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Now that Firefox 3 has been officially released, the Google Gears team wasted no time in pounding out a new version of the API that works with FF3.

Coincidentally, this means that Google Gears now works with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, which began its life a couple of months ago with the then-non-Gears-supported FF 3 beta.

According to the blog post cited above, the change was made on June 11, but I don't think the Gears link worked for Linux systems with Firefox 3 (i.e. everybody running Ubuntu 8.04) on that day.

But now that FF3 is officially official, I expect Gears to install in the latest Firefox browser, and I in turn expect my laptop (and me) to be enjoying offline access to my Google Docs files real soon now.

I tried Google Docs with Gears a week ago on Firefox 2 in the Slackware-derived Wolvix Hunter last week, and I was very impressed. Editing of existing Docs files was seamless, and while I miss the ability to create new files in Google Docs while offline, I'm fairly confident that the big brains at Google are hard at work adding this needed bit of functionality to the Docs/Gears world.

By way of explanation, here's what I know about using Google Gears:

Google Gears is what's called an API (which stands for Application Programming Interface), and it installs as a Firefox add-on. If you don't have a live Internet connection, Gears detects this and uses a SQlite database set up in the user's Firefox directory to allow the ability to read and edit files in Google Docs.

When Gears is first installed, the database is created and populated with all the user's Google Docs files, after which Gears attempts at the earliest opportunity to sync that database with the files on the online version of Google Docs.

Like I said, I've tried it, it's brilliant, and it's finally come to the one computer that is regularly offline — my Gateway Solo 1450, which for the time being has no wireless connectivity (something I hope to remedy with a new PCMCIA assembly, should I be able to figure out how to pull the old one and replace it).

Google Gears/Docs update: I installed it in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, and it works. I plan to use it often.

Gears/Docs tip: I think I have a way to get around Google Docs/Gears inability to create new documents while offline.

I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to create a half-dozen to a dozen "dummy" documents in Google Docs while online so I'll have pre-created, empty documents in which to work when I'm not connected and using Docs via Gears.

This is pure speculation, but reports are flying around out there that Google plans to shoot hydrogen-filled balloons 20 miles into the sky in order to provide wireless services to middle America.

Here's what Google-Watch has to say about it:

Google declined to comment, but bear with me for the rub. These hydrogen-filled balloons float up 20 miles into the stratosphere with electronics that acts like a cell phone tower proxy to deliver wireless services to the thousands of miles of territory I mentioned above.

Of course, these disposable balloons are good for only a day before they pop. The gear they carry relies on gravity and tiny parachutes to get back to earth.

It gets zanier. To launch these balloons, Space Data pays mechanics and dairy farmers $50 a pop to launch the space-bound balloons. While the balloons are cheap, the electronics in them are worth about $1,500. Space Data pays 20 "hobbyists" armed with GPS devices $100 for each device they find.

The Journal story acutely points out that more than a third of rural Americans don't have Internet connections, partly because it's costly to build cell phone towers in areas with so few customers. Space Data claims a single balloon can cover an area normally requiring 40 cell towers.

Who needs cellular towers to muck up middle America when you can use mini cell towers borne by good ole-fashioned balloons?

And no kittens will be involved.

Google didn't get where it is today by charging end users for software and charging them again and again for endless upgrades.

Back in the early Macintosh days (i.e. the mid- to late '80s), Apple used the OS to sell hardware. Upgrades were free.

Today, Apple sells music at 99 cents a track, but what they're really selling is iPods, iPhones, iMacs, and any other damn thing they can slap an "i" in front of. And while the music is available in 99-cent increments, the iTunes software -- which runs in Windows and OS X -- has always been free. iPods would've never gotten to be such a huge business in any other way.

It's no different for the OS.

With that in mind, Apple wins on the desktop -- and crushes Microsoft -- in one way:

Make OS X free -- or very cheap. And make it run on Windows-compatible PCs.

Everybody wants that new MacBook Air. They'll still want it, even if they can also run OS X on a crappy PC. While not getting $129 for each OS X upgrade, Apple would get market share, still move a whole lot of hardaware. And they would gain that all-important "mindshare."

Most people have heard of Linux, but few have seen it on the desktop, even though they "use" it every day when they browse the Web. Most have seen OS X, a significant portion have used it a bit, and a few are rabid fans.

And while I'd like to see OS X go free and open-source, I won't hold my breath on that one. As I said above, I'd prefer -- at a minimum -- that Apple port OS X to Windows PCs, i.e. make a native version that installs from CD and runs on non-Apple hardware.

But even making new versions of OS X free for Apple hardware would prompt more users to upgrade the software. When running the latest and greatest gets slow, they'd be more inclined to buy new hardware, most likely from Apple.

