Unix and Linux Systems

If you can't say anything nice.. by Anthony Lawrence

2008/05/01

I had gotten up early this morning and wandered out to my
computer still wearing pajamas. Because it was a little cool,
I had thrown on a plaid jacket too. Appararently the combination
of pajamas and this jacket was a little startling, because
when my wife got up an hour or so later, she burst out laughing
upon spotting me. A few moments later she left and then came
back carrying a pile of clothes which she requested that I
put on "as soon as possible". She then walked off, still chuckling.

OK, I have no color sense. I know that - well, really I don't
know it, but I know that I have to rely on other people to tell
me that color X pants are hideously garish when combined with color
Y shirts. Oh, I know the no brown socks with black shoees and only
whites with sneakers basics, but beyond that, I'm clueless.

As it happened, I was reading this Should You Tell People Their Blog Design is Ugly? post when my wife first came in. I guess some people get
hurt feelings when someone points out their fashion gaffes or notes
a defect in their blog design. I don't: I know I have no talent
for colors, typography, layout. I just try to copy what seems to
work for other people and hope for the best.

So: if you are someone with aesthetic sensibilities, please do
feel free to tell me what you don't like. I might not change it,
perhaps because of technical difficulty or sheer laziness, or
perhaps because it's something like my logo that I have sentimental
attachment too, but I will listen and I won't be offended. And
if it a technical lack ("Dude, you abso-freaking-lutely need to
have..", I will pay even more attention.

| << Home | 8:10 PM | Technorati | Ping

Your Mileage May Vary when installing and using Linux by Anthony Lawrence

2008/04/29

I was reading the long string of comments at Linux in the long run and noticed
a few folks mentioning Linux installation problems. I can
sympathize, though I do have to say that most of my Linux installs
have been smooth and uneventful.

I can't tell you how many Linux installs I've done. It
probably isn't thousands yet, but it's certainly in the hundreds. The
distros run all over the map: plenty of RedHat and Suse, a few
Ubuntus, some Debian, a couple of Slackwares.. and those are the
ones that were on real hardware for a real purpose: there have been many
others installed on Virtual Machines just to take a look-see.

As I said, most of these were easy, successful and left no
scars. A few here and there were painful and difficult: unsupported
hardware preventing a nic card or the gui from working can be
annoying. An unsupported
card just makes you run out to buy something that will work, but
of course that's not always easy (notebooks) and sometimes it's
a specific piece of hardware that you really need - Fedora Core 2
caused me some grief over an Iomega REV drive a few years back. There's
not always a way around an incompatibility, but there usually is.

You can find plenty of Linux install horror stories on the net. Some of
these are exaggerated complaints written by people with a vested
interest in Windows, and a few are people so technically challenged
that you have to wonder how they use any computer, but some do
have more than a kernel of truth: the person ran into real problems
and experienced real frustration.

But most problems are easily solved by a little Googling or a
little experimentation. I do understand that some folks don't want
to have to Google or experiment: that's exactly why I bought a
Mac for my notebook machine. I didn't want to expend any
effort (and I was also just plain curious about Macs), so
I wimped out.. I've posted here that I carry some "Linux guilt" because of that, but it's
definitely true that Linux on laptops can be challenging.

However: things only get better in Linux-land. What was unsupported
yesterday might be supported today. I have a retired X86 laptop
sitting idle right now; it resisted Linux a few years ago but I bet if
I try it now it might just all fall together and work. And if
not.. well, it might be the particular distro, so I could try
something else..

We may get some negative comments here in the "Linux sucks" vein.
If you had a bad experience and need to vent a little, that's OK, but
please try to keep it intelligent and useful. A comment that
warns about a bad driver for a FooBar Model 78 rev 6 Widget is
potentially useful, a pointless "Linux Losers bite me!" comment
will just get deleted.

| << Home | 5:30 PM | Technorati | Ping

A web page is more than a pretty face by Anthony Lawrence

2008/04/28

Recently one of my clients hired someone to design a secondary
website. He had mentioned to me that he planned to use this for
coupons and other promotions related to his present site and business,
so of course I was concerned that his web designers would do a good job.
Too many so called "web designers" really are not: they are artistic
types who have learned to use something like FrontPage but really
don't know much about mechanics and SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimization,
Search Engine Marketing). Really designing a true business website
today is a lot more than a pretty face and a few keywords stuffed
into meta tags.

