A Lazy, Pre-Holiday weekend Post

new boat 037

Originally uploaded by sogsr.

There are lots of things I could talk about today, and probably half a dozen things I should talk about today, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I could tell you that it’s because the morning got chewed up on some hardware problem and a session of RedMonk Radio (will point to it when it’s up). But that would be at least mildly dishonest, so I’ll just confess that yesterday afternoon I picked up the boat from BFC Marine over in Bath, and even now it’s probably bobbing patiently along tied up to our dock.

Be honest, if it was:

1. The first nice day you’ve had in two weeks
2. The afternoon before a long, holiday weekend
3. Two full days since you last went fishing
4. The first full day you’ve had the boat in the water

What would you do? Be honest now.

Exactly.

Before I go, however, a couple of miscellaneous items that have been kicking around:

• Wikis:
  As mentioned on today’s podcast, we’re in the market for another wiki for internal usage. Our requirements are flexible, but I’m probably looking a.) for something I can host, b.) something that is Ajaxified (a la TiddlyWiki), c.) has a sustainable community behind it, and d.) (optionally) open source. I’m in the process of running down the projects in the Tao of Mac’s very useful list, so if any of you have recommendations or experiences to pass on, they’d be greatly appreciated.

• Weather:
  As mentioned briefly above, the weather up here in Maine following the first two perfect days that followed my arrival has been generally miserable. Foggy, stormy, cool, and humid enough to mildew towels and clothes left out. While I personally don’t care all that much, because weather does not have a tremendous impact on my ability to fish, it’s devastating the local businesses in our area that depend on tourist dollars. Restaurants are cutting waitressing shifts, stores are dipping heavily into credit, and so on. While I have no desire to see Maine develop a Silly Season like the Cape’s, I don’t enjoy seeing some of the service businesses around me struggle. So if you’re considering potential vacation in the Northeast this summer, let me humbly request that you consider Georgetown. The weather will get better, the scenery up here cannot be beaten, and – best of all – you’ll have the place more or less to yourself. The businesses up here will thank you for it, and so would I.

• Linux at the Tipping Point?:
  You remember how I said the Tipping Point for desktop Linux was not yet in sight? That’s probably still true, but I have to admit, when a near 20 year Mac user with a Mac tatoo decides to leave the platform I might need to rethink my timetable just slightly. And where are all the ex-Mac folks going to? Ubuntu, almost universally. Interestingly, they also seem to be choosing Lenovo’s Thinkpads in large numbers.

• Not So Fast:
  The Ruby crowd, at least, seems to be resisting the call of Ubuntu. Mark asks the right question in that thread, however.

• Ubuntu’s Package Library:
  One of the reasons I enjoy using and working on top of Ubuntu is the package management library. If you’re willing to consider commercial and non-free applications, the library is sizable – and of course I’ve been a fan of apt for a while. I am running into surprising omissions, however; packages like rubygems do not appear to be available, while Gentoo’s got two separate versions. Not sure why that might be.

• Getting Our Attention via del.icio.us:
  I meant to link to this when it came out, but if you haven’t read Cote’s guide to the del.icio.us for: feature, I highly recommend it. While my email and even IM channels were overrun months ago, traffic via my del.icio.us for: tag is still relatively light. Both my colleagues are users of it, as is Sun’s Simon Phipps, but if you want to be sure I see something you’ll face a lot less competition for my attention using the for: tag.

And with that, I’m officially on holiday. If any of you have plans to be on the Kennebec on this fine Friday afternoon, you can look for me near where the Sasanoa cuts in right under Carlton Bridge or possibly down near Squirrel Point in a Triumph 17 footer.

If you have a holiday Mon/Tues, enjoy it, otherwise enjoy not having us around.