Oh yeah - I've got a blog!

I had forgotten my (hardly used) blog - poor thing!

So - today I am sucking down an Ubuntu 10.10 iso - hoping it takes less than an hour via torrent - then take it to lab for deployment - even though I'm sure they already have this version...

Also tried to get some life out of this bare bonez shuttle I rescued...little mobo light comes on and slight fuzz sound from psu - nada mas....

Not having so much luck with found hardware in recent times - the Toughbook CR-52 found put out with the rubbish with sticker on it saying "Works but no HD or RAM" was evidently a lie. It is dead. Right down to the onboard discreet fuses not being the cause of death....I suspect it either the power supply it was put out with - a 19v when it should be a 15.5v, or someone thought it would be a good idea to test out it's toughness by dipping it into the bath....May never know. Will have to sell for spares I think...

Web browser wars steps up a level!

After the German government advises people not to use M$ Internet Explorer on the back of the recent cyber attacks (via IE) in China, Google is clearly aiming to take a big chunk of the web browser market. I can't recall ever seeing a full size bilboard poster advert campaign (as seen here outside Tesco's in Eastville, Bristol) to promote a web browser before!

They mean business, and it is business - after all, the more of us that use Google Chrome - the more money Google make, and with the browser shaping up nicely with it's ChromeOS netbook operating system following closely behind, and recent entry into the mobile phone market, it is obvious that Google is clearly up for challenging the global domination that M$ has enjoyed for the last couple of decades! And good luck to them.

But can they really be trusted? Already many people shun the temptations of their very competitive products and services due to their 'imaginative' privacy policies, so although they may be champions of the open-source software movement (citation needed!), it can be argued that they are simply using the best tools available to conduct their business and make money - selling our profile data - anonymized or not....