woventhorns.com will mark the release of our new corporate image. (Proposed release date: November 7, 2005)

This time, we will be going back to our roots while considering design and concepts of modern day. (modern day changes every month and a half in the tech industry) We will be releasing a vector version of our logo for anyone to use for advertising, linking, or just showing support of Woven Thorns Productions. This will be available for anyone willing to read over and comply with a 15 page trademark manual, but don't worry, you'll have more freedom than with most logos.

The wordmark is almost an exact copy from our original logo, and the cross and thorns branding image are a simplified silhouette of the original logo, making clear our owner's personal beliefs, and the direction the business is taking.

If you have any comments about the logo, you are more than welcome to keep them to yourself.

That or you could post comments at the bottom of this blog, but either way I probably won't take negative reactions to heart. (I call it positive-thinking, it makes coping with bad design much easier.)

Severs Schmervers

I am reformatting a server today, and I have documented the difference between a server and a desktop machine:

A Server Must:

1. Cost much more than a desktop
2. Use new or rare hardware
3. Stay on all the time.

A Desktop Must:

1. Cost much less than a server
2. Use new but common hardware
3. Turn on and off, or stay on, depending on the user.
   

Here's where I get confused:
My computer at home stays on 24/7. If it weren't for my paying my own electric bill, my uptime would be measured in years. My computer has over 120GB of storage, a CD Burner, 6 USB ports, 512MB of RAM, a 17" Flat Pannel monitor, and a rather nice looking keyboard.
This computer cost me about $700 when I made it.

Had I spent an extra $500, I could have opted for a better processor, more RAM, and 500GB of hot-swappable SATA striped RAID.

But, if I wanted to serverize it, I would be required to instead spend at least $2,000 more on 2 processors running at half the speed of my current one, 72GB of SCSI RAID, 2 extra PSUs, and the same amount of RAM (only ECC this time).

Fortunately for me, I'm too cheap to serverize things. Either I am super-lucky, or IT units are super-scared. For $2,835 I could get 900GB of SCSI Goodness, or for $696 I can get 1200GB of SATA goodness.
The argument I hear most is that SCSI is the most reliable. I remember reading that too, back when it was SCSI v. IDE. But now that we've got SATA, I'm not so sure. And even if SCSI is more reliable, with the money I've saved, I could buy another 3,687GB of SATA storage! So if SATA is so much worse, and it caused me to swap out drives every 6 months, I could go for 4 years and still end up ahead! (and by then my 400GB SATA drive would be dirt cheap, which would extend server life yet another 4 years probably.)

But let's be realistic, how many times do you have to swap out drives, and with 5 year warranties on each drive, you only need one extra, then RMA the bad one, and wait for the new drive in the mail for free!

Now, onto processors. Nowadays, I could just buy a socket 939 board and put in whatever AMD 64 I want, including their dual core processors. I could even spend out the extra $$ and get a server board that would run dual Opterons, while still staying far below the cost of SCSI drives alone!

So I guess I like servers, but I just don't like "corporate" servers, with SCSI RAID, Redundant Power, and underperforming processors. I'd rather go SCSI SATA, a good Battery powered UPS, a couple of nice dual core Athlon 64's, and some nice non ECC low latency RAM.

Matt Zimmerman's Birthday Present: Ubuntu 5.10

Matt Zimmerman, one of the lead developers of Ubuntu, has gotten the birthday present we've all been waiting for (and he's sharing)! Ubuntu Breezy Badger (5.10) was released today, October 13, 2005.

If you have been fighting the urge to try out linux, I completely understand. I even agreed with you. Until now.

After trying out various linux distrobutions, I finally got my hands on an Ubuntu 5.04 CD. After installing the operating system, I was preparing myself for the difficult task of getting things to work. Strangely enough, my laptop's touch-pad, wide screen, and sound card all worked without any work on my part!

I was able to put in a little more effort and get the wide screen to look even better, and I did have to install proprietary (but free) drivers from my wireless card's manufacturer, but in the end, I had to install 2 pieces of hardware to have a fully functioning laptop!

Ubuntu Breezy Badger comes out of the box with a better installer, a nicer startup screen, and openoffice.org (OOo) 2.0 Beta 2. This version of OOo saves files using the OpenDocument format mentioned in my previous articles. The only problem is, what happens when the final version is released? This is linux, how do I uninstall this, and reinstall the new version?

Simple.