Right now I'm still running my 2003-era iBook on OS X 10.3. I saved $129 twice by not upgrading to 10.4 and 10.5. I can't even use Apple's newest Safari browser because it doesn't run on 10.3. Firefox does, so that's what I use. As a result, Apple misses out on any browser-generated ad revenue. Would 10.5 run well on my laptop? Who knows? I sure don't want to spend $129 to find out.

By flooding the market with a free or very cheap OS X, Apple could blunt the effects of Microsoft Windows, which customers pay for but don't really feel they're paying for because the cost is bundled into just about every PC sold.

Even if a free OS wouldn't fly at Apple HQ, if the company still ported OS X to Windows-compatible PCs, they could -- and should -- compete with Microsoft when it comes to pre-installed operating systems on non-Apple hardware.

Imagine if you could order a PC from Dell with Windows, Linux or OS X ... there would be real competition for the hearts and minds of computer users everywhere from the home to the enterprise.

And since Apple's hardware is so ultra-cool (and ultra-pricey), they'd probably sell even more of it if OS X had a much larger of the overall worldwide OS pie.

You think? That's one of the stories out there right now. Makes sense to me: Amazon could definitely use Yahoo as both partner and source of revenue. Amazon could also conceivably tap Yahoo's pool of developers to help bolster the Amazon cloud computing initiative.

And tamping down any mojo that Microsoft might gain in the SAAS (software as a service) and overall cloud computing sector only helps Amazon's own foray into what many people think is the future of computing (though others think it's much ado about little).

Clearly it's good business for Microsoft to buy Yahoo and entrench itself as a firm No. 2 in search advertising. And ... while I'm touting the alleged skills of Yahoo's developers, Yahoo itself is way behind Google when it comes to Web-based applications. Yahoo has nothing like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, nor does it seem to have a Google-like plan to leverage Docs, Gmail and network storage as a fee-based service for the enterprise.

I still think Yahoo Mail has an edge over Gmail, excepting the fact that Gmail can run a totally secure session (which, nevertheless can be hacked into through unencrypted cookies) and Yahoo Mail cannot, but to me Yahoo Mail keeps that edge with usability and functionality ... but ... Gmail offers free POP mail, Yahoo charges for it, and Gmail is also rolling out IMAP, with no similar plan for Yahoo that I know about.

On the other hand, the latest rendition of Yahoo Mail, if run on fast-enough hardware, does an admirable job of mimicking a stand-alone e-mail client. It's the kind of app that makes me think Yahoo can develop a credible alternative to Google Docs if they wanted to do so.

Anyhow, back to business. One of the perils of being a publicly traded company without huge mounds of cash on hand is that somebody like Microsoft can swoop in and buy you when your stock is tanking.

Yahoo is a valuable brand with good core technologies. Given the time, they can manage their way out of this mess. But in today's world, time is scarce.

There are two kinds of tech companies out there: those who would love to be bought by Microsoft, and those who loathe it. OK, there's a third kind: those likely to be threatened with legal action by Microsoft, but I'm getting off-track here.

Remember this, Yahooligans: The Web isn't set in stone. If Yahoo is assimilated, you can always cash out and start something newer and better.

As for Microsoft, the company has never been shy about acquiring the technology and market share it needs in order to survive and grow. They've got the money, so this acquisition is a no-brainer for them. The clash-of-culture thing could be a problem, but for most people, if the checks keep coming (and they don't make people move to Seattle) and they see some kind of mission in their work, many will keep going. If it doesn't go so well, Microsoft parts with cash to crush the No. 2 player in search advertising and effectively assumes that mantle itself.

But letting anybody else -- especially someone with the scale and ambition of Amazon -- get Yahoo, that would only hurt Microsoft's search-ad, networked-application and plain-craven-moneymaking mojo. What's a big load of cash good for when you can't use it to crush your rivals?

Unless Yahoo can somehow find someone, somewhere with a bigger load of ready money or pricey stock, it looks like Redmond will win this round.

And whether the merger succeeds or fails, if it happens at all, it's huge-upside time for the folks in Redmond.

It's not just Gmail, but Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and even more data in Google's cloud. Can individuals and even corporations trust Google with their information?

I know they have the whole "don't be evil" thing going on, but isn't "evil" in the eye of the beholder.

On the other hand, is Google technically competent enough to keep the data from being damaged or destroyed? And on the other, other hand, maybe Google (or Amazon, IBM or what have you) is way, way better-equipped to be in charge of your data than you are.

The big question: Will Google roll over on you when the goverment comes a-callin'. I don't know what Google's record is on this, and the whole thing is a legal quagmire in the making.

From a purely technical standpoint, it might be a good idea to keep local backups, even if all your data is in Google, Amazon/Red Hat, IBM or whoever's cloud.

But considering how poor most of us (myself included) are at making and keeping backups, cloud computing and data storage is probably a pretty good idea.

But I throw it to you: Do you trust Google?

