Waiting for MEPIS, AntiX 13, and PiSi 1.0!

It seems that a new testing release of Mepis is pretty close.  The community is eagerly waiting for it.

Also, I'm waiting for antiX 13.  The beta release pleased me a lot. If you want to try it out, please remember that it is not a finished product (although it ran flawlessly on my laptop).

Of course, I cannot forget PiSi LinuX 1.0.  This little cat seems capable of great accomplishments!

So Long, Pardus-Anka! Welcome, PiSi LinuX!

Yesterday, Mechatotoro gave me a very surprising news:  Pardus-Anka, the fork of the Turkish distro named Pardus, is gone.

That news was shocking!  How come the Phoenix Pardus ("anka" means "phoenix") died?  And so soon?

Well, actually, what happened (as explained in Spanish here) was that Anka community decided to drop the name "Pardus" altogether to follow a totally independent path.  Since they kept PiSi, the packaging system that made Pardus unique, they adopted PiSi as their distro's new name (and identity).  in other words, Pardus-anka died to give birth to PiSi LinuX!

Now, "pisi" means "kitten"...thus, the logo of this renamed distro will be (I think) the logo of the very packaging system: the little cat.

I celebrate this change.  With Pardus-Anka, I felt a bit of confusion and perceived a lack of consistency, visually speaking, among its name, its logo, and its identity (the packaging system).  For the old Pardus, everything made sense: "Pardus" means "leopard/panther", its logo was a leopard, and its packaging system, PiSi, was a little cat.  For Anka, things were not quite as consistent: its logo was a phoenix, its name meant "phoenix panther", but its packaging system (and the marker of its true identity) was a little cat????

Now, the change to PiSi Linux solves everything: The name, the logo, the packaging system, and the distro's very identity work as one.  This may be trivial to some, but it actually speaks volumes in terms of forging a distro's identity from its very start.

I'll be waiting for PiSi LinuX then!

Browsers, Operating Systems, and Pwn2Own

This is bad news.

Apparently, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox fell prey at the famous hacking contest Pwn2Own .


The worst part is that they were beaten on the very first day of the contest.

No, that is not the worst part.

Actually, the worst part is this:

Bekrar’s IE10 hack bypassed all of the protections built into Windows 8 and IE and allowed code to be executed without crashing the browser.

So, it is not even 6 months after the launching of Windows 8 with its powerful "secure boot" and it was hacked on the first day?  Let's remember: "secure boot" was so necessary that it was mandatory for Windows 8 to run.

And what about Linux?  It is not present in this contest since 2008.  The reason given in 2011? "Because it is not a widespread system."  I guess the fact that it wasn't hacked in 2008 had nothing to do with that. 

Now...there are some points to ponder about Windows 8.

1.  If it took hackers one day to bypass all of Windows 8's security features, was it true then that "secure" (let's call it "restricted" until it actually becomes secure) boot was so secure as they told us? It had been hacked previously, too.

2.  What's going to happen now?  Will Microsoft actually patch Windows 8 or they will simply keep that information secret? 

Good-bye Passwords! Hello Disaster!

According to this article, Paypal will soon adopt a new technology that will enable people to use, instead of those lousy, lowly, easy-to-hack passwords, that person's fingerprint.

Is this something to be cheered or looked forward with joy?

I mean, right now cyber criminals can give you lots of headaches if they get one of your passwords.  Can you imagine what they can do if they get your very fingerprints? You'll use them also as passwords, don't forget.

During my Windows days, I got my Paypal account hacked and used for a small transaction.  When I discovered it, I contacted Paypal and they, very professionally, after having investigated the issue, corrected the situation.  But I was required to change my password, obviously.

What are they going to do in similar cases now?  Will they ask people to change their fingerprints?   :P

I don't have any problems with my passwords.  Linux takes care of them very well.  Why would I like to give my fingerprints to strangers all over the world?

This takes the idea of "no privacy over the Web" to a brand new level!

It seems that laziness and ignorance, combined with technology, are causing some parts of our brains to go dormant.  We have smart phones, smart watches, soon smart glasses...but no smart minds. When will they invent an app to wake up our brains? 

Some Thoughts on Learning, Freedom, and Operating Systems

Yesterday, after reading a novel, I decided to update my Pardus 2013 test system.  Well, it was more like an upgrade because I had Pardus 2012 Rc1 installed.  There were about 1GB of updates waiting to be done, so I started killing time while the updates got downloaded and installed.

First, I played some simple games.  Digger and Connectagram kept me active for the first 30 minutes.  While thinking to get my words right in Connectagram, I realized that I was doing something I had never dared to do during my Windows times.

You see, when Windows was downloading updates or patches, using the OS was out of the question.  Actually, that happened to my French teacher two days ago: she wanted to use the lab's PC, but was greeted by the unfortunate "Windows is installing updates" message.  It was 25 updates in total...and, according to the message, she should not stop the process nor turn off the computer until full completion.  She had to go to Plan B until Windows decided it was time for her to use the computer.  Unbelievable!!!

I must say I felt so free!  See, unlike my professor, who was running--or, better said, intended to run--a fully finished, commercial product, I was running a test system.  However, this Pardus (which is almost officially dead) is so stable that I don't mind using it as a production system.  While my OS carried on with its updates, I could go on with my normal tasks.  It is great to have an OS that does not restrain you!

When I finished playing, I dedicated some minutes to see the progress of the updates.  Again, I realized something.  I realized I have learned a great deal since my Windows days.  Now I understand a bit more about the different processes and components of my OS.  Of course, I am still far from being an expert, but I was glad to understand some of what was going on.

That made me think about Windows 8.  Now, fans of the newest Redmond's OS are using the same idea Linux users knew for years.  Windows 8 fans, when talking about Metro interface (I refuse to call that "Modern" because it is NOT!), say: "Windows 8 is good if you are willing to learn something new.

Oh, boy!  After so many years of telling people "why should you learn anything new with Linux? Better keep using Windows," these people are talking like Linux users at last! That's funny!

What's not funny is the unwillingness of many users to learn something new. Windows strategies over the years created a monster that now is giving their creators horrible headaches: most Windows users don't want to learn about their OS, and that's a fact. MS developers should have thought about that when trying to implement Metro so hastily.  That will also be true for Windows Blue and its rapid release ideology (another element from Linux that Windows fans loved to criticize!)

Microsoft, remember: Your users don't want to learn and hate change.  That's how you made them.  Forcing them into your new models might not be a good idea...

And to Windows users out there, good luck because a bumpy ride comes ahead!

I am glad I learned to be free!

An Amazing View of London!

A fellow Mepis user showed the community the link to view London from the BT tower.  I must say it is simply amazing!  The 320 Gigapixel detail gives you a great view of the city.

If you live in the UK and have a BT account, you can even participate in a contest: finding Buzby the Bird! (That will give you an idea of the detail level of the photographs.

And it is true that the bird is there (there are 3 Buzby birds in the city).  Want some proof?  I found one, but I'm not telling you where it is! :P

iWatch? You Are a Bit Late...

I heard some rumors that Apple is working on a smart watch.  If that's so, then such an idea is hardly innovative: there have been smartwatches around for some time now.  They run Android, like Sony's Smartwatch or I'm Watch and there's even the Leikr Linux watch project, too.

Apple fans may not like this, but there's even a Windows 8 smart watch concept!

If the iWatch rumor is indeed true and Apple does launch their smart watch, I hope they won't say they invented smart watches.  Well, probably, they'll say they re-invented them or something like that.

Leaving that aside, it's quite clear that open source and innovation are directly related, much to the dismay of these software giants.