Wrong operating system?

I love this world: I love the new software and technology launches, the fuss around new services and new applications, the way we use technology, the way we combine it, etc. I start thinking that I'm living the best possible worlds and sometimes I feel so surprised and somehow proud of being contemporaneous and partially part of this.

This week brought us, among so many others, Chrome (the oh-so-talked-about Chrome) and the new Picasa (namely 3) + Picasa web . Nice stuff from google, cool things to play with.
Today I wanted to install the new Picasa and, of course it is not available for Linux, yet. Not to mention that Chrome is only available on Windows. Not to mention how much did I wait for Picasa 2.7 with (finally!) upload to web albums for Linux and how thrilled I was to have it this spring.

And I could mention such a long list of applications following the same pattern...

With so many cool applications available on Windows and Mac and the application developers completely ignoring Linux users, I found myself wondering today: am I using the wrong operating system for my software needs? I mean, maybe the type of user I am, the software I need and the way I use my computer in conjunction with the web is not the stuff that a Linux user would do, or what Linux is made for. It's not about not knowing or not wanting, I can tweak stuff, I can hack my Linux system, sometimes I get too involved in trying to make a webcam work or fixing sound / network / etc drivers problems, etc but I might be too social (wtf other would I need a photo management program for?) or too "trendy" for a Linux (wtf other would I want Chrome for?)

But still, I am using Ubuntu (8.04!), the Linux for girls ;) and given its popularity I should have more!

Yeah, I know my problem is obsolete in the context of the web operating system (or whatever the name of the concept is) but still, some doubts darken my clear skies of hope: Chrome on Linux? Firefox on Linux at the same level as for other OS? Plugins?

Don't get me wrong, I love my operating system, I love its openness, I love its freeness, its ubiquity (being able to have it everywhere just the same and for the same 0 charge) but I'm wondering whether we're the right one for each other.

I understand it's all about money and business (why the hell would application developers write Linux versions of the applications when Linux OSs users are so few (supposedly) and can wait anyway since they use a free operating system and should not expect too much from life because they don't pay?) but I just wish we lived in a (more) perfect world...

One year at XWiki

and also my first year in a job.


While waiting for my soup to boil, I tried to write this post that I've been wishing to write for a while. Somewhere after two paragraphs of writing into it, I realized that it's dangerous, I won't do it, it won't be. Even with all my "artistic talents" I cannot mask it (or I'm too lazy to do it). Even if it would be nice to have an anniversary blog post in which to do a recap of the last year, it won't happen.

Software doesn't matter?

The kid published tonight a post in which he stated that the software doesn't matter, it's the final result that people achieve with the software that does matter and that software will not make things happen if users are not set up to so good software's main quality is not being in the users way towards their goal.

While I very much agree with the first part, there are some things I would put in a different light for the second.

Indeed, nowadays software is just a tool (like almost everything in the world, actually): no one makes software for the software, or maybe some computer scientists in some laboratory -- that's the main difference between computer science and software and that's why I love the latter. We build software to help people do something, as good as we can, as good as they can: we give our best to create the best software we can to help people take maximum advantage of their possibilities.

And now we get to the second part: is the software that does not stand in your way the best software?

On one hand:
Is your friend that never criticize you your best friend? If we look at the question with user eyes, yes, it's most of the times like that: regular users generally don't have a particular attraction to learning new things and dealing with "the damn computer" or "the stupid software". I say that the software has to have an opinion, its purpose is to show the user "the good way" into computers and to help him getting better and better every day (remember, as good as they can), even against his/her will.
Our job is to really implement "the good way", to make sure our software does not create bad user habits or doesn't cultivate them, au contraire. There are situations when we have to take risks, we have to implement the good way even if everybody will hate us for it (that sounds so socially familiar) and nobody will use the software hence we'll get no money -- like persisting in caring for web standards when users use the browser that doesn't implement them . It might pay off at one point in the future, in which case we'll take the pride (and money) of being amongst the chosen few pioneers, it might not.

On the other hand:
Building a software that just doesn't stay in the way of it's users , isn't it a little too low for an aim? Why just that when we can do more? Yes, we start with that as a basis, always, we need to sell our software, people have to love it but let's set our minds to amaze them, user just satisfaction should be at the other end of the feature list. Why not propose to make the user fall in love with the software and do things he had never done before and go places he had never gone before?  (that sounds socially familiar, again) Achieving this is a challenge, we have to take it and use it as a doorway to slip into our souls, both as users and developers, the joy of going beyond what we used to call "our limits".

Blogged with Flock

A break...

Well, this is what I call a cool night.
Because tomorrow I'm going to summer <Web /> (just found out these days that it's the last edition – damn it, just when I was getting the taste of it), and because today I created the 0.4 pre alpha version of the bsc (with a cool XPCOM to singleton the connection to java – long story, I'll put it in a dedicated post), I'm not working right now (I hate to start things and then abandon them unstable because I have to do something else). Just hang around on the web. Reading lifesux because I remembered he writes cool stuff, watching a short movie on youtube, saying hi to Alinuţa – the true hypertext: just go with the flow (of the links). And because I saw npunctc put a last.fm chart on the sidebar of her blog, I thought I could actually fight my wish-of-not-touching-any-tech-stuff-tonight and narrow the columns of mine to fit my blog and put it there, too (damn it, I wanted to be the first – at least of what I've seen).

Since my presentation is on Sunday (here's the program (in Romanian)) I don't even want to take a fresh, critical look at my presentation. I'll do that tomorrow night. Yes, it's my first such presentation so I haven't got a bloody clue about how I am going to talk EXACTLY 30 minutes, how I am going to adapt the presentation to the public reactions (I would really love to be able to do that), nor if somebody will understand a single thing of what I will say. I know a bunch of people who would say that I worry too much – I'm only overreacting for the effect of this post :). I probably won't find an answer to these questions tomorrow night either, I'll trust my 'professor gene' (as Mr. Ciortuz put it) and just go there and do it!

Yes, it was a post from the heart – I can do this too: of course, when I'm not talking about microformats. And I would lie if I would say that it didn't feel good writing...