Re: Increasing user base of Ubuntu desktop.

2022-03-21 Thread Michael Loftis 
On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 10:09 Ralf Mardorf  wrote:
>
> 
>
> Please, folks, if you want something idiot prove to use, pay much money
> for Apple hardware and software! If you are willing to read the fine
> and easy to understand manual and you don't need professional grade
> {,nice} software, but you also don not want to become a power user/geek,
> then use a Linux distro such as an Ubuntu flavour.

I use both Apple and PCs.  I use OSX, Linux, and Windows.  Throughout
the day.  I've no allegiance to Apple OSX, Windows/PC, nor Linux/PC.
I'm here to debunk the BS myth of (for at least the last 20 years)
Apple being more expensive.  tl;dr; it isn't, unless your only concern
is cost of entry/hardware cost.  Apple flat out doesn't sell low spec
machines and doesn't try to compete in the bottom of the respective
segments where there's far less profit and a far worse user experience
from the hardware due to it being too anemic to do the tasks asked of
it.

The long rant version:

Apple hardware is only maybe barely more expensive when you compare
the actual specifications. When you add in form factor (ultra thin
compared to ultra thin for example) then the gap is usually completely
closed, and often even in Apple's favor.  Let's look at Dell vs. Apple
laptops.  Compare the Dell Inspiron line to any of Apple's laptops and
it looks like Apple is gouging you when the only thing you look at is
the cost.  Look at the specifications.  There's nothing in the
Inspiron line that can compete with the compute power and battery life
of the Apple Air (even BEFORE the M1).  When Apple was still using x86
the battery life wasn't nearly as much of a factor at the "raw" specs
level, but you still had to step up into the mid-high tier to get the
same CPU in a Dell as you would a Apple Air, MB, or MBP., which
usually ruled out the Inspiron (budget) lineup entirely, and
definitely does today.

Today there’s no Apple equivalent for example to a Dell Inspiron at
$300. You cannot get an apple laptop with only 4Gb of RAM, 128GB NVMe
and a 4 core CPU. Comparing the cheapest Apple laptop at $1000 (the
MacBook Air) you have to step up to XPS or Alienware laptops. Both of
those starting at about $1000 and $950, with the alternate being a
better deal for performance but not truly comparable with the Air nor
the MBP because both of those are far more portable and lighter than
the Alienware laptops.  The Alienware will likely have as good or
better graphics performance as the Air, but, isn't comparable, it's
comparing an ultra-thin to a more "full size" laptop, Integrated vs.
Discrete graphics (though the M1 does close the gap pretty
significantly here)

Against the XPS at $1k the Air spanks the crap out of it except for
weight (2.8lbs for the Air, 2.6 for the XPS)  Better battery life due
to a smaller silicon process node, and a more efficient, far higher
performance CPU and Integrated GPU.  Oh you can get a touch screen in
the XPS (gag) so the XPS has that.  To get into the same performance
category as the Apple Air in Dell's XPS line You're looking at
~$1600+.  Which you end up with probably the XPS 13" (non Touch) "New
XPS 13" i7-1195G7 your minimum RAM is 16Gb and a 512Gb NVMe.   So a
couple upgrades to the base Apple Air M1 to make the RAM and NVMe
match...aaand your Air is $1400.  $200 cheaper.  Oh and that
top-of-the-line-for-the 13" New XPS still underperforms the M1 in the
Air (not by an awful amount, except in all-cores performance, where
the i7 is half).

And sure Ubuntu (or really any Linux desktop distro) would be much
more responsive user experience on such an anemic spec as the cheapest
Inspiron but that’s not what Dell or Apple sell. It’s Windows or OSX.

And THAT is also why Windows has much bigger market penetration. It’s
pre installed on the cheapest of devices, without regard to the user
experience, to capture more market share for the hardware
manufacturers.

