Goin' Commando

Test From Windows Live Writer

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:05:00 +0000

I'm just really curious whether this little piece of software added on to Vista will really do the trick.

Let's find out!

Thank you for reading.

WHAT "GOIN' COMMANDO" IS ALL ABOUT

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:33:00 +0000

This is the story of how I've grown to resent my dependence on Microsoft, Apple, and a handful of other companies who dominate the overall personal computing scene, including the Internet. What irks me most is the whole question of licensing and paying for products, namely because there's a promise of support and reliability. Instead, we find numerous problems and very poor technical support for the money we pay. In the end, I believe these companies are playing on the average user's lack of confidence and the myth that sticking with "standard" operating systems and software is safer and more advantageous.

So what does "Goin' Commando" mean? Isn't that something about not wearing underwear from the TV show Friends? Well, sort of. Of course, a commando is an operative that works outside of the standard framework of a military organization. This blog has nothing to do with commandos or special forces in any way. It's also not about whether I've chosen to wear undergarments. For me, "Goin' Commando" is about working outside of the established structures set up by the companies listed above. In short, we don't need Microsoft in order to run our computers. We don't need Adobe to make pretty images or PDF files. We don't need Macs to have user-friendly interfaces that make us feel all warm and fuzzy about our computing experiences. And we don't need Apple to give us nifty MP3 players and software to manage our music, video, and podcasts.

Furthermore, there are so many Web 2.0 applications for creating and consuming blogs, podcasts, wikis, discussion forums, Web pages, Web sites, video sites, social networking, social bookmarking, email, news, RSS feeds, and a whole bunch more. There's no need for expensive operating systems and office packages in addition to the other specialized software to do these things. In fact, the major companies don't really deal with much of the above, though I'm sure they're currently angling to get a piece of that pie. Didn't somebody just buy FaceBook? That's what I'm talking about.

There are plenty of alternatives out there for everything from operating systems to document creation to entertainment. This is what "Goin' Commando" is all about. It's about ridding myself of the illusion of the safety net created by the big computing companies. It's about venturing into the world of open-source software and Web 2.0 applications. It's about connecting to the user communities that produce and use all of these products. And it's about giving back to the larger computing community, even if it's allowing others to learn from my mistakes.

Now, on with the blog ...

PART 7: GOIN' COMMANDO

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:19:00 +0000

If you've read the my "story" up to now, you really need to get a life. However, I don't think my situation's unique. I think there are lots of people out there who've been beat into submission, not wanting to do the PC or Mac thing, but not seeing any viable alternative. It's sort of like politics. You hate the Republican candidate, you hate the Democrat candidate, but who the heck else are you going to vote for? It's all the same, so you either vote for experience or for looks. Either way, the complaining will start as soon as the guy (or gal) takes office. It's the same with Microsoft and Apple, and I don't want their "support." I don't want their products. I don't want to do business with them anymore.

Most experienced computer users have tinkered with Linux at least once. I had done it almost a decade ago, and then again last year. Things have obviously improved and become more user-friendly, so I decided to "Go Commando." This doesn't just mean using Linux. To me, "Goin' Commando" means getting away from all the big companies that are trying to rule the computing world. I understand what they're doing, and I don't blame them for it. I just hate dealing with it. A long time ago, the Internet was about freedom from commercialization and the free exchange of ideas. The U.S. military (apparently, with some help from Al Gore) created the Internet, but users made it into what it had become by the early 90's. We wrote and we read each others' stuff. We posted messages on UseNet newsgroups and listservs. We uploaded files onto FTP sites and we downloaded each others' stuff. We used free software that was GNU-licensed: Emacs, Pine, Pico, RN, TRN, FTP, Telnet, and hundreds of other applications. We figured out how to make things work, and if we couldn't, we knew how to "man application-x" in command-line Unix to look up an answer. If that didn't work, we went looking for someone who knew more than we did.

And back in those days, files and applications lived on the network, not on our PCs and Macs. We didn't need floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, or USB flash drives. We created our files online; we saved our files online; we kept them out there; and we didn't have to pay for it. I want those days back, and I think it's possible to do it. That's what "Goin' Commando" is all about.

So, I've gone with Linux. I don't want hassles right now, so I chose Freespire. I remembered from last year that Freespire installed quickly and ran properly. Ubuntu and all the XYZ-untus out there caused me varying problems once I installed them, so I decided against them for right now. Later on, who knows? Red Hat, Ubuntu, or whatever fits the situation will be fine with me. I'm not loyal, nor should have to be locked into any single operating system. I find this idea liberating.

