Intelligent mobile phone

As I wrote in my other blog (My shared thoughts), I am currently in the hospital. And here is no wireless internet connection. So I started to explore features of my intelligent mobile phone (Sony Ericsson P990i). I had no problem to connect to internet, so I can browse the web (I am writing this using my mobile phone). It is amazing.
I think that I could not use my mobile phone as pocket computer for serious work, but it is very good as reserve "computer".

Software I.

The main scope of my work is support of IS of one financial company. Of course I don't do it only by myself, I am a member and leader of small team, which is looking after company's IS and its users. Also we are developing small IS add-ons for better comfort of its users. We need to coordinate our activities and track their progress - as every team, I think. So I began looking for software which would support these tasks. (Of course open source software - see my blog)
First selected software was TUTOS, it is The Ultimate Team Organization Software by the words of author. And he is not lying. We have implemented this system, but we realised after short period of time that it is very software development oriented and its customization for our needs would not be simple. Complexity of the system and incompletion of module Requirements (although it is one of the few commercial modules) put us off of using it. I started to search again. But now I restricted searching to the issue tracking system.
At that time I acquainted myself with programming language Python and tools developed using it, so I focused on that area. I found out 3 interesting applications - Issue Tracker Product, zTracker and Trac. All applications are built in Python, first 2 use Zope application server, the last one is standalone web application. There are also others (e.g. Roundup), but I can't search and try indefinitely, it is not the scope of my work.
BTW: what attracted me the most on issue tracking systems built in Python were their lucidity and simplicity in comparison with PHP systems. Very interesting.
In the end I selected the Trac, mostly for very good integration of Wiki subsystem, other features are very similar in all preselected applications. Currently we are implementing this application.

Operating systems - using Linux IV.

I own an older notebook HP (Celeron 650MHz, 384MB, HDD 10GB) with preinstalled Windows 98, later I installed Windows XP on it. The computer was very fast with Windows 98, I cound work with it at time of the Windows XP configuration - office use and a little bit of development. But. Time went and new versions of ofice and development tools came and notebook was slower and slower. So what to do with such a device? I have purchased new notebook for my work, mainly application development, and planned to use the old one for testing. I tossed aside a thought about new versions of Microsoft's OSs or development tools immediately. So I grabbed Linux, also because I like open source software.
I began with Gentoo, but unsuccessfully, see my blog. Then I used Ubuntu Linux and installed it instantly. It is very usable system, also my wife can work with it without my assistence. So the usability of Ubuntu is the same as of MS Windows, because she previously worked only with Windows systems and she is mere user of personal computers and no PC professional. Probably she don't know how to install Linux, but it is the same as Windows installation. It is my job at home. And on the other hand I can't make beefsteak as good as she. (Note for feminists: maintenance of home PC is the part of housekeeping as cooking or laundering - from my point of view.)

Short thought about Linux vs. Windows battle

Almost every day I read about the battle between Linux and Windows.
Linux aims to address desktop users, Windows tries hard to settle as the only one and true server platform. Linux depends on community, Windows uses Microsoft's commercial and financial power. The main reason for current Microsoft's successes is that all its effort is centralised and uses the newest psychological knowledge for their commerce.

Operating systems - Linux III.

I have read an interesting blog article "Five crucial things the Linux community doesn’t understand about the average computer user" (Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on May 21st, 2007 @ 10:31 am).
I must agree with Adrian. And I want to add another reason - Linux community is community of enthusiasts, they are not mere users of computers. And average computer user wants to use computer as other equipment like car or coffee machine and no more.

Compliment of the Season

Merry Christmas
&
Happy New Year

I am a thief

I realized that I am a thief. :-(
Out Ministry of Culture have innovated its edict, that govern the additional charge for data storage media like CDs, DVDs, hard disks and similar. The reason is that everyone who buys it could store on them illegal copies of music or films and other works protected by Copyright Act. So they increased this charge so much that in some cases it is almost 10 % of the price.
I have to say that it is an example of very good lobbying of the organizations that take care of copyright fees.
But I am very sad, because I am a thief - when I buy a CD or DVD or even hard disk for data from my work.