Apple doesn’t even try to capture the low end. You’re going to have a
crappy experience with either modern mainstream desktop OS no matter
whose hardware if you’re only going to get 4Gb of RAM and 128Gb of
storage and integrated graphics. (Lowest priced Inspiron) - to get
those kind of low end specs for a PC from Apple you’re looking at iPad
lineups, which isn’t a PC but a well spec’d tablet.

It’s because of this decision to not capture the low end and thus not
sell what is considered tablet specs as a full PC that gives the
impression of higher cost. In reality when they were still x86 and you
could more easily compare I found price difference was usually $100,
sometimes in Wintel/PC favor, sometimes in Apple’s favor for the
better price.

It’s harder to get a direct comparison now, the M1 in the Air actually
outperforms the Intel i5-1135G7 in the $1000 XPS across the board.
It’s also faster than the available XPS 13” upgrade to the i7! (Which
puts its price at $1330)

Apple has no form factor equivalent to the Alienware.  And since going
to M1 chips they no longer

Re: Add a ca root to ca-certificates in WSL environment?

2021-12-14 Thread Michael Loftis 
No special magic for the WSL Ubuntu install.  You just apt-get install
ca-certificates on the WSL Ubuntu environment command line, drop the
pem certificate(s) in file(s) in /etc/ssl/certs, run
update-ca-certificates (as root, use sudo) and you're done.   Just
make sure the pem's are globally readable. The new certificate(s) will
be included in /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt and all system
packages use that as their trusted root certs, pretty sure it'll also
add the hash symlinks too.  That decade (and a bit) old IR is long,
long, long closed.  This will NOT affect any Windows based stuff.

If you need to have it packaged then you'll have to do your own
package, with a post-install hook.  You shouldn't be
replacing/overriding the ca-certificates package.

On Mon, Dec 13, 2021 at 6:36 PM Jeffrey Walton  wrote:
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I'm working on a Windows machine with Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL).
> The machine hosts Ubuntu 20.04. We are having some TLS problems due to
> an interception proxy. I need to add a CA root to the ca-certificates
> package or store.
>
> I checked the Ubuntu wiki and found one article on ca-certificates at
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IncidentReports/2011-09-20-ca-certificates-removes-libnss3.
>
> I'm Ok with dropping the root CA in the filesystem and running
> c_rehash, if needed. I'm happy to use the method if that is
> recommended.
>
> My question is, how would I go about adding a root CA to the machine's
> trusted root store?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
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Re: 64bit Motherboards are a minefield of config problems

2017-08-07 Thread Michael Loftis 
On Sat, Aug 5, 2017 at 6:11 AM, Paul Smith  wrote:
> On Sat, 2017-08-05 at 08:37 +0800, Jesse Steele wrote:
>> Generally, installing Ubuntu on 32 bit machines has been no problem.
>> However, different 64 bit motherboard manufacturers have different
>> native BIOS settings, many of which create problems for installing and
>> booting to Ubuntu.
>
> Maybe you can give some examples of what kinds of problems you mean.
>
> I've been running GNU/Linux distributions of all types exclusively on
> 64bit systems for probably 15 years or more and I've NEVER found a
> motherboard or BIOS that gave me any problems.  Your message sounds like
> many motherboards won't work with Linux and you have to search carefully
> to locate a compatible one.  That's definitely not been my experience.

I'd second that...having installed as 64-bit using Ubuntu, Debian,
RedHat, RHEL, Fedora, FreeBSD, Solaris, Illumos, SmartOS (Illumos
kernels), and more across many different motherboards and
vendors...Gigabyte, ASUS, Dell, SuperMicro, Tyan, and some others I'm
forgetting, I've yet to run into anything that's 64-bit specific.  The
issues are generally around "new" hardware (storage controllers,
ethernet controllers) and associated drivers rather than anything to
do with 64-bit, when there are issues at all.

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Re: Make main directories accessible using English names in the terminal on a Chinese localized UI

2016-05-13 Thread Michael Loftis 
You could also just create a symlink.