Even with Linux, I want to keep my dependence on software to a minimum. Of course, a Web browser is necessary, and I like the Mozilla thing because it's open-source and it's free. I like Firefox, at least for now. SeaMonkey's cool too, and I hope it gets some market share. I hate to see any one of these companies or projects get too big. However, OpenOffice and anything else that lives on my computer is not appealing to me. I know they do many things that Microsoft Office or Apple iWork do, but this is just more of the same, as far as I'm concerned. I want to make and keep my files online, just like the good old days. I played with GoogleDocs for a while, and this is a fine set of applications. However, Zoho's suite of products seems much more in line with what I'm looking for.

Zoho is totally online. There's nothing much to install and keep on my system, except the plugin that allows me to edit documents offline. That's OK in my book. I can start a document at home, and I can finish it at work. I can email to my friends, or they can collaborate on it with me. That's the way I want it. That's what "Goin' Commando" is all about.

Finally, everything should be free. It's not about the money, by the way. I can afford it all. It's about the freedom. It's about the collaboration. It's about the community that I want to feel part of, just like the good old days. It excites me. It inspires me. It makes me want to get out there, join in, take part, and contribute. That's what "Goin' Commando" is all about.

I'm not a programmer. I'm not a techie. I'm an experienced user who wants to learn more. I appreciate all you folks out there that make this possible. You are the un-sung heroes of our era. I'm not smart enough to be one of you, but I can be a supporter. I can promote your work. I can give feedback. I can tell others about what you do. I can teach them how to use your products. That's what "Goin' Commando" is all about.

There are dozens of free, Web-based applications out there that allow me to do so many different things online. I don't need to buy, download, or install them onto my machine. The applications live on the network, and that's the way it should be. That's what "Goin' Commando" is all about.

This is Web 2.0. Online applications that are easy to use and easy to share. They connect us to one another. They put us in touch is so much more information than we'd be able to find, buy, or figure out on our own. Wikipedia is incredible. Blogging is incredible. Social networking sites like Facebook are awesome. Social bookmarking with Digg and Furl is fantastic. Folksonomies are unbelievable. Zoho is out of this world. Skype is absolutely fabulous. RSS feeds are phenomenal. Podcasting is empowering. YouTube is informative and entertaining. All these applications and so many others are what "Goin' Commando" is all about.

PART 6: THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL'S BACK

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:51:00 +0000

For several months, I was happy with working on the Mac without any reliance on Windows. I went as far as buying iWork '08, Apple's whimper of an answer to Microsoft Office. Nonetheless, what I found was quite satisfactory, and I enjoyed the totally unique interface in iWork compared to Office. I produced some good documents, presentations, and even a few Web pages for an organization of teachers I work with. I enjoyed it, and the products were much nicer than anything I could do in Office.

I was secretly keeping up, however, a side relationship with an older laptop that had Windows XP. I never like the laptop itself, as the keyboard and touch pad don't seem to be ergonomic for my hands. Last year, I had done a system restore on the laptop, but Windows XP wouldn't re-install. I had a license, but I needed to borrow the operating system install disks from someone else since the OEM disks wouldn't re-install Windows on the machine. I thought I'd be able to provide my own license information, but the installer wouldn't accept it on the borrowed disks. So, even though it was technically illegal, I used the other person's license, knowing that I was ethically right since I possessed the license for the same version of Windows (XP SP2) that came with my laptop. It accepted the other code, and installation continued.

After the first auto-update, however, I received a message informing me I was the "victim of pirated software," and that the vendor who sold me that version of Windows may have done so illegally. I could click a link to resolve the problem, but the only "solution" offered was to buy a new license for Windows XP, which I didn't want to do. I closed the browser window and continued using the system. However, when I restarted the machine a few days later, I got the same "victim of pirated software" message, but this time there was a delay of 10 seconds or so before I could continue booting up and work on the machine. The next time, same thing, but with a longer delay. Finally, about a week later, the machine just did nothing. Blank screen. No restart. Nothing.

Determined to get things right, I started the entire process all over again, with my OEM system restore CDs, which turned out the same way. I used the borrowed CDs again, entered the other person's license information, and re-installed Windows. With the first auto-update, I got the same "victim" message, so I followed the link and, eventually, succumbed to buying a new license with my Visa card online. A while later, Microsoft emailed me a valid code, and sent me original disks via DHL with a letter thanking me for reporting the pirated software.

As luck would have it, a few months later, the screen on my laptop got cracked, and I had to take it in to repair it. However, the screen was not identical to the one that came with the laptop and, for some reason, I needed to re-install the monitor drivers for it to work properly. This eventually ended up with me backing up the few files that I had on the machine and, you guessed it, re-installing Windows XP using my license that I paid for twice. Sure enough, after the first auto-update, I got the same "victim of piracy" message, and I clicked the link, and I was taken back to the same page to buy a new license.