Glad you asked ... it's the 50th anniversary of the LEGO brick, and the Googlites (i.e. the two founders) used the plastic bricks to make cases for hard drives when they were first developing the now-iconic search engine.

Let's get to it: I have one Web site that I work on infrequently that requires Internet Explorer, but since I barely have to do anything on it, I am free to use IE, or not.

And I waited at least a year to "upgrade" my IE6 to IE7 on the XP box at work. Yeah, it's an upgrade because now IE has tabbed browsing -- a feature Firefox has had for years, and which IE probably would've never added had FF not had it first.

I like IE6 because it was a fast program -- it opened fast and did the rest of its thing fast. And I could use it as an FTP client.

Now that I have IE7, sure there is tabbed browsing, and it looks a little better, but it's way slower than Firefox, and I pretty much only fire up IE for ONE Web site because it's at the top of my IE favorites and the bottom of my FF favorites.

IE loads more slowly, the favorites come up slower -- basically it gets beat by FF in performance by every measure. (I'm running a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM.)

And I can run Firefox in Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac OS X ... and I do (though I'm partial to the Mozilla-derived Epiphany in the GNOME desktop, as well as the Seamonkey browser/e-mail client/HTML editor suite -- also based on Mozilla).

Truth be told, if it really bothered me, I'd try to roll the box back to IE6, if that indeed can be done. Since IE7 installs over your IE6, I think it might be a problem to "go back."

Note: While I can't get the same FTP functionality out of IE7, I have a Windows workaround: Open up My Computer from the Start menu, and type your FTP address in the search bar. The window functions pretty much like IE6 -- it's the same "Explorer"-like interface Windows uses to let you examine your own files, and it does FTP just like IE6. Thanks, Microsoft!

I used to think IE was the best browser for OS X, too -- that final version of IE5 for the Mac was a masterful, innovative application, and I'm sorry Microsoft abandoned it. Safari doesn't have enough critical mass to cut it -- many Web sites don't look so hot in it -- so Firefox is pretty much the browser of record for the Mac, too.

And Mozilla is making hand-over-fist money by getting a cut of the Google searches made through the browser. All it means is more money that Microsoft isn't making.

Hope you're happy, Microsoft!

Sure it ran in RedmondMag, the "independent voice of the Microsoft IT community," but Google's Secret Weapon by Glyn Moody lays out very clear how and why Google is leveraging open-source software -- and the people who make it -- in its battle against Microsoft. While I've heard much of it before, it's still the best thing I've read all week.

I'm writing this review on Google Docs in Firefox while running gOS 1.0.1, the Ubuntu-based distribution that steers users toward Web-based applications whenever possible -- mostly those under the auspices of Google -- and which powers the Everex Linux PC being sold for $199 by the truckful at Wal-Mart.

I'm getting more comfortable with Google Docs all the time, but there are times when you need a traditional text editor. Yet there is no GUI text editor to be found in the gOS distro. There is the entire OpenOffice suite and the GIMP image editor, a smattering of games, Rhythmbox for music and Xine for video, but no stand-alone mail client (you're encouraged by the iconography on the gOS desktop to use Gmail ...). Luckily there is a terminal program, which is named UXterm but looks suspiciously like plain ol' xterm, and with that you can bring up Vim or Nano, but that's pretty much it. Come to think of it, without a terminal in the GUI, and a console text editor, gOS would be in a heap of trouble, so it's good that they included one. But every gOS user's life would be a whole lot easier with a GUI text editor. Since you can add anything in the Ubuntu repositories, holes in gOS are easily filled.

But the more I used the new, green OS, the more I wondered whether the Everex (and everybody else) would be be better off with Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Debian ... or just about anything. While the Everex, with its 1.5 GHz VIA processor and 512 MB of RAM is underpowered when compared to most modern desktops, I regularly run Debian and Ubuntu -- both with GNOME -- and even Slackware with GNOME and Xfce on a machine with similar power but half the memory. And as I found out, the speed and lightness on resources that the Enlightenment window manager promises are just not there.

One thing I do like about gOS -- and this may be a feature of Ubuntu 7.10 for all I know -- is that when you're in a terminal and try to run an application you don't have installed, the terminal outputs what you do need to do to get it.

For instance, I tried to run the Joe editor:

$ joe

and I got the following:

The program 'Joe' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install joe
bash: joe: command not found

Whenever that message comes from, it's a very nice touch and is more than enough to get even a novice user going with apt.

But sheesh, at least give me Leafpad, Mousepad, Gedit ... whatever. Normally I would just add the editor I want, but for this evaluation of gOS, I pledged to stay with Google Docs; that's what they want you to use, so I'll use it. In the past, I've even gone as far as automatically posting a Google Docs item to one of my Blogger blogs, but that feature, in my opinion, is pretty much useless. Why not just write directly in Blogger? And since you can only auto-post from Google Docs to a single blog, the write-to-blog feature won't work for me. However, the post-to-blog feature does work with WordPress and LiveJournal blogs, plus a few others I've never heard of. That makes it more useful, but what I need is for Google Docs to act as more of a "dashboard" app for my various blogs -- I'd like to be able to publish from here to more than one blog (actually about six, and therein lies my sickness).

