Starting this weekend !!!

Yes !!! Starting this weekend I will begin to post my adventures and misadventures with Ubuntu. It will be a way to expel my frustration and my excitement about the open source world... strongly related with Ubuntu and Gnome (because I like it more than KDE, sorry guys; I don't want to start a war about this, from my point of view Gnome is simpler and more beautiful). This Blog will also be my "step by step" preparation for the new release of Ubuntu and my way on detecting missing point in both the open source solution and the proposed solutions to some common problems. Because sometimes the solution that we use is bad, mainly because we are not aware of other (and probably better) solutions.

Potentially, I will be probably posting on some unrelated topics.

I have been using Ubuntu for almost five years now, and I'm pretty familiar with it, however, in the last two or three years I started to be real serious about using Ubuntu. My new year's resolution was to stop using any Apple or MS systems... unfortunately I have been able to keep my promise, at least twice I had to leave Ubuntu and work in a non-open platform.

My first time was really lame, yes, I have to confess that I use an Apple system to install a game on my Ipod (I will make a point about the Ipod later). It is lame but I could find any way to download the game except using itunes, which I could make it connect to the "itunes store" using wine + Ubuntu (although some people says it is possible).

The second time was when I really need to call my family on the other side of the word and I have to use skype for it. I had use skype previously on Ubuntu and it use to work properly, after the appearance of pulseaudio, everything turn to be not-so-smooth. Few days ago, during an emergency I didn't have time to configure skype properly to run it on Ubuntu, so I talked with my family over MS+skype. Now, that I have a bit of time I will try to configure it properly... we will see...

Anyways, the main point here is that I have all my data in my laptop running Ubuntu. I can't afford a failure in my system. I can't afford to install an unstable version of anything and although I do know how to deal with computers, I don't enjoy anymore to spend 10 hours configuring an application. I could and do spend time tuning some applications, but I want to have the "minimal functionality" ready fast to use right after installation. I guess that I can summarize all this just by saying I'm not a geek anymore.



Regarding Ipod's and suggested devices.

Before, you start, I know.... proprietary hardware and software and I pretend to write about open source !! It is a contradiction, yes, but, what were the options when I got it (3 years ago more or less)???. Please, give me a 60Gb portable device that is able to organize and reproduce all my music, notes, contacts, video and games, that fits in my shirt pocket.... well at that moment (about 2005) there was not other option, and still today it is hard to find a portable device that can hold all my music (more than 300 CD's). I have to recognize, however, that having more than 10000 songs in the Ipod makes the "rolling scroll" extremely inefficient. I don't know if there are new firwares that improve the usability of the ipod, because I haven't study whether or not it is possible to upate the firmware of my Ipod from Ubuntu, without risking my music library (please feel free of suggesting applications that can do that!).

Last summer I decided to start exercising, I wanted a portable music player so I can listen to "something" (music/podcasts) while running. Therefore I need a device that:

• reproduces several audio formats (mp4, mp3, ogg). Why? Because several podcasts are in mp3 and mp4.

• has recording capabilities. Why? Because most of the time when I'm running I have good ideas for my research work and I don't have anything to write them down, however if I had a recording device I could totally record these ideas and later transfer the audio file to my laptop (that's a totally different story).

• Small, light and durable.

The selected device was a SAMSUNG YP-U3, really nice device, but once again it uses the MPT protocol... not very open source. However, when I looked at the options there were no other options...

In Addition, Ubuntu.org did not suggest any portable device. And I want to make a point here, if there are some hardware companies that make devices that are 100% compatible with open source, why is not easier to have a suggestion from Ubuntu (and other linux distribution) to use their products. Look, MS will strongly suggest you to buy a Zune (voice recording?). Apple will tell you that the best option is an Ipod shuffle or a nano (although no voice recording). But, Ubuntu tells you... "Please, go to the hardware compatibility list", but I want to have a "suggested device", and later perhaps I'll visit the compatibility list to explore further options...

Anyways, this post is much longer than I was expecting. In the future I will try to make shorter posts and please fell free to disagree with my ideas...