speak bird speak

The late great Johnny Carson had the Great Karnak thing going on. In Linuxville you corner a penguin who sees all and tells nothing (unless the price is right!). It's not a bribe, it's a donation, he says.

Notice the push the drive for seamless media and access on all your devices. Your handheld device is really a personal digital assistant. You can call, web browse, take pictures, do email, text and open and close your garage door, arm your security system and never leave you TV set. That is the part that gets me. You never leave your TV. Yes, you can take it with you. You know I couldn't buy those commercials where there was a TV in every room including the bathroom. But the new and improved media net can be viewed on the cell, the PC and the TV. Of course you have to have the right equipment and the right software. You can already get internet, TV, and phone from your cable company. But no need for a TV in every room when you got your cell or iPad type tablet, netbook, laptop and desktop, in every room or on your person anyway. Oh wait something is missing. The cable company gives you access to the outer world, what about your private world?

The VPN, virtual private network is the answer. Many of the PDA devices are mostly on the go access devices, no real fire power for heavy computing. Then folks on the go may not want to carry around a huge honking storage device or an expensive and powerful laptop with all their work and personal data. VPN allows a PC or a server device to sit at home protected by a firewalls and backup power supply. Then you can access it from anywhere if you are secure in that arrangement. Between the cable company and your VPN, you can raise the power of your PDA in quantum leaps and..........."Please deposit another fish in the bird beak". Oooh boy!

Gimptitude is moving along fine. I am comparing GIMP to Inkscape while learning them together. I am finding I can do some things more optimally in GIMP or Inkscape, then import it to the other and apply it. Working mostly in Open Source is like the Darkside of the Force, "once you go down that path, forever will it control your destiny." But that is the warning of folks who don't go and we here are not talking about evil. The caveat is that you have to learn it to use it and once you do, you are changed forever. GIMP users complain about the Photoshop interface and the way it works also. Photoshop looks strange and weird when sitting in the GIMP cockpit. The thing is that most Linux users are used to having to use different interfaces on different apps. MS users are mostly wanting the same interface on every program. Which is better, you decide.