On Friday, May 13, 2016, darn urash  wrote:

> Hi,
> There's a problem haunting me for years that If I choose Chinese as UI
> language, the main directories (Documents, Downloads, etc…) are also
> translated. It makes harder for me when I want to 'cd' those directories in
> the terminal, because I have to type them in Chinese.
>
> There's a little trick can fix this, but it makes directories
> untranslated:
> export LANG=en_US
> xdg-user-dirs-gtk-update
> export LANG=zh_CN
>
> Is it possible that Ubuntu could be just like it's in as OS X, that even
> if those directories are translated, you also can access them using their
> English names in the terminal?
> Thanks.
>


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Re: mod-gearman

2015-10-22 Thread Michael Loftis 
You'll have about a million times better luck either on a Nagios list
or if there's one for the development of the module you've got.  The
Ubuntu list is very unlikely to have anyone who can help you and since
your issue is clearly specific to those packages it would be a much
better effort to go ask them instead of here.

On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Cleuson Oliveira
 wrote:
>
> Hello, I installed the German module, but I'm having some difficulties. When
> I insert the line into the nagios.cfg the nagios web insterface stops
> working.
> The following scenario:
>
>
> event_broker_options=-1
> broker_module=/usr/local/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o
> config=/usr/local/etc/mod_gearman/mod_gearman_neb.conf
>
>
>
> --> Where the mod_gearman.o is installed -->
> /usr/local/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o
>
> --> Where are * .conf -->  /usr/local/etc/mod_gearman/mod_gearman_
> mod_gearman_neb.conf mod_gearman_worker.conf
>
>
>  -->status --> grep mod_gearman /usr/local/nagios/var/nagios.log
>
> [1445449221] Error: Could not load module
> '/opt/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o' -> /opt/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o:
> cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
> [1445449221] Error: Failed to load module
> '/opt/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o'.
> [1445449387] Error: Could not load module
> '/usr/local/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o' ->
> /usr/local/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o: undefined symbol:
> check_result_list
> [1445449387] Error: Failed to load module
> '/usr/local/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o'.
> [1445450370] Error: Could not load module
> '/usr/local/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o' ->
> /usr/local/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o: undefined symbol:
> check_result_list
> [1445450370] Error: Failed to load module
> '/usr/local/lib/mod_gearman/mod_gearman.o'.
>
> Does anyone have any idea what that might be?
>
> thanks
>
> --
> Grato
> Cleuson de Oliveira Alves
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/nagios.br/
> http://www.hugoazevedo.eti.br/html/com_sis.html
>
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Re: Green hard disk drives

2015-08-24 Thread Michael Loftis 
Smartd documents -n by itself as no-fork (normal for systemd/upstarted
stuff) but you also need to configure nocheck whichconfusingly is
documented as -n POWERMODE -- man smartd for more on possible
POWERMODE values.I do not know if the manual is inaccurate as I
have NOT checked, just RTFMed.  There's also a configuration option
for how many checks it can miss before waking a drive.

I'm not sure that the default should be to add powermode stuff.  You
might be able to add it even with a dpkg-reconfigure, I've literally
done no further investigation as to the option, setting it etc.

On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 6:30 AM, Ralf Mardorf
ralf.mard...@alice-dsl.net wrote:
 Update:

 1.

 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1484497/comments/6

 2.

 Running ps aux I found  /usr/sbin/smartd -n.

 [weremouse@moonstudio ~]$ man smartd
   [snip] smartd  will  attempt  to enable SMART monitoring on ATA
   devices (equivalent to smartctl -s on) and polls these and SCSI
   devices every 30 minutes (configurable) [snip]

 My Arch Linux doesn't run smartd. I don't remember if it already was
 installed when the issue appeared for the Wily install or if I installed
 it after I noticed the issue. It might not be the original culprit, but
 seemingly is at least one culprit.

