I used to use Lightning for my google calendar in versions before .7…

When .7 came out, it caused Thunderbird to rocket memory usage above 80% which brought my computer to a screeching halt.  I figured I’d not use it until next version (and submitted a bug report as well).

Today I downloaded .8 in hopes it would work better.  It doesn’t.  Memory usage still skyrockets when attempting use the google calendar (provider addon) and the remember mismatched domains add on with it (otherwise you’re unable to connect or get a popup every time you view).

Is it one of these plugins causing it?  Is it Lightning?  I’m leaning toward the latter…even when uninstalling the extensions, I still get memory usage skyrocketing.  Either way, syncing your google calendar with Lightning isn’t a very smooth thing to do if it causes your Linux desktop to screech to a halt.

I guess there is always evolution with built in google calendar support.  Anyone else getting these problems?

At work, we use Zimbra for emailing.  I use Thunderbird with IMAP as my desktop client.  I’ve also seen that as of Zimbra 5.0 RC2, they will have the ability to sync with Lightning.  Good news!  Now if Lightning would stop leaking!

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Thunderbird and Lightning .8 originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on April 7, 2008.

Back then, it was all about trying new Linux desktops and finding things that worked for my wife and I. Today, it’s still all about the Linux Desktop. YALB hasn’t changed its focus and has made some weak minded enemies along the way, but still is managing just fine.

Today, I’d like to take the time to reflect a little bit and post some links of my favorite posts, as well as share some statistical information about YALB.

The New Distro is Microsoft

These companies are now paying Microsoft. Sure, Microsoft is paying them as well…but the kicker is this: These companies are paying Microsoft for Linux.

Oh, but ask the CEO who made the deal if they think Linux infringes patents and they’ll say “No way! We don’t think Linux violates any patents…we’re just paying in case Microsoft tries to sue us”. Well, let’s put this into perspective shall we?

If I was a store owner in Anycity, USA and paid the mob to not rob my store blind…you know, not because they were robbing it…but just in case. Does that mean that I’m not part of the money that the mob uses to do their dirty deeds? Does that make the cash I’m sending back to them clean? Should my conscience be clear?

Now, I’m not saying Microsoft is the mob…I’m just using that as an example. But they do have a good racket going on here. They get many highly publicized deals where Linux appears to be ‘giving in’ to Microsoft. Microsoft looks to be reasonable with these deals as well saying “hey, we won’t sue you…see, we’re the good guys”. The bottom line is though that Microsoft has no claims on Linux at all…if they did, they would have revealed it already. The reason they don’t reveal anything is because they don’t have anything to reveal. It’s all talk and no walk.

What about the Community?

These companies forgot one thing…the power is with the consumer. The power is in the community. Ubuntu realizes that…they’ve embraced the community and look what’s happened! The community holds the power to make or break…the power of spoken word cannot be underestimated. These companies have either forgotten that or don’t care. My guess is that they don’t care…they worry about making money and not about the tread marks they’re leaving up the back of the community. The community isn’t part of their formula even though it should be the common denominator.

The open source business model hasn’t been around for very long and many are still learning about it. The one no-no that these companies have completely ignored is that they have alienated their own PR system; their own word of mouth. In the end, they didn’t look at what it could cost them to do this deal or they didn’t care. One thing is certain by looking at many examples in the last 20 years…the community doesn’t forget.

MS Now Makes Money from Linux

Microsoft has carved a niche way for itself to make money off of Linux. Are you one of those that are paying Microsoft to use Linux? Are you helping them establish an umbrella Linux distribution made up of all the Linux distros signing up to be a part of their ‘protection’? If so, congratulations on buying your new Microsoft Linux. Have fun over there with Novell, Xandros, LG, and whoever else believes the vaporous and non existing threats from a callow company trying to keep itself meaningful. For myself, my family, my friends, and my distribution…we shall never pay any company that brokers this patent protection deal with Microsoft…you can take that to the bank.

UPDATE 06-14-2007

Looks like I was right! Linspire has also signed a patent racket er…protection agreement with Microsoft. Up next, the other two big hitters in Linux…Mandriva and Ubuntu. 1 down, three to go Microsoft.

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YALB – A Look Back after Three Years originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on May 20, 2007.

I recently moved and during the move found a couple of old hard drives. Dusting off and installing one brought back some memories…it contained an install of SimplyMEPIS 2003.10, which was my second install of that particular OS. This got me thinking…I wondered what benefits MEPIS garnered from my old, defunct enthusiast site mepislinux.org? At the time and shortly thereafter, no benefits were clearly visible. In fact, with my somewhat loud depart from the MEPIS community, there were many claims that both my site and I did nothing for the distro.

With Google Trends, statistics are at my fingertips. Using this site, I’m able to look back in time and see if my old 12 page review did any good at all to help MEPIS along…I was very surprised to see that I was part of the highest surge MEPIS has made to date according to Google Trends.

First I needed to identify what I should search for. The term “simplymepis” comes to mind since it is the flagship offering aka coin phrase for MEPIS. However, this search didn’t yield as much data as one for MEPIS…although I did note that comparing the two trends shows that they mirror each other quite a bit. I finally settled on choosing the trend word “MEPIS”. Let’s take a look at the broad view for MEPIS, we can see four distinct surges (drops followed by immediate, quick recoveries). All of these surges happen in the last part of 2004 and the first part of 2005:
The largest surge is evident in 2004. Let’s take a look at this surge by narrowing our data to 2004 only (pictured below).

As you can see, the larest surge in 2004 happened in October. Indeed, the largest surge for MEPIS ever happened during this time. Coincidentally, my 12 page review of SimplyMEPIS came out on September 29th, 2004 and was picked up by various news websites the week following. I remember that this was the deciding moment for me to switch to a hosted platform…that review brought my apache box (running slackware) to a snails pace for about 3 days (although some quick tweaks and an apache restart helped things quite a bit).

Next up we see a rapid decline in searches for MEPIS after Oct-Nov 2004. It was during this time that I closed my site with a large, public send off. Reasons being the stifling of free speech in the MEPIS community when a forum member critiqued a business direction that MEPIS chose to go (My nick was TKS). The original announcement has been deleted from MEPIS.org but google cache still contains the announcement and the original front page comments from mepis.org (once again, I am TKS). The important part of this thread was the fact that I was defending someone’s right to comment, not the comments themselves. A day later, 6 November 2004, I closed my site forever. This means that the review had been in place one month, one week and had received 400k plus unique views. Not bad at all for a review. How did the trend look? Let’s see. Well, not a huge drop but a decline nonetheless.

So what does it all mean? Perhaps nothing. But it’s fun to ponder if my review which had over 400k unique views before the site closed actually helped propel MEPIS into the top 10…then again, it could just be coincidence right? Either way, as the webmaster of 2 PCLinuxOS support sites, a project leader for 2 projects in the PCLinuxOS community and a very active member of the PCLinuxOS community…I have to wonder where I’d have been had free speech never been stifled. I can imagine that I’d have remained very active, supportive, and perhaps a loud and unwavering voice for MEPIS. As for now, the trend has turned downward despite riding Ubuntu’s coat tails and life goes on. But it was fun to think about things past with my old friend MEPIS. I’m just glad I have only a positive trend in my horizon.

Devnet

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Statistics and Trends of an Old Friend originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on June 26, 2006.