Richard Stallman admits his income is from speeches

I always wonder how Richard M. Stallman continues his daily lives without a real job since 1984. He always preach that software should be free (as in freedom) in nature, people shouldn’t impose license fee on software, etc.

And I occasionally come across his articles on how he devoted his life for GNU operating system, promoting Free Software Movement, directing the Free Software Foundation and how he was doing all of that unpaid.

But today, he openly admits to TuxJournal Webzine that his income are from speeches that he delivers.

Aside from working, I like to read, eat delicious food, listen to music (I was just in Bulgaria and got a lot of nice records of Bulgarian folk dance music). I am paid for some of my speeches–not all–and that is where my income comes from.

Now, my questions are seems to be answered by RMS himself. Wonder what would I do for a living if i’m in his shoes… I’m not fluent in public speeches and always goofed-up on stage… hmm… I wonder…

Source : TuxJournal

Yahoo Avatar now supports Mozilla Firefox !

Get Firefox!

Great news everybody, Yahoo Avatar now supports Mozilla Firefox!
Now you can customize your Yahoo Avatar comfortably within your own favorite browser without the need to fire up Internet Explorer.

This marks significant progress with spread firefox program, with Yahoo Avatar now fully supports Mozilla Firefox. Users are now less dependent to malware-prone Internet Explorer and adopts to a newer,faster and safer open source solutions such as Mozilla Firefox.

Hope that Yahoo will stay on this track and enhance their Yahoo Messenger version for Free and open-source version of Unix-based system such as GNU/Linux and *BSD. Or better yet, publicize their Yahoo Messenger protocol so it could be much more better supported on those platform

References :
1. CNet – news.com.com
2. ZDNet News
3. Yahoo! Avatars website

Yahoo Mail Website Hick-ups !!!

Nothing actually happened today so I lazily start up my yahoo messenger after i got home from a tiresome ride around the town to shop things that i need. As the yahoo messenger popped-up, It shows most of my friends are offline with a few labelled as “idle”…

After a short while, i got a “pow” sound from my shiny new Yahoo Messenger 7 Beta “You got 1 unread message”. “Who could be emailing me to my yahoo account? Another spam?”, I clicked on Yahoo Messenger’s cute email icon, and i’ve been ushered to Yahoo mail website…..

i have hard time to get my eyes up, suddenly i noticed this :

Yahoo Mail typo !!

Please concentrate your eyes in these lines, specificly for the first and third line.

? You are using 1% of your 1.0GB MB limit
? Go to Inbox or Check Other Mail
? Yahoo! Mail gives you 1.0GB MB for free!

Apparently somebody at yahoo.com forgot to clean up the MB (notice the “1.0GB MB limit” line )after yahoo have succesfully upgraded it’s account limit to 1GB. I hope that yahoo.com is going to fix this thing soon, because this cosmetic mistake is really noticable when you are using any type of browser that is “not fully supported by Yahoo” like Netscape 4.8.

Note : I really dont use Netscape 4.8, i accidently switched my Mozilla Firefox user-agent to Netscape 4.8, some coincidence huh?

p/s : i did not fake up the screenshot… :p

DIY Linux Embedded Devices


TV Set-Top mp3 players

Embedded devices have become a hot topic these days. Day after day we have been surrounded with these devices whether we have notices it or not. For example, how many are you got PS2 or an Xbox in your home? how many of you own Nokia phones with Symbian OS running inside it? or a Motorola phone running Linux as it’s OS?

As the technology advances, more and more of these devices have become accessible in our daily life. And now, with the availability of open source tools and application (as well as the kernel) you can also create your own embedded devices on your own, providing you have the guts and strong interest to do it!

DIY TV Set Top Mp3 Player

You can create Linux-based embeded devices to do anything that you wished for, for example as a tv set-top mp3 player, a game console, internet station, webcam recorder, cctv controller, streaming server etc.

a bike which runs Unix!

Dont throw your old Pentium pc away, turn it into something useful! With Linux you can make many things possible. For example, with a single Pentium P133 pc, you can turn it into an mp3 streaming server, a firewall box, internet router, etc.

There are a lot of website now around the internet that features the usefulness of the Linux and Open source technology in building and embedded system.

Resources :
1. A motocycle which runs FreeBSD
2. Linux Toys website, a good place to start
3. Creating IPCOP firewall/Gateway
4. The Clock Project
5. Embedded Devices which runs Linux
6. Lots of Mini-itx projects
7. Linux-based Webserver and MP3 player on floppy

Microsoft Office to use XML format !


Microsoft Office Logo

The next version of Microsoft Office codename “Office 12” will have a new default XML file formats instead of proprietery binary format as previous versions. If all things goes well, the new default formats for Word, Excel and Powerpoint will change, respectively, from .”doc,” “.xls” and “.ppt” to “.docx,” “.xlsx” and “.pptx,” Microsoft said.

Unbelievable but true. Microsoft has once envisioned the idea of creating an XML document format for it’s popular Office product even back in 2000. However, the final product of Office 10 or Microsoft Office XP seems to drop the idea altogether. Maybe it got to do with Microsoft business strategy to lock down its user in it’s own proprietery binary format.

