The first was Laura C’s timely reminder (on episode 2 or 3 of this season) that personal computer really took off when people were able to have more than one window open – which implied that Unity, by almost “hiding” the multiple windows, could perhaps be seen as a regression. There is an imporant point there; however, as a PhD researcher, I am finding that actually, by hiding most of the clutter, Unity helps me focus on my work – although that might tell you more about me than about the strengths of the different desktop interfaces.

The second is about the use of free software in Academia. Frankly, besides R for statistical analysis, I’m yet to find anyone openly advocating free software, and I get puzzled looks from other end-users whenever they happen to take a peek at my screen. I have also struggled to get IT support – and they are all nice guys, it’s not personal – to install the stuff I wanted in my workstation: OpenOffice, Zotero, FreeMind, nothing fancy. I took the opportunity to sort of interview the guy who finally did it, and he was very clear: they can’t/won’t help me if something goes wrong; they have Microsoft certification and are more or less prepared to deal with anything Microsoft software throws at them, so won’t risk advocating free software because most people will think it’s just the cheap alternative to Microsoft and will engage in massive bitching as soon as there is any glitch. In other words, the degree of system lock-in goes well below economic considerations of cost.

we don’t want to here boring subject like – “The spies can hack open source software” | “Google bids 900 meeeeeeellion dollars for patents” | Linus isn’t impressed | middleware bore..

You basically stereotyped yourself as a boring University lecture..

i’ll give oggcamp a miss this year.

RIP : Shipit im going to reinstall Win7…