noel alanguilan

there’s has a new search engine that’s being made available for preview. it seems okay but at this point, a search engine is a search engine. click here if you want to try this new thing from google.

dilaw
august 2009

we pay our respects in different ways–a tear shed, a silent prayer, a glance up to the cloudy sky, a lit candle. a yellow ribbon.

salamat at paalam po.

rosario
intramuros, manila

this photo was taken years ago. if i remember correctly, i was using a borrowed pentax slr loaded with a roll of kodak asa 400 black & white film. yes, it was still called asa and not iso during that time.

i still have some of the processed film during that photo shoot. i just might have them scanned. hopefully soon.

linux won’t take over the desktop and windows will still be on top of the operating system heap. well, at least, in the near future–a few years, maybe a decade. don’t get me wrong. i like linux. i’ve been using ubuntu for about 20 months now and linux servers for longer and they do get the job done with minimal fuss. i’m just looking at it from the practical, realist view. from my practical and realist views. and the reality that i see is its surprisingly hard to pry off windows from users’ faces. put a linux desktop in front of them and they’ll take a quick look at it and then lend you an eye and ask, “what’s that?!?” they’re hesitant to try something new because they’re thinking it will just make their jobs harder and and take longer to finish. you can almost visualize the distance between them and 5:00 pm at the bundy clock suddenly zoom out.

old dog. new tricks. you get the idea.

so, i’ve learned to leave the users’ comfort zone reasonably untouched and instead i messed with what they do not see–the servers. and i have been incredibly successful at it. so far i have several linux boxes happily performing file serving duties and about three linux firewalls protecting the networks from the big, bad internet.

some of you might say that this is not really a “win” for linux but i argue that it is. linux is being used in both home and business. it is actually enjoying some serious use. years ago we didn’t have much of a choice. yes, i would agree that the numbers are quite small but taking over the world was not the intent when that chap made this free operating a several years ago. windows will always be there because some rich or well to do john will always buy it. but linux is here now and will continue to chip away at the mindset of users.

and i can guarantee that this free operating system will still be there in the next decade but please don’t go looking for world domination. there is no point.

crossing paths
morayta, manila