WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE IN CRISIS

SUCH AN UNTIMELY LOSS! Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! 

The personal computer that I am using in my workstation got corrupted on September 12, 2011 as I was scanning and cleaning a workmate's USB drive. I had a trial anti-virus that had already expired but, just the same, it didn't detect the legions of worms, Trojan horses, virus and other malware coming from that removable device.

Although the capacity to open my documents and other applications were completely hindered, its ability to view pictures were not. I had volumes of picture albums and collages that are left untouched. The good thing is that it is all saved in Drive D.

Then the computer technician came on September 30 and reformatted the computer. You know what? All my personal files got deleted! Photos, documents, PDF files, videos, etc. The technician recommended a document-recovery application – Photorec – and it got the job done in normal mode. Almost!

What it recovered where archived files and the latest files – the unpublished ones which are the most important – were found missing. I kept opening recovered folder after recovered folder but they are not there anymore. Reconstructing articles by memory is a hard thing to do and it is nothing if you could not emphasize it with images like my specialized collages.

It pains me to see all my original work going down the drain including my just-newly reconstructed bushcraft and survival manual. I could have rallied around with the newer pictures and start building my story around it but it's gone also. It is pointless to go on.

However, I got five articles left which I saved on my USB drive and some important personal documents. I am able to publish the first on October 1 in my personal blog with images to boot and I was also able to upload an album regarding my recent trip to Malabuyoc last July. The rest of the files would have seen me through to November 6.

Then, by quirk of the baddest luck I have ever experienced, the drive got itself unremoved from a PC in a public internet cafe. That was on October 4. I only remembered it only today (October 5). Shucks. I couldn't believe it is happening to me. Then another of my USB drive got misplaced in my home and I am left with a defective one that does not copy images consistently.

But, life is a challenge. The good thing about it is how you cope with such losses and how you are able to recover and drive back your pursuits into square one. It is really a shame and a waste of hard effort on my part. Who wouldn't?

But, but, but...I love challenges. I could have sulked and allow my legendary temper to go out of control but I learned to harness it and use it to my advantage instead as I age and age.

We bloggers are known for our backlogged articles. I got twenty of those. I post articles five to six months late here at Bloggert and I got eight photo albums waiting to be uploaded in Facebook and they're three months stale. I am having problems with these backlogs and you should see my schedule run to July of next year before I could post the first article for 2012! It keeps you outdated.

When the computer got corrupted, it ultimately removed all these backlogs. That should have made me happy. Need to recover some files and work around it and save me some story. The point is, could I finish an article based on those already uploaded at Facebook on time? Warrior Pilgrimage does four articles a month at an interval of seven to nine days average but, right now, two of the articles for October are done ten days of each other already. I am in a crisis!

Wheww! Tried my best to protect the computer. Sometimes you are successful. Sometimes you lose and when you lose, it's like it is the end of the world. Gotta fight back and blog again. It happen sometimes and you have no control over it except owning a Mac. But that is expensive. Perhaps a Linux OS will do and Ubuntu is perfect.

I will finally decide to migrate to Linux for good to get rid of these problems. So goodbye fragile Windows XP2. It has been a stormy weather with you. I could not remember how many times you let me down.

Document done in Libre Office 3.0

The GUI DESKTOP WAR

WINDOWS AERO vs. UBUNTU BERYL

SILICON VALLEY – The rebellion commenced by the Linux Desktop Liberation Front, with backing from the Open Source Knights, of three summers ago have taken on another dimension – the GUI desktop feature. As of late, rebel forces have overrun the Windows Imperial Army of the Microsoft Empire where it is thought to hold a highly-impregnable fortress in the desktop graphics manipulation.

That 95% market share controlled by the hated Microsoft regime of late had been receding fast as they could count with their fingers as more and more oppressed areas that Windows ruled with an iron hand have been liberated by the advancing and victorious vanguard of the Linux forces, the Ubuntu Brigade, who epitomized the value of freedom.

Dell and Hewlett-Packard, for many years under the yoke of Windows levy and toll, changed loyalties and joined the Linux forces in a tactical alliance that would surely boost the integrity of Linux as a better alternative to the oppressive Windows imperial forces.

