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Switching to Macs October 3, 2007

Posted by Rei Victor dela Cruz in : Macs , comments closed

Finally, after a few months of thinking of about it, my wife and I decided to switch to Macs from — no not Windows — but from Linux. We actually switched way back in April, but it’s only now that I’ve had time to write about it. We are a different breed in a sense as most switchers are coming off Windows.

I had decided as early as 2003 that I have had enough of Windows. I started with DOS in 1987 (I was in second year high school at the time) and eventually moved up to Windows 95 in 1996, Windows 98 in 1999, and XP in 2003.

After dealing with viruses and spyware, unexplained slowdowns and crashes, and numerous security updates appearing almost daily, I finally went on a limb and installed Linux on a separate partition of my XP machine and configured the machine for dual-boot with Linux as the primary OS. After a few months, I was using Linux more and more, and Windows less and less. Until one day, the Windows partition refused to boot except on Safe mode. That was the last straw. No more Windows for me. I had re-installed Windows XP and Windows XP Service Pack 2 three times in a span of a few months and I wasn’t going to do it anymore. But because I’m lazy, I still didn’t remove the Windows XP partition. This laziness is due to the fact that I didn’t want to backup everything, install Linux, and restore the data.

But after using Linux for a few years, I realized something was still missing. Don’t get me wrong. Linux is a great OS. It’s fast, secure, no viruses, etc. There was no problems with updates since I was using Fedore Core. I think Fedora releases the most frequent updates compared to other distributions. From what I recall, there’s a new version every six months or so.

Now all this time, there was something inside me — a small voice — that’s telling me, “Why don’t you look at Macs?”. But I’d contradict myself and say that a Mac isn’t for me, it’s too expensive, it’s only for graphic design, desktop publishing, music composition, movie special effects, and other lies. The voice became stronger during the time my wife and I were making our wedding preps. Our photographer/videographer was using a couple Macs with two cinema displays to edit and produce the video, edit and enhance the photos, and layout the album. Wow! What a great setup! How I’d love to have that at home. My wife was very impressed too.

Since seeing those Macs and the cinema displays, we’ve always talked about getting a Mac. Then early this year, as if we attended a free Mac seminar at the Glorietta. During the seminar we saw what Mac OS X Tiger could do. We were also very impressed with iLife, Dashboard, Spotlight, and other features and applications. That was it! We were speechless! We wanted a Mac!

I still had to do some research of course. How much does it cost? How do I go about service? Is it cheaper to have it imported? Which stores sells Macs at the lowest price? I had a lot of questions. Fortunately, all my googling pointed me to the Philippine Macintosh Users Group (PhilMUG). During the research phase, I merely signed up and read posts. I admit I was “afraid” since I wasn’t a Mac user yet and felt that I wasn’t “in” with the group. Besides, I was getting answers to my questions just by reading the posts.

Then in April, after three months research, we purchased our Mac. When we got it home, we unpacked it, only to realize that the store forgot to mention that we had to buy a plug adapter. Jeez! The Mac was right there, and we couldn’t even turn it on. We had to wait another day! We really had to calm ourselves. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to sleep with all the excitement. The next day, we got the plug adapter. But guess what? I made a mistake when I took measurements of the computer table and now the 17″ Mac won’t fit! We nearly cried in frustration. Since it was very late at night, we had to wait again until the next day so we could make the adjustments. We just told ourselves that when we finally turn on the Mac, it’ll just be sweeter.

On the third day after purchase, finally or should I say mercifully, we fixed the table, put our new Mac on it, attached the plug adapter, plugged it in, turned it on, and voila! What a sweet and wonderful sound! We can still remember the first time the Mac booted up. It was definitely the answer to the Windows and Linux woes. The Mac was perfect. We were able to use it immediately without installing anything. Even installing updates or new applications was easier than it was with Windows. The graphics and interface was so much better AND cooler too. Heck! Even the apps are cooler!

We have enjoyed it ever since and for the past few months, we haven’t even turned it off. My wife and I even sort of compete for time on the Mac. If one of us leaves the Mac to do something else, the other one is sure to immediately grab the opportunity to use it.

All in all we can say that we are now full blooded Mac users. Though our Intel Mac allows us to install Windows via Bootcamp or Parallels, we don’t plan to do it anytime soon. I mean, what for? We’ve already spent a lot of sleepless nights whether it’s just surfing, watching movies, listening to music on iTunes, or creating albums in iPhoto. We’ve even tried making a simple movie from the movies in our digicam and creating a DVD that can be played on a DVD player. There so much more you can do and you have fun doing it. I can’t say the same thing with Windows or Linux.

Hacking Victim January 30, 2007

Posted by Rei Victor dela Cruz in : Technology General , comments closed

I’ve read about it. I’ve heard people talk about it. But I never thought that it would ever happen to me.

This website doesn’t really get too many hits. So it’s really surprising that my website got defaced — not once, but twice! I mean, these happened in a span of three days! Of course, I’ve got no one else to blame but myself. I had planned on clamping down a while ago, but just never got down to it.

