November 12, 2006

The reader’s guide to technology journalism

Filed under: Editorials — @ 4:05 pm

I’m long past the point of being bothered by people who write angry letters to me (or in today’s world, writing blog posts about me) because I didn’t favorably review their preferred operating system or software program. If I’m emailed with an assault on my credibility, sometimes I write back and explain my testing methods, my experience, and how I reach my conclusions. Rather than continue to repeat myself, I’ve decided to take the time today to write this article so that I can link to it in the future.

Review testing

First I will explain my testing procedure, because this seems to be a frequent hangup. When evaluating an operating system, program, or hardware component, there are three distinct levels of testing:

Basic functionality: does it install correctly and work as expected/advertised?
Compatibility: does it work only with a small number of machines, or can I run it on pretty much anything?
Hackability: how hard is it to make this do what I want it to?

If I can’t get something to work at all, I usually do not publish a review of it.

I purposefully use hardware that I think will be problematic because I assume that older mainstream hardware will work perfectly. People read reviews because they want to know if something will work with what they have, and if it will do what they want it to do. If an operating system does not work on a Core 2 Duo system, readers need to know that. If the 64-bit version of a program doesn’t work as well as the 32-bit (or if there is no 64-bit binary available), readers need to know that too. So I test on two architectures with opposite brands (AMD/ATI in one machine, Intel/Nvidia in the other), and on laptop computers.

Problem solving and bug reports

If an operating system or program can’t be installed without having to work around programming bugs and hardware problems, then that is a huge negative point. If unincluded documentation or prerequisite knowledge is required to install and configure your product, then that also counts against it in a big way. The target userbase — the people for whom the software is designed — should have access to all necessary documentation at all times and without a network connection. So rarely is that the case these days, with most documentation being relegated to hidden FAQ sections on Web sites, how-to guides that are many versions old, and wikis that are grossly incomplete. Online documentation is no documentation because all too often, someone who is having trouble cannot get online to learn how to fix the problems he’s having. Even if he can get online, how is he supposed to know which site to go to, or what to put into Google to see the right articles? Mailing lists and forums do not count as documentation, either. If your software doesn’t work as intended or advertised, and I am required to search some mailing list to find the fix, then expect me to say that your product stinks.

Having said that, requiring documentation to install or use the software is not necessarily a bad thing as long as the documentation is included with the software and is easy to understand and follow. This has nothing to do with the complexity of the installation or configuration.

I do not file bug reports for the growing number problems I discover in everything I evaluate. Filing reports on all of them would take hours, but it’s not just the time investment that shoos me away — I actually used to file bug reports. I stopped because I found that in the staggering majority of cases my bug reports were quickly closed or disregarded. I was usually told that whatever problem I reported had been fixed in CVS already (even though no previous bug report existed), that it’s an “upstream” problem with a dependent piece of software, that my year-old (or older) hardware is “too bleeding edge,” or that my operating system was not supported (despite the fact that binaries were provided for it). If I was using the “stable” release of a product, I was told that the problem was fixed in the development release and I should use that or wait a few months for the next stable release; if I used the development release, I was told that problems were to be expected and that I shouldn’t file a bug report unless I am also submitting a patch to fix the problem. Why bother wasting my time on bug reports that are destined to be tossed out by lazy programmers?

I now leave bug reports for the people who actually write and submit patches, or people who want to deal with ornery programmers who defend their product against all bug reports, foreign and domestic. The best you’re going to get out of me is an article or review that contains a brief description of my hardware, an explanation of the problem, and my best guess as to what might be causing it. You want a bug report? File it yourself. My duty is to readers, not to programmers or hardware and software companies. I’m not obligated to make other people’s projects or products better; all I’m obligated to do is to tell you, the reader, what you can expect from them. Having said that, I gladly respond to programmers who ask for more details on the problems I’ve written about. At least in those cases, I have a reason to believe that I’ll be taken seriously.

No operating system should ever be released with known bugs. Somehow, though, many reviewers have gone soft — especially on GNU/Linux distributions and free software/open source programs. They think that advocacy of free software is more important than exposing a program’s or software distribution’s warts. Just because your product is open source or free-as-in-rights doesn’t mean that I or any other journalist owes you a glowing review, and it also doesn’t mean that you deserve any slack when comparing your project to a proprietary competitor. At the risk of offending some of my colleagues, I will say that there is no shortage of professionally- and unprofessionally-managed Web sites and media networks on the Internet that will gladly write a puff piece on your open source program no matter how grievously it sucks. I am proud to say that mine is not one of them.

I remember the good old days when you didn’t release software that you knew to be broken. I think that philosophy got trashed with the notion of “release early, release often” that extreme programming recommends. The “release notes” or “errata” file, which was once used for good and noble purposes, is now firmly within the domain of evil. Instead of some introductory documentation, configuration tips, or warnings about strange hardware incompatibilities, the release notes file is now too frequently used as the one and only place where the development team tells users about the bugs that they didn’t feel like fixing. Heaven forbid you don’t read that file, which gets longer and more tedious with every release as programmers increasingly concentrate on exciting new “rock star” features instead of squashing bugs and writing documentation.

Reader threats: the good, the bad, and the silly

Writing technology articles is a fascinating study in human behavior. I’m frequently amused by the lengths that readers will go to to try to undo what they perceive as bad PR from my reviews or articles. One disgruntled reader was so convinced that I was lying about hardware compatibility problems with his favorite operating system that he started an anti-Jem Web page (sadly it is gone now) that had more words than my review did. Pamela Jones of Groklaw was so offended by this editorial that I wrote that she reportedly threatened (behind my back) to “humiliate” me with her blog, called for editorial censorship of my article, and scolded Newsforge editors for not toeing the party line — all because I said that most users don’t value the four freedoms of the GPL because they take the freedom they need via software piracy. (What stopped her, I wonder? Maybe Maureen O’Gara “humiliating” PJ with a ramshackle exposé made her think twice about threatening to do hatchet-jobs on innocent people over the Internet?)