Below is a first-hand account of an eyewitness that captured on video the scenes of that great battle at the GUI desktop:

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ENGLISH WORD -- TODAY

LINUX (lae-noks, lee-nooks, lye-noks, lye-nooks), in whatever way you pronounced it, is the most beautiful word in the English language in use today, or of any other tongue that may have adapted it in their vocabulary. It is beyond ethnic, religious and ideological doctrines and borders. It is convergence in itself, fusing differences in patent, licensing and cost. For Linux is synonymous with freedom and liberation. Freedom of use. Freedom of making Linux work for you. Freedom of cost.

Freedom also from the bondage that Microsoft is exerting upon ordinary users. Linux is that sword that shall set us free against that kind of oppression on the desktop front. A double-edged sword at that.

Tech guys associated with using Microsoft Windows for years and who shuddered at the thought of working in a Windows-less environment just laughed at us people who wanted to use open source operating systems like Linux reasoning that Windows is a much better OS platform, technically and user-friendly wise. Yes, that could be true two or three years ago, but, not anymore.

Linux has evolved into so many different distros and in different versions in such a pace that one version is obsolete by a half year's time with another newer version released. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) environment with which Windows has dominated for years and which it had relied upon as benchmark for market dominance has been shrinking as newer Linux versions began to behave Windows-like but, unmistakably, retaining that effervescent Linux signature – the all pervading FREEDOM. Which is what Linux is all about.

When you talk about Linux, you will also talk about security. How secure is Linux from malicious software, from internet worms and from virus? To tell you the truth, no software is invulnerable to these kind of threats but the chances of it infiltrating on a desktop running on a Linux OS platform is lesser than what is one having a Windows would have experienced. It's almost nil. That's how hard it is for malware writers to crack open Linux codes than for them to crack one with Windows.

But, for sure, there will come a time when they find cracking Windows open a boring and witless preoccupation and turn their enthusiasm and creative damage at Linux instead. By that time, newer and better Linux versions would have been miles away from their harm as it is evolving and developing at warp-speed beyond that of any proprietary software company's idea and capability.

In all my 40 years or something living as a resident of Cebu City, a metropolis in southern Philippines; I have never found, except one, of a semi-permanent and conspicuous advertisement billboard wherein Linux is offered as one of a computer-related business' services. Though I find many such advertisements in newspapers, magazines and websites; but never in such a prominent place and on a real and analog structure.

What amused me though is that Linux is placed prominently above that of Windows and it is not alphabetically arranged either. And to think that Cebu is a market dominated 99.8% by Microsoft where they poured out millions of pesos here just for advertisements and perks on all PC and software distributors and stores just to keep their iron grip here. But not all.

The billboard is found on Governor Cuenco Avenue (the old Banilad Road) corner Paradise Village Road in Barangay Kasambagan. The owners, perhaps, have foreseen the prominence with which Linux would affect the desktop world and the Internet in the near future and have, in the process, preconditioned the arrival of Linux in this part of the world by putting up this sign. Or perhaps, they are just unaware of things to come and, by chance, some typo error have robbed the other of that order of importance. Whichever that may be.

We do like to own personal desktops with something like Windows or a Mac OS X running in it, don't we? But, it does take a small fortune to invest in having one. I, myself, could not afford it. So are my workmates and my neighbors. I have solved that predicament by switching my use to that of Ubuntu Linux and I am quite comfortable with it. Or let's just say, that I was quite desperate then. Or delirious. Whatever it is or was, Ubuntu OS rocks so well with my tune!

I need not have to elaborate. It is for you to find out. Though we are a third world country, it doesn't mean that we don't deserve something good and, at the same time, free like Linux, do we? Do you? Linux is open source technology's gift to mankind. And don't they say that “all good things in life are those that are given free”?

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer, Trebuchet MS font, size 12.

WHY FOSS IS GOOD FOR THE PHILIPPINES?

I AM A MARGINAL home PC owner and user who, four or five years ago, abandoned the idea of buying or owning another desktop dictated by the high cost of procuring and installing a licensed proprietary operating system, without which my desktop would just be considered a piece of junk. Even if I could afford, at a lower cost, for this software to be installed in my PC from third party sources, I don't see any reason to maintain the high cost of re-installing over and over again this operating system as it is susceptible to system crashes and quite vulnerable to viruses, internet worms and malicious software. Although there are plenty of pirated copies of this software sold in the sidewalks I was never tempted to buy one.

