Ubuntu 8.04 LTS was released about 2 months ago now, and i had some time to test it out. As an enthusiast of linux and Ubuntu for several years, i feel i have enough experience to say that this particular version is one of the most user-friendly and solid-working of the linux distros i have experienced to the day.
Built in with most needed programs for every-day use – for exception of proprietary codecs for some audio and video types of files (that can be easily downloaded within minutes from the package manager) – it is a powerful tool for most users right out-of-the-box.
In this latest version Canonical has implemented some great eye-candy material to the base version, on the previous versions the users installed it from Beryl or Compiz. They are now one thing only, named Compiz-Fusion, shipped in the base install, ready to use.
If you think Vista eye candy or Mac stylish windows effects and Dock is cool, take a look at the potencial of Ubuntu eye-candy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxfSwzhSn1c
I have been using 8.04 since the alpha version, but only now i feel like i can talk about it`s quality without doubts. I have tried it in all my machines without a single problem, and they are quite different types of hardware and processing capabilities. I have installed it on an ASUS EEEPC Laptop, on a MacBook Black, and on my desktop, a Core2Duo 2,66 with 4Gb ram and Nvidia 8600 video. They all ran Ubuntu smoothly.
In this version of Ubuntu, Canonical once again releases a LTS system, wich means it has a Long Term Support, three years support for the Desktop edition and five years support for the server edition. In practice, it means that you will have a stable and up-to-date system for this period with constant updates and fixes and at the end of this period another version shall be released with LTS also.
If someone is interested in more info on ubuntu , you can visit their site at www.ubuntu.com and download the latest version, read about it and visit the well documented wikis and forums. I am also getting a tutorial ready on how to install it on the EEEPC, both on an external media and on the internal SSD. If you have any questions or doubts about it, please feel free to ask me.
The 9/11 attacks have recently completed 5 years, and the resounding question is: Where is Osama bin Laden?
As interesting as the first question is the second: Why has U.S. intelligence failed to find him?
Approximately a decade has gone in what can surely be called the most costly and complex in history. And all we can find out about bin Laden’s location are “guesstimates” from U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials.
These suppositions are generally similar: Very few people know his location, and he probably has only a couple bodyguards. He never uses the phone or Internet, and likely lives in a dwelling that has no communications to the outside world.
He moves infrequently, if at all, but he’s in a friendly area, where the locals would almost certainly defend him in a pinch.
Pressed harder, U.S. officials will sometimes reveal a discomforting fact: Other than that, they can’t tell you much more.
For all the millions of dollars spent on spy satellites and phone tapping, for all the agents scouring the globe, and for all the millions offered in rewards, there has been no real-time information on the whereabouts of bin Laden, since he slipped away from Tora Bora in December 2001, reportedly on the back of a donkey.
“Those who are trying to get him have very poor intelligence,” said ABC News consultant Rahimullah Yusufzai. “They are not up to the mark.”
The story of how a rich Saudi king abandoned a life of excess to become one of Islam’s most identifiable figures offers tantalizing clues to his continued ability to elude capture.
From his father – the poor Yemeni immigrant turned multibillionaire builder and then Saudi king – bin Laden drew his entrepreneurial spirit and his ability to network, creating a global terror system that now runs itself. (Can be called a genius by some)
He learned life on the run during his years with the Afghan mujahedeen. It is now a fine-tuned lifestyle; say those who have met him.
According to some reports, he won’t even wear a watch, fearing U.S. authorities could use it to track him.
The latest video release from al Qaeda, shown last Thursday, reinforces the general presumption that the world’s most famous fugitive has carved out a lair for himself in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Or so is what he wants us to think.
In it, you see the al Qaeda leader pick his way down boulder-strewn slopes, smile serenely to the 9/11 plotters, and address his followers inside a simple tent.
The border area is certainly lush with places to hide, and Pakisan’s volatile tribal belt offers the added benefit off being off limits to American troops and intelligence agents. (Or not… what do you think? Even with millions spent? But that’s another story.)
“It has become what we call in the CIA ‘a denied area’”, said said former CIA agent and author Robert Baer.
“And it is impossible to find someone in that area”
For about 10 months, U.S. intelligence maintained a small safe house in the Pakistani town of Chitral, near the edge of the tribal belt, where agents apparently stalked bin Laden with sophisticated listening devices.
In July, however, locals say that the operation closed and that the equipment was removed.
Did they conclude he wasn’t there? Or were they simply looking in the wrong place?
Maybe it just wasn’t at this time such a good campaign for Bush’s image, maybe the American people are more interested in the elections campaign? Who knows?
Some analysts point out that all the high-value al Qaeda arrests have taken place in Pakistani cities and none in the tribal belt: Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Rawalpindi; Abu Zubaydah in Faisalabad; Ramzi bin aç Shib in Karachi; and so on.
“There has been no concrete intelligence, or even simple logical rationale, to suggest that anyone of significance is in the [border] areas,” said terrorism analyst MJ Gohel. “Western surveillance efforts need to be directed towards the Pakistani cities and at the Pakistani terror groups closely allied to al Qaeda.” But searching for terrorists in Pakistan, U.S. and British officials say, is deeply hamstrung. Pakistan’s spy agency, the notorious ISI, insists on taking the lead role.
