December 6, 2006 by Keith Kastorff.

So what is knowledge? We all think of it as something to be desired, something to attain…something that makes us better than we are without it. Too often we confuse it with wisdom, which is the correct and proper merger of knowledge and life experience. I propose that knowledge without sharing is worthless, and that the value in knowing lies in the giving of that information to someone else. It’s not in keeping the information secret, or hidden. It’s like currency that has no value until it’s spent.

One of my first managers told me to always prepare those working for you to take your job…train and educate them, sharing everything you know to improve their skills. His point was if you are invaluable where you are, you aren’t going anywhere.

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November 3, 2006 by Keith Kastorff.

Microsoft’s traditional “embrace and absorb” strategy was always coming to Linux. It was just a matter of time. They wait until a competitive product/company achieves a certain viability (not sure what they use to determine that, but it doesn’t really matter), and then they embrace it in terms of compatibility, followed by acquisitions and Microsoft products that leverage that compatibility in their favor. People like to hate Microsoft for a million reasons, some factually sound, and some completely bullshit, but Microsoft’s strategy for dealing with competition has always been the same, and it works exceptionally well for them. They didn’t achieve “monopoly” status by sucking at the game.

Novell has joined the dance. They think they can beat Redmond at their own game. I’m gonna see if they can. History says they have a tough task, as MS is really good at this. But if we always made our future decisions based on the past, nothing would ever change. I applaud Novell for stepping up. Most everyone else has had their head in the sand, pretending there were only two choices, closed source or open source. The real world was always going to insist they coexist, on the same OS, network, or environment. Open Source only is a great ideology, but it won’t fly. Closed Source only is commercially attractive to businesses, but it won’t fly either…Linux has changed that forever. Reality forces upon us the only choice that does fly…coexistence. This is the real test of Open Source; not could it stand independent and aloof and succeed in the way it wanted to?…it never could. But can it coexist ideologically and legally with Closed Source?

The way the test is evolving came as a complete surprise to most of us, me included. But that the true test of Open Source is upon us…didn’t surprise me one bit.

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October 17, 2006 by Keith Kastorff.

This showed up in my RSS reader this morning via Digg:
Why are Macs Becoming More Popular?

It got me to thinking…why do I use a Mac?

Well, for starters, I don’t use only Macs, and I’m not hung up on the “open source” religion. I use what I like, and if it’s Open Source, that’s good, but not essential. The operating systems I use are Linux (Gentoo, SUSE 10.1, SLED), Windows XP SP-2, and OS X 10.4.8. There was a time those items would fall neatly into hardware categories: OS X on a Macintosh computer, the rest on a PC. These days, with virtualization, it’s not so clear.

I used VMware Workstation in Linux to create and run a virtual machine for Windows XP for my basic “work” environment for the last couple of years. Today I use Parallels for the same thing. Not much difference…the host OS for my work environment isn’t Windows. Windows is Windows…VMware was running on a PC/Linux machine, and Parallels runs on a Macintosh/OS X machine. The Windows software I use is the same, Microsoft Office (Access & Excel mostly), OneNote, Notetab Pro, gVim, SnagIt, TimeSlice, and Microsoft SQL Server. There’s some difference there, but not what it used to be…Intel and Intel, UNIX and Linux.

The biggest difference is outside the VM of course. In Linux, I use Microsoft Office (CrossOver Office) or OpenOffice, Evolution, Gaim, X-Chat (or IRSSI), Firefox, Skype, VLC, Amarok (or Audacious), Liferea, gVim (or VIM in a console). On OS X, I use Microsoft Office or Open Office, Apple Mail, Address Book, iCal, Adium (based on the Gaim engine), Snak, Safari (and Camino…like a tweaked Mac-centric Firefox), Skype, VLC, iTunes, NetNewsWire, BBEdit (or VIM in a Terminal).

But why do I use a Mac? I think the real answer is two fold:
1) Macs now use Intel CPUs (I can run Windows…natively or virtualized, faster than I can on my Intel hardware since the Mac is faster than my old PCs)
2) OS X (UNIX with the slickest GUI ever, access to X11, and via Fink, damn near anything else that will run on UNIX…and hardware that just works, with a minimum of fuss)
So having Macintosh hardware is almost like having one’s cake and eating it too… And who’s gonna have Macintosh hardware and not run OS X too? Not me.

