The Four Horseman of the Internet

It’s my experience that there are 4 categories of people/organizations on the Net:

1. Creators of Content
2. Indexers of Content
3. Referrers to Content/Indexes
4. Consumers

Which of these are you? You should be at least #4, and if you’re participating in a recognizable manner, you’re any or all of #1-3.

Update on the Linux Job Market

Some great studies just came out that show the growth and strength of the Linux Jobs Market. Dice’s site has shown constant year-over-year growth, with almost 30% growth since January alone.

More on scoring the sweet gig.

Is Microsoft Wicked?

So we are at the relatives the other day, and we (all the kids and I, or as my wife would say, “all the kids”) play a bunch of rounds of a game called Apples to Apples.

The game’s premise is that you are dealt 7 red cards which are persons, places or things, and then someone who is the dealer (judge) will pick a green card that has a concept on it that you have to present the best solution to.  For example, if the judge picks a green card that has the term “emotional” on it, there will be 3 or 4 alternative descriptions for emotional, such as “moody”, “tempermental” etc.

When the green card is put down, everyone else picks the best card from their hand that will persuade the judge to pick them, and if picked as the best match to the green card, they get the card, and it takes 8 of them to win the game.

So, with all that setup, I was playing with the kids and having a great time, ages 6-19, very fun and informative game, when the judge plops the green card on the table and it has the word “wicked” on it.  “Wicked” is defined as “evil”, “corrupt” and “despicable”.  I’m looking through my cards for just the right one to convince the 17 year old judge that I have the best one and I have some doozies in my hand, “President Bush”, “Count Dracula” and some others of lesser note, but I knew I had the very best one; “Microsoft”.

Now, when you play such a game with all those differing levels of awareness, education, relative innocence and just plain savvy, you never know if the judge’s age and lack of knowledge will work FOR or AGAINST you.

So I put my Microsoft card out on the table facedown, and  figure that with the judge’s age and evident lack of awareness of all things computing, I won’t get the green card.

To my utter surprise, even with opponents like “Saddam Hussein” and “First Day of School”, they all agreed with the judge that my card was the one to win.  When I asked them all collectively about why that was, they related to me that everyone knew that Microsoft Windows had viruses and crashed all the time.

Love it, we’re ready to intro SLED at this point.  Maybe we’ll go dual-boot next visit out there…

RossB

Use Two Monitors with One Computer?

I do. A LOT. I have to say, Linux guy that I am, I prefer how OS X plays with the various monitor layouts I have tried, but there is a great program that I use to make it all seamless anyway, called Synergy.  More about using multiple monitors can be found in this article.

40 Coolest Free Apps

Over at Soepher.com there is a great list of 40 free apps, some of which you’ll have heard of, but there are some real gems in this list, check it out.

With Apologies to the Wizard of Oz

“Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead”

Microsoft’s so-called “Get the Facts” site trumpeted long and hard how well Windows compared with Linux for TCO, at times making almost fantastic claims about how inexpensive Windows was compared to a totally free product like Linux.

In what could be a sign of a kinder-gentler relationship with Linux, Microsoft recently took this decrepit site out back and drove a stake through it’s heart.

The site has been replaced by a Windows Server Comparison site, much less controversial and flame-worthy.

R.I.P., or as my co-worker commented: “R.I.H.”

RossB

Managing and keeping tabs of network traffic on Linux

Rudd-O’s got a great article about the above, complete with strangely large font choices, but good info.

Flickr Photosets are up

One of the more popular things I’ve done in classes and presentations is to sprinkle in Linux-related wallpaper and graphics, so I’ve put a few photosets on Flickr for everyone to grab what they want.

Note:  If you have a copyright to one of the images, be a good soul and let me know, so I can remove it.

RossB

Honey, I’m Home

This is it, the new home for the Monkeyboy Empire.  I’ll be putting up all my fun stuff, loads of pics, funny videos and the blog will be kicking soon, obsoleting all the other sites.

Stay tuned.

How to Burn DVD’s in Linux

Great tutorial on exactly that.