Update: I was all set to complain about Google Docs' browser-printing problem, but I just printed a document from Docs on my Windows PC, and what Docs did was turn my document into a great-looking PDF, which opened in Adobe Reader and was easily printed on paper. I'm not sure how seamless this integration is in Linux systems, but I plan to find out soon. Printing on actual paper seemed like the weak link in the whole Google Docs scheme, but it looks like they have that problem solved very well -- I may never use a traditional word processor again (especially if the promised offline extension of Docs is ever released).

Google Docs is a whole lot better than many people let on. I never need to insert tables or pictures into my documents. I write stuff. Stuff with words, and if I need to insert photos, I'm generally already in a blog post or on a printed page that I'm dealing with in a publishing program that is a whole lot bigger and more complicated than Google Docs. But Docs CAN insert images, tables, links and more. And it's not a bad HTML generator either. You can look at the HTML source at any time and copy/paste it into your Web content.

For the everyday writer of articles for publication, Google Docs is pretty kick-ass. When not connected to the Internet, or for those who don't want Google to see their documents, there's always the option of using OpenOffice, though I think AbiWord and Gnumeric are more in keeping with the lightness touted by gOS.

Getting back to gOS ... almost: Even though this is supposed to be about gOS, the bare-bones Linux distro relies heavily on the Firefox browser and links to various Web tools like GMail, Google Docs, Wikipedia (see, they're not all Google), Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, Google Maps and Picasa. So any review of gOS must take heavily into account the browser experience.

Since I work on four or five separate computers a day, working with docs online and using Web-based (or IMAP-delivered) e-mail is a must for me. I could add a standalone mail client to gOS as easily as I can with any Ubuntu or Debian system, but for now I won't. Even so, a user with gOS can pretty much make it do anything they could do on Ubuntu. Or they could wipe gOS from the drive and replace it ... or perhaps dual-boot.

One of the most attractive things about gOS and the Everex PC is that the combination promises full power management, making for a more green PC than most anything else out there on the desktop, so if you have the Everex PC, making gOS work the way you want it becomes a more attractive option. Hopefully Linux, as it matures even further, will include better power management for all motherboards.

More mail: I'm divided about the use of mail clients anyway. Most of the time, a Web portal is fine for me, especially if the entire session takes place in a secure connection (thanks, DSL Extreme). And I suspect that the vast majority of computer users have never heard of a mail client -- they barely know what Outlook is -- and have been accessing e-mail through the browser as long as they've had e-mail access, so gOS is going in the right direction there.

Gmail tip: To keep your Gmail session secure throughout, start out in your browser with the following:

https://mail.google.com

Note the "s" for a secure connection. You can also type https://gmail.com. Unsecure e-mail, particularly over unencrypted wireless connections, is a real problem, and it makes me reluctant to use Yahoo Mail because only the password is sent over a secure connection. The rest of your e-mail is right out there for others to intercept and use for ill.

Speaking about the greenish gOS desktop, the Enlightenment window manager isn't that bad. I think gOS could've been done just as well with Xfce -- maybe even better -- but I know that some Enlightenment developers are behind the project, and I'm always happy to see any desktop environment taken to the next level. At least it sets gOS apart from the dozen or so Xfce-based distros out there. But speedy, it's not.

One of the first things I did in gOS was add some virtual desktops; it's one of the best features that Windows doesn't offer, and I think the gOS people should ship the OS with more than a single desktop showing. I like the traditional four, so I left-clicked on the mouse and went to Desktop -- Virtual -- Configure Virtual Desktops. I could've added more than four, but I didn't. Switching between desktops is done with the usual ctrl-alt-arrow keys. You can't tell in gOS which desktop you're on, but at least they're there.

One feature I turned on in Enlightenment that I've never seen before in any other window manager (although I'm pretty sure it's there in most window managers) is the ability to switch or "flip" screens by moving the mouse pointer to the left or right edge of the screen, effectively scrolling to the next desktop. It's kind of neat. I don't know if I need it (I discovered it by accident after forgetting that I set it), but it may just be something that gOS users will grow to like. I had to turn the feature off because I kept triggering it by accident -- I like my Firefox windows to fill up the screen, and more than once I found myself on the next desktop when I didn't want to be there just yet. Ctrl-alt-arrow is good enough for me. But if you like the "flip screen" feature, you can make it look even more groovy with "animated flip."

