These Things Matter to Me
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Preview screencast of Wordpress 2.5's gallery feature
Wordpress's Matt Mullenweg previews a very cool feature of the soon-to-be-released Wordpress, small photo galleries in a post without painful manual layout. (And yes, there are plenty of shots of the cool new dashboard.)
Labels: blogging, interface, ma.tt, preview, screencast, social software, video, wordpress, wordpress 2.5
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
1 night with VMware Server 2.0 beta: It sure is web-based.
VMware Server 2.0 beta came out today, and I've had a couple of hours to play with it tonight. As suggested at VMworld, this is a really different product from VMware Server 1.x. Some changes good, some bad. I don't have the same opinion that virtualization.info, that VMware Server is becoming a less relevant product, but I do agree that there's something lackluster here.
VMware Server 1.x felt whole, right off the bat. With VMware Server 2.0, I have this "well, this is just the beta, surely there will be radical improvements" vibe.
While there are a million good and bad features here, what will save us both a lot of time is for you to know that as of now, VMware Server 2.x administration is totally web-based, and that is almost all you can think about or notice when you're working with this tool. I will give to credit to VMware, they've enabled a lot of functionality (rebooting, creating VM's, etc) on a web-client that somehow doesn't involve a giant, slow Java applet. That said, there are many situations when you feel the web pain. The web page has to "think" and rebuild itself a lot. Console access requires a plugin in your browser (which kinda kills the whole "all-you-need-is-a-web-browser" spirit). People in the forums are missing the fit-to-screen feature you got with the "regular" console in VMware Server 1.x, as am I.
VMware is taking a big risk here. The next version of the (regular) VI client will be able to manage VMware Server guests, somewhat softening the blow of not otherwise having one. But this will only help people who have the (not free) VI. I see the "strategy" here... entice VMware Server users to jump up to VI. However I don't believe it will work, and will actually turn people off of VMware.
Despite supporting more OS's and architectures, I feel VMware Server 2.0 is "less" of a product than VMware Server 1.x.
To be continued.
VMware Server 1.x felt whole, right off the bat. With VMware Server 2.0, I have this "well, this is just the beta, surely there will be radical improvements" vibe.
While there are a million good and bad features here, what will save us both a lot of time is for you to know that as of now, VMware Server 2.x administration is totally web-based, and that is almost all you can think about or notice when you're working with this tool. I will give to credit to VMware, they've enabled a lot of functionality (rebooting, creating VM's, etc) on a web-client that somehow doesn't involve a giant, slow Java applet. That said, there are many situations when you feel the web pain. The web page has to "think" and rebuild itself a lot. Console access requires a plugin in your browser (which kinda kills the whole "all-you-need-is-a-web-browser" spirit). People in the forums are missing the fit-to-screen feature you got with the "regular" console in VMware Server 1.x, as am I.
VMware is taking a big risk here. The next version of the (regular) VI client will be able to manage VMware Server guests, somewhat softening the blow of not otherwise having one. But this will only help people who have the (not free) VI. I see the "strategy" here... entice VMware Server users to jump up to VI. However I don't believe it will work, and will actually turn people off of VMware.
Despite supporting more OS's and architectures, I feel VMware Server 2.0 is "less" of a product than VMware Server 1.x.
To be continued.
Labels: 2.0, application, beta, social software, sysadmin, testing, virtualization, vmware, vmware server, web-based
Oracle VM: Missing in Action
The Oracle VM FAQ says it will be available for download today. It's not.
[update: It later showed up sometime by late-afternoon. At least there was a download button. When I went to download it, it made me give a page of registration info, and then said it'd take up to two days to "process" my info in compliance with "U.S. Export Administration Regulations and applicable export laws." BTW, I'm American, downloading from the U.S. I've never had this happen before.]
Oracle VM is free, and will be available for download starting Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007, at oracle.com/virtualization. Both Linux and Windows guests are supported.It's not on the Oracle software downloads page, either.
[update: It later showed up sometime by late-afternoon. At least there was a download button. When I went to download it, it made me give a page of registration info, and then said it'd take up to two days to "process" my info in compliance with "U.S. Export Administration Regulations and applicable export laws." BTW, I'm American, downloading from the U.S. I've never had this happen before.]
Labels: download, Oracle, oracle vm, oracleworld, social software, vaporware, virtualization
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
video interview: Wordpress founder Matt Mullenwag
Above: Wallstrip video interview with Wordpress/Automattic/ Wordpress.com founder Matt Mullenwag. Totally underrated Wallstrip host Lindsay Campbell jokes about his age and competitors. (BTW, something to know going into this interview, Wordpress.com hosts LOLcatz site icanhascheezburger.)
I regularly read Matt's blog, and I've always been impressed with how generous, even, and laid back he comes across in the middle of Wordpress's insane growth and popularity.
Aside: Wallstrip has somehow talked advertiser OptionsExpress into letting Lindsay get edited into and poke fun at their dry commercials.
Above: Wallstrip video interview with Wordpress/Automattic/ Wordpress.com founder Matt Mullenwag. Totally underrated Wallstrip host Lindsay Campbell jokes about his age and competitors. (BTW, something to know going into this interview, Wordpress.com hosts LOLcatz site icanhascheezburger.)
I regularly read Matt's blog, and I've always been impressed with how generous, even, and laid back he comes across in the middle of Wordpress's insane growth and popularity.
Aside: Wallstrip has somehow talked advertiser OptionsExpress into letting Lindsay get edited into and poke fun at their dry commercials.
- related: Wallstrip interview with Wordpress-centric co. Automattic CEO Toni Schneider
Labels: blogging, blogs, charisma, lindsay campbell, Matt Mullenwag, social software, wallstrip, wordpress, wordpress.com
Monday, May 07, 2007
These Links Matter to You. Monday May 7, 2007
(ideally this cat pidgin will be charming, hilarious, and familiar to readers of i can has cheezburger and Anil Dash)
(ideally this cat pidgin will be charming, hilarious, and familiar to readers of i can has cheezburger and Anil Dash)- This commenter on Matt Asay's InfoWorld blog has a theory that IBM will buy Novell (to get SUSE), that IBM helped Novell buy SUSE, and that ex-IBM execs are already slowly filling Novell VP spots
- Comcast is going to use open source + commercial application Zimbra to manage 12 million + mail accounts
- Ubuntu working with Intel on a mobile/ embedded edition of Ubuntu.
- Sun is helping port OpenOffice on the Mac with two dedicated engineers.
- New York Observer magazine recently relaunched their website using Drupal. With notes on the how. And why yes I will continue to document major commercial implementations of open source software like Drupal until y'all bow down and concede that open source is just fine for "mission critical" applications. Sheesh.
Labels: comcast, drupal, embedded, intel, mac, mobile, open source, openoffice, oss, social software, sysadmin, ubuntu, zimbra
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Tweetin' Open Source CIO's
451 group industry analyst Raven Zachary tweets from a conference:
And oh yeah, this might me a good time to invite you to add These Things on Twitter.
"CIO personality clearly drives levels of tech adoption - watching three CIOs up on stage have varying levels of comfort with open source."I've been a regular reader of his group's blog, but twitter is a great way to get moment-by-moment feelings and happenings from people, especially people who constantly travel through different spaces, time zones, cultures, and environments.
And oh yeah, this might me a good time to invite you to add These Things on Twitter.
Labels: cio, community, IT, social software, twitter
