Avenue C & Eagle Drive » tech

Video of the first moon landing.

Zach — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:30:24 +0000

If BoingBoing posted it, I guess I oughta. Here’s the iconic footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Here’s to honoring those that made it happen, and to being ashamed of the fact that we haven’t done better by now.

My First Week With Jolicloud

Zach — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:04:16 +0000

Early last week a received an invite to download the alpha version of the new netbook OS from Netvibes founder Tariq Krim. It’s called Jolicloud, and I’ve been pretty pleased so far with how it’s running on my Acer Aspire One with a paltry 512MB of RAM.

First off, you should know that Jolicloud approaches applications differently than you’d probably think. Jolicloud focuses more on cloud applications. They integrate cloud apps into the OS using applications that simply open up the website in Mozilla’s new Prism software. Prism is basically a web browser without any navigation buttons or any other features except for displaying the website. For example, the Jolicloud Applications page has an application for Pandora radio. When installed, it puts a Pandora icon on your desktop. When you click on the icon, it simply opens the Pandora website full-screen for your enjoyment.

The reason why the Prism feature is so important to netbooks is because it uses less resources than full-fledged Firefox. With 512MB of RAM, my Aspire One appreciates that very much.

Even though Jolicloud has a very heavy emphasis on the cloud, it’s really just Ubuntu with some cosmetic changes. The Jolicloud desktop looks exactly like the one on Ubuntu netbook remix, except completely black. Also, from what I’ve seen, it’s not completely stripped down and devoid of utility, like the copy of Linpus Linux that was included on my Aspire One. So, you can pretty much install any Linux program you like without plunging into the murky depths of dependency hell.

All in all, Jolicloud is an impressive take on the netbook OS, and it’s not even out of alpha. The cloud focus is a great addition, it looks great, boots fast, and is pretty peppy on my laptop. I can’t wait to see what the beta will have in store.

CompuServe: 1979-2009

Zach — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:18:33 +0000

A sad week for Michael Jackson fans and computer uber-nerds alike. AOL finally pulled the plug on Compuserve last week. Check out the snippet from Basex Blog below and follow the link to see some interesting comments from former users:

The original CompuServe service, first offered in 1979, was shut down this past week by its current owner, AOL. The service, which provided its users with addresses such as 73402,3633 and was the first major online service, had seen the number of users dwindle in recent years. At its height, the service boasted about having over half a million users simultaneously on line. Many innovations we now take for granted, from online travel (Eaasy Sabre), online shopping, online stock quotations, and global weather forecasts, just to name a few, were standard fare on CompuServe in the 1980s.

via CompuServe Requiem » Basex Blog ».