I meant to post this early this weekend but had too many things happening simultaneously and didn’t get a chance. I’m an avid reader of several Open Source blogging “planets” and religiously read them every day in order to keep up with new developments or just to pick up a few things here and there. I’d say that most of the time I really enjoy the posts that get published but every now and then come across a few posts which I find inclined to post a reply.

Imagine yourself off on a bus going on a business trip at some far away place. This being a far away place, you eventually fall into a very heavy sleep and loose track of time and direction. Several hours later (or maybe even days?) you are awaken by someone who, speaking a different dialect seems to be telling you that the bus has reached its destination. Still a bit groggy from the sleep you shrug off this incident, grab your bag and step out of the bus and… To your surprise, you realize that the bus station seems somewhat odd and different from what you had expected… and when paying closer attention you also notice that every thing, people, stores signs, even trees, look different.

Yesterday, following the announcement that the folks behind the Opera web browser were giving away registration keys (the FREE part is implied) in celebration of their 10th anniversary, I too took the time to download a Linux version to see what the big deal was. Opera is yet another web browser that is freely available for several different operating systems (Linux and Windows included) with a small caviat: The un-registered version has a toolbar-like banner displaying adds while you browse.

While telling a co-worker how I managed to listen to my private *.ogg music files, I was asked if my music collection was “legal?” Having never spent much attention or time trying to understand what the music industry’s peeve with music swappers, I started to think out loud what the answer should be to his question. The logic I used was as follows: All of my current music files were originally encoded from my own, store-bought CDs… I have pretty much gotten away with keeping the real CDs at home because [lengthy explanation followed here]… and decided to keep a digitized copy stored in one of my many external hard drives.

My good friend from `The Land of the Rum <http://www.ogmaciel.com/?p=166>`__ has spent the last 4-5 days attempting to install iWhax Linux onto him Windows XP laptop via VMWare 5. If I remember correctly, there weren’t a lot of usefull information “out there” in the web and the few posts we (I also did some googling on the side for him) came across were either inacurate or not very newbie friendly. I remember that I borrowed his laptop this last Friday and tried some of the “recipes” but the automated installation script (don’t remember the exact location in the iWhax menu) failed miserably every single attempt.

Been talking to someone from work quite extensive about Linux, Mono and C# these last 4 days. So much in fact that I looked back at my old pet project, Comic Buddy#. This had been a VB6 application I had written several years ago to allow me to browse all/any Calvin and Hobbes or Garfield comic strip that were (back then) freely available online. These comics, together with many others are still housed and fiercely maintained by a group (the company name and web site url left out on purpose) that has recently changed their policies concerning the viewing of said strips.

Legend: Ship’s Captain - The V.P. for a certain local organization. Slave Master - Works for the Ship’s Captain. Has the ability to send shivers down the spines of most slaves and turn her Pacers into docile puppies. Pacer - Works for the Slave Master, mostly by pretending to control the Slaves and licking the Slave Master’s feet with their bifurcated tongues. Slaves - Bottom dwellers at said “ship.” Spend their days avoiding the “ship’s staff” and minding other Slaves' business.