The proprietery format not only confine users to Microsoft products, but makes it hard for users to exchange documents between platforms, limiting its usage. Not to mention that the Microsoft Office format have been kept secret all this time making it hard for people to write a compatible word processor/reader on other platforms.

The office binary format also have been a pain in ass for certain power user where they can’t transform the documents into other format. They are most comfortable and often rely on other office product which uses XML such as OpenOffice or Staroffice for that matter.

It is uncertain that whether Openoffice and abiword move to adopt OASIS open document format (odt) that permits even broader documents have its influence on Microsoft’s decision. Microsoft which also one of OASIS sponsor, has made available under royalty-free license the XML schemas of its Office file formats. The new Microsoft Office 12 suite will ship sometime in 2006.

“Open file format continues our policy of providing our XML schemas in an open, royalty-free license,” said Microsoft’s Numoto. “That’s an important element of facilitating partners and developers to use that schema to integrate the format into their solutions.” – Microsoft

References :
1. Washington Post
2. Openoffice.org
3. OASIS Open Document Standards

Dilema Pelanggan Kecewa IV

Hari ini dalam Forum Utusan Malaysia, pihak TM Net Sdn Bhd telah memberikan maklum balas yang telah sekian lama dinanti-nantikan berkenaan perkhidmatan streamyx yang tidak memuaskan selama ini. Ini merupakan sambungan episod keempat dari trilogi “Dilema Pelanggan Kecewa” I, II dan III.

Persoalannya, adakah pihak TM mengakui kesilapannya masih melayan pelanggan seperti nombor? Adakah pihak TM akan membantu Pelanggan Kecewa Gombak?, Dapatkah Pelanggan Kecewa mendapat kelajuan internet yang memuaskan? Ayuh baca jawapannya di bawah ini :

Sumber : Forum Utusan Malaysia.

Komputer pelanggan punca masalah khidmat tidak memuaskan

MERUJUK kepada aduan bertajuk Kecewa Khidmat Internet Streamyx bertarikh 6 Mei 2005, berikut adalah penjelasan daripada pihak TM Net Sdn. Bhd.

Untuk makluman, TM Net telah pun membuat siasatan terperinci ke atas aduan tersebut dan mendapati bahawa pakej Tmnet Streamyx berharga RM99 yang dilanggani oleh pengadu adalah untuk akses Internet Broadband berkelajuan 1 Mbps pada kadar maksimum dan bukannya pada kelajuan 1 GATE seperti yang dijelaskan oleh pelanggan. Dengan erti kata lain, TM Net tidak pernah menawarkan sebarang pakej Tmnet Streamyx berkelajuan 10.00 Mbps atau 1 GATE pada harga RM99.

Siasatan terperinci juga telah dibuat ke atas ibu sawat dan premis pelanggan, dan mendapati bahawa masalah sebenar berpunca daripada perkakasan dan perisian komputer pelanggan. Ujian dan konfigurasi kelajuan akses perkhidmatan Tmnet Streamyx telah dilakukan dan hasilnya amat memuaskan.

Sehubungan itu, TM Net berharap pengadu boleh menghubungi talian perkhidmatan pelanggan kami di 1-300-88-9515 atau menghantar e-mel ke custcare@tm.net.my sekiranya terdapat sebarang masalah berhubung dengan produk dan perkhidmatan kami pada masa akan datang.

Pihak TM Net akan berusaha untuk membantu menyelesaikan masalah pelanggan dengan menghantar pegawai teknikal kami untuk memeriksa sambungan talian anda sekiranya perlu. – ZALINDA ZAINON, Pengurus Perhubungan awam, TM Net Sdn. Bhd.

Akhirnya, pihak TM Net Sdn Bhd telah memberikan jawapan mereka dalam forum utusan dan berjanji untuk berusaha membantu menyelesaikan masalah Pelanggan Kecewa… Tetapi apakah ini merupakan jawapan yang ditunggu-tunggu? sudah tentu tidak…., kita semua telah sekian maklum mengenai penjelasan pekej Streamyx 1 GATE tersebut. Tetapi bukan penjelasan ini yang kita mahukan, kita mahukan penjelasan yang menunjukkan pihak TM Net bertanggungjawab dan prihatin… Bak kata Pelanggan Kecewa :

sedangkan komputer saya menggunakan dua prosesor Xeon yang sangat laju dan memorinya sebanyak 2 GATE. – Pelanggan Kecewa Gombak, Selangor

Sekiranya pihak TM Net boleh melakukan ujian terhadap sistem sendiri dan boleh menghantar pegawai teknikal utk memeriksa sambungan, mengapa tidak lakukan kepada pelanggan kecewa sekarang? Periksalah komputernya, buatlah satu dialer streamyx utknya, ujilah kelajuan internetnya sendiri face-to-face dirumah, dan berikan penerangan secukupnya kepada Pelanggan Kecewa mengenai cara memeriksa kelajuan internet dan sebagainya. Dan bukan sebaliknya, membuat tafsiran tanpa memeriksa komputer Pelanggan Kecewa….

Akhir kata…

Komputer Dual Processor Intel Xeon laju wooo…. – tidak mahu namanya disiarkan