Beyond BrainShare: More Gigs

I’ve got a few speaking gigs coming up.

• UK LUG Tour - At the Socal Linux Expo, Jono Bacon and I decided to do a speaking tour across the UK. We’re working on the week of April 17-21. Details are not fully complete yet. Expect an advert on our respective podcasts.
• Desktop Summit - I spoke at the event last year. The Linspire marketing folks asked me back this year. That’s April 24-25 in San Diego. Not sure what I’ll speak on yet….
• LinuxFest Northwest - I have two presentations to deliver: Desktop Innovation at Novell, and a presentation on using Novell AppArmor. That’s Saturday, April 29 in Bellingham, WA.

Any readers who would like to hang out, let me know.

Xgl in Hi-Def and More

We just completed some cool videos on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. One of them shows of some of the cool features on Xgl.

Guy and I worked on these with a local production shop. It was a long, grueling afternoon to get them made. I was really afraid that they would come out horrible, but they seem pretty good.

My one worry about them is that I mention that Active Directory is the main authentication system in most enterprises. As the former director of product management for Novell eDirectory, let me tell you: I hate saying that. Unfortunately, it’s true.

I look at it like this:

• The masses demand cheap and crappy fast food, so it’s found everywhere where money is spent
• The masses also demand cheap and crappy top 40 music, so it gets played on the radio

Just because something is popular does not mean it’s good or good for you. I’m still completely against Active Directory. But since Windows servers are a reality, it’s a necessary evil for most businesses.

We have an interview about Novell Client for Linux queued up, which will answer the eDirectory authentication bit.

Novell Open Audio pre-BrainShare Blitz

We’re pushing out two episodes of Novell Open Audio right before BrainShare.

First comes the Aaron Bockover edition on Banshee. On it I delivered a bit of editorial about the announcement of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop last week.

Second is a chance to meet Jeff Jaffe, Novell’s Chief Technology Officer. I think it makes a really good intro to the guy who is now running the whole development organization at Novell. I was pleased with Jeff’s answers to my questions. I was not exactly playing hardball, but he went further on some answers than I had expected him to. His take on mixing open source and proprietary is a good one to absorb for anyone who is a open source purist. He also talks about NetWare a little, and his answers indicate that he’s definitely not on a warpath against what is still a favorite OS to many of us.

Still working out some audio quality issues. The “voice of God” echo effect is not intentional. Our new sound guy reports that the microphones we have are “too good.” He’s wrestling with the issue. Oh, for a standardized audio sound.

Bad Podcasting 101

Last night we posted our first bad edit on Novell Open Audio. I guess that legitimizes us as a real podcast.

We replaced the file with a 10MB version (much more compact than the 33MB original), and it no longer has the backroom chit-chat going on. That was embarrasing!

New iFolder Icons

The iFolder project just got some cool new icons that really soup up the interface nicely.

Here’s what the list of folders looks like now:

And here’s the properties on an individual folder:

iFolder is yet another reason why I’m loving testing the betas of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10.

Novell Open Audio #2 now online!

That’s all I have to say.