High-handed bloggers aside, some blogless readers want their reactionary message to get out to as many people as possible, so they will go around like Paul Revere and copy-and-paste their review of my review to every site that links to it. Presumably they are hoping that the snarky, misspelled comments they spent 15 minutes writing will change people’s minds about findings, data, and analysis that took days to collect and publish, or that I will personally read what they wrote and shake my fist in anger.

I’ve had people call me all kinds of unusual names, swear at me in several different languages, threaten me with physical harm, make interesting guesses as to my sexual preference, make fun of my name, make fun of the way I look, telephone me in the wee hours of the morning while I’m on vacation, tell me that they make more money than I do, accuse me of lying, assess my IQ, analyze my writing skills, threaten to sue me, and make recommendations for potential future careers for me. For the first year that I wrote reviews, the negative comments would bother me because I took them seriously. Now, though, I eagerly look forward to rants because they’re most often presented in such a clownish fashion and I’m curious to see what feelings and assumptions people project onto me based on one article that they did not agree with. It’s also amazing to me that a few particularly motivated people get so upset over one journalist’s honest product assessment that they’ll spend a great deal of time and energy trying to cook up some sort of retaliation.

All of the people who attack reviewers share a common thread: they label an article “bad” if they either don’t agree with it or if it says something that they feel should not be widely known (airing dirty laundry), and label an article as “good” if it supports their cause — even if that support is untrue or misleading. That’s a lovely fantasy, but this is not how it works in reality. In the real world, a good review is one that lauds every significant strength and exposes most or all of the weaknesses of a product from the frame of reference of the target market. In rare cases, a product can have so many negative points that the positive points don’t matter. A bad review fits so many disparate qualities that I don’t think I could list them all. But to fans and zealots, the only good review is one that says nice things about their product of choice; reviews that expose weaknesses or criticize poor design or development are bad and must be destroyed.

Few people respect the amount of time I spend evaluating computer hardware and software (and books now, too). This is my full-time job, and I spend anywhere between 50 and 80 hours a week testing things, reading manuals and licenses and books, and writing about what I find. I’m not a “blogger” — I’m a real journalist who publishes online (previously for a big tech media company, but now I’m on my own), and a real author of several books and electronic PDF guides (many of which have not yet been released). I do have a blog, and like everyone else’s, it is really lame.

I got into this business four years ago because I was sick of being misled by crappy computer hardware reviews that didn’t tell me about the weaknesses and flaws in products. I figured I could do better myself, so I reserved a domain name, bought a shared hosting account, and started posting reviews of computer parts I had. I do a lot more than that now, but my mission is still the same: to publish the best technology articles on the Internet. So if you, the reader, are really that motivated to silence me or any other journalist, the absolute last thing you should do is sit around and whine about it on your lame blog. All that does is bring us more traffic and validate the very opinions you’re attacking. Instead of wasting your time trying to think of a name I’ve never been called before or an insult that will get to me when thousands of others could not, close your browser window, open up your IDE and work on coding better software, take my review findings and file your own bug reports on them, join my forum and patiently help people with computer problems, or offer to help me with future articles and reviews. Send an email and say, “hey, next time you do a review on this, let me know. I’d love to help you work through any problems so that we can make our product better.” Offer to do a technical edit of a review or article, or if you are a company or project representative, offer to make some meaningful on-record comments that can be quoted positively for future articles. Try taking positive action; perhaps you will find it rewarding.

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We don’t need no stinking graphics

Stop and ask yourself this question: how do the Aero Glass, XGL/Compiz, and the candy-like bouncy/trouncy OS X interfaces make you more productive, or make games more fun? Forget how “beautiful” or “sexy” your computer or software is for a moment — a computer is neither a person nor a work of art, after all — and think about what you’re really using your computer for. What does a host of 3D effects add to those uses?

My answer is: nothing — in fact, the 3D effects of XGL/Compiz ruin my work environment because they’re so distracting, and they reduce my frame rate in 3D games. Aside from that, XGL has been known to cause system instability, and can be difficult to properly install and configure. So why on earth would I want this?

Graphical effects only seem to be useful when it comes to evangelism, when you need to show your friends all of the fancy tricks your computer can do. It’s the veritable equivalent of stupid dog tricks — they don’t improve the animal’s disposition, and they don’t make them more fun to play with, but boy are they good for impressing your friends.

It’s about the programs

What the desktop GNU/Linux (and *BSD) realm truly needs to increase its usefulness and viability is not stupid tricks, but specialized and competent programs that make the operating environment an indispensable tool. Right now GNU/Linux is where the coolest software is, and as a server OS it’s the first choice for many sysadmins, but it’s not really indispensable. If GNU/Linux disappeared tomorrow, most of the people who rely on it could switch to FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, or Solaris without a great deal of trouble. For the most part, all of these operating systems share the same benefits as GNU/Linux — good security, a large collection of ported applications, system administration tools built in, and access to the source code. You could probably even keep most of your scripts and other custom GNU/Linux hacks, or at least only have to modify them slightly.

OpenBSD and NetBSD have well-defined and focused niches: security and portability, respectively; no other operating systems fit these niches as comfortably. FreeBSD used to have a reputation as a Web server, but it has lost that focus and is now sort of the “Linux” of the BSD world — and that says just as much about GNU/Linux as it does about FreeBSD. They both do so much that they don’t really do anything at all. Specific GNU/Linux distributions do introduce a small amount of focus, but aside from a handful of desktop-oriented GNU/Linux distributions, I haven’t found any that really hone in on a specific use. For instance, I’d like to see a distro that is totally dedicated to serving Web pages, with the option to add FTP, rsync, and other Internet services. The kernel, the command line tools, and the graphical interface (if there is one — and there should be) would all be totally dedicated to configuring, delivering, and monitoring these Web services. Right now all that we have are gigantic, wide-ranging distros that we pare down and customize for our uses.