Designing a web site without knowing the mechanics is like
building without knowing engineering. You may do fine building
a shed for the dog, but it wouldn't be good to turn you loose
on a skyscraper project. A pretty face is not enough.

So I took a look at these designer's websites and the websites
of clients they referenced there. As I later explained to my
client, I was a little disappointed: the sites weren't bad, but
they definitely weren't superlative. Looks? I'm not qualified
to judge, but I assume that was fine. My concern was with the
underneath: did the sites validate through W3C, did they have
appropriate meta tags, alt tags and inter-site linking? They
did not: none of the sites validated, and most showed poor
SEO efforts.

Let's take up validation first, because the response from
clients often is "Looks ok to me".. and it probably does.
But that doesn't mean that it IS "OK" - it just means that it
looks OK on your browser on your operating system and at your
screen resolution. Now being W3C compliant doesn't guarantee
that page will display beautifully under all conditions, but it does
guarantee that you've given the browser intelligible information
about how it is supposed to look. As I explained to my
client: "Why not do it right?". There's really no excuse, is there?

Well, there might be an excuse for specific conditions, but
I'd expect to see something very unusual in that case - not just
sloppiness. Sloppiness is what I saw here.

Actually, I was even more concerned about the SEO side. Tags ("alt" and
"title") and link anchor text are very important today - probably
more important than header meta tags. Yet most web designers don't
pay much attention to them, or if they do, they don't do them well.
For example, adding 'alt="Top"' to an IMG tag will satisfy W3C, but
it's not very helpful to a search engine, is it? It's not helpful
to a blind person, either. And while
"title" tags are optional, they can add value both for search 'bots
and for the visiting user.

Another area that concerned me is SEM (search engine marketing). I
have to assume that a coupon site is going to be paired with a SEM
campaign. Did anyone mention how that campaign is going to be
measured? Will Google Analytics be tied into an Adwords campaign?
Has anyone defined the possible goals here (printing a coupon,
visiting the main website..)? I can't tell that from looking
at reference sites, but I did prep my client with some questions
to ask.

This stuff is IMPORTANT. Designing a web page is much, much
more than making it "pretty".

| << Home | 4:10 PM | Technorati | Ping

Do you really want a popular blog? by Anthony Lawrence

2008/04/27

OK, raise your hands: how many of you bloggers out there want
a popular blog? Ayup, I know: you beg for Diggs and Sphinns, ask
your friends to Stumble your post.. you'd love to be able to
brag that you had to move to another host because the traffic was
just getting overwhelming..

Do you really want that?

Maybe you do. After all, there are bennies attached: fame, maybe
even money.. what's not to like?

Well, there is a dark side, and I see it every time one of my
utterings gains a bit of web traction and a few thousand people
show up to read it. There's no nice way to say it, so I'll
just blurt it out..

Stupid people

Before you get all PC on me, hear me out. Some people are
smarter than others. You know that. If you have a hundred friends,
a few of them are obviously a lot sharper than the rest of your
bunch and a few obviously are not. It doesn't mean they aren't
nice people, it doesn't mean you don't like them, it just
means that they aren't quite as quick on the uptake as the rest.

They are the ones who sometimes say some pretty dumb things, right?
Maybe a little embarrassing sometimes? Yeah, you know what I mean.

So what happens when one of your posts catches fire and a bunch
of people you've never seen before coming flying in to read it?
Well, obviously some of those people are smarter than others. And
some are not.

The dumb ones leave dumb comments.

Wait, I know what you are going to say. Yes, it's true that
the smart ones leave smart comments, so it sort of balances off,
doesn't it? Well, not for me, no. You see, the crowd who
visits and comments here regularly already is smart. Their
comments are sharp, enjoyable, sometimes pretty darn funny. I
enjoy those people. But when a boatload of new folks stop in
and a few of them drop off inane and truly dumb comments, it
feels almost like uninvited guests at a party. Who wants
these jerks? I don't.