One successful install, one less so: Both my regular test box (the VIA C3 Samuel-based Maxspeed Maxterm converted thin client) and the $0 Laptop (Gateway Solo 1450) are very Ubuntu friendly, meaning installs of Ubuntu-based distros generally go well on both. gOS installed like a champ on the thin client, but it won't install at all on the Gateway. On the latter, the live CD environment comes up fine (and the graphics are much snappier than on the Maxspeed), but when I do the install, I enter all the relevant information, and about six seconds into the actual install, the program crashes -- and that's it. Since I recently did an install of Ubuntu 7.10 on this very same laptop, it's curious, indeed, that gOS will not install. It's regretful, but at least I got gOS on one box. Hopefully the bug, whatever it is, will be squashed in future editions of gOS.

Potential problem: I'm running top in a terminal window on one of my four desktops, and it consistently shows Enlightenment using 9 percent to 12 percent of my CPU and 12 percent of my 256 MB of memory ... at idle. That's not exactly light. I'll have to go back to Ubuntu and Xubuntu and see how much CPU and memory GNOME and Xfce take up. I don't think it's this much. That said, gOS seems to be running as well as anything else, but not radically better. I'm able to switch windows in Firefox fairly quickly and do the same with my virtual desktops. Again, I'd have a better feel for how gOS compares if I could install it on my Gateway laptop.

So I decided to install the next distro I'm testing -- Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0. In case you haven't heard of Wolvix, it's a live CD based on Slackware that runs the Xfce and Fluxbox window managers. It can be used as a live CD, or put on the hard drive as a frugal install or traditional hard drive install. I opted for the traditional hard drive install.

The Wolvix installation process is excellent. I already had partitions set up, but the Wolvix installer offered to start up Gparted and make some or modify those I have. I also had the option of designating separate partitions for /home and other directories (I declined but would have configured a separate /home if I planned to use Wolvix long-term). The installer also gave me the option of booting Wolvix at the console or in a GUI (I chose the GUI), and it offered to put GRUB on the master boot record (I accepted). It also detected gOS, which allowed me to dual-boot. If whatever I install on the remaining partition messes up GRUB, I can easily reinstall it from Wolvix without having to geek out too much. (Note: Wolvix didn't do so well on GRUB, I instead used the gOS install disk to reinstall GRUB, and it recognized gOS perfectly).

I ran top in a terminal in Wolvix Hunter running Xfce, and at idle, with the Firefox window open on another screen (just like in gOS), the top running process was X at between 2 and 4.6 percent CPU and 7.6 percent memory. In short, a whole lot lighter than Enlightenment.

Maybe Wolvix isn't the best distro with which to compare gOS, but the Xfce vs. Enlightenment comparison is more than valid. Is it possible that the Everex PC could perform better with Xubuntu instead of gOS? (The answer is yes.)

Anyway, since Wolvix includes Fluxbox, I decided to go further and check top again. I opened Firefox, opened this document, switched to another window, opened a terminal and ran top. X was still the top running process and veered between 0.3 percent and 1.7 percent of CPU, and 6.1 percent of memory. Again, much better than Enlightenment in gOS.

To provide an even clearer picture of the performance of gOS and Enlightenment, I tested the load times of Firefox and OpenOffice Writer in a variety of Linux distributions and window managers. (Note: Slackware 12 doesn't include OpenOffice, and I haven't bothered to add it, so times are provided for KOffice's KWord -- which is generally quicker to load than OO). Load times were checked twice for each setup, since the second load of each of these two applications often happens much more quickly than the first.

Other variables that may have affected the times: Ubuntu 6.06 uses Firefox 1.5. All others used variants of Firefox 2.0. OpenOffice versions ranged from 2.0 in Ubuntu 6.06 to 2.3 in gOS.

The distros and window managers tested on the Maxspeed converted thin client (1 GHz VIA C3 processor, ECS eveM motherboard, 256 MB RAM) were:

gOS 1.0.1 (Enlightenment)
Ubuntu 6.0.6 LTS (GNOME)
Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 (Xfce and Fluxbox)
Slackware 12 (KDE, Xfce and Fluxbox)
Ubuntu 7.04 (GNOME)
Xubuntu 7.04 (Xfce)
Debian 4.0 Etch (Xfce)

To sum up before the results are given, gOS was the slowest of the bunch -- even slower than Slackware under KDE -- and also slower than Ubuntu. It may be surprising, but Ubuntu with GNOME compares somewhat favorably to other distros running Xfce; you don't lose much speed by running GNOME as opposed to Xfce. Slackware and Debian with Xfce were another story; both were extremely fast when it came to loading applications. I didn't include Debian Etch with GNOME in the test because I didn't have it installed on one of the thin client's drives. But Debian compared very well to Slackware when both used the Xfce desktop environment. Curiously, Xubuntu -- Ubuntu's Xfce variant -- was slower than Debian with Xfce; in fact (as I already mentioned), Xubuntu didn't provide much of a speed advantage over regular Ubuntu.