We also have gigantic, wide-ranging programs like OpenOffice.org that we fit to smaller uses. OpenOffice.org is the king of bloat and copycatism. Was it designed as a suite of tools that people commonly need in an office setting? No, it was designed to copy what was in Microsoft Office, whether or not it makes any sense to do so. If it were truly an “office suite,” it would have a program for making charts and other business graphics, a program for writing letters on predefined letterhead, an IM client, and an email/PIM program. It has none of those specialized tools.

If you remember the first few generations of Apple Macintosh computers, you probably knew them as desktop publishing machines. That’s what Macs were originally known for — superb desktop publishing, and at the time there were few or no viable alternatives to the Macintosh, especially for a comparable price. These days Macs are just fancy PCs, and although many audio and video recording engineers and artists prefer Apple hardware and software, Apple by no means has those markets cornered. Like everything else in the desktop computing world, the Macintosh has lost its focus.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Like the Macintosh in the mid-80s, GNU/Linux could just as easily establish itself as a must-have platform, but not just for desktop publishing — for a variety of niche groups:

Software developers. GNU/Linux is already pretty strong in this arena because of the free software movement, but there are still many ways that it could be made more developer-friendly. For instance, there could be a desktop environment (or an entire GNU/Linux distribution) specialized for software development. As it is now, you have to assemble and customize your own development tools and then arrange the graphical interface (if you use one) so that you can more easily access them. The good news is, there are many excellent IDEs for a variety of different programming languages; excellent compilers and debuggers; and decent virtual machine frameworks. Sun Microsystems’ Java Desktop System, which is based on a prehistoric version of SUSE Desktop, does come close to being an ideal software development platform — especially for Java — but it still has a lot of unnecessary extras.
Professional writers. Obviously this one is high on my personal wish list, but I’m not alone — writers are a large, neglected group of computer users. I regularly get email from other authors and journalists who repeat the same lament: there aren’t any really good programs or specialized environments for writers. We’re stuck with over-featured software like OpenOffice.org, or barebones tools like Vim and Aspell, and we have to modify our work habits to fit the boundaries of these programs. What we should have is a suite of literary-specific tools — one for drafting, outlining, and storyboarding; one for editing (spelling, grammar, punctuation); and one for publishing (page layout and design, etc.). Don’t forget screenwriters, either — they should have tools specific for their needs. Programs like JEdit and LyX can come close in many regards, but we’re still without heavy-hitting English drafting and editing tools on GNU/Linux.
Graphic designers. The GIMP is good for computer graphics, but substandard for print graphics — or at least, that’s what the graphic designers say every time someone publishes a GIMP review. I’m not sure that appropriately advanced graphic design tools are necessarily absent in GNU/Linux, but they would be much easier to find and use if they were specialized to certain tasks. This is more or less the same gripe as the one above about professional writers — what’s needed here is a suite or collection of programs that each superbly perform a small set of focused tasks. And, like with programmers, a specific desktop environment or distribution would also help.

Many of these things could be accomplished simply by properly customizing GNU/Linux distributions so that they’re already pared down and focused. But who wants to do that? I’ll admit that the occasional late night spent watching Sopranos DVDs while casually setting up OpenBSD or Gentoo on a notebook computer is fun and interesting, but only because I have the technical know-how to do it. Most of the writers I know are tech-ignorant, and are stuck with computer setups that are overpriced and inappropriate for their work.

Going further with this idea, a particularly creative company could design hardware to go with a specialized GNU/Linux distro, thereby creating niche-specific computing appliances. I think the majority of computer users really want more of an appliance anyway — something they don’t have to mess with, fuss over, or spend a lot of time maintaining.

Even though pundits and programmers alike seem to disagree with me, I think the future of GNULinux desktop computing does not lie in making existing programs more feature-packed and graphically entertaining. The future is where it has always been — in achieving a higher degree of usefulness to the people who use computers for more than just programming. Recently, software developers have become shortsighted and distracted by “feature envy” in the months leading up to the Windows Vista release. I can’t wait until that’s over; maybe then I can look forward to some truly innovative software, rather than workalikes and lookalikes of programs I left the Windows world to escape.

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We’ve got the software and hardware support we wanted

A few years ago, many people became vocal GNU/Linux evangelists because they wanted hardware manufacturers to provide Linux drivers for their products, and software companies to provide a Linux version of their flagship programs. Popular belief was that a higher number of GNU/Linux users would spur these companies into action, giving us the products we wanted to buy. But that was an era when Linux hardware support was spotty and difficult, and many free software programs were unable to compete with their commercial Windows and OS X counterparts.

Today we live in a world where GNU/Linux supports the majority of desktop computer hardware, and has a wider range of more capable desktop software. Some of it is even better than the proprietary alternatives. OpenOffice.org is in many ways equal or superior to Microsoft Office; The GIMP can compete with all but the mot expensive graphics software; Firefox and Opera (though Opera is not free-as-in-rights) are easily the most versatile and capable Web browsers on the market; and proprietary games are increasingly being made cross-platform.

Is there any reason to further evangelize GNU/Linux if hardware and software companies no longer need to be reminded that this is an operating system that matters? Despite the enormous amount of progress that has been made in recent years, there are still a few problematic areas. RAID, sound card, and wireless network card support is not as good as it could be, and high-end design programs like those made by Adobe and Macromedia still don’t have functional free-as-in-rights equivalents. To most desktop users, these are not issues worth worrying about — not like years ago when 3D video card support was just a dream, and sound support through ALSA had to be installed and configured by hand. This progress was mostly achieved through better programming, not by convincing more people to use GNU/Linux on desktop computers. There is evidence to suggest that lobbying hardware manufacturers for proper hardware documentation is an effective method of improving driver support, however.