 I started a test a few minutes ago.

 Regards,
 Ralf


 Further information:

 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# ps aux | grep smart
 root   879  0.2  0.0  25240  2760 ?Ss   14:55   0:00 
 /usr/sbin/smartd -n
 [snip]


 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# systemctl -l status smartmontools.service
 ● smartd.service - Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/smartd.service; enabled; vendor 
 preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Mon 2015-08-24 14:55:29 CEST; 47s ago
  Docs: man:smartd(8)
man:smartd.conf(5)
  Main PID: 879 (smartd)
CGroup: /system.slice/smartd.service
└─879 /usr/sbin/smartd -n
 [snip]
 Aug 24 14:55:32 moonstudio smartd[879]: Device: /dev/sda [SAT], state written 
 to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.SAMSUNG_HD321KJ-S0MQJ9AQ308387.ata.state
 Aug 24 14:55:32 moonstudio smartd[879]: Device: /dev/sdb [SAT], state written 
 to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.SAMSUNG_HD502HJ-S26EJ9FZ100925.ata.state
 Aug 24 14:55:32 moonstudio smartd[879]: Device: /dev/sdc [SAT], state written 
 to 
 /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.WDC_WD20EZRX_00DC0B0-WD_WMC300753067.ata.state


 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# systemctl -l status smartd.service
 ● smartd.service - Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) Daemon
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/smartd.service; enabled; vendor 
 preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Mon 2015-08-24 14:55:29 CEST; 58s ago
  Docs: man:smartd(8)
man:smartd.conf(5)
  Main PID: 879 (smartd)
CGroup: /system.slice/smartd.service
└─879 /usr/sbin/smartd -n
 [snip]
 Aug 24 14:55:32 moonstudio smartd[879]: Device: /dev/sda [SAT], state written 
 to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.SAMSUNG_HD321KJ-S0MQJ9AQ308387.ata.state
 Aug 24 14:55:32 moonstudio smartd[879]: Device: /dev/sdb [SAT], state written 
 to /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.SAMSUNG_HD502HJ-S26EJ9FZ100925.ata.state
 Aug 24 14:55:32 moonstudio smartd[879]: Device: /dev/sdc [SAT], state written 
 to 
 /var/lib/smartmontools/smartd.WDC_WD20EZRX_00DC0B0-WD_WMC300753067.ata.state


 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# systemctl stop smartmontools.service
 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# systemctl stop smartd.service
 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# systemctl disable smartmontools.service
 Synchronizing state of smartmontools.service with SysV init with 
 /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install...
 Executing /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install disable smartmontools
 insserv: warning: current start runlevel(s) (empty) of script `smartmontools' 
 overrides LSB defaults (2 3 4 5).
 insserv: warning: current stop runlevel(s) (1 2 3 4 5) of script 
 `smartmontools' overrides LSB defaults (1).


 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# systemctl disable smartd.service
 Removed symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/smartd.service.


 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# ps aux | grep smart
 root  1314  0.0  0.0   8208   936 pts/0S+   14:58   0:00 grep 
 --color=auto smart


 The test that is running:

 [root@moonstudio weremouse]# echo;date;t=10800;y=$(smartctl -A /dev/sdc|grep 
 Lo|awk '{print $NF}');sleep $t;x=$(smartctl -A /dev/sdc|grep Lo|awk '{print 
 $NF}');printf \n$(uname -rm)$(lsb_release -d|cut -f2 -d:|cut -f1 
 -d()\n$x-$y=$((x-y)) spins in $(($t/60/60)) hours\n\n;date

 Mon Aug 24 15:00:50 CEST 2015

 To be continued...

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Re: How to file a bug against an unknown package? - Was: Green hard disk drives

2015-08-13 Thread Michael Loftis 
Maybe try a little harder to ID the process causing the wakeup?  Have
you tried looking for blocked processes at the moment you hear the
drive start to spin up?  Look for processes in D state at the time the
drive is spinning up.

