March 30, 2007

You'll never complain about the traffic in your town again! Driving in Bangalore, India is not for the faint hearted. Bangalore has undergone an extreme population explosion in the last decade with the growth of the IT Industry. In my experience, Bangalore has unparalleled traffic congestion and chaos compared to anywhere in North America or Europe.

The first 3 minutes of this video are the last stretch in our daily commute from the Leela Palace Hotel to the Adobe office on Bannerghatta Road along the IT corridor. Starting at 4 minutes into the video is a backseat view from a ride inside one of those yellow-capped auto rickshaws from the office to the nearby Forum Mall. It was as much fun as an amusement park!

» Read More » »

Posted At 1:51 PM. | Posted By Steven | Adobe, ColdFusion, Video, Tech Industry, Travel | Comments (7)

March 15, 2007

While researching health and travel requirements for my upcoming trip to Bangalore, India I stumbled across this little factoid from the US Deptartment of State that instills oh so much confidence that this will be a pleasant journey:

If a driver hits a pedestrian or a cow, the vehicle and its occupants are at risk of being attacked by passersby. Such attacks pose significant risk of injury or death to the vehicle's occupants or at least of incineration of the vehicle. It can thus be unsafe to remain at the scene of an accident of this nature, and drivers may instead wish to seek out the nearest police station.

Ok, let me get this straight... In between taking my malaria pills, seeking out bottled water only, eating at only "American" restaurants, and looking 10 times before attempting to cross the street, now I've got to worry if my driver will smack into a cow at the risk of conflagration and death... the car's conflagration and my death. Yikes! Hit and Run is mandatory!

Driving in Bangalore video clips on YouTube.

Posted At 6:02 PM. | Posted By Steven | Adobe, Travel | Comments (4)

Recently I tried to purchase the Japanese version of TurboLinux Server 10 but in the process ran into nothing but dead ends. TurboLinux is reported to be the most popular distribution in Asia and is based in Japan. Although their primary website is in Japanese at www.turbolinux.co.jp, they do have an English version available through a US website www.turbolinux.com.

The US website offers only English versions of TurboLinux, and their online store is simply a redirect to their US distributor BlueSquad. Additionally, Distrowatch indicates that the distributor Source One Network is leading vendor.

Finding that neither BlueSquad nor Source One offered the Japanese version of the product either online or by direct contact with their Sales, I decided to just call the mothership itself. That was a futile effort since the phone number listed for their US office in San Francisco is completely wrong. Three times I called to verify the number while pissing off who ever was picking up each time.

Great, so their phone number is misprinted. What next? Well, I sent a fax to their fax number requesting a call back, and I submitted their online feedback form. Twenty four hours later and no response from either.

What really irks me is that the US TurboLinux office is at 600 Townsend St and the Adobe (former Macromedia) office is 601 Townsend St. directly across the street!! But here I am in the Adobe office in Newton, MA and unless I could coerce a colleague in San Fran to take a short stroll I was out of luck.

Almost... My last resort was to co-opt my Japanese collegue down the hall to navigate the Japanese TurboLinux Website. With his help, we were able to successfully make a purchase after much wheel-spinning and wasted time.

Posted At 5:09 PM. | Posted By Steven | Linux, Rants | Comments (0)

March 14, 2007

Red Hat has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL5). The Server editions have changed from the AS or ES choices to RHEL or RHEL AP (Advanced Platform). Basic subscriptions for RHEL cost $349 whereas RHEL AP starts at $1499. RHEL now includes virtualization for running up to 4 guest OSes, and RHEL AP can run unlimited guest OSes (well, as much as your hardware can manage).

The Desktop edition Basic Subscription starts at $80, but there are several other Desktop configurations that include Multi-OS virtualization and Workstation ranging up to $339.

The free Red Hat clone CentOS released CentOS 5 Beta earlier this week, and they're expected to post the final version shortly.

Posted At 5:07 PM. | Posted By Steven | Linux | Comments (4)

February 23, 2007

Spring <br /> Conference 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Athens, OH

Join us for our fifth annual event. This year the conference will be bigger than ever. 35 sessions to choose from in 7 tracks, plus three hands on sessions! Ben Forta, Adobe's Chief Product Evangelist will be speaking at the General Session Key Note plus, Ben will be back to give a presentation at the Lunchtime Session as well.

Choose from session in the following tracks: Design & User Experience Using Tools: Tips & Tricks ColdFusion, Java, PHP & ActionScript Maximum Development Web 2.0: Ajax, Flex & Video Application Security & Performance Vendor Showcase Boot Camp: Beginner Level Hands On

Some of this year's speakers include:
Ben Forta, Phillip Kerman, Joseph Lowery, Chris Bate, Rob Gonda, John Cummings, D.Lee Beard, Bob Paquette, Dan Switzer, Bailey Bruce, Doug Ward, Steve Drucker, James Shore, James Shore, Joshua Logsdon, Scott Cantor, Kevin Hoyte, Jeff Carnes, Joel Stanley, Gary Kraeger, more.

We'll have the Vendor Expo where you can meet with the companies that provide the software and services you're looking for!

Registration Fee: $35 [includes your lunch]

Registration is available at www.sbconference.com

We hope to see you there!

Spring <br /> Conference 2007 is presented by the Southeast Ohio Creative Adobe Technologies User Group in partnership with Ohio University, the IT

Posted At 11:06 AM. | Posted By Steven | Events | Comments (1)