Unrealistic expectations

In order to get someone to switch operating systems, you have to convince them that the problems they are having with their current OS will not be present in the new one. But when you tell someone that there are no GNU/Linux viruses, trojan horses, or spyware, and that it never crashes, you’re setting up an image of software utopia for a Windows refugee. These unrealistic expectations can create a backlash of anti-Linux sentiment among those newly disillusioned with GNU/Linux.

After more than a decade with Windows, I know what to expect from it — I expect that it will often break, crash, or otherwise not work. This is not a myth; show me someone who says that they have never had a major Windows malfunction and I’ll show you someone who has never upgraded their hardware or software. I expect Windows to malfunction, so when it does, it’s no surprise — just more of the same crap from the same crappy operating system.

GNU/Linux, on the other hand, I expect to work unless I use experimental software; if something goes wrong, more often than not, it was due to my own mistakes. In general, I think many people who are moving away from Windows are going to GNU/Linux with the expectation that it is a software utopia where computer problems don’t exist. That environment will never happen on any architecture or platform, but GNU/Linux often comes close as long as you know your way around it. I see people on forums and mailing lists talk about how “Linux is not ready for the desktop” because they’re embarrassed that they couldn’t figure out something horrifyingly simple, like how to adjust the sound volume or add Macromedia Flash support to their Web browser — things that could be solved by reading the available documentation or searching Google. These same challenges exist on Windows too, but you expect Windows to malfunction, so it’s acceptable. “Oh that kooky Windows! It’s always messing up somehow!”

GNU/Linux, it seems, is never allowed that kind of leeway — one thing doesn’t work as expected and it’s straight back to Windows, where undesired operation is the status quo. Trying to help people who are easily frustrated because their vision of software utopia has been rudely shattered is like being the catcher in the rye — you have to get to them quickly, there are always more of them than there are people skilled enough and available to help in a timely manner, and many of them are going to slip by. Users who expect too much of GNU/Linux often turn into trolls.

Trolls

There are two kinds of GNU/Linux trolls: the distro fanboys and the passive-aggressive assistance seekers. The former are those annoying people whose response to every GNU/Linux question or help request is, “That distro sucks. Just use PCLinuxOS,” or “Get Ubuntu instead.” In a sense, much GNU/Linux evangelism has switched from the general to the specific — people now push their favorite distro (or the only one they’ve ever used) instead of letting others decide for themselves. But disrespecting someone’s distro choice is not going to endear them to your favorite distribution, nor will it solve the problems they’re experiencing. Having said that, when someone chooses an inappropriate distro for their needs, it’s best to calmly explain to them that other distributions may serve them better. If you’re a frequent forum participant, you should have a handful of desktop GNU/Linux distro recommendations at the ready, each with a brief listing of its positive and negative points; let the user make the decisions about what goes on his computer.

The latter breed of troll uses mild threats in order to attract the attention of dormant evangelists. When someone new to GNU/Linux is not happy with it in some way, they find a forum and threaten to stop using that particular GNU/Linux distribution — or GNU/Linux in general — if no one will help them solve their (usually minor and frequently discussed) problem. This often spurs responses from the above-mentioned distro trolls who insist that the only problem is the fact that the original poster is not using the right distro, which reinforces the “software utopia” fallacy.

Many former evangelists are now abandoning GNU/Linux advocacy because they don’t like being pushed into helping, so their response to threats of GNU/Linux abandonment is, “Go back to Windows, then!” This response has become reflexive lately, to the point where non-trolls asking honest questions are attacked with it. In essence, both of these kinds of troll feed each other with their responses, and the only victims are those who are honestly looking for help in a non-aggressive manner.

The tech divide

There is an enormous knowledge gap between low-end computer users, who only understand computers through a series of habits or routines that they have memorized; and high-end users, who understand on some level how a computer works and what it can do. High-end users have little trouble moving to GNU/Linux, but low-end users are totally unable to make the switch on their own, no matter how simple some installation utilities are or how preconfigured they may be. As insensitive as it may sound, some people are just not cut out to use computers.

Linspire and Xandros are the only two distributions that are focused on low-end users, and should be the only two distros that you recommend to them. I don’t care how much you love Ubuntu or Fedora Core; you know how to set them up and add the proprietary extras, but low-end users do not. Ultimately it is your responsibility to provide support for the recommendations you make. Are you willing to field months of questions about how to set up email, or walk someone through a DeCSS installation?

Secondly, it’s hard to explain the benefits of free-as-in-rights software to someone who thinks that all software is already free-as-in-everything because they only have “pirated” programs on their computer. Relatives and friends have given them Microsoft Windows and Office and anything else they need. As far as a low-end user knows, you’re already free to share these programs with others, and they cost nothing.

Changes in leadership focus

The first and most vocal free software proponents — the Free Software Foundation and its founder Richard Stallman — used to concentrate on free software advocacy, especially in the area of operating systems. It’s rare that you see anything by the FSF or Stallman on GNU/Linux anymore — these days it’s all about the next version of the GNU General Public License, or speaking out about digital rights management (DRM), or getting free software into government offices. We, the desktop users, have been left behind.

Perhaps the FSF feels that the above issues are more important, or maybe it’s just that they are newer and more pervasive than proprietary computer operating systems, or maybe they figure that GNU/Linux is good enough now that it doesn’t need anyone to advocate it. Whatever the case, the FSF’s goals and practices have definitely changed, even if its stated mission remains the same.

What’s next?

There is no doubt that GNU/Linux evangelism has changed, but whether it’s for better or for worse is up for debate. Perhaps GNU/Linux has gained so much momentum in the software world that it has moved beyond the need for advocacy. It certainly isn’t because fewer people are interested in it.

