The solution is to remove sun-java6 and its associated components and reinstall (You can also downgrade in Synaptic by using "force version" and selecting the Karmic version).

When will computer manufacturers finally get it right? For a serious computer user, four or even six USB ports is just not enough. In this day and age, I should not have to attach a HUB just so I can have all of my devices connected at once. Everyone is different, but let me give you an example of everything I need plugged in at once:

1. keyboard

2. mouse

3. graphics tablet

4. external hard drive

5. printer

6. game controller 1

7. game controller 2

Then, I need at least one free port for card readers and/or flash drives that I might attach. Is that really too much to ask? 8 to 10 ports on every desktop PC should be standard. A laptop should at least have four (I’m looking at you, Apple, with a disappointed expression on my face). It’s time to get it right. My computer should have more ports than an island nation, more ports than a submarine, more ports than…you get the idea. Four in the front and six in the back. That’s all I need.

As a writer, I have long wished for tabbed word processing (outside of Google Docs), and now that will be possible with this KWin feature.

Download it now in PDF format.

Some hardware vendors, such as Dell, now sell Linux desktop computers, although you have to page through their online catalog to find it, and their promotion of it seems spotty at best. The netbook craze has also seen the rise of several Linux offerings, but even the company that arguably started the netbook craze with its Eee PCs, Asus, still proudly displays “Better with Windows” on their website.

According to some estimates, there are now more Linux desktop computers in the world than Apple computers running Mac OS X. Most of them are in countries outside the United States, however, where some countries have issued large scale adoption for their government offices. Still, the recognition of Apple’s product line is better known, and services and software vendors are still more inclined to support Apple before they support Linux (take Netflix’s Watch Now service as an example).

Despite all of those setbacks, Linux has begun to ascend in an entirely different arena: the mobile phone market. The number of Linux-based phones has not only surpassed the “handful” mark, some of them are now becoming serious contenders. Google shifted the playing field when it released Android, an open-source Linux-based mobile operating system. Android-based phones (including their MyTouch G3) are featured prominently on mobile carrier websites (see T-Mobile’s website).

The world was rocked yet again when Palm released its long anticipated Palm Pre. Just when people had all but left Palm for dead, the Palm Pre has become highly competitive in mobile sales. Its WebOS is a revolutionary Linux-based operating system that has drawn gawking even from iPhone users.

Now, another major vendor is entering the Linux fold in a big way. Nokia, which is still the world’s leading smartphone seller, has invested years of research and financial backing into development of the open source Maemo operating system. It powered the Nokia 770, N800, and N810, all of which were not phones. The release of the N900, however, could very well solidify Linux’s position in the mobile market.

Rather than a Linux whim, like that of Asus or Dell, Nokia seems poised to make Maemo their OS of choice. Their recent acquisition of Trolltech highlights this. Trolltech was responsible for the QT graphical user interface and framework that powers KDE (a Linux desktop environment) and the Opera web browser, among other software. Nokia is in it for the long-haul, and the N900 will most likely be the first of many maemo-based mobile phones.  Furthermore, Nokia’s acquisition of Symbian, which makes the most prominent mobile operating system, has committed to releasing Symbian OS under an open source license.

Will Android, WebOS, and Maemo surpass other operating systems in the cellphone market? Will other smartphone manufactures follow? (Motorola is now shipping Linux-based phones, among others). The writing seems to be on the wall, so I am calling it. 2009 will be the year of the Linux mobile phone. There…I said it. I don’t even know what it really means, but I do know the game has changed.

Three popular services that Digikam can handle are Flickr, PicasaWeb, and Facebook. The first two are social photo sites, and the last is a social networking site. All three support photo plugins used by Digikam. This makes uploading photos quick, easy, and painless.

I am operating under the assumption that you already have accounts on the services you want to use. If not, you will need to register and activate whichever accounts you want before you proceed.

Read the rest

“Tonight you have killed a man on a night in which the Qur’an came down, a night in which Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) was taken up, and a night in which Joshua the son of Nun, the champion of Moses (peace be upon him), was killed. By God, none of those who were before him are ahead of him and none of those who will come after him will overtake him. By God, if the Prophet (may Allah bless him and his progeny) sent him on a raid, Gabriel was at his right hand and Michael at his left. By God, he did not leave (at his death) gold or silver except for 800 or 700 dirhams, which he set aside for a servant woman.”

“Be obedient to Allah and have faith in Him. The loftiness of those who know the greatness of Allah is expressed in their modesty. The safety of those who know the power of Allah is expressed in their surrender to Him. Do not be influenced by the ignorant. Seek knowledge from its bearers. They are the light with which one can enlighten oneself.”

Imam Hasan was born on the 15th of Ramadan in Madinah, city of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his progeny). He was the second to take the office of Imam after his father Ali (peace be upon him).

The Prophet once said of Imam Hasan and his younger brother Imam Husayn: “Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn are the leaders of the youths of Paradise and Fatimah (their mother) is the leader of its women.”

He (may Allah bless him and grant him and his family peace) said:

“They (Hasan and Husain) are my two sweet-smelling flowers in this world.”

OK, I am making a joke to cover my concern about the news that Disney is purchasing Marvel for $4 billion.  Sure, it means that we will probably see an X-Men theme park in the future.  And yes, Disney has an impressive history of not injecting their own products into their subsidiaries (i.e. we haven’t seen Miley Cyrus giving commentary on SportsCenter — as far as I know).

Still, it just seems like Marvel has lost some of its innocence in a weird, twisted kind of way.  Yes, Disney is supposed to be the juvenile innocent one, but Marvel’s purity was its humble beginning and its fanboy attraction.

My one and only fear is that Marvel will become more of a commodity than it already has.  Disney is all about pushing merchandise.  The cash register goes cha-ching for Disney like every millisecond (note: I have no actual proof of this, but you get the point).  My hope is that Marvel does not become too commercialized.  I shutter at the thought of Disney characters dominating Comic-Con, but technically it could happen.

I’m just going to keep hoping that all will turn out for the best.  After all, our favorite superheroes have faced greater odds, more sinister plots, and villains with bigger speech impediments than Donald Duck.  We will live to fight another day.

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The Web is buzzing about Nokia’s announcement of the next in the Nokia Nxxx series, the N900.  I found it odd that Nokia had chosen to make this version a phone when the previous three versions, the 770, N800, and N810 were all “internet tablets”.  The only reason I even believed this one would be a phone is because of all of the buzzing, with numerous tech news sources reporting it as Nokia’s new phone.

After looking at the website for the device for a few minutes this morning, however, I found absolutely no mention of it being a phone.  They have pictures of its interface but never show a dialing pad.  The specs mention mobile broadband but not mobile voice.

It does run the new Linux-based version of Nokia’s Maemo operating system, which will probably not be compatible with previous versions of the tablet, since this tablet will finally introduce a 3D graphics chip with iphone-ish effects (as if that’s important).

But no, it is not a phone, unless Nokia just really wants to minimize the significance of it being a phone.  According to Nokia’s own website, it is the “Nokia N900 mobile computer”.

UPDATE (2009-08-27): The features site now mentions “phone” as one of the features.  It actually looks pretty cool.  Let’s just hope they don’t tie customers to a 2-year contract with a crappy service provider like a certain other company who shall remain a nameless red fruit.