This was last week. That was it. I'd had it. Really. Who needs this crap? I know there are abuses out there and people pirating software left and right. I respect Microsoft's right to protect its assets. I also respect Apple's same rights. I don't want to rip anybody off, but I don't like to be ripped off. I don't want to dig through Web sites searching for the place to type in a message to explain all this to some help desk guy (or gal). I don't want to explain it over the phone. It's not worth it, in my opinion, and it's become a co-dependent relationship in which I need these companies to provide me with software, but they don't trust me, and I don't trust them.

PART 5: WINDOWS XP TO THE PRESENT

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:19:00 +0000

Funny how catching up on all this history reads a little like a resume. It's also been a little nostalgic so far, and it's not all been bad. I've skipped over Windows 98, including "SE," which was one of Microsoft's best products - ever. Windows ME was hardly noteworthy, and on the business side, Windows NT and 2000 were largely catch-ups to Windows 98 SE in terms of user functionality. However, NT's file system became the backbone for Windows XP, which ruled the first half of the first decade of the new millennium.

I do want to mention here, however, that during the second half of the 90s, the Web became extremely boring. With the exception of Web-based mail, hardly anything else was going on. There were tons of boring Web pages, and it was a period when every single business and organization was establishing a Web presence without much consideration for anything other than getting a unique URL and reproducing paper-based information in an online format. Personally, I was so disgusted with the Web, in spite of all my previous enthusiasm for the Internet and the early Web, that I was ready to swear the whole thing off. It was downright boring. Also, the gross commercialization of the online world was quite a difference from the earlier days when advertising and business were not only absent, they were prohibited.

Back in the desktop world, Windows XP (including "SP2") ended up being a fairly stable and reliable system, though, as usual, it took Microsoft a few years to get it all together. That's the price of being so big, I suppose. There will always be too many user and equipment variables to account for, globally. Apple suddenly sprang back onto the scene with the introduction of the iPod and a sudden spurt in popularity of iMacs and MacBooks. The new Mac OS was competitive with Windows XP (not that Mac's user interface was ever inferior to anything from Microsoft), and it appeared that Apple had finally revived from its sad demise during the 90s. I have to applaud the die-hard Mac users who never abandoned hope. I'm a fair-weather friend of Mac, for sure, and in 2006, I liked Mac again, especially after the adoption of Intel processors.

I went out and bough myself an iMac in 2006, and I particularly enjoyed the fact that I could run Boot Camp or Parallels to make a virtual Windows machine for "emergencies" when I'd have to do Windows for work or something else. I was happy for a while, and my kids clamored for Macs too, so I bought them MacBooks for school. My whole family, except my engineer wife, had gone Mac. The wife remained loyal to Windows XP. One thing was immediately clear was that Macs are expensive, which everybody knows. Their software licensing is pretty strict, and it was nearly impossible to share applications between machines due to "registering" software with Apple. I can accept that, and it's certainly fair.

Somewhere in early 2007, I decided to add a Linux virtual machine using Parallels. In fact, I ended up installing several distributions: Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Freespire, Red Hat, and Damn Small Linux all paraded through my system over the course of a couple of months. However, I couldn't get any of them to use my Internet connection (I tried, but not real hard), so I scrapped them all eventually. I didn't want to do Linux for Linux sake, but I did like what I saw compared to a very brief flirtation with Red Hat back in the late 90s, which didn't work out real well on my laptop.

So it was Mac OS and Windows running off the same machine for a while, but soon my hard disk filled up and I eventually pared it down to Mac alone. Who needed Microsoft anyway?

PART 4: HoTMaiL - THE FIRST WEB-BASED APPLICATION?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:40:00 +0000

Windows 95 was becoming an established norm. This signaled the death of DOS, and the advent of the point-and-click interface, once and for all in the personal computing world. Of course, there had been a few Mac users before this time, and early adopters in the PC world had been using Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups, but the "IBM compatible" world was still pretty dull until then. All of this contributed to a further dumbing down of Internet (now the Web), bringing personal computing and Web browsing in line. It was around the time that Windows 95 came out (which was really 1996, right?) that I decided to hang up the Mac and go over to the dark side. I bought a Windows computer, a nice Toshiba Satellite Pro with Windows 95. I still have that machine in the bottom of a box somewhere. It was a real workhorse, and I wouldn't touch another Mac again for 10 years.