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It started with the operating system

While writing a review for OpenBSD, I realized that even though it didn’t have proprietary video drivers, and the desktop programs were a little out of date, in terms of the kind of work I do, it had everything I needed in an operating system. It got me thinking about the days when I used to do all of my writing in MultiMate in DOS and WordStar on CPM. Email wasn’t quite popular yet, but it was generally accessible through a text interface in whatever terminal program I was using to connect to the Internet. In other words, I could do all the same things then that I do now, except today’s software is more capable and stable, free as in rights, and far more secure. Anyway, the big realization for me was that I was getting more writing done in OpenBSD than I was with my state-of-the-art GNU/Linux machine with all of its tweaked-out programs and pretty graphical interfaces. It seriously made me question the purpose of having a graphical environment at all.

Back in the DOS days, I was only aware of the software that other people gave me, and I always made it work for my purposes. If a new version of DOS were released, there were no RSS feeds or tech news sites (or a World Wide Web to host them) to tell me about it, and chances are I wouldn’t care anyway. In fact, I can clearly trace my problems to the much-hyped release of MS-DOS 6.0 with its DOSshell file manager, Defrag disk defragmenter, and the infamous DoubleSpace data compression utility. That was the first time that software promised to help me to get more out of my computer. What a terrible lie that was; the only thing worse is the fact that I kept believing it for more than ten years. I didn’t want more out of my computer, and I didn’t need more — I was already happily productive. Before that, software was marketed mainly as a tool that enabled you to do a specific task; then there was MS-DOS 6.0 with its enhancements. Curse you, Microsoft.

But can it make my coffee?

The disease that started with DOS 6 worsened with time. From then on, if I got wind of a program that sounded interesting or had some feature or functionality that I thought was cool, I had to have it. Once installed, I became obsessed with making every one of the programs I used into a heavily-stocked arsenal.

When I moved to GNU/Linux, each application was almost an operating system in itself — it had to do everything that it was conceivably capable of doing, even if I never used most of the extra features. If Gaim didn’t have encryption or XMMS didn’t have playback capabilities for formats that I’d never even heard of, I felt that I was missing something. More than that, I worried that at some point in the future I would need that functionality and not be able to use it. Every program elicited a doomsday scenario where missing plugins or extra features would somehow undo me, all the while ignoring the fact that fussing over all of that crap was undoing me.

1001 ways to skin an application

When I sit at my fancy, highly customized GNOME desktop, if I come to any sort of impasse in my work, I have all manner of icons and graphics to pull me into other programs. And if those icons and graphics aren’t to my liking, I can waste all kinds of time on art.gnome.org or gnome-look.org or Freshmeat’s theme section looking for new desktop themes. Eventually I found RSS feeds to tell me about new themes as they were released.

Then there’s my Web browser. I usually use Firefox, but I also have Opera, Mozilla, and Epiphany. The latter uses the GNOME theme, but the other three have their own theme sites
that I regularly pore over, looking for something new and interesting. I hardly ever use Mozilla or Opera (only when I need the Flash plugin, which is rare), but if they’re installed, they have to be dressed to impress. XMMS, too. And when those are all themed, my GNOME Terminal has to have the right schema, and OpenOffice.org and Bluefish have to have highly customized button bars and anti-aliased default fonts. When that’s done, there are hundreds of Firefox extensions to consider. I wish I could have back all of the time I have spent making my software look fancier.

Back to the basics

Despite this epiphany, I still have my high-powered 64-bit workstation with all of its tweaked-out software. In some way, shape, or form, I’ll always have something like that for playing games, watching/making/copying movies, and other activities like that. But from now on, I’m going to do as much of my writing and programming — my creative work — from as simple and plain an interface as possible, on another computer that is dedicated to work. Likely that will mean Vim on OpenBSD (that’s what’s on it now), but if I find something more capable for either task, I’m all for it. Currently I do the majority of my writing in Vim, then start up X11 to use Bluefish for the final edit, cut and paste any Web links that I might need, and post the story to my sites. I haven’t figured out how to do all of that efficiently from the command line yet, and it’s possible that I never will. But when I’m in the home stretch on an article, distraction is no longer an issue for me. I also stick to Fluxbox with a plain theme — no buttons, widgets, or graphics to draw my eyes away from my work.

So what did I learn from this revelation of overtechedness?

A computer is a tool. First, let’s admit that a computer is a tool — not an appliance, not a magic box with no limitations, not a piece of art to make your desk look pretty. The thing about a tool is, the more functions it is equipped to perform, the less ideal it is for any one task. Jack of all trades, master of none. Tools are used in business and in play; baseball bats, trowels, computer mice, and Nintendo controllers are all tools. They have implied and preferred uses, but you can adapt them to do much more. When I was a full-time electronics technician, I used all kinds of unusual tools, like dental picks, exacto knives, felt tape, and even an old RAM module (for safely prying apart plastic chassis components). You should think of your computer as a tool that you customize for a given duty, not as an amazing invention of limitless utility.
Your tools should inspire, not distract. The best tools are the ones that enable you to most efficiently accomplish your goal; rarely are they the best-looking tools. The fancier an application gets with graphics, the more you’ll be distracted by the glitz and glimmer. There is a reason why traditional tools like footballs and screwdrivers aren’t usually designed with aesthetics in mind. You, the craftsman, are creating the art, not using it. Tools are implements of work or play, and as such are designed for optimal function, not style. Someone once approached me about switching to an Apple computer with the OS X operating system (actually, this has happened many times under different circumstances). The primary theme of his pitch was that I would get more work done on a Mac because they are “made for artists,” despite the fact that I didn’t find Apple’s software tools to be any more useful than those for Windows, Linux, or BSD. When I asked him what he liked about his Mac, the majority of his points revolved around looks. His computer was “beautiful” and OS X was “sleek” and “sexy” (a little Freudian anthromorphism, anyone?). That has distraction written all over it, as far as I’m concerned, and it is precisely the kind of environment that I’m now trying to avoid. So while that guy is fondling his beautiful computer, I’ll work on finishing my book from 16-color text mode on a plain-looking grey Acer TravelMate. I’m sure there are people who get a lot of legitimate use out of Apple computers, but honestly, even they have to question the functional purpose of all those glowy lights and acrylic. If you need a better example, take a look at B.B. King’s “Lucille” guitar — not pretty, but nothing else will get the job done in the same way.
Capability is not synonymous with productivity. Just because a machine or program can do something does not mean that it must — or should. Figure out what kind of work (or play) your computer will do, and organize your software in a fashion that best facilitates that. Don’t think in terms of what your computer can do; think of what you want to do with your computer. Take Skype, for instance. While it’s really cool that you can talk to people over the Internet, is that really going to replace your telephone or cell phone? No? Then get rid of it — you don’t need it, no matter how cool it might be. If possible, it might be better to have two computers: one for work, and one for play (whatever “play” means to you — to me it means trying out interesting new operating systems and software). You could also have two user accounts, window managers, or operating systems on a single computer, each streamlined for and dedicated to work or play.
Delegate tasks accordingly. Modularity is one of the most important procedural programming concepts, but it is just as applicable to desktop computing. Break your work up into modules that single programs can handle individually. For instance, you might use Getmail to retrieve your email, Spamassassin and Amavis to filter it, and Mutt to read it. That way you can more easily tailor the process to your needs, rather than trying to adjust your needs to the limitations of singular all-in-one applications. Wherever possible, let the tools do the work.