My Ubuntu Updates icon will appear telling me I need to install updates. I simply click the icon, type in my administrator's password (don't want the kids installing software and messing up the system like they do on windows, do we?) and let it download and install any software it needs to.

Picture Windows Update on steroids, but without the annoying bubble popping up every ten minutes. Instead of just upgrading the operating system itself, it also upgrades any software you have installed from the Ubuntu servers. This includes graphics editing software, accounting/financial software, 3d rendering applications, and even web server software.

Installing new software isn't any harder.

If I wanted to start making graphics for my website, all I have to do is open up Ubuntu's "Add Remove Programs" (Synaptic Package Manager) and browse the graphic applications section until I find a program I want to use. I then click the checkbox next to it and press "Apply". This will download and install the program, and add it to my Start Menu.

That's right, I didn't have to type any commands, I didn't have to download any files and save them to my desktop first, everything is automatic, and has worked for me every time.

If you choose to give Ubuntu a try, feel free to download it from one of their mirrors, or purchase it from LinuxOnCD.net. You can also head over to Ubuntu's CD Distribution site and get some official CDs FREE! (Shipping times are usually a bit longer when going through Ubuntu's site, but the CD's are worth the wait! And that's coming from the owner of LinuxOnCD.net!)

So in conclusion, Happy birthday Matt, and congradulations Ubuntu on another great version of your distro!

Vinyl Plotter Fun!

After hearing that a relative was in the process of purchasing a vinyl plotter, I quickly fired up Adobe Illustrator and whipped up some logos for my online nickname "OneSeventeen", a few bible verses (Jer. 1:17 and Matt. 4:19), my URL (www.woventhorns.com), and some pre-made logos that I copied/cleaned.

Now that I had my large illustrator file (copied into about 10 formats, just to be sure their plotter software would read it), I figured it would be a simple matter of loading my graphic, loading some vinyl, and clicking print.

Wrong! I now have a greater respect for signmakers. First, I aligned the graphics with the sheet of vinyl (we were using 15" vinyl on a 24" plotter), then I cut the vinyl, then came the fun part! I spent at least 45 minutes "weeding" the vinyl. Meaning I had to pull out all of the vinyl that would not be a part of the final window sticker. After going through the smaller graphics with a precision screwdriver and some tweezers, I was finally ready to put them on my window.


Now, all I had to do was clean my window, apply this thick clear plastic tape (application tape) to the front of the vinyl window sticker. Then I used a stiff piece of plastic to rub the tape onto the sticker. After that, I peeled the paper backing to the vinyl off, which left me with a clear piece of thick tape that had the window sticker on it. So now I just stuck it wherever I wanted it on my window, used a stiff squiegee to press it firmly into place, then I slowly peeled away the clear tape. Leaving me with what I consider a very attractive window sticker.

Overall, I am very pleased with the outcome. Feel free to click the two images on this blog to view larger images. You are also more than welcome to view the original artwork I used for the design of the stickers.

$google . $sun != "WebOffice"

Apparently the rumors of a Google and Sun powered Web office were false. According to The Register [link omitted due to Christian-Geek unfriendly photo of John Battelle flipping of the camera], the speculations of a Web Office were untrue, silly, and not that great of an idea anyhow.

What Google will be doing is adding OpenOffice.org centered features to their increasingly popular Google Toolbar (which I still have yet to download since switching to Firefox). This is a nice step in a good direction, but it is not as huge a step or as good a direction as the previous rumors seemed to be.

Why Web Based Office Software Would be Good:

An entire web-based Office Suite would be sort of silly and probably a bit slow. A few web-based Office Applications, on the otherhand, would be amazing! Currently, the fear of retraining Microsoft Office users, and the burden of installing new software are the top two reasons not to switch from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org or StarOffice.

The concept of difficult training sessions and countless hours of converting and reformatting existing documents are reasons to fear a new office suite. The only problem is they are all bogus fears. Because I now see "openoffice.org Writer" instead of "Microsoft Word" in my title bar, I do not suddenly loose all knowledge of writing letters, creating tables, and loading templates.

The first fear: difficult training sessions: Clicking the thick "B" still makes text bold, and the slanted "i" still means italic. In fact, the few items that have changed dramatically feel easier, and more intuitive in openoffice.org. For example, inserting a graph of data from a table is as simple as creating a table (in the document you are working in), highlight the table, then choose Insert>Object>Chart. This does not open a spreadsheet application, force me to rewrite my data, generate the graph, then allow me to insert a "window" into the spreadsheet application. This is much simpler, cleaner, and intuitive.