On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 6:47 AM, Ralf Mardorf
ralf.mard...@alice-dsl.net wrote:
 Thank you,

 unfortunately it doesn't help.

 On Thu, 13 Aug 2015 14:12:23 +0100, João M. S. Silva wrote:
I'm not sure if I understood your issue correctly, but I also have a
server with a mechanical disk which periodically spins, don't know why.

There are tools like powertop or so, but I guess you already tried
that. I think I also did and it didn't help.

Maybe try Linux (kernel) IRC channel?

 It's not a server, just an install from a server ISO, because this
 was the minimalist install I could find.

 I want that the green drive spins down, I don't want that buggy
 software wakes up the green drive. The drive should stay asleep.

 I'm used to Arch Linux, I don't want an OOTB install with tons of
 unwanted default configs and unwanted packages. Arch and Ubuntu are the
 most used distros for audio productions, so to contribute to Linux
 audio, it would be useful to have an Ubuntu install parallel to my Arch
 install.

 Now the problem is, that I can't find the package that does cause the
 issue. My drive stays asleep when using Arch Linux! IOW there
 already must be some package installed for Ubuntu Wily, that I don't
 want to have installed.

 It's not kernel related, it must be some disk monitoring, that's why
 GVFS never is installed on my systems and that's why for testing
 purpose I removed a few packages, such as udisks2 from the Ubuntu
 install.

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Re: How to install Precise without getting screwed?

2012-04-07 Thread Michael Loftis 


Sent from my Motorola Xoom
On Apr 1, 2012 6:23 AM, Dale Amon a...@vnl.com wrote:

 With the release date for the new LTS coming
 rapidly, I am faced with a quandary. There are
 things in Precise which I need; I do not like
 to be behind the curve for updates and such;
 but I just *cannot* have my desktop mucked about
 with.


Oh it goes well and truely far beyond that. Some pinhead decided to move
/var/run to /run without leaving a symlink or informing and updating
packages.
I had an unfortunate 10.04 LTS system go unbootable until I got onto the
console to fix it so networking could even come up since on that machine it
was depending on dhcp and a handful of other things to check in via the FHS
accepted and everything but ubuntu  /var/run. And this was a normal system.
Whose stupid idea was *that*? The same moron who was pissing and moaning
about moving all binaries into /bin or some other idiocy?

I am so very glad I never bought the Linux desktop coolaide. Though I guess
Windows 8 designed for mobile and tablets is getting pushed to the desktop
too so precise may as well break the long standing /var/run practice of
this is where pid files go without fixing any stock packages.

/rant
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Re: server went unbootable

2012-04-07 Thread Michael Loftis 


Sent from my Motorola Xoom
On Apr 7, 2012 5:44 AM, Dale Amon a...@vnl.com wrote:
 At one point I tried to build a 'special' statically
 linked ssh... an effort that didn't work out... with
 the idea of having it available on some port as an
 emergency backdoor for sysadmins that came up as
 soon as networking was up. The idea was that if things
 went bad and you were 4000 miles away from the data
 centre...

 Just another of those things that I might have done,
 if I lived on a planet with 48 hours days.


Don't use openssh! There are a few smaller, lighter, statically linkable
SSH daemons out there.
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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

2011-11-02 Thread Michael Loftis 
On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Martin Pitt martin.p...@ubuntu.com wrote:
 nick rundy [2011-11-01 15:01 -0400]:
 I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it 
 easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\)

 In fact, Windows makes that really hard, as there is no standard
 location for binaries. Each application ships its executables in its
 own directory.

+1 to this.  Unixen in general are much more consistent.  User level
binaries shipped with the base system go in /bin, system level (eg
root type stuff) /sbin.  Additional packages not part of the base
system belong in the /usr/bin and /usr/sbin locations, any package not
following that needs fixing, not breaking *EVERYTHING* in the world so
that all bins are in the same dir -- since they already are supposed
to be.

