Wired’s Vaporware 2006

Every year…well, for at least a few years, Wired does a top 10 list (who doesn’t!) of vaporware for the year. Here’s the 2006 list:

10. Optimus-103 Keyboard

9. Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl

8. The “IPod Killer”

7. Gran Turismo 4 Mobile

6. Airbus A380

5. SED Televisions

4. Spore

3. Skype for Symbian

2. TiVoToGo for Mac

1. Duke Nukem Forever

iTunes for Linux

Fellow Geeks,

I’m in the process of switching to a new machine at work. Gone will be my dilapidated Dell desktop system with its paltry 1G of RAM and 30G HD. Also gone will be my dual Hitachi 20″ tubes that take up half the desk space in my cube. It will be replaced by an HP Intel Core 2 Duo system, 2G RAM, 160G SATA HD, and dual Samsung 20″ flat panel LCDs (1600×1050).

The old machine is running Windows XP and I use iTunes to listen to music throughout my work day. The MP3 files are on an external HD connected via FireWire and I use the Party Shuffle feature which is fed by a smart playlist to help everything get listened to fairly evenly.

The new machine is running Ubuntu 6.10. I can hook the HD to the new system just fine and see all the files, but what I’m hoping to find is a good MP3 player. In a perfect world, Apple would make iTunes for Linux. Unfortunately, they don’t.

Any suggestions?

Yes, I’m aware that Crossover Office supports iTunes (really only up to v4, v7 is known not to work according to the CodeWeavers site). I may end up going this route, assuming XO actually does iTunes 7 and the Web site is wrong, but I’m hoping to find an equally capable application that runs in native mode.

Sr. UI Developer Needed

Hello Geeks… Please read the following message from buddy Ryan and if you are interested or know anyone that is interested please send him an email at: rpayne@ibsys.com


You could have a lot more if you “Got Geek Friends.”   You know the types – life of the party, strikingly good looking and fascinating conversationalists.

We have been searching high and low to find top quality Sr. UI Developers for the past several months and have been coming up short. These are people who are exceptionally strong in the realms of technologies like AJAX, FLASH, JSON, XSLT, XML as well as are thinking about new display methods and page/client/object integration.

Didn’t understand a word I just said?  Then YOU need to hang with the cool tech cats more. 

It’s simple – refer someone that fits the above description, we hire them and they stick around 3 months – I’ll give you $2K.

Good luck,
Dave Abbott, CTO
internet.broadcasting, inc.
1333 Northland Drive, Mendota Heights, MN 55120
(651) 365-4109
dave@ibsys.com

Ubuntu Help Needed

OK, here is the deal. Ever since I upgraded to the latest version of Ubuntu (6.10) my wireless networking has been funky. Sometimes it just stops working for no reason. Sometimes removing the wifi card and sticking it back in solves it. Sometimes a restart solves it. Sometimes it takes several times of doing the aformentioend actions to solve it.  Another symptiom of the issue is that I no longer get a drop down menu of available wireless networks in the Networking preferences like I did before the upgrade. It is getting pretty annoying.

That being said, I downloaded a fresh copy of the lastest version of Ubuntu thinking that there must be some way to reinstall just the base system and not touch my user settings, preferences, themes etc. (ala Mac OS X). This does not appear to be the case from what I can see.

Therefore, can anyone offer suggestions as to where I should look for possible solutions to this issue. I just use my Ubuntu Thinkpad for web stuff so going through all of these motions is a little tiresome and, if a solution proves hard, I may just wipe it all and go through settting it all up again. Suggestions would be welcome though.

wireless routers- link ’em up

My sister-in-law is looking for a quality wireless router for her home. She uses a standard Dell desktop and brings her work laptop home in the evenings. Can’t get the Dell to connect to the VPN for whatever reason. Has a standard A-DSL hookup via Cwest.

What models do you recommend and which of you, for a free Chipotle burrito (or two), would be willing to help her set it up?

Geek Gathering Followup (w/Links)

We had another good geek gathering last night. Only four of us there but good times were had and a few of us even managed to get a little work done.

That being said, in order to track some of the cool stuff that came up in conversation, we started a del.icio.us account. Take a look at it here.

This account is not just for geek gathers but can also be used by the group to link cool things to share between gathers. If you would like to get the password to post links, please shoot me an e-mail and I will send it to you.

Commercial HVAC Suggestions

My employer is looking into some new HVAC for our server room. Our original vendor is a really small outfit and can’t really meet our needs, so I’m looking for suggestions.

We’re talking raised floor type server room. Current configuration is an 8-ton rooftop w/ a 3-ton floor-standing Liebert as a secondary. We’re hoping to replace the floor-standing unit with a similar unit, preferably mounted above the ceiling grid (assuming the structure can support it).

Looking fo several suggestions both with eye toward quality of work and reasonable price.