Don’t over-tech yourself. Faster computers, bigger monitors, fancier desktop environments, and more expensive software applications can never replace the power and creativity of your own focused attention. No matter what you intend to use it for, a computer is still nothing more than an enhanced paper notebook and pen; you still have to do the hard part on your own.

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There are two main points to make about this situation — or rather, what is implied in this situation. The first is that every company that switches to Microsoft products is not against Linux, free software, or any of the other pro-freedom, anti-Microsoft factions or communities. It’s a business deal, and one that I bet Microsoft sweetened with discounts so deep that you might wonder why they bother selling software at all. Examine the situation: GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain registrar, and switching over their parking service to Microsoft means a more than 5% market share jump in the Netcraft monthly survey. If you were a rich corporation like Microsoft, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to get that huge chunk of market share in one fell swoop? I won’t lie — I’d do it.

As an aside, these are parked domains. Parked as in “not in use right now, and might never be.” Parked as in when they go live someday, they will be hosted on a real Web server that may or may not be running Windows.

The second main point is that free software isn’t Linux. The Linux kernel may be free software, but it’s not the only show in town. It’s several times smaller than the OpenOffice.org codebase and smaller than each of the BSD operating systems and OpenSolaris — all of these are free software projects. If GoDaddy had switched to FreeBSD from GNU/Linux, would there still be an uproar about it from the Linux peanut gallery? I think there probably would be, but perhaps on a different scale and with different people involved.

I can’t help but think that this GoDaddy donation is partly just PR meant to offset the impression that they are pro-Microsoft on account of this domain parking deal. They don’t want to lose customers that want to host on GNU/Linux, like EV1 did when they bought one of SCO’s Linux licenses a few years back. I can understand that, and to a certain extent, the motive behind the donation doesn’t really matter. What matters is, OpenSSH is getting some corporate donations from companies that realize the benefit of monetary support of free software projects. This is the second such donation, the first having come from the Mozilla Foundation a few weeks ago. Another 8 more $10,000 donations and OpenBSD/OpenSSH will have reached its operational funding goal of $100,000.

Sources

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Snopes.com: busting myths or busting chops?

If you browse through the Snopes Web site, you might come across a special area that is designed to look like every other part of the site, but with some very subtle yet significant differences. The page in question is here, and it is titled, “The Repository of Lost Legends.” This page is a collection of Snopes untruths; they are stories that Snopes.com says are true, but in fact are not. If you click around and investigate further, you’ll find this informational page which starts out by saying, “You’ve just had an encounter with False Authority Syndrome.” The authors go on to say that they are trying to teach us stupid readers a lesson about relying on sites like Snopes to provide accurate information. I agree that it’s a good idea to verify facts in some cases, but casual readers shouldn’t have to be researchers in order to have access to the facts. That’s, like, kind of the whole point of journalism. Snopes.com is not a newspaper, but if something about their publishing a whole page full of lies doesn’t sit right with you, you’re not alone.

Pages of false information

If you’re always suspicious of what you’re reading, you might notice that the title’s acronym is TROLL. That is no disclaimer, though — many people don’t know what an Internet troll is, and many who do know may count it as a coincidence.

If you navigate to each Lost Legend page from the Lost Legends index and read everything carefully, you’ll know that something’s up. There are little disclaimers and hints in fine print here and there, but no obvious indicator that what you’re reading is pure fiction — especially if you’re already familiar with Snopes and skip all of the fine print, figuring that you’ve read it before. The Snopes authors could, however, make a case that they give fair warning in this instance. That doesn’t make their actions any less unethical.

What if you go directly to an individual Lost Legends entry, though? If the first page you saw were, for instance, this Lost Legends entry on Mr. Ed, you would have no way of knowing that you’ve been the victim of Snopes.com’s prank unless you click the “More information about this page” link in the “Additional Information” section near the bottom. The only references given are books (and one link to an informational page about zebras that doesn’t mention Mr. Ed at all), so if you want to verify the sources, you’ll have to actually go out and borrow or buy the information necessary to understand that the Snopes authors are lying to you.

