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Well, I gave it a shot. I’ve been running Ubuntu Linux on my home rig for the last month and basically been productive. No dual-booting was allowed, I wanted total immersion. And ya know? In general it went very well. Ubuntu is certainly easy to install and configure and I can’t claim I ran into anything that I couldn’t do. Sure, sometimes I had to search the forums, but the answers are out there.

Today I noticed that the Evernote blog had a post up titled, “The Shiny and New Evernote for Windows Mobile” and I was initially quite excited to see it. New features, new views and no more resorting to the mobile web to see existing content — instead, there’s an integrated viewer.

Alas, it turns out to be a huge disappointment. I’m not sure if this is an upgrade so much as a lateral slide…

From the Server Core blog:

[Optional Features:]

• Subset of .NET Framework 2.0
• Subset of .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 - WCF, WF, and LINQ
• Windows PowerShell
• ASP.NET and additional IIS support - the only IIS feature not available in Server Core is the management GUI

[...]

Now to wait to learn what “subset” will mean.

As a reminder, Server “Core” is the flavor that is command line only. Lean, mean and no GUI. Perfect for a web server.

After a brief foray back to the “Linux for old machines” scene, I have once again found myself running Windows 2000 on my old P2 ThinkPad.  I’d been most recently running antiX Linux on it, but for a variety of vague reasons decided to go back to Win2K once again.

For me and the uses of this machine, it just works better.

At some point in December, Microsoft’s FolderShare is going away. I used to use this a lot until they dropped Windows 2000 support. Now, instead of FolderShare, we’ll have Windows Live Sync instead (see details)

In December, we plan to announce a product called Windows Live Sync. You can think of it as FolderShare 2.0. It’s going to look familiar and offer the same great features, plus:

Source: Solo Technology

Google announced the launch of their new “SearchWiki” today and, quite frankly, I’m not completely sure I get it. Well, I guess it seems obvious enough at first glance, but what about the long-term viability?

Here’s the pitch:

Just logged into my free Gmail account and noticed a new “Settings” option: Namely, Themes.

As you can see in the image, I’ve already tried one out.

Nothing on the Official Gmail Blog yet about this…

[updated: Official Post came out shortly after I published.]

A couple months ago I discovered VirtualBox and its seamless mode. If you’re going to spend a lot of time in a virtual machine client, stuff like seamless mode makes it so much “smoother” in my opinion. Gives a nice integrated experience.

Been a while since I last mentioned this, but I cry every time I see someone running XP with one of the default crayola themes.

For pete’s sake folks, at least go get the free Zune theme from Microsoft. Install it, dump the default (and hideous) background. Heck, if nothing else just go with a plain black background. It’ll be worth it and your desktop will look so much nicer.

Friends don’t let friends go Crayola.

As the long-time readers know, I’m always looking for Operating System options suitable for the older hardware — especially my beloved old IBM Thinkpad 600e. Just back in September I thought I had hit upon the perfect solution: Dual-booting Windows 2000 and Puppy Linux. However, after just a few weeks I stopped using Puppy due to some browser issues and was back to full time Win2K.

Hey Ubuntu folks: Have you seen the Dust theme? By default, I find it a bit dark, but if you grab the extensions there’s a “sand” variant that is very easy on the eyes. There is also a Firefox theme but that one is just too dark for me, had to switch back.

I’ve had this happen to me a few times now. Fresh Windows Server 2008 install wants you to go online and get updates. Yet I am faced with this error:

The “dreaded” Code 80244022. OK, I dunno how dreaded that is, but I hate long numeric code errors. They usually correlate to a high p.i.t.a. factor.

[I promise that I won't become a "linux only advocacy blog." However, as I'm in the process of converting, there may be a few more articles about it than normal -- it is my current bright and shiny object!]

We all probably have favorite tweaks or setups for Firefox. Here’s a quick list of what I do after a fresh install. Heck, usually I’ll do these things before having browsed to a page yet.

I was preparing to reformat my machine last night and install Ubuntu 8.10. I made sure I had all my key data backed up to a USB drive and that I had Windows Server 2008 ready to install in Virtualbox so that I could continue my Windows development efforts. I also confirmed I had my newly acquired free CodeWeavers CrossOver license handy so that I could reload a couple Windows games.

Then I realized I was doing it wrong. See all that Windows stuff I just mentioned?