Just *TRY* to find all the executable binaries for say MS Office.  Now
how about DLLs?  Yeah, good luck with that.


 Finding an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating  lacks
 organization that makes sense to users.

 I doubt that many users actually care, and those wo do can use
 which. Also. all binaries a user is actually concerned with are in
 /usr/bin (i. e. the ones you'd call to open documents with).

 Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
 http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print

 That would mean that we need to drop the possibility to have /usr on a
 separate partition/network file system, or make the initramfs
 clever/complicated enough to actually wait for /usr to come up.

 Also, the separation of /sbin and /usr/sbin is not just totally
 random; for non-admin users it makes them not appear in tab completion
 etc, which cleans up the command namespace a bit.

Another +1.

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Re: Newcomer interested in taking on project to add colors to apt-get/apt-cache

2010-09-15 Thread Michael Loftis 


--On Wednesday, September 15, 2010 10:00 AM -0400 Daniel da Silva 
ddasi...@umd.edu wrote:

 Hi all,

 I'm a newcomer to the Ubuntu Development community, but long time linux
 user. I am interested in starting a patch to add colored output to the
 apt-get/apt-cache (are there any other apt-*s?)[see bug link in
 footnote]. Gentoo, for example, does this very nicely with their emerge
 tool. I was wondering if anyone could answer some questions:

 1) Should patches for apt be submitted to Ubuntu or Debian?
 2) Are there any *must read* docs you suggest I read before I get started?
 3) How likely do you think it is that this patch would get accepted?

I think you'd have better luck getting those types patches integrated into 
aptitude rather than apt (assuming aptitude doesn't already have this) -- 
apt-* are, IMO, meant for lower level packaging interaction and so don't 
want/need for frills like this.  aptitude is really meant as a completely 
user facing interface to apt-* and friends and is probably far more 
appropriate a place for these sorts of patches. 
http://packages.qa.debian.org/a/aptitude.html is the Debian source 
information for the package.



 Thanks,

 Daniel

 [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/debian/+source/apt/+bug/262227






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Re: Dump Google?

2010-09-12 Thread Michael Loftis 


--On Saturday, September 11, 2010 10:05 PM -0700 Robert Holtzman 
hol...@cox.net wrote:

 On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 05:34:25PM -0600, Michael Loftis wrote:


 --On Saturday, September 11, 2010 3:33 PM -0700 Robert Holtzman
 hol...@cox.net wrote:

  On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 03:21:51PM -0400, Simon Ponder wrote:
  What other engine do you use, if you do not mind me asking?
 
 ..snip..
 
  Icerocket, although it's been getting flaky on me as of late.

 Uhm, news flash.  Icerocket's web search IS GOOGLE.  I think it's blog
 search is also google based, I'd have to dig, but, looks a bit like the
 Google news or groups search.

 I did a little digging. Running a search on icerocket + google turned
 up several sites that contrasted icerocket and google. If there was
 anything linking the two, I missed it. Can you supply a URL for your
 conclusion?


The fact that their web search result pages are nearly identical to 
Google's (minus the upper header actually), and results are identical to 
Google.  Just do some comparison searches.  They find the same numbers of 
pages, rank them the same, and are using the same extracts/excerpts.

I really highly doubt they've enough spidering capacity to replicate 
Google's results so closely.  The fact that their nothing found/error page 
also contains Google's nothing found/error language verbatim points to this 
as well.

As for their blog search, it also looks like the Google Blog Search API 
Data, with some form of additional filtering, exactly what they're doing 
there I'm not sure.