Playing Russian roulette with the facts

At what point does a lesson become a lie? Anyone who has used Snopes in the past knows that it’s the go-to site for debunking urban legends. It is, in itself, a trusted resource. The lesson that the Snopes authors are trying to teach us is that no source is 100% trustworthy. That’s a bit paranoid, from my frame of reference. The collective human culture is based on locating trustworthy sources — not just of information, but of safety as well. Our home is a place we trust; our friends are acquaintances whom we trust; our spouses are people of the opposite sex whom we have decided that we implicitly trust. People generally trust news reporting, though we recognize that errors are made and corrections are issued from time to time. Trust is, sometimes, broken; rarely is this an act of malice. Trust is not betrayed for the sake of entertainment, or to teach lessons. The message that Snopes authors Barbara and David Mikkelson are sending us is, essentially, “Don’t trust us.”

But Snopes is not the first site to purposefully publish bunk articles. The Register posted an article saying that one of the Wikipedia co-founders had been murdered. Again, reading and re-reading very carefully, you can detect that something is wrong with the article. However, since the piece meanders for several unnecessary paragraphs, many readers will just read the specifics at the beginning and not realize that they are reading a poorly crafted satire or lampoon. Humor is a necessary ingredient in satire — without it, readers are left confused and misinformed — and it is notably absent from the Register piece on Jimmy Wales.

How are we supposed to tell the difference between the good articles and the bad articles? How far do we have to read before we know if what we are reading is fact-based or some passive-aggressive and/or underskilled writer’s idea of humor?

Stop being the teacher

Casual readers should not have to go on fact-finding missions to verify everything they read. Students and professionals are required to verify information, but even they do casual reading. Who wants to have to call or email the source of every article and review?

I hope to see the Mikkelsons take down their disinformation pages someday. Unfortunately, they seem pretty adamant about keeping them, as pointed out in this email from Barbara Mikkelson:

“The moral of the story is that you should never take anyone’s word for anything, including ours. That is why we list our references at the bottom of our pages, so that you can independently verify our work.

We are the Urban Legends Reference Pages — we provide references so that people can do their own research. We do not claim to be the ultimate arbiters of fact.”

No one does, Barbara, but the writers and publishers who have integrity do their best.

I guess what she’s getting at is, you don’t need Snopes.com, and you should trust no one. Just go to the library, Amazon.com, Google, and Wikipedia and find multiple sources on your own. This is, after all, what researchers actually do. So cut out the Snopes middlemen and their silly lessons, and become a professional researcher for everything you read. Don’t trust anything you see in books, on TV, on the Internet, or hear by word of mouth — you could be being fed a load of bullshit. Verify the sources, and then verify the sources of the sources — hell, maybe they were lying, too! Lock your doors and windows, prepare all food yourself, X-ray your mail, verify email with phone calls, hire a private investigator to check out your wife, then hire another PI to investigate the first PI — maybe he’s sleeping with her.

You never know, right?

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The answer is: nothing. I can tell you what the board has in terms of features — I/O ports, number of PCI and PCIe slots, etc. — but you can just as easily get all of that information from the manufacturer. Just go to the motherboard maker’s site, navigate to the informational page on the board in question, and you’ll find everything you need to know about the board in terms of technological capabilities.

But what about customer satisfaction? What if the board looks good on paper, but totally sucks once it’s installed in a system? What if it fails after two weeks, or doesn’t work with a certain brand or model of video card? In most instances you can go to Newegg and read through the customer comments and ratings and find all of these problems if they exist. These are from people who actually bought the board and have used it. Certainly not all of the comments will be useful, but there are usually enough of them that you can get a good impression of what the board is like.

Professional motherboard reviewers often get pre-production review samples from manufacturers; their reviews are based on these, not on the final release, which can vary significantly from the review sample. I know — I’ve tested review samples in the past. Usually pre-production samples have more problems than advantages (such as reduced performance, RAM incompatibilities, and trouble with new connection standards or technologies), but it’s not unheard of for a review sample to perform substantially better than the final release. There are also several revisions of every motherboard, each one introducing newer (cheaper) components, bug fixes, and expanded device compatibility. These different revisions almost always show a measurable (though rarely noticeable) difference in performance.

That brings me to my last point — noticing the difference between motherboards of the same technological era. If you can’t take the Pepsi challenge with two motherboards and notice a marked difference in performance, then there is no need for a review.

I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I can’t find a way to make a motherboard review meaningful in this day and age. Therefore I will no longer write them — not that I’ve been doing any lately anyway. If you want to prove me wrong, please do; the forum link is below.

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Important details about the study

The study encompassed 200 sysadmins working for a variety of different multimillion-dollar businesses. About half of the study subjects’ employers had an annual income of under US $5 million, and most of the respondents worked in the telecommunications, computer hardware or software, consulting, education, or service provider industries. The rest were a smattering of various other fields, from health care to entertainment.

Study data was collected from interviews with CIOs and IT managers, a self-selecting Web survey, and telephone surveys from a random sample of thousands of IT businesses. Full details of the exact survey procedures were not available at the time of this writing; some of the involved processes may not produce reliable sample data.

So who paid for this? That’s always an important question with analyst studies, as it usually implies influence from the people who financed it. EMA insists in their report that those who provided funding had no influence on the collected data or the results of the study. The two financial backers in this instance were Levanta, a GNU/Linux-based enterprise hardware and software services company; and the Open Source Development Lab, which currently employs some of the world’s most talented and hardworking free software programmers.

Get what facts?

To begin with, EMA did not intend for the study to compare GNU/Linux and Windows directly; it was meant to determine if using GNU/Linux on enterprise-level servers were undermined by high management costs. This notion is the main thrust of the Get The Facts ad campaign. The new EMA study suggests that the data collected in Get The Facts is out of date or misleading.

Visiting Microsoft’s Get The Facts site reveals many whitepapers and case studies, but with noticeable flaws: every one of them relies on old data, theoretical data, or highly specialized situations in which a company had financial incentives (such as “leveraging” their “existing Windows assets” (a cute way of saying that they will re-use old computers and Windows licenses) to unstated retraining costs and high-level contracts with software and service vendors) to stay with Windows rather than switch to GNU/Linux. In essence, Get The Facts is not one study, but a collection of several studies that have been skewed or interpreted in ways that, under a minimal level of scrutiny, do not hold any water. This is nothing new; analysts and journalists have been saying these things for years. Now, however, the EMA study uses actual data to refute Microsoft’s claims.