One of the things I liked about this period was that Hotmail (meaning HTML, or Web-based, mail) hit the scene. It was and continues to be an HTML-based email system that allows you to do all your emailing, formatting, saving, folder creation, etc. directly from a Web interface. This is a pre-cursor of "Goin' Commando." Once again, you could connect to an online account and do and save your work on that site without having to download and save your work on disk. This was just like the good old days of five years earlier, when it seemed like the future of computing would entail applications being available online, and the need for saving work or downloading files onto disks wouldn't be necessary. However, the office and personal computing worlds were really going in two opposite directions at the same time.

Disks were getting to be a hassle, having to be carried around all the time, and stacking up all over your desks at work and home. Personally, by the time I got my Hotmail account, circa 1997, I also had hundreds of flopppy disks containing Mac and PC applications, in addition to all the files I'd accumulated over the years. The notion that work could be done online and kept there was appealing again. Computers with CD-ROMs drives, however, were hitting the market, and soon, CD-RW was on the horizon, locking us into disks for years to come. Until this day I have hundreds of CDs and DVDs, though I've only hung onto about a dozen floppy disks with files that I never transferred to CD. Some day, I'll do that.

Around the same time that Microsoft's Hotmail was gaining popularity, several other companies such as Lycos, GeoCities, and Angelfire were offering Web-based Web development applications. Essentially, they'd give you a place to make your own Web pages with your own URL. These were nice, but they were limited to creating Web pages only, and there was no real potential for creating other kinds of documents. Microsoft did have another set of applications linked to Hotmail that were part of MSN groups, and I recall trying to use their online equivalent of Word, which was an application that edited and saved RTF documents, but for some reason it wasn't that memorable. I say that because I've forgotten the name, though I know I tried to make it work. I remember mapping this online folder as a network drive, which basically FTP-ed the documents back and forth for file management.

Things stayed this way, more or less, for several years. It seemed like Microsoft (was there anybody else even competing?) was going in the direction of PC-based applications with capabilities to save to online folders, but this was mostly "publishing" documents to the Web. You still needed to have local access to your files, either on your desktop PC's hard drive, or on some portable storage device such as a CD, Zip, Jazz, or DVD or USB drive in more recent years.

PART 3: THE WEB

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:37:00 +0000

The real beginning of the end was the discovery I made one day while surfing the Internet. I was going through some "Gopher" sites, downloading pictures or software or games or something, when I saw this link to download "Mosaic." This was around 1994, maybe 1993. Anyway, I read the description of what the program was, but I couldn't understand what it was supposed to do. It sounded interesting, however, and it looked like it was coming from somewhere I recognized, maybe NCSA, who also had the Telnet software I liked to use on the Mac to log into some FreeNet accounts I had set up in a few places outside of the university. Anyway, I downloaded and "unstuffed" the Mosaic program, and I ran it. What was this? Color pictures embedded into documents right on the Internet? World Wide Web? Color fonts with other formatting? HTML? Hmmmm ... I posted a few messages on some university UseNet newsgroups to see if anyone had an idea of what this was. Nobody had heard of Mosaic, except for one guy who basically explained that it was some European thing created by CERN, but it hadn't caught on in the U.S. yet. Give it time, he said.

Well, it wasn't long before everybody was abuzz about Mosaic and the World Wide Web. I checked out HTML and soon discovered that it was very similar to the markup language I had used for LaTeX, but had given up for the ease of AppleWorks and Microsoft Word. I mocked up a few Web pages and got the hang of most of it pretty quick. Soon, I was making little Web pages with lists of links and such. It was alright, and it looked like fun. My favorite FTP sites were quickly becoming Web pages and it was easier to browse through them without doing all the command-line Unix that I'd become so accustomed to over the previous few years.

But the Web was, for the most part, dull. Yes, there were a few pretty pages with some good graphics, etc., but there was sort of a dumbing down of the computing interface. Pointing and clicking were becoming the norm, and I was personally becoming bored with the online world, apart from doing my email and tinkering with making my own Web pages. Without my own Web server, however, I was pretty much restricted to saving files on my own computers and using them to organize my own links to the outside world.

At the same time, people's CompuServe and America Online accounts (two systems I NEVER used) were going Web-based also, and the whole Internet experience was shifting away from command-line Unix to point-and-click client-server interfaces. This was logical enough, and it worked well for people. There were two facets to computing: Web browsing and client-server email, FTP, and a handful of other programs (like FrontPage for making Web sites), and personal computing, which involved making documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and databases. There even evolved the ability to sort of make it all work off your desktop, like with Outlook, and there was an "Office-ication" of the Web. It all looked and worked the same way, roughly. And this was the trend for about 10 years, roughly between 1995 and 2005.

