All posts by pmh

Grumbles, Ramblings, YukYuks

Who “gets” Internet and who doesn’t

Oh, joy… we have a federal election on May 2nd.

Being concerned about big ISP monopolies who had lobbied for per-user data caps and an “anti-Internet set of “Lawful Access” policies that would have Internet providers collect personal information without court oversight” The Portable Consultant  “signed” this petition by OpenMedia.ca and they sent an email on my behalf to my local Member of Parliament.

Minutes later I get the following auto-response from my MP’s parliamentary email address:
—
“Response sent April 12, 2011

“Thank you for your e-mail.

“Due to the election please contact mike@mikewallace.ca .

“The Campaign Office is located at 4460 Fairview Street, Unit B-101, in the plaza at the corner of Fairview and Appleby Line. -www.mikewallace.ca
—

…and I have to laugh at the automated email responder that tells me the email address to forward mail to but is not set up to forward the email automatically!

Once again politicians, government in general, prove that they do NOT “get” the Internet. It seems they still don’t even understand how to handle email.

Since his office is just around the corner I will PRINT the email for my Honourable Member of Parliament and deliver it in person – with a huge grin on my face.

Thanks for the chuckles, Government of Canada (aka “The Harper Government” ™)

Cheers,
-pmh

Infrastructure Architecture, Open Source

Facebook’s Open Hardware

The Portable Consultant has always been a supporter of open source philosophy, and not only in matters of code. As a technical architect on some large-scale portal projects in the past, I’m always intrigued by the infrastructure behind massive services such as Facebook and Google.

Facebook has “opened” their server technology and announced the creation of the Open Compute Project to distribute this intellectual capital.

Cheers,
-pmh

Emerging, Grumbles, New Paradigms, Open Source, Reviews

Ubuntu shortcomings

After The Portable Consultant wrote the preceding piece on his Kubuntu frustrations, he came across a couple of postings by O’Reilly’s Caitlyn Martin that he found he had to agree with. Having worked with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu for several revisions now the shortcomings of these fine open source products are all the more frustrating because of their high aims and high profiles.

The first article is Ubuntu is a Poor Standard Bearer for Linux but you need to read the follow up article, How Canonical Can Do Ubuntu Right to get a fair understanding of her position.

Cheers,
-pmh