I expected Wolvix to be the fastest, or at least as fast as Slackware. but it was buried by Slack. Not surprisingly, when Xfce was chosen for the window manager instead of KDE, Slackware was the undisputed winner, with a first-load time for Firefox of 8 seconds. That said, Ubuntu was slower, but not overly much, so if you prefer Ubuntu and GNOME to Slackware and Xfce, it's not like night and day in terms of application load time; it's more like noon and 2:30 p.m. -- a difference, but not so much as to make the slower of the two unusable.

The reason I even did this test was that from a "desktop feel" standpoint on my underpowered test box, gOS lacked the quickness of most of the other distros, including the Dapper and Feisty versions of Ubuntu.

And while Ubuntu has made some performance gains between 6.06 and 7.04, compatibility with hardware and desire for (or lack of interest in) more up-to-date apps should govern users' choice of the LTS vs. regular releases of the distro. For instance, on the converted thin client, hardware recognition is great in both versions, but on my Gateway laptop, ACPI and touchpad configuration work better in 7.10, and almost as well in 7.04. But ACPI management of the CPU fan only works with the kernel provided in 7.04.

Another aside: I saw practically no difference in application load times between Xfce and Fluxbox. So if you prefer Fluxbox, go ahead and use it, but you won't be gaining any performance over Xfce, at least in 256 MB of RAM. On the $15 Laptop (Compaq Armada 7770dmt), which only has 64 MB of RAM, I ran Debian with Fluxbox for months, and it runs just as well now that I have Xfce on it. And the superior tools included in Xfce put it ahead of Fluxbox when it comes to usability on the desktop.

The Slackware KDE vs. Slackware Xfce numbers are the most startling; using Slack with Xfce will save considerable load time on slower systems.

On "modern" PCs, however, much of this is moot. With a dual-core processor and 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM, everything loads so quickly that for desktop use, personal preference for one window manager or another holds more sway than load times, which will be acceptably short in just about any desktop environment. And for those who like all the bells and widgets of KDE, if you have enough power to enjoy them, it's probably worth it. Just Konqueror alone, with its ability to function as a Web browser, file manager, file viewer, FTP client and configuration portal, makes KDE very attractive. If only I could get X configured properly in Slackware on my Gateway Solo 1450 laptop.

Here are the test results:

gOS 1.0.1 (Enlightenment)
Firefox 2.0.0.10 1st load: 30 sec.
                 2nd load: 15 sec.
OpenOffice 2.3   1st load: 56 sec.
                 2nd load: 21 sec.  

Ubuntu 6.06 (GNOME)
Firefox 1.5.0.13 1st load: 21 sec.
                 2nd load: 10 sec.
Open Office 2.0  1st load: 44 sec.
                 2nd load: 26 sec.

Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 (Xfce)
Firefox 2.0.0.6 1st load: 19 sec.
                2nd load: 12 sec.
OpenOffice 2.2  1st load: 37 sec.
                2nd load: 23 sec.

Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 (Fluxbox)
Firefox 2.0.0.6 1st load: 22 sec.
                2nd load: 12 sec.
OpenOffice 2.2  1st load: 42 sec.
                2nd load: 23 sec.

Slackware 12 (KDE)
Firefox 2.0.0.8 1st load: 24 sec.
                2nd load: 14 sec.
KOffice         1st load: 19 sec.
                2nd load: 16 sec.

Slackware 12 (Xfce)
Firefox 2.0.0.8 1st load:  8 sec.
                2nd load:  8 sec.
KOffice         1st load: 15 sec.
                2nd load: 13 sec.

Slackware 12 (Fluxbox)
Firefox 2.0.0.8  1st load: 9 sec.
                 2nd load: 9 sec.
Koffice         1st load: 15 sec.
                2nd load: 13 sec.

Xubuntu 7.04 (Xfce)
Firefox 2.0.0.10 1st load: 18 sec.
                 2nd load:  9 sec.
OpenOffice 2.2   1st load: 36 sec.
                 2nd load: 22 sec.

Ubuntu 7.04 (GNOME)
Firefox 2.0.0.10 1st load: 17 sec.
                 2nd load: 10 sec.
OpenOffice 2.2   1st load: 40 sec.
                 2nd load: 18 sec.

Debian 4.0 Etch (Xfce)
Firefox 2.0.0.8  1st load: 10 sec.
                 2nd load: 10 sec.
Open Office 2.0  1st load: 17 sec.
                 2nd load: 17 sec.

As I say above the biggest thing to emerge is the speed advantage of Slackware and Debian, especially with Xfce. The relative slowness of Slackware 11-based Wolvix was puzzling. And while I didn't have OpenOffice installed in Slackware, and KOffice is pretty much a quicker program, I included its load numbers for comparison's sake. I did first and second loads of all apps because the second load is often -- but not always -- much quicker. Times for office suites were the number of seconds it took to open up a new OO Writer or KWord document.