The most recent example was this Linux post. It got picked up by a few of the big Linux
sites and the hits came pouring in. Most of the comments were fine..
but a few were.. well, less than intelligent.

It bugs me. It's not the criticism - I don't care about that. It's
the repetition of what someone else already said, the careless reading,
the foolish misunderstandings.. I just don't suffer fools easily, sorry.

A Modicum of Success

Really. That's all I want. I don't want to be super popular,
read by millions. I know some people can handle that: they'd bask
in the adulation and ignore the stupidity that comes with it. Not
me. It would constantly tick me off and I'd be miserable.

If you are like me (and I know a lot of you are), the old
"be careful what you wish for" warning comes to mind. Yes, we
all want success, we all want to be popular..

But just a little bit, right? Not so much that the dumb ones
find us..

| << Home | 6:50 PM | Technorati | Ping

Google adds benchmark comparisons by Anthony Lawrence

2008/04/27

Google has recently added benchmark comparisons to
Analytics. This could be extremely useful and interesting, but unfortunately
is not.. well, perhaps it's just too early; this may get better as more
people join.

Right now, however, the categories you can choose from are pretty limited,
and worse, Google has divided them into three buckets: small. medium and large.
Their explanation:


What does "sites of similar size" mean?

Based on the number of visits each site receives, sites of similar
sizes are grouped together under three classifications: small,
medium, and large. This way, you can compare yourself to other
similarly sized sites. You are not able to view benchmarking data
for sites in other size classifications.

Okay. But what's "small"? Am I "small", or "medium" and where
do I fall wherever I am - near the bottom, the middle, the top? Without
knowing that, I don't really know what to make of these comparisons.

And why can't I compare outside of that classification? If I'm "medium"
but am near the bottom or the top of that bucket, it would seem very
reasonable that I might also want to see the data from the next nearest
set, right? I can't imagine that would be difficult, so it seems
very arbitrary to me.

Of course this is new - I only heard about it a few weeks ago,
and immediately joined: in order to compare yourself, you have to
agree to anonymously share your own data. As more folks hear about this
and share their Analytics data, the choices available should improve,
and possibly Google will allow a bit more flexibility and provide
more information about what we are really comparing against.

By the way, it turns out that "small" is really small - I
have another site that gets less visits in a month than this site
has every hour, but Google was able to show me comparisons for that
(and it does pretty well in its category, actually). The "small"
benchmark for monthly pageviews showed up as 419, so don't be afraid
to join this if you were thinking your site is too tiny.

| << Home | 6:10 AM | Technorati | Ping

What's your game? by Anthony Lawrence

2008/04/26

A couple of years back I wrote What do you do for a living? and was surprised to
learn that I'm not the only person who hates that question.

This week I read Let's Play a Game - What's Your Small Business? and of course
that reminded me of my previous writing.

As I haven't known what I do since I started this gig in 1983, I don't
think I really need to have answers, but I'll do my best. That
post asks a few questions:

What's your game? What do you do?

Honestly, I really don't know. I do a LOT of different things, all generally related to 'puter stuff, but it all keeps changing. In the 80's I did a lot of programming, in the 90's it was a lot of troubleshooting, today.. I don't know what's predominant today. I do whatever it is that I can make money doing.

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

Knack. Just a generally bright person with a very good memory.
I don't "love" computers. They are just tools.

Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?

Don't know. Anyone with a computer, assuming they have a problem worth my time and within my skill set and interest. As my skill set and
interest changes constantly, so do my potential customers. At
one time I would have been happy to write you an accounting program in
Business Basic. I wouldn't do that today: I wouldn't write
anything in Basic, and I definitely wouldn't write an accounting app.
Who knows what I "definitely won't do" tomorrow?

What's your marketing USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers?

Don't care. Seriously. Other than my first year in business, I've always had more work than I wanted and have always turned people down or passed them to other people. I don't need a USP.