The second fear: countless hours of converting/reformatting: This, is a good example of a "half-truth". Yes, it will be a little difficult to convert all of your documents. You shouldn't need to reformat existing documents, as openoffice.org can open .doc files. The only reason you may have trouble with certain design aspects, is because Microsoft Office does not, and does not intend to, use Standard File Formats such as OpenDocument.

If you create all of your new documents using OpenDocument, and you decide you need to make a major change to every single document you have ever created, then you can simply write a small script that will go through, open, change, and save all of your documents without even opening an office application. This is the feature of using a non-proprietary format. Had Microsoft Office used a different standard file format that is freely available to the public (such as XML or a derrivative), then converting documents would be a simple matter of converting the existing format's schema to the OpenDocument schema. Too bad Word .doc files use a closed, proprietary format, instead of one that would allow you to change things easily.

Back on Topic: Why Web-Based Office Software is good: By offering a flexible, easy to use, free software application online that could easily replace Microsoft Word, all of the popular fears, myths, doubts, and excuses would be null-and-void. Imagine this scenario:

CEO: "I don't understand computers, but I heard this web-based openoffice.org thing could replace our $400 office suite for everyone who doesn't use the advance features. Why don't we switch?"

IT: "I am MCSE certified and make lots of money because of it. VBA is an amazing language that lets you write applications into memos. Microsoft Office is already on everyone's computers and we all know how to use it. Switching would be difficult, time consuming, and in the end cost more than purchasing the next version of Office."

CEO: "I don't know what VBA is, but someone at woventhorns.com told me openoffice.org can use their own version of BASIC, Beanshell, Javascript, Java, and something called Python. I've also heard it functions just like Word, so training won't be an issue. Plus, if it is already online, the Christian Geek, OneSeventeen, told me we could just add the URL to the web-based Writer to our router's Whitelist."

IT: "But everyone already uses Word at home too."

CEO: "If openoffice.org is free, why not just get people to install it at home as well? (or use the web based one if they have the internet) Then people who don't have Microsoft Office can open our office documents without us having to convert them to some other weird format like RTF or PDF. (whatever those are, since I don't know much about computers)"

IT: "Everyone has PDF though, and it is increasingly popular."

CEO: "Oh yeah, woventhorns.com guy also said openoffice.org can save to PDF without extra plugins."

IT: "But Microsoft gave me this free Office T-shirt."

CEO: "I have a shirt with a pinguin on it if you want."

IT: "But I don't like pinguins"

CEO: "You're fired."

As you can plainly see, IT departments will be scared, but once given the opportunity to use a product that does not require installing software, training individuals, converting documents, or reading more books, they will be much more likely to switch over and trade in their Microsoft shirt for a GNU shirt.

Nothing in front, nothing behind!

While visiting my parents, I found this photo my dad took showing that on the way between their town and mine, there was almost nothing on the road.

When visiting other states, we will often run from one town into the next, but not in New Mexico. If you notice, there isn't so much as a billboard on the road ahead or the road behind. And based on my experience, the horizon is probably about 10 miles away in each direction!

As we like to say in New Mexico, we have a gorgeous view of the sky! 

Open Standards: Microsoft's Worst Enemy

Open Standards range from file formats to freely available APIs.

Consider the internet as a whole, there are 5 popular web browsers: Firefox, IE, Safari, Netscape, and Opera, and certain web pages can look very different in each one. Many sites actually "break" and loose functionality, aesthetics, and ultimately visitors, simply because they do not use the current standards available.

This is a good thing for Microsoft.

Microsoft is the only browser on that list that intentionally do not follow current web standards. Microsoft still has the market share necessary to convince web designers that their standard is better than the World Wide Web Consortium's. If Microsoft adhered to global web standards like most other browsers do, then there would be no reason for websites to work in one browser but not in another.

The same goes for their office suite.

There is a standard file format for office documents, collectively called OpenDocument, which is backed by OASIS Standards. OASIS stands for:

Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards

And if you look in recent history, many organizations, including the W3C, Mozilla, Sun Microsystems, Google, and others have been focusing more on Advancing Structured Information.

Microsoft has been working on Advancing Proprietary Information. Meaning the Microsoft Office documents you create may belong to you, but the format they are saved in belongs to Microsoft. Another way to think of this is You wrote the speech, but Microsoft owns the ink. This may entitle you to all the rights you care about, but what about other individuals who want to read your speech, and you want them to read it, but they don't own the license from Microsoft that allows them to view the ink? That means you need to provide it in a different format, or they don't get to read it.

