Recently I got my invite to try out the new Dropbox service. I am a long time Folder Share user and had heard some good things about Dropbox. I have to say, I am very happy with the performance of Dropbox and was even more pleased when I found out there was a Open Source Linux client. Figured I wouldn’t be a good geek if I didn’t do a quick install and see how it performed. Here is a video of that effort.

Dropbox has clients that run on Windows, Mac, and Linux
http://www.getdropbox.com/

I had made mention last week to a couple of friends how I got a few Adobe Air applications up and running on my Ubuntu install. I walked one person through how I did it and decided to also make a quick video tutorial on the process.

A couple disclaimers, first one is that I use my Ubuntu laptop on a daily basis and I have had it up and running for awhile so I am not sure if I installed some supporting packages that make this work. I haven’t tried this on a fresh default install of Ubuntu. Second, I was trying to keep the video somewhat short so I didn’t get into some of the corkyness that I see in the applications, like on Pownce you don’t get the embedded video feeds. Remember, this is Alpha software and it seems like how well the applications are written also factors into how well they are going to run under Linux.

Hope you enjoy the video. Here are the links from the video encase you miss them.

Adobe Labs – http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/
Tweet Deck – http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
Twhirl – http://www.twhirl.org/
Pownce – http://pownce.com/download/

UPDATE: I mentioned in my video how you don’t need to save the .air file but can instead just launch it with the “Open With” in the dialog box. This works fine on my Gutsy box but doesn’t seem to work on my newer 8.04 Hardy box. Even though Hardy recognizes that the file should be launched using the “Adobe Air Application Installer”, I still get the error that “the associated helper application does not exist” when I trying using it. You can however save the file to disk, right click, and select “Open With Adobe Air Application Installer” and it works fine. Not sure why I have this behavior.

Typically you have those applications you like and those applications you love to use but every now and then an application comes around that completely changes the way you work and those become the applications you can’t live without. For me, that application is Quicksilver from Blacktree on my OSX machine. Not sure exactly how to discribe what exactly Quicksilver is, to say its just an “application launcher” would be seriously underminding everything Quicksilver brings to the table.

It took me sometime to get my mind around what Quicksilver was and what it could do. I am probably a yellow belt when it comes to using Quicksilver, I am well beyond using the basic features but still haven’t really scratched the surface of what it can do to really master it. I use a similar application for Linux called Gnome Do and one for my Windows boxes called Launchy but neither of them have the integration and do for me what Quicksilver does. Even the Apple OS X built in Spotlight falls far short in my opinion.

Quicksilver can be a tough application to understand and I personally hadn’t come across a lot of good instructions on how to use it. Been doing the whole trial by fire approach. But fortunately one of my buddies over at Splunk has put together one of the best Quicksilver tutorials I’ve seen to date. Check out Michael Wilde’s Blog entry on “Mac Productivity with Quicksilver”

This is just funny

The Stalled Server Room – The Daily WTF

I think it goes without saying that I am a huge supporter of Open Source but believe it or not I am also a big fan of Bill Gates. You’ve got to respect what he did for the industry and what he does for the world through his charities. The guy is a geek’s version of Michael Jordon. I don’t agree with everything the man does obviously but I think the guy has a great mind and he will be missed in the computer industry when he finally moves on.

Anyways, I enjoy watching Bill Gates talk but I kind of caught something interesting in this last interview I was watching.

Here is a link to the interview:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7462156.stm

At about 1.45 Bill talks about how finding the source code for an operating system took him and Paul Allen to the next level on tinkering. I thought to myself how fortunate we were that he had that oppurtunity to look at and study an operating systems source code. It would have been a real shame if the ability to look at source code was deprived from Bill Gates. I wonder how many great thinkers Linux has or will inspire by offering them a similar opportunity.

Firefox 3 browser, 3 millions plus downloads worldwide. Wonder what its like being the only dude in Eritrea to have downloaded it. That guy (or gal lets be fair) deserves a some Firefox swag.

Interesting article over on ZDNet. I don’t know what surprised me more, “Microsoft apologizes to Open Source Initiative for policy violation” or to hear Microsoft actually has a “open-source and Linux team”.

Microsoft apologizes to Open Source Initiative for policy violation

Interesting, something to think about

Funny comic, I love UserFriendly.org

For you hard core, Assembly Language Programming hommies.

Article from http://www.joeydevilla.com/2008/05/29/geek-gang-signs/