What's next for you? What's the big plan?

No big plan. No idea what's next. Computer technology changes almost
daily. My business today bears little resemblance to what it was five
years ago. I'm sure that it will change again. And again.

.....

Now for my questions.

Why do people think this kind of stuff matters? I've been in business
a long, long time. I have no business plan, no unique selling proposition,
no Vision Statement.

I've never needed any of them.

Not once has a customer asked me for a Vision Statement. Not once
has a customer approached me and asked for an elevator pitch.

No, people approach me with problems, or, in the case of existing
customers, I might point out opportunities they aren't aware of. But
nobody ever cared about any of this stuff.

I can certainly see how it might be applicable to other business.
Maybe YOU need a USP. Maybe you need a business plan to
guide your business. I really hope you don't need
a Vision Statement - I think those are completely asinine - but
if you think you need it, by all means, write one.

Me? Not a chance. I've lasted this long without any of that;
I don't think I need to change now.

| << Home | 10:30 AM | Technorati | Ping

Internet Anonymity Laws - bad, bad idea by Anthony Lawrence

2008/04/25

If you are a regular reader here, you may know that I live
in a Massachusetts town that could be hosting an Indian Casino
someday. As I'm sure you can imagine, feelings run high on
this subject: most townspeople either want the casino or don't
care either way, but there is a loud minority who sees it
as dangerous and destructive (I'm on the "pro-casino" side,
if it matters to you).

Because of the high running emotions, there have been strident
letters to local newspapers and many, many blog and message board
postings on both sides of the issue. Some of these postings from
the "anti's" have crossed the line and might be considered libelous
- some have even been interpreted as threats. It's been pretty
nasty..

Because of this, some folks on the "pro" side have taken up
the issue of Internet anonymity (the postings mentioned have
been anonymous). They want to form a group to push for
legislation to prevent anonymity on the Internet.

I understand their frustration. Anonymous attacks on a person's reputation
and business can be very disturbing. Nonetheless, legislation would
be a very bad idea.

Aside from the fact that the U.S.
Supreme Court has consistently protected anonymity as necessary
in a free society, the technological challenges would make this
impossible to enforce. Even weak efforts at cloaking that could
be penetrated would require considerable effort, and that would mean
that law enforcement would be unlikely to devote resources to it
except in extreme cases. So in addition to being philosophically
opposed, I think these laws would be impractical.

Free speech CAN be unpleasant.. that's really the point of it, isn't it? We don't need free speech to tell George Bush he's doing a wonderful job - we need it to do exactly the opposite.

If people had to prove their identity before posting anything, what
would corporate or government whistle-blowers do? They'd have
to keep their mouths shut - that's why we don't want this sort
of law.

As for supposed damage to reputations, I think it's overblown. We all know the phrase "Consider the source" - anonymous sources are always heavily discounted. But even if some fraction of readers do believe the libel, I still think that protecting free speech is more important than any damage caused.

By the way, all ISP's will fight this tooth and nail also, although for more selfish reasons. Their influence on legislators would be tremendous. The ACLU will oppose, and I expect most Republican conservatives will also. You'd have an uphill battle all the way (and almost certainly get struck down by the Supreme Court if you got that far).

So, I'm against this on technical, philosophical and practical grounds. I won't support any efforts toward legislation and in fact will actively oppose such.

A good write-up on the history of law in this are is at PRESERVING ANONYMITY ON THE INTERNET. I really recommend reading that if you are still thinking such laws are
justified.

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If you can't say anything nice.. by Anthony Lawrence

Your Mileage May Vary when installing and using Linux by Anthony Lawrence

A web page is more than a pretty face by Anthony Lawrence

Do you really want a popular blog? by Anthony Lawrence

Stupid people

A Modicum of Success

Google adds benchmark comparisons by Anthony Lawrence

What's your game? by Anthony Lawrence

What's your game? What do you do?

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?

What's your marketing USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers?

What's next for you? What's the big plan?

Internet Anonymity Laws - bad, bad idea by Anthony Lawrence

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