Blog of the Sage

Adobe eyes the Linux Desktop Market

From CNet...

Adobe Systems, maker of major desktop software products such as Photoshop and Acrobat Reader, has begun a quiet effort to become more involved with desktop Linux.

Adobe has largely been on the sidelines of efforts to boost Linux for desktop computers, the vast majority of which run Microsoft Windows. The software maker is now taking a more active role by joining a prominent Linux consortium, working to improve Linux and planning to lead its own open-source development projects, CNET News.com has learned.

Two job postings reveal some of the company's intentions. Adobe wants to hire a director of Linux market development to "identify and evaluate strategies for Adobe in the Linux and open-source desktop market" and to identify projects that "will help improve Linux as a desktop environment." The employee also will "develop strong business relationships with leading Linux distributors and partners."

The rest of the article is here...

My new printer - Epson Photo R300

We've been talking about wanting a dedicated photo printer around the house for a while now - instead of sending out to Shutterfly all the time, and to be able to print off "spur of the moment" copies"...

Marla also decided that she'd like a color printer (since the kids and I already have them) for printing out her term papers and reports...

So I headed over to our local Mac-centric shop (since everyone's on a Mac, except me) - Springboard Media - and after looking at the options, settled on the Epson Stylus Photo R300.

I'm pretty impressed with it. The printer can be used entirely standalone, for printing pictures directly off of digital media cards/sticks AS WELL AS any USB-based device you can plug in (camera, CD, ZIP, etc.). You can also plug in a writable device (CDRW, ZIP, etc.) in, and auto-copy the digital media contents to the drive - all w/o a computer! And if you do have a computer, then any cards or USB devices will "pass through" to the computer as if they were directly plugin in. So you don't need a separate card reader.

I then proceeded to hook it up to an extra Mac in the house, enabled printer sharing, and now we can access it from any machine in the house - both Mac and PC! I also ordered the optional BlueTooth adapter to allow wireless printing from my camera phone...

Ran a bunch of test photos and document print last night - all excellent quality and speed is quite reasonable.

It's not 100% perfect - the biggest missing feature is on the 300M, a preview monitor so see the pictures on the media instead of having to print "proof sheets".

A Geek Guide to Kosher Machines

Meet the hacker who makes your home appliances right with God. By Michael Erard from Wired magazine.

Strange things for your keyring

For anyone needing a complete web, ftp and email server that they can carry around - check out WebServerUSB.

Though much cooler is the ability to have a fully bootable and usable GUI Linux on your USB key OR your iPod(!). Check out MetroPipe's Portable Virtual Privacy Machine.

The Lit Window Library 0.3.1

Although I haven't written much (any?) GUI code in a while, I do keep up with the work of many of my friends and collegues in the field as there are many problems in this area that need solving.

Stumbled across this one open source project today that takes an interesting (and what appears to be a viable) approach to addressing some of the major hassles of GUI programming for applications.

The Lit Window Library 0.3.1

A C++ library with reflections, rule-based programming, and UI patterns.

You know you've made it, when they make a Halloween custom of you...

Geek goes as a FULLY WORKING iPod!

Clothing For Gadget Guys

Here's the company that thinks they get it - but they don't...

Andru Edwards writes "In an article looking at the advancements in clothing for gear loving professionals, it becomes apparent that you no longer need to sacrifice your gadgets for style. SCOTTeVEST has recently released a sport jacket, khakis, and tie all specifically tailored with hidden pockets and compartments for businessmen who don't want to leave their tech at home. The clothing includes an integrated tunnel system which allows you to hide all the wires affiliated with your devices within the lining of the item, aptly dubbed the "Personal Area Network"."

iCal for Windows?

Not exactly - but EventSherpa come as close as I've seen!

A .NET application, it has an iCal-like interface with full publish and subscribe integration with Apple's iCal application. Also offers a lot of nice features over iCal including Calendar groups, better web publishing and more.

Oh, and the subscribe-only version is FREE - $99 if you want to publish...

I think I'm going to like it here - but I'll report back if that changes...

Cute little device

NisisUSA has a cute little device that I first saw a few weeks ago at GraphExpo.

The DV4 is a combination 4MP digital still camera, digital video camera (640x480), web cam, portable hard disk, MP3 player and will probably wash your windows if you know which button to push ;). All for only $199(!)

I didn't buy one, because it has two flaws for my personal use.

1. Zoom is digital only - no optical zoom. Have this same problem with my current digital camera.
2. Although it can take >256Mb SD cards, it auto-partitions them into 256Mb chunks.

However, for many folks, this might be a nice unit - esp. as a small alternative for your normal camera or for a kid/student.

GLAT - Google Labs Aptitude Test

For anyone that hasn't heard, Google has been out "shopping" for programming talent for the last year or so - and as part of that they've had a couple of contents and have also finalized their "Aptitude Test", which thier VP of R&D just posted to his blog.

Does strike me as pretty weird that it's 4 72-dpi GIFs however....You'd like a guy who was VP of R&D for a search engine company would know about PDF, wouldn't you???