October 29, 2006, 18:56
Edgy Eft released last week.. March of the wooden soldiers
Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy Eft" was officially released last week. There's also a quick overview (release notes) with the main new features and screenshots. Most notably is the new init system, Upstart.
The local Hawaiian download mirror is provided by HOSEF.
Personally, I prefer Fedora but I did use Ubuntu for a while and it's definitely the distribution I recommend to people.
Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" will be released in April next year.
October 23, 2006, 20:01
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 to be released tomorrow... IE7 wallow in the mire
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 will be released tomorrow. Do the Mozilla community a favor and download it tomorrow instead of today.
Free Software projects are often served up through one official server which then seeds the release out to local mirror servers. Obviously, if a big release is about to come out, it will be available before the actual launch so that local mirrors can pick up on the release.
It's no big secret so I'm not sure why big media outlets like Slashdot make it out to be. You'd think they'd know better.
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Internet Explorer 7 was recently released. Robert Scoble, a former Microsoft employee doesn't like it.
In my opinion, the only reason a new version of IE is out is because a new version of Windows is coming. So MS feels it can dedicate the resources into bringing out a new browser. Version 6 was released on August 27, 2001, a few weeks before Windows XP.
When will the next version of Windows come out?
October 16, 2006, 23:22
Hawaii shaken by an earthquake yesterday
We had an earthquake yesterday that hit around 7am, Sunday morning.
It went for around 20 seconds or so. I was in sleepy mode and I didn't think it was going to be a big quake so I didn't bother moving out of bed.
Maybe if it shook harder right at the start then I would have done something.
In Australia, I only felt one earthquake. Nothing much happens in Australia. It was only a really small one that lasted like 1 second where I saw the room move left.
Earlier this year in Hawaii, I felt one similar so when the quake yesterday came around, I thought nothing of it. But then it kept going.
15 or so minutes later there was a similar sized aftershock and that took out the power.
Power was out in my area of the island from around 7:30am and only came on late at night at 11:30pm. It was kind of disappointing as the radio reports said they expected all the power on the island to be back on by early evening.
Throughout the power-outage, LavaNet's internet service stayed online as we have backup power and run generator tests once a month.
Our customers in the outer islands (who didn't have power outages) were still able to use their internet service.
When power came back I checked to see if I had internet connectivity at home. Mostly to check the news. Disappointment as the cable light blinked constantly showing a lack of connection from Oceanic's cable service... And they expect us to use their digital phone service in cases of emergencies?
It made me realize that it's pretty important to have a standard phone service in Hawaii. And it helps to have an ISP which is dedicated enough to keep their servers up and running, providing uninterrupted service during a major natural disaster.
October 09, 2006, 21:22
What becomes of the The Departed
A saw The Departed with my wife on Saturday.
They didn't really promote this movie at all even though it was a Scorsese movie with a big cast.
I did see a short trailer for it on the television but just thought it was another gangster movie. But then my wife told me it was THE remake of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. All I knew long ago was that Brad Pitt had bought the rights to the movie but I didn't know it had already been made.
It's a really good movie. Violent, which I like. Lots of blam blam. Blam. Blam Blam Blam.
Having seen the Hong Kong version, I pretty much knew the outcome to the set pieces but there's much more character development. The original is a lot more subtle in the way the 'gangsterisms' and double talk are played out.
There's a part in the original where a criminal 'phones home' to warn his homies which went over my head at the time but made more sense having watched The Departed.
