Linux isn't going away

Recently came across a couple of brilliant little Quicktime movies from Red Hat, the Open Source people, which highlight, amongst other interesting things, just how wrong people can be, in particular when it comes to predicting the path that technology will take.

Short, sharp & super-sweet, download them or stream them directly from the Red Hat Magazine site:

Open Source is Inevitable
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/008jun05/features/inevitable/

Despite Opposition, Truth Happens
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/008jun05/features/truth_happens/

Citeknet add-in for Windows Desktop Search searches ALL your mail

Citeknet, makers of data indexing and filtering tools, recently released an extension for Windows Desktop Search enabling it to index and search the contents of Thunderbird, Mozilla, Netscape and Eudora mailboxes. Great stuff!

Note that the product is currently in beta and the developers are looking for feedback, so give it a whirl and let them know what you think.

Vonage's Cut-Price Calls Coming to Aus

Bring it on!

Tom Cruise Is Nuts

It was only a matter of time.

Deliciously dark and satirical, TomCruiseIsNuts.com is online for your viewing pleasure now.

Coles Recalls Green Water

I shop at Coles Online (love it!), and today I received the following Product Recall notice from the store:

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION & SIZE:COLES FARMLAND NATURAL SPRING WATER 6L
ITEM CODE:9009172
BEST BEFORE/USE BY CODE:03/2007 & 03/3007
APN:9300601188185

The reason for this product RECALL from sale is due to THE WATER TURNING GREEN FROM THE GROWTH OF ALGAE.

Note: To our knowledge no other stock has been affected.

For some reason, I've been chuckling for hours over this.

Brooke Replies to Tom

You've probably read Brooke's article in the New York Times already, as the article has been entered as an ad on Google.

And I just really wanted to try Blogger's new image features. :)

[Edit:
...which kinda suck. The automatically generated code for user-uploaded images uses inline styles rather than classes for the image CSS, meaning there ain't no easy way to set your own styles for the 3 different images placements they use.

Kinda almost there, Blogger baby, but still kinda useless.]

Think Free -- the World's First Online Office App

Earlier this week, ThinkFree announced the launch of the world's first online office suite, ThinkFree Office Online, a free web service giving you access to the tools needed to create, edit and publish MS Office documents. Yes, again -- free!

The distributed client-server/thin client argument has been building steam for a while (CNet's simpleton editor, Molly Wood, wrote a typically unresearched piece a while back that generated an interesting debate), and ThinkFree is one of the first actual products supporting this futurist theory that I've seen.

Great idea, in part. Never need to purchase another expensive piece of doc-creation software: wonderful! Leave my personal (or biz) documents on someone else's server: no way, hosé! What if I can't get connected? At the very least, there's one concern. But there are so many more to consider when talking about using the web as an app provider, let alone a storage mechanism.

But it's late, I'm tired, started this too long ago & have lost my momentum. I wonder if ThinkFree Office Online could help me here? ;-)

Tom and Katie -- Relationship Sealed with a Handshake

This ain't the first time I've heard this particular story, which obviously means nothing in the grand scheme of things except that word does travel fast!

But- "What story?" you ask. Why, that would be the Tom's-been-hunting-for-the-perfect-new-partner story, of course.

Apparently the deal with Holmes is worth $5 million, and lasts exactly five years, with no sex. He churned through a list of other more preferable choices before finding a girl willing to comply with the contract, the list including Scarlett Johannson (who was so freaked out by his text message bombardment of herself that she pulled out of MI3), Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan.

The article linked here, however, goes further than this, claiming this is all part of Cruise's ongoing and massive coverup of his homosexuality, naming Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas as Cruise's current lover.

Gotta say, this wouldn't surprise me one bit. Cruise and Katie's LoveFest has been rather sickening and overly cheesy, to say the least.

More extremely interesting info (for gossip-hungry mavens like myself) here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160192,00.html

Like the fact that Tom Cruise was actually never Katie's favourite actor -- it was Tom Hanks.

Latham the Truthful Rat

Brisbane Courier Mail has a poll running at the moment:

Do you think Mark Latham's assessment of the Australian Labor Party is just sour grapes or does he have legitimate criticisms?

Just over 750 people have responded, with almost two-thirds saying "legit crit's".

Heh. Please now -- go AWAY, Beasley.

Schapelle's Indonesian Circus

Article from News.com.au highlighting growing tension between the Australian QC's and Indonesian "lawyers" working on Schapelle's case.

The ridiculously flamboyant Mr Hutapea, new ringleader for the Corby team, threw the first flame: "If they really want to help they should come to Bali, and sit together with the local lawyers because criminal cases are so complicated," said yesterday.

But Perth QC Mark Trowell hit back, saying the Indonesians should concentrate on the case, not soap operas.

Exactly.

Says a helluva lot about the Indonesian legal system that they have hired a tv soap star to handle "PR", to try and "change the public opinion". This is a LAW suit. Not a prime time TV series.

Poor Schapelle. This is turning into a joke, with Mr Hutapea leading the laughs. I have no doubt that he has full knowledge that this is an almost pointless exercise -- he's in it for the publicity, he saw a fast track to fame and jumped on board. His desire for justice for Schapelle is clearly nominal.

I mean, man, they didn't even ask the QC's for advice on the appeal lodged this week. *sigh*