matthew.kurowski.org

You may have already read about the “Mojave Experiment” but if you haven’t let me briefly explain. Microsoft decided to remove bias from a series of tests with users by changing Vista superficially. Market researchers then presented the “new” OS and interviewed the participants for their experience. I laud the method – because what geek hasn’t done it themselves!

It’s almost a regular game to make my machines, OSs and Window Managers to look or function like something other than what it is. Whether it be fvwm95, LiteStep, DeskView/X, WindowMaker, (yes, I like NeXT) and the myriad of combinations and offerings, geeks abound that love or need such customization and personalization.

Throw a little bit of virtualization in the mix and multibooting, combined with visual element modification and (a bit more deep) changing of response strings and stack attributes and anyone (including the owner/admin) can be astoundingly confused!
Vista certainly looks neat – but compiz and such (albeit with limited systems/drivers support) can be WICKED too. I have nothing against Vista in certain situations and have been testing/playing with it since early releases. In fact, I run it daily in the lab, on a few test systems, and in virtual machines on my Macs, Linux and ESX boxes. My worst experiences truly occurred prior to SP1 and on physical hardware. My most evil experiences were on 64-bit machines with 64-bit Vista…  There is a time and a place for all.

So, check out the link to Microsoft Mojave above if you wish. It’s marketing but it won’t kill you.

I’ve been following the excavations of Tara for some time: Honestly, I couldn’t wash the disgust off had I been trying all these years.

I’m all for progress but the decision to go through Tara was ill motivated and not given proper weight due the significance of the site to the world community.  Luckily some concessions were granted to the archeological community but not nearly enough.

Had I the money or power, I’d stop the rampant destruction of an such a treasure trove. What’s done is done and notwithstanding a full stopage to the project, more and more sacred heritage will be crushed or defiled and vanish into the ether. The actions of destruction against Tara Hill are a violation of religious freedoms as well: an honorable minority.

Read more about Tara here at the Tara Watch website (archeology).

Please support the petition which advocates atleast reburial of some of the remains as discovered.

I can’t say I disagree with the course/test name change. I’m glad they send these updates lest I go mad having had no recall of having taken the exam at some point in the future when browsing CertTracker…

The bulk of the email from EMC Education Services below:

ANNOUNCEMENT

The name of the “E20-001 Storage Technology Foundations” exam is changing to “E20-001 Information Storage and Management” in a phased approach beginning on July 21, 2008.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

In our effort to continuously improve the Storage Technologist curriculum, we review emerging areas of technology that are becoming increasingly important to storage professionals. Since October, 2007 we have added security, virtualization and deduplication to expand the breadth of the Storage Technology Foundations course. As a consequence, we are changing the title of the exam and the certification credential to “Information Storage and Management” to fully represent the value of your EMC Proven Professional Associate level certification.

This experiment should reinforce one’s “faith” in the scientific method. Thanks to Walt for his many references, especially the tangential: Franck-Hertz Experiment (page at GSU).

… and as my old physics instructor would say… ASS-U-ME…

To help out a few of my friends and coworkers, I decided to write a page regarding Leopard’s auto-connect function. Specifically, this is regarding fixing issues that “don’t exist” with Leopard which are eerily similar to an old Tiger bug I recall.

Hope this helps

From VMware Forums: Avoid potential data loss due to Apple bug and “Optimize for Mac OS application performance” preference

After I made my last post about my Fusion VM issues, B.G. of VMware contacted me suggesting that I confirm my Fusion optimization settings. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with it as I already had configured for Optimize for virtual machine disk performance. (Thanks anyhow again B.G.) I’m fortunate to have a decked out MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM and a 200GB disk (because size does matter): I planned this laptop explicitly to run OS X/Fusion (with all my sub-OSs), Ubuntu and Vista (GFI/Boot Camp).

Prior to posting here, I was at the VMware web site for an update for Fusion and/or Tools/openvm-tools that I might apply prior to updating Leopard. In any case, I’m about to do the Leopard 10.5.3 to 10.5.4 update that I’ve tested already and have three backups to protect against the worst case (and I’ve tested one of them – better than total trust, eh). I’m not too worried because my key files are replicated through more than just the three backups (to multiple offsite hosts).

Sometimes I have a silly desire to want my systems to die in an update. Having witnessed, read about or fixed so many OS update failures in my life, it’s a bitter-sweet event that one can make the best of. Similar to the results of the forest fire I saw outside my family’s home in Pine, the “scorched OS” event is sad but awesome at the same time… the cycle… the chance to begin anew, fresh…