While I didn't expect Debian to be slow, I also didn't expect it to be so comparable to Slackware. That's good news for Debian users.

But the biggest thing to come out of this test is that standard Ubuntu pretty much crushes gOS. The new, hot distro may be green in color, but it's incomplete and slow.

That said, the idea of doing most work in the browser and drawing on Web-based portals for not just e-mail and "social networking" purposes, but also document creation, photo editing and storage is becoming more attractive and viable all the time. In this realm, gOS is making a big "idea" contribution to the OS game, but in terms of sheer performance, polish and basic tools, it has a long way to go.

The average user -- even newbies -- would be better off with Ubuntu or Xubuntu on the Everex. And as these tests show, the Xfce desktop environment, in most instances, provides more bang for your MHz.

I wanted gOS to be great, but when it comes to Linux and BSD distros, greatness only comes with time and painstaking effort. After all the hype over the gOS-Everex-Wal-Mart effort -- some of it even generated by yours truly -- I didn't expect to see gOS beaten by every single established distro I threw at it. I don't usually do extensive time tests, but the sludginess of gOS drove me to it.

And while I expected Slackware and Debian to acquit themselves well, I wasn't prepared for out-of-the-box Ubuntu to best gOS. It wouldn't make as great a story -- "Wal-Mart chooses Ubuntu" -- but it would be way better for those buying the $199 box from the world's largest retailer.

I've decided to go all in with Google Docs.

Since it's easy to upload files to Google Docs from the app itself or via a unique e-mail address provided to each user, I'm throwing everything up there I can find on my office hard drive. The only "problems," so far are that i have quite a few documents in AbiWord format that aren't recognized by Docs. I didn't expect it to work, but I tried anyway and got the error message, "Sorry, we do not currently support '.abw' files." Does that mean they might do so in the future?

Not a big deal either way, as I can re-save them in .doc format and upload if I need to. The "critical" files that I made in AbiWord are all in .doc format (since I tend to e-mail them to people who don't use AbiWord), and those went up fine.

It's a good feeling to a) have a backup of everything and b) have the ability to access the files from any Web-connected computer.

As I say every time I write about Google Docs, I've set my browser to NOT print the customary headers and footers so I could print a clean-looking file on paper if I wanted. But I haven't really been printing out anything lately, and that's probably one of the biggest non-secrets of Google Docs -- we so rarely print stuff, and the more accessibility we have to docs on the Web, the fewer reasons we have to commit them to paper in the first place.

Google is starting a new service called Knol (as in "knowledge," but easier to spell), according to Google-watcher Garrett Rodgers of ZDnet. The service is not getting a big rollout, with slow debuts being the custom at Google, but there is an invitation to contribute to Knol at the Google blog.

Obviously the target is Wikipedia, which comes up pretty high more times than not in Google searches.

One way that Knol will differ from Wikipedia is that the Google offering will include its authors' names, as opposed to the anonymity of Wikipedia:

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors' names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors -- but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we'll do the rest.

I'm pretty sure "the rest" doesn't include "getting paid."

Anyway, here's what the Insomnia entry looks like:

The Google announcement, by the way, includes links to about a hundred items written about Knol. Funny that I haven't heard about it until today, but then again, I'm under somewhat of a rock.

I saw an ad for Google Apps, which links to this page containing a video of what Google Apps can do for the business world. Here you can compare the various versions, meaning why you should spend $50 per person per year rather than nothing.

I already solved my biggest problem with Google Apps by killing out the headers and footers in Firefox's printed pages: go to File -- Page Setup -- Margins & Header/Footer and set everything to "blank" under Header/Footer.

Since the insidesocal.com domain on which this blog lives has had so many problems with DNS-type attacks, with the solution being blocking the whole of Europe, I've been spreading my technological cheer around some other blogs.

It gets confusing. And in an attempt to actually spend a little time on the entries before they're published, I've been writing in Google Docs. Actually, testing gOS, which relies heavily on using Google services through the Firefox browser, made me take another look at Google Docs, which I've used on and off for awhile.

The whole idea is to have all my writing stored in one place, accessible from any network-connected computer, so things aren't left to die in one /home directory or another on the six or so computers I use during any given week. And as I say, maybe writing and not immediately publishing will make for better entries overall. Later but better.

And while on the subject of Europe, there's a rumor floating around that the IP block for the continent has been removed. So if you see this entry and happen to be a European, please send me an e-mail and tell me the country from which you hail. Thanks.

I won't begin to say that I know what the hell cloud computing really is. It has something to do with huge, centralized data centers with virtualization software that enables virtual servers (notice how I used the word "virtual" pretty much twice -- and now three times? I'm at a loss) to exist in said "cloud," with their virtual (there's that word again) presence available for lease -- and for use -- by faraway customers.

