I just ran into an interesting little ripple in WordPress when trying to create a new page using a template. The problem was that I had no option to choose a template, it just wasn’t there at all. Took some cypherin’ on Google, but I found it. It was my theme. I switched to the default theme and there it was. I picked my template and then switched my theme back. Hope this helps!
Oracle Buys Sun Microsystems
Or, the end of the tech world as we know it. Maybe that’s too harsh, time will tell. I know one thing for sure, Oracle stepped up with an offer that was only $400 million more than IBM was tossing around (I know, “only”, but when you are talking $7+ billion it’s not so much), and I bet IBM is now pretty mad at themselves. Not just because they let Sun get away, but more importantly because Oracle with all of Sun’s technology under their belt, just became a veritable behemoth competitor.
I can’t say that Oracle buying Sun is worse than IBM buying Sun, I think either would have been bad, but I do think that IBM would have made more of the technology that Sun has, especially in the hardware arena. Most people already run Oracle on Sun, but I think Oracle was angling the software more than the hardware. Now they have the whole “stack” sewn up. They have been re-branding Red Hat Linux to provide “their own” operating system, but now they don’t have to because they really do have their own operating system with Solaris. One that lots of people prefer for running Oracle versus Linux and especially Windows. Now Oracle can provide the application, the database, the operating system and the hardware platform to run it all on, all in one nice bundle. I have come to think of it as the “O-Stack”. Now, instead of a LAMP stack, Oracle will be pushing their O-Stack.
I just hope that the folk out there that have a considerable investment in Sun (me included), not only in SPARC, but also their X86 line, didn’t just get screwed. Can Oracle keep the support going? Will they keep the hardware lines going? What will happen to Solaris, MySQL and Java (to name a few)? Only time will tell, but I for one am not pleased with this announcement.
I’ll have more updates as I find information to share.
Free System Administration Tools
It’s not every day that you come across such a fine collection of tools that someone has generously created and put forth for the world. One of my agents in the field sent this my way and so I feel compelled to share with you, my loyal readers. This is a set of system administration tools, written in PERL, and that been offered up for free by the author simply out of the goodness that swells within his and her heart. With tools like ‘turbo’, ‘cdrewind’, and ‘mkzombie’ just to name a few, how can you NOT have this collection in your kit? Check it out, and see the goodness for yourself!
Netflix Over The Net
Netflix Logo
One of the things that I like to do here, aside from how-to articles, scripts, tips and tidbits, etc., is to share things that I have run across that I find useful or fun, a good value, and so on. One such thing recently has been Netflix. Now, unless you have been living in a cave somewhere, I am sure you have heard of Netflix before. Their claim to fame is DVD rental by mail with no late fees. It works, works well, I have used the service in that capacity and been quite happy with it. However, that is not what this post is about. No, in this day and age of instant gratification, this post shows off a new feature that Netflix offered up, which is the ability to watch movies and TV shows instantly, over the ‘net. Bing!
You can do this a couple of different ways, using your computer (this is how I do it) and streaming the content via your web browser, or using a special device that connects to your TV and streams directly to your set. I haven’t used the special TV device, and I don’t know anything about it, I will just be talking about the browser based service.
For a nominal fee, ($8.99/month) you can get both DVD by mail service and unlimited instant service (over the Internet). To me, this is a pretty good deal. That’s a rental or two and you can watch all you want, nice. What’s the catch, you ask? Well, naturally you have to have some type of broadband connection. I haven’t actually tried it on dial-up, but I can’t imagine it would be fun. The other thing is that their instant content selection isn’t near as vast as their physical DVDs, something like 12,000 instant viewing titles versus over 100,000 DVDs that they can send via mail. That being said, I haven’t had any trouble finding something to watch. Yeah, I have found a few things that was only on DVD or what not, but there is still lots of good stuff to choose from and they are adding more all the time.
All in all, I think this is a good deal if you spend a lot of time at your computer (check), and like to watch TV and movies (check), and want the versatility to change it up and watch one thing one day and something else the next without having to buy a truck load of DVDs (also check). For the record, I am not affiliated with Netflix in any way, I get absolutely nothing if you go sign up (although, Netflix, if you want to send me gifts feel free! :]). I simply wanted to share something I found to be good with my audience. Feel free to post your own thoughts and/or experiences in the comments.
Hash Monster – MD5 Checksum Tool
I have added another goody for anyone working on Windows that might be interested. It’s an new tool that does MD5 checksum generation and comparison for you. It’s free and still in BETA, but I am pretty sure it’s solid and I have any kinks worked out. If you have any troubles, let me know or post in the forums. Now, get over there and check it out!
Palm Gets It’s Ego Pump Fired Up
Well now, it appears that the folks at Palm seem to think that they have the next big thing, an iPhone killer if you will. It seems like everytime some company says that it always comes back to bite them in the buttocks later, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Specifically, Palm comes out saying some crazy things like the following:
“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”
Whew, and even my favorite:
“All iPhone Customers Will Switch to Pre this Summer”
Heck yeah, that’s quite the bold statement there Palm. We’ll see how that one pans out. Check out the whole article if you want more info. Me personally, I still prefer my Blackberry.