Having a dead PC at home for a few months now didn’t really help at all.

For now, I think I’m safe. But I now have this feeling that I need to keep looking behind me. It’s really a terrible feeling. I don’t really feel safe.

Anyway, thank you so much to those who informed me of the hack. I really appreciate it.

Acronyms 101, 102, … and growing June 16, 2006

Posted by Rei Victor dela Cruz in : Java, Technology General, iSeries , comments closed

Way (way, way, way) back when I was in elementary school, we had to remember all these acronyms for our social studies class. Most of these acronyms had to do with United Nations (UN) organizations. These included UNESCO, WHO, and IMF. I couldn’t really appreciate all that remembering. I thought elementary (and then high school) were the last time I’d see acronyms.

But when I learned about computers, the terms CPU, RAM, ROM, and FDD were introduced to me. Of course there was also BASIC, COBOL, as well as EBCDIC, ASCII, and BCD.

As I entered college for my BS in Computer Science a lot more acronyms came along as computers now came with hard disk drives (HDDs) and CD-ROMs. Concepts on Operating Systems (OS), RDBMS, PROM, EPROM, OSI, TCP/IP, FTP, WWW, and VR gave my brain even more strain. With optical media nowadays there’s CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RW+.

Now that I’m an IT professional for nearly 10 years, the list just gets longer with SQL, HTML, DHTML, XML, PHP, ASP, to name a few. And if you’re not careful you and your colleague may be both talking about ASP but are referring to two totally different things: Application Service Providers or Active Server Pages. When I was a kid soap was just soap and Ajax was a brand of detergent. Now SOAP and AJAX are technologies used on the Internet.

With the abundance OSS (Open Source Software) there is an equivalent number of OSS Licenses. Take GPL, MPL, and LGPL. Of course there are the organizations that push OSS: FSF, OSI, and many others.

But it doesn’t really end there does it? With email, IM, and SMS (text messaging) now common means of communication, more and more acronyms get added to the list everyday. Can you keep up with CUL8R, BTW, IMHO, ROTFL, BCNU, or BRB?

Even love notes are embedded with acronyms. I won’t list them here lest I may accidentally divulge the cryptic codes I share with my wife. :D

Legal Computing June 1, 2006

Posted by Rei Victor dela Cruz in : iSeries , comments closed

Looking back three years ago, I never thought I would be able to it. Microsoft products were an essential part of my software requirements. But of course except for operating system which came with the PC, the MS Office installation was something that I wasn’t really proud of. The same goes for bootleg copies of Photoshop and other software. I had thought of purchasing legit copies but the cost of software would have caused me to declare bankrupcy.

I was already trying out different flavors of Linux even before. The only hindrance was those Linux versions apperently did not support my hardware. My first attempt was using Slackware. It won’t even boot up from the CD, so I junked that attempt. I then tried Mandrake 8.0 but eventually settled for Fedora when I got a new PC. Around that time, OpenOffice.org was becoming popular. With OO’s support for MS Office formats, which is the most important thing, I never looked back. To top it off I discovered GIMP, which is a lot like Photoshop, except that it was free.

Today, I’m using Linux at home most of the time. The only time I boot to Windows is when I need to visit websites that are use Microsoft controls. At the top of the list of such sites is one of the banks I do business with. Printing in color is another reason for me to boot to Windows as HP’s Linux support is still quite limited. But get this, I still use OpenOffice and GIMP even when I’m in Windows, so I can still say that all my software is legal.

On both platforms, the application software installed are a mix of freeware, free for personal use, and open-source.

The bottom line is you can stay legal. There are a lot of free and open-source software out there that you can use. Most of them are at par with their commercial counterparts.

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Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Windows are registered trademarks of Micosoft Corporation in the United States, in other countries, or both.

Adobe, Adobe Photoshop are registered trademarks of Adobe Corp. in the United States, in other countires, or both.

Other products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Upgrading Skills May 13, 2006

Posted by Rei Victor dela Cruz in : iSeries , comments closed

Many of my colleagues have asked me what they should learn in addition to their RPG/400 skills. I always tell them that they should take time to learn and practice ILE RPG particularly the new language features like /free.

But if they are looking for a challenge, I always say that they should look to Java. It’s difficult to ignore that Java is everywhere today. The Web, desktops, and even mobile devices. Not learning it is a disadvantage. I know that Microsoft .NET people will react to this but the thing is, Java is a cross-platform language. It works on Linux, Windows, iSeries, Solaris, etc. You just can’t say the same for .NET.

Of course, learning and getting to use it in a project are two different things. For my part I know a little of Java but haven’t had the chance to use it in a full-blown project just yet. I have talked to my bosses about this and hopefully we can work something out in the coming months.

Focusing on the midrange platform is great. No doubt about that. Developers belonging to the midrange community are the most sought after IT professionals in the world today. But adding Java to one’s arsenal can only mean greater things. Don’t you think?