Last year I read about “free and open source software” (FOSS) through the newspapers and I learned that it was the “big thing” in some countries of Europe, in North and South America and in Asia where it is used extensively. I begun to study on my own about FOSS by surfing the Internet and finally found the freedom to use my home PC again by installing the equally user-friendly Ubuntu Linux 6.06 operating system, in which a free live CD installer was shipped to me free of charge courtesy of Canonical Ltd. As for the office applications (word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.), I downloaded and installed OpenOffice 2.1 in my home, where documents produced are lighter in size, and I installed and used it extensively and that of AbiWord 2.4 (another open source word document application) in my workplace in lieu of a pre-installed proprietary office application software, of whose documents eat up so much disk space. As for my browsers, I use either Mozilla Firefox and Opera and found it to be much more stable, faster and safer than using a common pre-installed browser.

However, FOSS is still unknown to most Filipinos, especially to Cebuanos, and those who do are afraid to make the change or uncertain about its benefits? One great advantage about FOSS is cost. My migration from an expensive licensed software to GNU/Linux costs me nothing, except for the fifteen pesos (Php15.00) I spent by seating myself inside an Internet cafe for an hour to access the site of Ubuntu.org and ten pesos (Php10.00) for a blank CD to access, download and copy OpenOffice, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.

I benefited myself so much by using FOSS. How much more would the government do, and the business sector, as well, and save those much-needed foreign exchange that are made to be spent to import those proprietary softwares? INTEL, a giant chip maker, reported a savings of over US$200 million by switching their servers from proprietary software to that of GNU/Linux while AMAZON reported a savings of US$17 million and beyond for migrating to GNU/Linux. DELL, a PC maker now market their desktops with pre-installed Ubuntu Linux operating systems at a much lower price than what they sold one having a pre-installed licensed software.

The New York Stock Exchange benefited much by migrating from proprietary mainframe software to that of Hewlett-Packard's AIX and of GNU/Linux operating systems by estimating their savings of about 35% to 65% and that “cost, cost and cost” has been the bottomline for that change of heart. I heard that the Vatican uses FOSS now and in Kerala state in India, the use of FOSS in public schools and offices became mandatory due to the great savings incurred by switching sides. Many organizations and several studies have shown that using FOSS in lieu of proprietary software results in significant cost savings of anywhere from 15% to 35% not only due to lower licensing costs but lower personnel and hardware costs.

Another great advantage in using FOSS is its flexibility (and so development-friendly!) as its source codes - their DNA – can be accessed by users/consumers/developers/programmers who may opt to study, modify or customize the software according to their tastes and requirements. Because of this, the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (ASTI-DOST) has developed the Bayanihan Linux 4, a complete open source-based desktop solution for office and school use, and Bayanihan Linux Server 2006, an easy-to-use Linux server for government agencies, schools and SMEs. These Bayanihan Linux programs can do everything that a licensed (and expensive!) proprietary operating system can do, except drain one’s pockets. In the first place, Bayanihan Linux is free.
Another FOSS advantage is its interoperability. It can adapt to existing open standards and can work across different platforms and protocols.

And finally, FOSS is safe. The opening of the source codes and the use of open standards have allowed hundreds of thousands of users around the globe to serve as a virtual research and development team, providing patches and solutions to bugs and glitches in real time over the Internet.

A study produced by the International Open Source Network (IOSN) and United Nations Development Program-Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP) have identified the following strategic benefits of FOSS: (1) Developing local capacity/industry; (2) Reducing imports/conserving foreign exchange; (3) Enhancing national security; (4) Reducing copyright infringements; and (5) Enabling localization.

The study also identified economic benefits as: (1) Increasing competition; (2) Reducing total cost of ownership; (3) Enhancing security; and (4) Achieving vendor independence.

Add to this the social benefit of increasing access to information.

As we slowly catch up with the rest of the world about using FOSS, the Honorable Teodoro Casiño of Bayan Muna party list, sponsored House Bill 5769, entitled the “FOSS Act of 2006”, in the Lower House of Congress. This bill will promote the development and usage of FOSS in the Philippines, particularly in the preference in procurement of ICT services and goods for government offices and schools favoring that of local open source developers and vendors and establishing for the implementation of school curriculum for students and teachers training in the use and development of FOSS in all levels of education; amending R.A. 3019, otherwise known as the “Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines”; providing penalties thereof and for other purposes. This is the right step in the right direction.

A breathe of fresh air.

Lastly, this document is done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer, Trebuchet MS font, size 12.