Does that mean I don’t use/love Linux anymore? Of course not…I spend time on my Linux machines every day. I love to tinker, and Linux lets/makes me do that…OS X doesn’t let me play like Linux does. Like everyone else, I boot to Windows to play most games. Does that make me OS agnostic? Perhaps…it feels like having three girlfriends sometimes…each wants/needs my attention/time, and I want to spend time with each, but end the end, one is gonna be “my everyday, where my email lives” environment. Today it’s OS X…tomorrow…who knows?

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October 17, 2006 by Keith Kastorff.

I got my new laptop a few days ago (thanks to my girlfriend), an Apple MacBook (black). My old laptop, an IBM Thinkpad T23, was beginning to break down…the webcam mounts and internal wireless were dead, and it was getting pretty long in the tooth…1.13 GHz Pentium III. I used Macs as my primary machines back in the pre-OS X days, and even have an old iMac G3 with 10.4 loaded today. It was just too slow for a main machine, but it kept me up to date with what was going on with the OS. I’ve been using Linux (Gentoo and SUSE) along with Windows XP for my primary OS the last couple of years, so I was excited to live with the BSD based OS X. It’s new enough I’m learning, and comfortable enough it’s like coming home.

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December 17, 2005 by Keith Kastorff.

Merry Christmas everyone! Or Happy Holidays! Either has a religious underpinning…so you “white washed politically correct I get offended by anything I don’t like and want to crush anyone else’s right to free speech/expression” folks can kiss my ass.

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May 13, 2005 by Keith Kastorff.

I’ve become a Gentoo advocate. I’ve installed Gentoo before, but it didn’t “stick”; I guess I wasn’t quite ready at the time. In the last few months, I’ve loaded Vidalinux 1.1 on two machines, which is a Gentoo 2004.3 stage 3 install married to Fedora Core’s Ananconda graphical installer. It’s like Gentoo without the hassle of loading Gentoo.

Portage gives me the power I’ve been wanting with my software, but it extracts a heavy price…time. Compiling everything from source takes a long time…and as much as Linux changes, if you want to be up to date, you’re gonna be compiling a lot. The good news is, with Linux’s ability to multitask and still be responsive to normal use, you can do this while using the machine. Windows XP would be unusable under the same load.

I still use SuSE 9.3 on my laptop, because it’s a great laptop distro. It keeps me aware of the advantages and disadvantages of a binary Linux distro. I can load/upgrade software in a very short while compared to Gentoo, but I don’t have the selection or configurability I have with Gentoo. As always, Linux seems to provide options that fit my needs…SuSE on the laptop…Vidalinux/Gentoo on the desktop.

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March 27, 2005 by Keith Kastorff.

Got girl friend problems again…I love her but we just don’t seem to sync most of the time. We keep going up and down emotionally, traveling from one crisis to another. She’s perfect in so many ways, I just don’t understand why we can’t seem to build this relationship.

My ex-wife is getting a divorce from her second husband. He’s a great guy who has a drinking problem. I really hope they can work things out. My son thinks a great deal of him. (Update: they worked it out, and stayed together!)

Did the sound at the early Easter service at church today. It was a hoot! The bulletin I was using didn’t match the service, so I was doing everything on the fly. With an orchestra, choir, and 3 pastors, it was wild.

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January 28, 2005 by Keith Kastorff.

See I’ve got this new tool, a Gnome blogging applet that puts this little popup window in a task bar. Once you’ve set the preferences, you just pop it up, type a blog entry, and hit the Post Entry button. With something this simple, I might update my blog more often…

What’s Gnome, you ask? Gnome is a desktop environment for Linux…

This is just way cool.

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October 29, 2004 by Keith Kastorff.

I’m thinking of my father. He had ear surgery not too long ago. It wasn’t too bad, they went in to fix a hole in his eardrum and clean out some infected tissue. As far as we know, his life wasn’t in any danger, but I know I spend time reflecting on my relationship with him just like it was a life or death situation. I wish I could spend more time with him.

Both of us remember fondly the Christmas we worked together to rebuild an antique ice box for my sister’s present. We spent a couple of weeks in his shop together, and it was perhaps the best time we ever had together. Jack was in his element, comfortable, and I was trying to be a good Indian. It was one of the best times of my life.

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August 4, 2004 by kastorff.

It’s funny how your mind can be filled with things, but when you put your fingers on the keyboard, everything goes blank. Dogs, computers, sports, books, music, parenting, friendship, religion…it will all be here at some time…

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