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Bad numbers

The major dealbreaker for Google Analytics is that it collects inaccurate data, and it would take extraordinary measures to fix the problem. The Analytics code is written in Javascript, so if any visitors have Javascript disabled, if they are using a browser that does not support Javascript, or if they have such scripts blocked through utilities like NoScript, Google Analytics will not know that they exist. That means that Analytics will almost certainly show lower numbers than expected.

Google Analytics reports less than half of my actual traffic to The Jem Report. I have the Analytics code embedded in my template file, so it is on every page that the software renders. Looking at internal statistics in Mambo (the content management system in use on The Jem Report) and the trusty old Webalizer Apache log file analysis tool, I have a fairly good impression of traffic numbers and trends. Just to be sure that my Webalizer numbers weren’t inflated, I checked my Webalizer config file and verified that my own visits aren’t counting toward the total; only PHP and HTML files are being counted; and page views generated by the site software itself are also not counted. I’m as sure as I can be that the Webalizer numbers aren’t wrong. This means that Google Analytics is a total waste of time for me. How can I, as a webmaster, possibly use this data to show advertisers what kind of traffic I’m pulling in? I’d be crazy to cut all of my numbers by that margin.

The only workaround that I can think of is to stop using Javascript. The Analytics code must be supported by all browsers and remain unblockable for the data to be trustworthy.

Bad format

Once your emaciated data has been collected, Google Analytics shows it to you in graphs and charts. I found many to be redundant and most to be useless, but I’m sure there are people who would find some of it highly valuable.

The problem with the graphics is, Analytics depends on Macromedia Flash to display all of its statistics. Despite Macromedia’s claims of ridiculously high market penetration for the Flash player, a lot of people — especially among GNU/Linux, *BSD, Solaris, and other alternative and free software operating system users — don’t have it or don’t want it. While I realize that I do not represent any kind of majority, I can’t have a Flash browser plugin because my Web browser is compiled for 64-bit, and presently it’s impossible to use 32-bit plugins with it. Macromedia has no plans to release a 64-bit Flash player, so the only way I can view Google Analytics data is to switch to a 32-bit binary of Opera, Mozilla, or Firefox.

Google Analytics: unreadable graph labels

Because of the use of Flash, the data, as you can see in the screen shot at right, is very hard to read. The font size is too small to properly render. If it were anything other than Flash, you could resize the font by changing your browser settings. I have Firefox set to increase all too-small font sizes to at least 10 point, which is still a little too small to read comfortable. The Flash plugin doesn’t read browser settings, though, so Analytics users are stuck trying to decipher what the graphs and charts say.

There’s also no way to rearrange the scale or labeling of the statistics, so at times it’s difficult to extract hard numbers from the graphics.

Bait and switch?

On top of the fatal flaws of Google Analytics, Google has restricted new signups and prevented existing users from adding any new accounts. This is apparently due to an overwhelming demand for the service, and Google must add more resources to accommodate more accounts. Add that to the frustration of knowing that your numbers may not be accurate, and you have a pretty frustrating situation. That’s where the commercial, proprietary Urchin comes in.

Google bought Urchin last spring. Although Google Analytics is based on code from Urchin (and paying Urchin customers were inconvenienced by the launch of Analytics), Google now offers it exclusively through “partners” which sell “services” that many webmasters don’t need and cannot afford. You can’t just buy the program and use it. The only nice thing about Urchin is that, according to Google, it analyzes Web access logs instead of the hacky and unreliable method that Analytics uses for data collection. In other words, it actually works.

It’s nice of Google to offer a free service, but it’s not nice to offer a service that doesn’t actually work, then push users into buying a service that does. So much for “do no evil.”

Sources

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A famous person pays it

Please, no DJs, “radio personalities” or celebrities with offers of money! If the fine is paid, the RIAA will only be encouraged to continue its financial terrorism. As a protest against its very existence, the fine must not be paid by anyone. There are enough outraged people that can and will support this if someone has the courage to stand up for what is right.

She sells something important to pay it

I hope she doesn’t sell her house or car to pay this ridiculous fine. A better option might be chapter 7 bankruptcy, especially if she has a lot of credit card debts. There are lawyers who specialize in such things, and they don’t usually cost a lot.

Jail time

I don’t know what the penalties for ignoring fines are in her state, but if it involves jail time, it would be a bad decision to make her serve it. Every revolution in the history of civilization begins with a few martyrs who are made to suffer the consequences of injustice at the hands of the government. Look up the history of every single revolution and civil war, and you will find such instances; preventing them is paramount to the continuation of the government as we know it. If this woman is sent to jail because she downloaded music, it could turn into the beginning of something awful for either the RIAA or the entire US government in general.

We all know that downloading music is not stealing. To steal, you must deprive someone of a physical good. You have to physically “take stuff” to steal. An electronic file deprives no one of any physical good. Not buying a CD because you downloaded it is not deprivation; someone who “legally” purchases downloadable music is also not buying a CD. By the judge’s reasoning, “legal” music downloaders should also be subjected to fines of astronomical proportions.

The law that makes this travesty of justice possible was designed not for people, but for those trying to sell bootleg recordings. It was meant for artists to prevent businesses from exploiting their work without royalty. The spirit of the law has not been honored in the case of Cecilia Gonzalez and the thousands of other innocent Americans who are being sued by the RIAA and MPAA. Here’s to civil disobedience and hoping that there are reasonable people in the government who can help combat the RIAA’s campaign of financial terror against music downloaders.

Although I don’t generally support such actions because they are usually used solely as revenge, I am glad to see that there is some vigilante justice in the works.

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