Masood Mortazavi's Weblog

Saturday August 27, 2005

[ Personal ] What a Pleasure

O.K. This one comes from my old and only home machine, a 5 year-old 700 MHz e-Machines, now with Suse Linux installed. It's much faster than the Windows 2000 OS running on it.

I've already set up my private e-mail account on it, as well as my wife's.

I've already checked my access to documents on the Windows side. The .doc files work really well from within OpenOffice.org 1.1.1 which came with an update patch installation downloaded from the Suse network. (I've not checked any of the other file types.) I could even play videos from my favorite source of video news, Reuters: http://tv.reuters.com. RealPlayer installed during OS installation (perhaps it was one of the updates the OS installation grabbed from the network) works wonderfully after it was configured for the proper DSL speed available to me.

It's amazing how quick and smooth this was! I've never experienced any better O.S. installation!!!

This is how a good O.S. can gradually take over another. The machine refused to start with the Windows 2000 OS on its hard disk. Frustration led to this solution, and it turns out to be perfect for my purposes.

Now, I hope my read access to the files on the Windows side will allow me to retrive those files and then take over the Windows partition as well . . . I'm sure the kids will love the KDE, too. Only if there were a few cool games to add, which I'm sure there are.

Any you recommend?

Linux, Home.

2005-08-27 02:23:02.0 -- Comments [0] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Culture ] Concepts of Technology

O.K. While the update patches are being installed, let me say a few words about Thomas P. Hughes' wonderful little book: Human-Build World: How to Think about Technology and Culture.

In this book, Hughes reviews three separate conceptual takes on technology.

These are views of technology that have been dominant in the Western culture over the last three centuries, evolving progressively from the first to the last: (1) Technology as a mode of devine power to create, (2) Technology as a machine, and finally (3) Technology as systems, controls and information.

The first put too much religious overtones over the concept of technology, dreaming of it as God's way of enabling man to create heaven on earth.

The second view emphasized the overwhelming role of technology in the post-industrial society, giving rise to fears that the "shaping of human activities and institutions by mechanization would result in a world devoid of human spirit, or soul."

The third view emphasizes the complexity of the modern human-built world and the role of technology in its control.

The failure of systems model (greatly made evident in the failures of the Vietnam War, where technological differentials never seen before were deployed) gave rise to greater appreciation of cybernetics, information and communications, with an emphasis on feedback and simultaneous interactions, and with a critique of reductionist linear models.

Where do we go from here?

Technology, Culture.

2005-08-27 01:40:19.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Personal ] Back To Life with Suse Linux

I'm bringing my 5-year-old home machine (a 700 MHz e-Machines) back to life with Suse Linux 9.1 CD, which I purchased last year.

So far, so good!

The system is installed and all the problems I have been having with booting Windows 2000 OS (from the disk) are gone.

My Network Card which had also become dysfuncational under Windows 2000, seems to have come to life. (Previously, under Windows 2000, I gave up fixing the card driver problems and I installed a USB connected Ethernet card from Hawking.)

Suse installation detected the healthy Netgear Ethernet card and is using it to get the most recent patches for an update. The smoothness of this all is quite amazing when compared to Linux installations of the mid 1990s.

Linux.

2005-08-27 01:25:09.0 -- Comments [5] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ This ] Can Any Piece of Writing Be Worse

I was just reading my entry "An Enigma And A Book," and thought to myself whether any piece of writing could be worse. Now, I know why best writers just write a thousand words a day in a couple of hours and craft it into something decent during the rest of the day.

With that in mind, and with 15 minutes to go while Suse is being installed on my 5-year-old e-Machine with a dead Windows 2000 OS on the disk, I'm going back to see if I can do a bit of editing to rescue the last entry. Hopefully, I will not totally alter it and I will not make it any worse.

2005-08-27 00:31:39.0 -- Comments [0] ; Permalink ; Trackback.