Anyway, I've heard that Amazon -- yep, the books-and-everything-else-including-the-kitchen-sink seller -- is heavily involved. Google's also a player (that's a gimmie, I know).

Well, now IBM is getting into the cloud game. And according to ZDNet, that means it's going corporate, since IBM holds a lot of sway in big-business circles.

As I understand it, you rent CPU time from the cloud, and in many cases, you can specify your OS, say Red Hat, Solaris, or what have you. And you get a virtual server to do your bidding, with a bunch of techs far away to take care of everything from maintenance (and power requirements, cooling, security, etc.).

Time to get educated on cloud computing.

From ZDNet:
Google CEO’s new paradigm: ‘cloud computing and advertising go hand-in-hand’
IBM, Google fund cloud computing teaching techniques
Beware: Google cloud platform exposed
(Have I mentioned recently how great ZDNet is?)

But a better place to start (especially for all things tech) is Wikipedia:

Cloud computing is a popular phrase that is shorthand for applications that were developed to be rich Internet applications that run on the Internet (or "cloud"). In the cloud computing paradigm, software that is traditionally installed on personal computers is shifted or extended to be accessible via the Internet. These "cloud applications" or "cloud apps" utilize massive data centers and powerful servers that host web applications and web services. They can be accessed by anyone with a suitable Internet connection and a standard web browser.

The architecture behind cloud computing is a massive network of "cloud servers" interconnected as if in a grid running in parallel, sometimes using the technique of virtualization to maximize computing power per server.

Red Hat partners with Amazon on cloud computing:

Cloud computing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a web-scale virtual computing environment powered by Amazon Web Services. It provides everything needed to develop and host applications: compute capacity, bandwidth, storage, and the leading open source operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Cloud computing changes the economics of IT by enabling you to pay only for the capacity that you actually use. Compute capacity can be scaled up or down on demand to accommodate changing workloads and business requirements. Red Hat Enterprise Linux for cloud computing makes it easy to develop, deploy, and manage your new and existing applications in a virtual computing environment.

So how much does it cost? Here's the Red Hat/Amazon deal:

Available at a starting price of $19/month per customer plus $0.21 per hour for every deployed server, plus additional bandwidth and storage fees.

So how does this differ from renting a remote server, or space on said server? It's the virtualization. You, in effect, get your own server, even though it's not really there ... but in the cloud.

Prediction: This is gonna be HUGE.

More from Red Hat, and info on Amazon's cloud service.

Here's part of Amazon's pitch:

Amazon EC2 passes on to you the financial benefits of Amazon's scale. You pay a very low rate for the compute capacity you actually consume. Compare this with the significant up-front expenditures traditionally required to purchase and maintain hardware, either in-house or hosted. This frees you from many of the complexities of capacity planning, transforms what are commonly large fixed costs into much smaller variable costs, and removes the need to over-buy "safety net" capacity to handle periodic traffic spikes.

For those who want to go deep, here's Amazon's documentation on the EC2 Cloud.

And since I write these entries as a stream of consciousness, here's Wired on cloud computing: The Information Factories (from Wired). Most of the article's focus is on power -- electrical power -- and how much a huge data center like Google's needs, and where to get it.

The New York Times (password required, but you should just bite the bullet and get one):

Google and I.B.M. Join in ‘Cloud Computing’ Research
I.B.M. to Push ‘Cloud Computing,’ Using Data From Afar

And last, not least, but wacky enough, the Times of London's everyman take on it.

The problem I'm having in figuring this all out, is that "cloud computing" can mean stuff like using Gmail and Google Docs, Hotmail and Xdrive. But I'm trying to focus on the clouds-for-rent on which a business can get its own virtual server.

But whether it's virtual servers or SAAS (software as a service) -- the latter with which I'm saddled for half my work already; it needs to be faster, dammit -- data and the apps that manipulate them are moving off the desktop and onto faraway server arrays. Besides saving you the trouble of archiving your own data, it means accessing your personal and business data from anywhere, with any computer or data-collecting gizmo you happen to have in front of you.

What's the state of privacy and reliability of these services? That's a question going forward. But eventually cost will win out. If it's cheaper, it'll happen.

It's more intuitive, more eye-candyish than ever, writes Garett Rogers of ZDNet. You've tried Google Docs, haven't you? If they could come up with a way for me to print witthout the Web page title above and timestamp below, I'm sold. That's where a hopefully-in-development Google Gears helper app comes in. Hopefully.

I swear, I will dump offline text editing if I can get the elusive smart quotes and easy printing out of Google Docs. In other words, if Google Docs recognizes that all writing is not meant for Web pages and blogs, but for things like print articles and, heaven forbid, books, it'll be world-domination (or at least office software domination) time for big ol' Google.