andylockran’s blog

Open Source @ Construction Company

Posted by Andy under Birmingham, Control, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Projects, SBLUG Planet, Software, Tech Geek, Ubuntu

Over the past few weeks I’ve been helping my Uncle out by setting up a few computers for him. He wanted a laptop to take out ‘on-site’ - and a Desktop for a new employee.

Unfortunately, the ASUS eee901 is not yet available, and the 7″ series is slightly too small for his perceived ‘on-site’ usage, so he ended up getting a Toshiba Laptop and HP Desktop - both running Windows Vista (against my advice).

So, three weeks on, he’s not happy with Vista at all. Having already spent a fair bit of cash on the two machines, he was little disappointed that some ‘core software’ (his term) was still not installed. The new “Live Mail” application was also far too complicated compared to his Outlook Express - the change in UI wasn’t welcome.

So, I installed Mozilla Thunderbird onto both computers, and OpenOffice.org. I do have to admit to setting the default file-format to Windows 97/XP/2003 formats though (.doc, .xls and .ppt). I’d like to not do this, but for simplicities sake when dealing with clients - it was the easier option.

Aside from running the proprietary accounts software “Foundation Evolution” - I’ve got the company running on a very open-’saucy’ setup. The best thing about it has been the change in attitude towards the software since originally buying the PCs. After initially thinking that my enthusiasm for the ASUS eee was due to the Linux OS on it - it seems likely that when the 9″ series come out, that will be an addition to the “Construction Computing Team”.

The best new was though that I received a call this morning asking me how to install OpenOffice.org on all of the computers and get rid of MS Office & install Thunderbird on all the machines. With the old setup, there would have been a training overhead in having to run different versions of the same software on all four PCs - however, with the Open Source Setup, all the computers, despite being purchased at different times, can run the same software - giving the users the opportunity to use the computers to help run the business, rather than having to work out how to use that particular version of the program.

Smile

Free Software - Who benefits?

Posted by Andy under Birmingham, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Projects, SBLUG Planet, Software, Tech Geek, Ubuntu

I’ve been thinking alot recently about the power of free software and how it could be put to better use to innovate in companies.  At the moment, most of it is used to replace old proprietary blobs around offices, and has very much the same components as the old system - only cheaper.

However, with free software there are many more benefits that just being cheaper than paying for a legacy software license for things like file storage and printer servers.  There are many cases when I look at small/medium sized companies and see how their entire business model could benefit from adopting an Open Source system as the backbone to what their business does.

In the past, IT has been a tool which allows businesses to go about their business - only recently has it actually become the business of businesses.  It’s a shame though, because as more and more businesses sell services based on free software - in essence it becomes standard customised solutions at a slight discount to the client, and without licensing overheads for the vendor.

What I’d like to see is the promotion of open source and open standards, and the ability for as much software to work in tandem with other stuff.  There’s a heck of a lot of quality free software out there that companies should be able to utilise.  Rather than simply provide free software on a plate, efforts should be made to educate the users on what exactly they are getting.  How extensible the packages are and how to utilise them to their greatest benefit.

I don’t know how other people feel, but setting up a new company legally incurs some costs - and when you add MS licenses to the mix, for just a single PC, it can double the cost.  I’ve recently set up a business who’d just bought a couple of new PCs.  They both came with Vista (laptop and Desktop).  I’ve been runnning purely Open Source Software on those two PCs for the company (aside from Vista) - and they’re very happy with all the software, it does exactly what they need.  The next step is for me to speed them up, by switching them over to ubuntu.  I can see this happening within the next six months.  However, I’ll also leave 1 Windows XP machine intact, so they can use it for remote-desktop connection for running some legacy software.

Neat!

Who reads blogs?

Posted by Andy under BBC, Birmingham, CentOS, Chaos, Control, Debian, Digital Freedom, Freedom, Gentoo, Linux, Marketing, PCI DSS, Personal, Political, Projects, Python, SBLUG Planet, Software, Stupid, Tech Geek, Ubuntu, openLDAP

I was having a discussion with a few mates in the pub this evening about my blogging ‘antics.’ They’ve berated me for blogging before, but as it’s becoming more and more widespread I can see them getting more interested in my motivations for ‘blogging.’

One of the friends commented that it was purely the fact that he knew me that made the blog interesting. For someone that didn’t know me, the blog would be pretty dull and of no consequence. At this point, another chipped in saying - “Only bloggers read blogs.” Is this true? I don’t know, but I don’t think so.

