Google Drive nixed

It took Google a long time to release its Google Drive product. People had come up with work-arounds involving storing files as attachments to Gmail messages. When it was finally released earlier this year, it was almost too late. Products such as Dropbox, Box, and Microsoft's SkyDrive (variously named Live and other monickers) had filled the file-sharing, synchronization, cloud storage void.

Google Drive is an evolution of Google Docs, an online authoring environment for documents, spreadsheets, and presentation. Spreadsheets can have a form-based front end. Recently, I used this form/spreadsheet interface to build an online survey used by a couple hundred folks.

By allowing any type of file to be stored in then-Google Docs, Google's online file service became a handy way to store and share files among teams. You can share individual files or an array of folders, sub-folders, and files with one person, many, or the world. You can even use it to host your web server content.

In parallel, I decided to move back to Linux. There are some tools that I need to use and, I hope, develop, work that is more easily done on Linux.

To my surprise and disappointment, I discovered that I can't access non-document files that are stored on Google Drive when I'm using a browser running on Linux. In this case, I had stored some executable files in a tools folder on Google Drive. I wanted to download them to my Linux installation.

No joy.

In order to download non-document files, you need to have an application running on your system. Google makes its drive application for Windows, Mac, and various portable devices, but not Linux. Note that the error message is so broken that the link to the image is missing.

For today, I'll need to switch back to Windows. Longer term, I will have to move many of my files to Dropbox, which does make a Linux client.

 

Did Linux miss its moment again?

This morning's news includes a note that preorders are available for Spark, the open KDE tablet. To which the tech press, behaving like political reporters responding to the next not-Mitt,  proclaims that ebruary seems to be shaping up to be the month of Linux tablets.

Um, no.

Unless you think that two Linux tablet announcement is a big deal.

Linux users have been saying for years that this is the year that companies and civilians will adopt Linux for desktop systems.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Google Trends for Linux desktop"][/caption]

Even with new, slick renditions of Linux from Ubuntu, Mint, and others, it just never got the respect or traction that Linux advocates sought. It's too bad. Linux is a very good, solid, secure desktop operating system. It runs well on older, less powerful systems. It just never made it to your aunt's computer.

And, then came the iPad. The tablet runs a deeply proprietary operating system from Apple. It owns the mind share, even if its market share is slipping. Some forecasts suggest that tablet sales will pass desktop/laptop sales within three or so years.

Android, Google's tablet and phone operating system, is Linux-based and open source, but the interface is defined by Google and the hardware manufacturers. There are options to load various custom ROMs on tablets, of course. All the same, it's all still the province of hackers and hobbyists.

Linux still owns the server environment, including pretty much everything that makes the web the web. The story remains, however, is that not only did Linux miss the chance to claim the desktop, the desktop computer itself may be moving to the back of the pack.

Miss a minute, miss a lot.

Best product description ever.

"It is recommended for those who are faced with some simple, boring little problem that is dire need of compounding."

via TXR | freshmeat.net

Firefox gives it all

Wait, what?

It turns out that it's not a Firefox problem, but a video configuration setting.
And, apparently, there's a fix for it.
Add this to your xorg.conf file:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
    Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
EndSection

More on Linux software

OpenOffice is a very impressive collection of free software that is an excellent alternative to the Microsoft Office product set. OpenOffice includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and database products that can read and write Microsoft formats and provide a rich set of features that work wonderfully in their own right. You can read more about the goodness that is OpenOffice here.
Linux is an open source operating system that, on most days and in most respects, is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Windows. Most days. There are times, however, when Linux betrays its bleak, geeky soul.
For example, OpenOffice 3.2 was released this week. The new version will be available as a part of a system update feature shortly. (It takes a while for testing and configuration of new products.) If you want to have the new version of OpenOffice on your Ubuntu (a popular version of Linux and the one that I use) system, you can install it yourself.

via How To install OpenOffice 3.2 in Ubuntu | Ubuntu Geek

More on software, printers, and operating systems

Last week, we had an old printer in the attic, a black and white laser printer that was never really a favorite and a noisy little all-in-one color printer in our office, and an old flatbed scanner in a cupboard in the cellar. The attic dweller, a delightful little Lexmark laser printer, and the venerable flatbed that's great for scanning 35mm slides, were exiled because our Vista desktop system didn't support them.
So, in an effort to simplify our lives and clean out unused stuff, I :

1. Asked Google what I think of Vista
   
   
2. Optioned the attic printer and office laser to a flea market to be named later.
3. Watched the noisy little all-in-one quietly display Ink System Failure 0xc19a0023 on its status window.
4. Brought the office laser back from the out-going queue.
5. Sent the all-in-one to that wonderful, magic place called Away.
6. Spent an hour in the rag-and-bone shop of Linux device configuration but was rewarded with a working flatbed scanner. (Installation on Vista persistently and unequivocally failed.)
   
7. Bought a new HP all-in-one. 
8. Spent an hour trying to install the HP software on our Vista desktop system, hitting an error because the HP software was trying to configure the Windows Firewall, which isn't running and couldn't start, because I have other anti-virus/firewall software, but no matter because the HP software could only think about the Windows Firewall, and, after the configuration failed, uninstalled itself and put up a useless set of troubleshooting tips.
   
   
9. Spent barely 30 seconds installing the all-in-one as a network printer on my Linux system.
   
10. Re-optioned the office laser printer to the outgoing queue.
11. Printed this picture of Cassie and Sandra on our new all-in-one while sitting at the table by the window downstairs.
    
    

Is my life simpler? You betcha.