PART 2: THE INTERNET

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:35:00 +0000

It was also 1991, when a lovely young electrical engineering student introduced me to the computer lab she worked in. There were these sleek, monstrous computers with huge color monitors and strange looking CPUs that had no floppy drives. The interface was also different, with dozens of windows all over the screen and little "widgets" like a pair of eyeballs that followed the cursor wherever it went on the screen. There were color pictures--actual photographs, not just illustrations. The screens did these funky things when nobody was using the computers. It was all strange and crazy to me. These were Sun Microsystems "SPARC" workstations, and the operating system was Unix--running X-Windows. All of this was new to me, but the most shocking thing was that this young lady was able to "chat" with other students in other buildings in real time, connect to computers in other universities -- even in other countries! And she could send and receive "e-mail" with other folks. This, of course, was the Internet.

I made two decisions right then and there. First, I just had to get an Internet account, so I applied to continue my graduate studies and get my Ph.D., and the email address that came with it. I did that in 1991. Second, I had to marry this girl so that she could show me some more of this magic. I eventually did that too, in 1993.

Stepping into the Internet zone was an adventure a day, not unlike my "Goin' Commando" today. One of the coolest things I discovered how to do was to use text editors like Emacs, Pico, Pine, and a few others. We could use these to write emails, of course, but also to write documents. And by using a kind of mark-up language, I could use another nifty application called LaTeX to do word processing and print off clean looking documents. The absolute greatest part of this was that I didn't need any disks since all I had to do was save my files in my account. Wherever I could get access to the Internet of campus, I could get into my account, open my files, and continue working. Lovely stuff.

Then we got Internet access from home, and we could dial into our campus server and access everything from a computer at home. So, we got a "dumb terminal," which was basically a keyboard and a monitor that had a modem port in the back. We'd dial in, and get a reasonable connection at a reasonable speed, but it was all text-based without any of the nifty Sun workstation features, but highly functional nonetheless. Email, FTP, Telnet to other networks, Talk, Finger, Whois, and dozens of other features worked fine, and work was great except for the lack of print capabilities from the dumb terminal.

Soon, we decided to get a "real" computer that would also have games, printing, and "real" word-processing capabilities, so we went out and bought a used Mac. In many ways, this was the beginning of a long slide downhill. First, there was the proprietary software, printer drivers, and all kinds of necessary support to make things work. We had to install new fonts, and when we bought a new printer soon afterwards, we had to upgrade the operating system, which meant we had to fork out more money and spend lots and lots of time to get things back into shape. OK, fair enough. Upgrading is something we all go through every couple of years or so, and it's become a relatively straightforward process. Back then, it was a bit more of a challenge because things were not so well organized as they are today. I also had less of a clue. So I bought a new Mac with everything ready to go.

PART 1: THE EARLY YEARS

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Clouse) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:33:00 +0000

I'm no computer scientist, but I consider myself a pretty seasoned user. This post is to give, as briefly as possible, a little background to my eventual computing meltdown. It'll be a short trip down Memory Lane for some of you, I'm sure.

I started using a PC back in 1987, during my senior year of college. It was a pretty lame setup, but it worked. I went out and got three 5 1/2 inch floppy disks. One was for the DOS operating system and another held Professional Write, both of which a friend at the library copied for me. I also had a "Files" disk onto which I saved ... you guessed, my word-processing files. Those disks lasted me years, and I never filled up that Files disk with all the work I did on that thing. Oh yeah, each disk held something like 720-1200 kilobytes. As Jim Morrison said: "In those days, things were simpler and more confused." I had no idea what I was doing; I just knew how to do what I had to do. I could boot up a machine, remove the DOS disk, insert the Professional Write disk in Drive A: and the Files disk in Drive B:, and off I ran. I had very few problems, but then again, I did very little.

A couple of years later, I walked into a computer lab on campus during grad school, and I saw this dinky little computer with a tiny screen and a small floppy drive. It was a Mac, though I had never heard of one. I needed to write a paper, and I managed to eek it out using AppleWorks or something like that. Things looked funny and felt funny, especially the mouse, but it got the job done. Not many people used that lab, and I liked the fact that I didn't have to wait in line, so I went out and got some new disks, and I was ready to do my work on PC or Mac. In fact, for some bizarre reason that I can't explain now, I bought a Sharp laptop computer with two 3 1/4 inch floppy disks and no hard drive back in 1991. I'm not sure why I did it, but it might have had something to do with a teaching job I'd just gotten at a local community college, and I needed to write worksheets, quizzes, and exams from home. The laptop came with PFS FirstChoice, which was like an office suite containing my favorite word processing program, Professional Write. Life was pretty good.