My motivation for starting the blog was that it was a place where I could share my technical insights. Not profound insights such as the advent of structural-object-abstract programming methods that I’ve just decided are going to be the Web 3.0 - but short howto’s and the like, and to publish a few ‘Gotchas’ - problems that have few symptoms and a nice easy solution - but take hours of work to solve. I blog advice - There’s nothing quite comparable experience.

(un)Fortunately, which ever way you personally look at it - my blogging has branched out to cover all sorts of things. From the time when some guy smashed the window of my car, to re-living and walking through my car accident in 1999, to a short article on why to avoid Red Hat’s bundled openLDAP implementation because it’s crap.

I think it’s an interesting concept, for non-bloggers and bloggers alike. Who reads blogs? If you have a regular commentator on your blog, do you add him to your blogroll as a thanks for lifting your self-esteem by having him visit your blog? Do you think you have a regular readership, or just random visitors popping in and out after being directed from Google?

I don’t think it’s a negative thing that bloggers read blogs. It’s great. From the attendance at the spontaneous meet-up last Friday, it’s clear to me that there’s a nice little community of bloggers in Birmingham. However, this is a meeting of a cross-section of the readership who it’s worth meeting face-to-face in order to better your own blog.

Is blogging journalism? Is it art? Is it a cry for help from some pathetic moron wanting to share his story with the world? Is it ‘new media’? Does it matter?

I blog tech because I think some people read it and it helps them - and also as an easy reference for me. I blog ‘about me’ as a way to vent some thoughts and get some feedback from an audience who I think would be interested. This audience is dynamic, therefore I categorise my posts different to respect that.

When doing my Psychology degree, one of the things we covered was ‘online personalities and freedom of information.’ This blog is in the public domain. If it were a diary, having it leaked would immediately bring headlines of ’scandal and gossip.’ My blog is sort of a base for my online identity. ‘andylockran’ lives here. I happen to pop up on a mailing list or a forum or IRC and you want to know more about me. Much of it is here. It’s a bit like ‘CV 2.0.’ The web is my field - if I don’t market myself well on the web, how the hell can I expect anyone to be able to trust me to market their products on the web?

The best thing about it for me is the feedback, both positive and negative. Setting up a blog exposes you to both - and it gives you the opportunity to have a voice.

Brummie Bloggers

Posted by Andy under Birmingham, SBLUG Planet, twitter

Just over a week ago, Pete Lewis and I set up a blog aggregator @ http://dev.zrmt.com.  We initially populated it with a few blogs that we knew of around the Birmingham Area (mostly people from SB LUG and a few other places.   At the start of the week, we decided to move it across to BrumSpace.org.

The main reason behind this was that we wanted to do something that was more than just blogging.  Having been able to read a number of Birmingham Blogs all in the same place - it made me realise that there’s lots more to a BrumSpace than just the blogs.  Twitter is a fantastic medium which is really starting to take off.. like everyone’s hidden mistress.  There’s also Plings - which is a site I’ve recently discovered thanks to a tip-off from a colleague.  It’s aiming to be an event-driven-twitter-thing as far as I can tell.  Looking at their ‘labs’ page shows they’re trying to integrate with twitter rather than replicate it - so watch that space!

The bloggers meet-up this evening was really nice.  It was good to meet so many interesting people.  As I’m fairly new to the blogging community here, I could do with some online introductions.  I’ve met some bloggers offline before even meeting them online - how weird! If you were at the meeting, add me on twitter here = andylockran.

It was also good to meet some of the guys who I’ve spoken to a fair bit on IRC/Mailing Lists, such as Pete, Zeth and Dan.  Looking forward to the next one - when I’ll hopefully be able to put more blogs to names to faces

FixMyStreet.com

Posted by Andy under Birmingham, Personal, Political

I first came across fixmystreet.com about 18 months ago.

It’s a simple idea. You report (and publish) issues with your local area on the internet, and FixMyStreet.com reports the problems to the council. The council then are both:

1. Notified of the Problem
2. Embarrassed by the publication on the internet
3. Under pressure to get the problem solved.

In my opinion this is a win-win situation for residents. I have so far made one report, and am seeing progress on getting it fixed. See my report here.

Especially for those of you in the Brummie area - let’s sign up and Fix Our Streets!