Icerocket is very clearly someone whose written a UI for Google searches, 
there's nothing there to suggest otherwise.  In web searches especially 
they're *identical*.  The likelihood of two independent search databases of 
the web producing the EXACTLY same results for the first 15 for every 
single search I tested (I tried 6 of them, 'dog pile', 'google 
philanthropy', 'rock hunting', 'terranova space suit', 'feel good music', 
'hockey pucks for sale' -- just random keyword strings really except for 
the google philanthropy one).  And at a glance it also appears everything 
past the top 15 was identical too.  Empirically, Icerocket web search is 
just google search API.  If anyone here is self serving it's Icerocket.

Try matching ANY other search engine against Google, (or against any 
other!) You're not going to get the same results.  Even if they use the 
same algorithms, differing databases will produce different results.  The 
only way to replicate the breadth and depth of Google's results is to have 
the many many many TB of search index capability that Google has.

I'd be really surprised if their blog search isn't Google, the data that's 
there is what is represented in the API's.  That one I haven't been able to 
figure out what they're doing to get those results, so they're offering 
something of value there.  It certainly produces better results than 
blogsearch.google.com -- but maybe that's not the data stream that 
icerocket is using either.

The simple fact that they're blatantly lifting Google web search though 
makes it pretty likely their blog search is based off Google data.  The 
twitter search looks to me to be a wrapper around Twitter's own Search API 
as well, but I didn't spend any time looking into that.

Their 'advanced search' syntax, is also identical to Google's (that's not 
saying much honestly, but it's one additional little thing) -- though 
they're filtering out at least some of the specialty search prefixes like 
links.





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Re: Dump Google?

2010-09-11 Thread Michael Loftis 


--On Saturday, September 11, 2010 3:51 PM -0700 Robert Holtzman 
hol...@cox.net wrote:

 On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 04:17:06PM -0600, Michael Loftis wrote:


 --On Saturday, September 11, 2010 12:06 PM -0700 Robert Holtzman
 hol...@cox.net wrote:

   ..snip..

 
  Google's archiving all searches isn't the only reason to dump it. If
  you are willing to use a search engine that censors web sites at
  China's whim go right ahead. Google puts their profit ahead of their
  stated support of the free flow of information. Only the lazy or those
  who are uninformed or lack principals use Googleand yes, I do use
  another search engine.

 Wow you really don't pay any attention to reality do you?

 Google did it's best NOT to bend to China.  But in order to maintain any
 official presence at all in China they had to make available a
 Chinese  censorship approved version of Google search.  They did their
 best to  legally maintain the full search view for China.

 Up until the time the PRC threatened not to renew their license. Then
 they dropped their pants and bent over.

Actually, no they didn't.  They said screw it, and left.  The remaining .cn 
is all in .com.hk, which has different laws.


 So now there's the
 limited Chinese censored site, but a simple click will get you the
 unfiltered version still in most cases.

 That came as a surprise to me. I remember reading that the PRC made them
 eliminate the HK link.

They can't make them do much of anything to the .com.hk hosted 
infrastructure.  To the best of my knowledge they've basically left China 
over the PRC's censorship requirements.  They tried to make the PRC happy 
for a while, but when it became too onerous to do that, they said screw it 
and left.  Quite the opposite of whatever impression you've gotten.  They 
were, and still are, one of the loudest voices for freedom of 
(search/speech).


 In the cases that it doesn't there
 are well documented work arounds using proxies.

 Quit criminalizing/blaming/whatever Google for the *CHINESE GOVERNMENTS*
 shortcomings and requirements.

 I didn't criminalize them but my statement stands. They are just as
 unprincipled as any other avaricious corporation, their self serving
 protestations not withstanding.

If they are so completely self serving then why have there been something 
like 700 published research papers from Google (Yahoo! Research also has a 
similar number) -- why has Google sponsored the summer of code for the last 
six years?  Why has google open sourced so many different technologies? 
Some of Google's papers and research are what helped to start the latest 
evolution in computing (they call it the cloud).

IBM has a LOT more publishing, but they've had decades more to work at it, 
and are a larger organization.  Universities have a lot more as well.  But 
amongst the bigger corporations, in so far as technology research and 
publishing (that is making findings publicly available), and helping MANY 
other open source projects along, Google is pretty generous.