This is exactly what Microsoft wants. They want to control the way you use, share, and distribute your document.

Your intellectual property should be supported by document types, not controlled by them.

OpenOffice.org, the free Office Suite sponsored by Sun Microsystems will use the OpenDocument standard from OASIS in version 2 of their product. I highly recommend moving to this office suite, as it is not only free, but it will be more compatible with a wider variety of software applications than Microsoft Office ever will be.

If you are in an office environment, consider requesting Sun's StarOffice for the entire office. Massachusetts has moved to OpenDocument format for all of their government agencies, and many countries across the globe have done the same.

Microsoft's proprietary formats were used to lock people in, but are now pushing them away, causing more groups to leave the buggy software package for a cheaper, more flexible, more reliable software package.

Here is a quick list of software manufacturers that are legally entitled to utilize all of the features of Microsoft Office Documents:

• Microsoft

Here is a list of software manufactures that are legally entitled to utilize all of the features of OpenDocument formatted Documents:

• EVERYONE

This includes Microsoft, Google, Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Oracle, and all of your favorite developers. In fact, Billy, the 5 year old down the street, is legally entitled to write software that can take advantage of all OpenDocument features. (whether he can or not depends more on his personal drive and his bed-time than legal matters, which is a good thing!)

So if you intend on never sharing documents, and never getting documents from the entire state of Massachusetts, then by all means, use Microsoft Office. Otherwise, give OpenOffice.org a try. (after version 2.0 gets released, version 2 is the first version to utilize OpenDocument, and should be out in the next month or so)

Already moving the blog!

Well, I cleared away some land, laid a foundation, and we just moved.

What was christiangeek.blogspot.com is now blog.woventhorns.com.

We will soon be redesigning woventhorns.com and will have the blog match the look and feel, so expect things to get cool looking very soon. Also, as a result of posting random thoughts and ideas, we will actually begin to act on them as well. Since Woven Thorns Productions is a side project, I have been unable to devote much energy to it other than coming up with ideas. But now that people know what those ideas are, I might as well do them, because what good is it to talk about everything and not do anything? (This also means I will probably be more selective in which ideas I publish!)

Check back soon for some crazy ideas we have brewing up in the Woven Thorns Labs!

(just a reminder, this page will no longer be updated, so please head over to blog.woventhorns.com for all this Christian Geeky blog goodness.)

Google Maps are everywhere!

I'm playing with google maps a bit right now, and am mainly using it to map out small groups, events, and things like that for my church. Apparently, all you have to do is request a "key" that allows you to access google maps (only for non-commercial use though) then use javascript to call the map, and set up items on the map.

My testing site so far is at http://maps.woventhorns.com and doesn't really have a whole lot on it, but I'll be playing with different features throughout the week when I get the chance to play around.

I'm actually pulling the info from a MySQL database that then spits out the javascript required to create the markers on the map. I also have another script that accesses the GeoCoder site to convert addresses to latitude and longitude (which are required for adding markers to google maps).

What to do with 150 copies of Linux

So here I am at my desk, and I look over and see my nice little display case that shows 10 copies of Ubuntu Linux free for anyone to snag.

This is cool, but I look the other direction and see 140 more copies in a big box taking up far too much room! I think I will head over to the university I work at and try to convince someone in the lunch room to put them on display or something.

The only downside is Ubuntu is going to have an amazing new version in a few weeks. If you haven't tried linux yet, I say wait until the end of October and pick up the latest copy of Ubuntu and give it a try. Ubuntu is basically a user-friendly version of debian, and the new version will have a nice graphical installer with progressbars and all that jazz. (Plus it will shrink your windows partition and set up dual-booting automagically so you don't have to get rid of windows until after you realize how easy and reliable linux is!) 

Let the Blogging Begin!

Well, after fighting against it for quite some time, I've actually started a blog. Let me first introduce myself, I cheesily call myself OneSeventeen. I'll put the meaning of that in another blog, since I don't really have much to blog about just yet.

I am a data analyst, soon to be analyst programmer at a major US university, and I primarily code in PHP. I am highly opinionated when it comes to software (I'm an open source fanatic) and I also help mod the Bit-Tech forums over in the UK.

Wow... that's about it for now.... I'm going to go help my wife with a project for her classroom, then read some chronicles of narnia. I just got picasa, so expect to see tons of pictures in these blogs, especially renderings, logos, and all that junk.