“It’s like letting the fox guard the chicken coup,” said a frustrated U.S. official. “We will never find Osama until the ISI wants us to.”
For domestic, regional and political reasons, the Pakistani government has no good reason to hand over bin Laden, even if authorities here did know how to find him.
“He is a crazed murderer, but he is a symbol of resistance for Muslims,” Baer said. “And while he remains a symbol, people are not going to want to turn him in.”
Finally, bin Laden seems to be blessed with remarkable luck.
Botched attempts to catch him date back to the Clinton administration — remember the cruise missiles that struck his camp in Khost in 1998 — and each time he has made a remarkable getaway.
For his supporters, each great escape only heightens his David-vs.-Goliath status.
For those stalking him, it only reinforces their confidence that his luck is running out.
“I always come back to is this,” said a senior U.S. official. “Bin Laden has to be right and get lucky every day. We just have to do it once.”
Could it really be just a matter of luck? I really don’t think so. No one can keep running away from everybody and everything for over ten years and keep going on luck. If it was a matter of luck he would not have missed the pentagon on the 9/11. Lucky was the American government to loose “just” a commercial building instead of both the commercial and the intelligence one. Not that it would be of much difference, since the intelligence building not destroyed in the 9/11 was not capable of capturing the so called terrorist.
A brief note: Who is the real terrorist in this story? Can you tell?
STYLES make fights — or so goes the boxing cliché. In 2008, they make presidential campaigns, too.
This is especially true for the two remaining Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Reporters covering the candidates have already resorted to traditional analysis of style — fashion choices, manner of speaking, even the way they laugh. Yet, according to design experts, the candidates have left a clear blueprint of their personal style — perhaps even a window into their souls — through the Web sites they have created to raise money, recruit volunteers and generally meet-and-greet online.
On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.
That is, Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.
“With Obama’s site, all the features and elements are seamlessly integrated, just like the experience of using a program on a Macintosh computer,” said Alice Twemlow, chairwoman of the M.F.A. program in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts (who is a Mac user).
It is designed, she said, even down to the playful logos that illustrate choices like, Volunteer or Register to Vote. She likened those touches to the elaborate, painstaking packaging Apple uses to woo its customers.
The linking of Mr. Obama with Mac and Mrs. Clinton with PCs has already become something of a theme during the primary. Early in the campaign, a popular YouTube parody of Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl ad made Mrs. Clinton the face of oppression. This week on The Huffington Post, Douglas T. Kendall, the founder of the Community Rights Counsel, a public interest law firm, made the connection more explicit.
But the designers believe the comparisons — but not perhaps the Orwellian overtones — are apt. In contrast to barackobama.com, Mrs. Clinton’s site uses a more traditional color scheme of dark blue, has sharper lines dividing content and employs cookie-cutter icons next to its buttons for volunteering, and the like.
“Hillary’s is way more hectic, it’s got all these, what look like parody ads,” said Ms. Twemlow, who is not a citizen and cannot vote in the election.
Jason Santa Maria, creative director of Happy Cog Studios, which designs Web sites, detected a basic breach of netiquette. “Hillary’s text is all caps, like shouting,” he said. There are “many messages vying for attention,” he said, adding, “Candidates are building a brand and it should be consistent.”
But Emily Chang, the cofounder of Ideacodes, a Web designing and consulting firm, detected consistent messages, and summed them up: “His site is more youthful and hers more regal.”
Mr. Obama’s site is almost universally praised. Even Martin Avila, the general manager of the company responsible for the Republican Ron Paul’s Web site, said simply, “Barack’s site is amazing.”
But the compliments are clearly double-edged.
While Apple’s ad campaign maligns the PC by using an annoying man in a plain suit as its personification, it is not clear that aligning with the trendy Mac aesthetic is good politics. The iPod may be a dominant music player, but the Mac is still a niche computer. PC, no doubt, would win the Electoral College by historic proportions (with Mac perhaps carrying Vermont).
While Mr. Santa Maria praised barackobama.com for having “this welcoming quality,” he added that it was “ethereal, vaporous and someone could construe it as nebulous.” He said there was a bit of the “Lifetime channel effect, you know, vasoline on the lens” to create a softer effect on the viewer. The “hectic” site that the Clinton campaign is offering could actually be quite strategic, exactly in step with her branding. After all, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly emphasizes how hard she will work for the average American “starting on Day 1.” If she comes across as energetic online, that may simply be her intention. If she shouts a bit more, typographically speaking, that may be the better to be heard.
Unlike the Republicans, the Democratic contenders have incorporated social-networking tools to their sites — allowing supporters to create their own groups, for example, though Mr. Obama is considered the pacesetter in that regard.
“Obama’s campaign gained attention here in the Bay area tech community early on when he launched the My.BarackObama.com portal that allowed for personal blogging from the public, messaging with other supporters, and a host of other tools,” Ms. Chang wrote in an e-mail message.
On the big Internet issues like copyright, Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor who is supporting Mr. Obama, said there was “not a big difference on paper” between the two Democrats. Both tend to favor the users of the Internet over those who “own the pipes.” He is impressed by Mr. Obama’s proposal to “make all public government data available to everybody to use as they wish.”
In the long run, however, Mr. Lessig believes that it is the ability to motivate the electorate that matters, not simple matters of style. And he’s a Mac user from way back.