Yes Google uses some of the information as part of recruiting (they're VERY 
clear about that) -- but the code is public domain, it could do that just 
as well without funding any of these projects.

Go take a look at the Google Summer of Code (SoC) information.  Ubuntu has 
benefitted from atleast this years SoC.  I'm not sure about prior years. 
For SoC 2010 Google awards $5500 per approved student/coder.  $500 goes to 
the sponsoring organization, and $5000 goes to the student.  For 2010 they 
funded about 1000 Student Developers.  That's $5M USD (up to, payment 
disbursement depends on a passing evaluation - done by the mentoring 
organization) -- The mentoring organizations basically submit a ranked list 
of possible projects/candidates.  Google awards N% of the total possible 
awards to each org based on the number of applicants (more applicants more 
projects and students get funded).  They did $5M last year too.  So Google 
gave *YOU* $5M in software development, because ALL of the code is open 
source.  Google doesn't even really decide who gets the money, they just 
put a framework in place for well known (open source) community 
organizations to say we want to have some deserving Open Source projects 
receive some time and funding, and here's our list

Like it or not, Google does a lot of non self serving (or atleast not 
entirely self serving) good out there.

Even if Google is self serving and unprincipled, they're certainly the 
amongst least so of any of their peers (Bing anyone?)

Also, I think that Google likely makes the VAST majority of its money from 
Adwords and Adwords related services, not from the data it collects (and 
uses in aggregate) for search.

I tried finding similar examples of philanthropy for Yahoo! and actually 
came up blank (using both Google and Yahoo! search honestly)

Microsoft has a pretty well known history of philanthropy, mostly directly 
from Bill Gate's Bill

Re: Dump Google?

2010-09-11 Thread Michael Loftis 


--On Saturday, September 11, 2010 3:33 PM -0700 Robert Holtzman 
hol...@cox.net wrote:

 On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 03:21:51PM -0400, Simon Ponder wrote:
 What other engine do you use, if you do not mind me asking?

..snip..

 Icerocket, although it's been getting flaky on me as of late.

Uhm, news flash.  Icerocket's web search IS GOOGLE.  I think it's blog 
search is also google based, I'd have to dig, but, looks a bit like the 
Google news or groups search.

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Re: Dump Google?

2010-09-11 Thread Michael Loftis 


--On Friday, September 10, 2010 7:58 PM -0700 Jordan jordanh...@gmail.com 
wrote:

 Dear Ubuntu Developers,

 I'm not sure if I'm the first person to suggest this, but lately
 Google's reputation has diminished, especially with talk of them being
 Big Brother (yes, I know what server my email's on).  Why not drop
 Google and go for a more private search engine?

 I know of a few underdogs such as Startpage and Yauba (I know of one
 more whose name I forgot...they have plans for an email system).
 Probably they would be happy to form an alliance with Ubuntu.

 I'm thinking large-picture here.  Ubuntu's main attraction is it's
 security and privacy (not requiring users to register, for instance).
 With the technology news on Google and large search engines, I think we
 should jump on the band wagon to avoid Google. What do you say?


I don't know that Ubuntu (or any particular Linux distro) main attraction 
is either of those.  But it certainly is choice.  Ubuntu could provide more 
choice out of the box.  Whatever choice Ubuntu makes it would also have to 
be endorsed by it's users.  The results would have to be good and timely, 
just picking a different search engine to jump on the band wagon is 
probably a bad idea.  The new engine, whatever chosen, would have to be 
fairly robust as well since Ubuntu represents a non-trivial share of users, 
and, Ubuntu users I'm sure also expect things to work well.  In fact I'd 
say choice, and working well, as well as having the latest updates are the 
three highest expectations of Ubuntu users as a whole.  Security and 
privacy also figure in the top five reasons as well I'm sure, and different 
users will have different priorities.

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