Birds and things

I'm not sure if Cilla took this photo or if it was me, but it turned out great so I thought I would share it with all you guys. This pair of rainbow lorikeets joined us for lunch after our last dive at Great Keppel Island and were happy to pose for the camera.

I see Linspire is gearing up for a new release of thier OS. Version 6.0 is on the way. They are also working on another operating system called Freespire. I'm not sure what the point of this is. Maybe they are trying to attract developers, developers, developers, developers....

I don't run linux yet. It doesn't run the programs I need to run, so I don't run it. Its a mutual lack of co-operation. Don't get me wrong, I don't take any pride in running Windows. In fact I have gone to some lengths avoid Microsoft software where possible.

I browse with Firefox, the greatest web browser in the world. I use and advocate OpenOffice, a free alternative to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and with the new OpenOffice 2.0 we even have a challenger to Access. I have stopped using HoTMaiL for about six months now since I aquired a gmail account. Windows Media Player and its huge, clunky, resource hogging interface, bursting with DRM has now been replaced with the VideoLAN Client on my home machines, with its light and simple interface. And it plays 99.9% of anything I throw at it. GoogleTalk has stepped up to plate and knocked Messenger off my harddrive for good. Why Microsoft can't settle on a name for Messenger is beyond me. Microsoft Messenger, MSN Messenger, Windows Messenger and now Messenger Live.

Now all this stuff will run under linux, for sure. And if all I used my computer for was to surf, email, watch movies and listen to music, then the MS logo would never grace my 19" LCD Monitor. But my PC has to do more than that. It needs to play games. Big games. Games like Oblivion, Pacific Assault, SWAT4, NFS Most Wanted, X3 - Reunion, Civ4 and of course OpenTTD. Sure, if you are a linux guru and wanted to muck about with WineX you might be able to get most of these games going.

But this is the clincher. Video editing. Drop that in the lap of any linux supporter and they usually concede defeat. Oh, sure, Pixar run Linux, but they wrote their own software. Same for Dreamworks. I can't write my own software. I have to buy it. And when it comes to video editing software you need to be running Windows. Or Mac, but they are twice the price. Apple make nice computers, but they are too expensive... and we have the lack of games issue again. Oh well. Windows it is for now.

Still, I will be checking out Linspire 6.0. It is a nice OS. It just needs more developers, developers, developers, developers.......

GoogleTalk and Gmail are like a private club. Invite only. Cool.

I'll finish this blog off with a google video. Diet Coke and Mentos.