WabufCode : Design : Technology

Music Feature: J.Viewz, Rivers And Homes (2011)

"J.Viewz" is an electro-pop group launched by producer Jonathan Dagan of Brooklyn, NY. This album being described as a side-project of his leads me to believe there is more to Jonathan than meets the ears in this release. His skills shine through with the vibrance of world class electronic, pop and chill vibes. Transforming into jazz at times, this melodic release left me feeling as if I had heard a complete fusion of hip-hop/electro/jazz.

Rivers And Homes can be found free to listen at Jonathan's SoundCloud: SoundCloud - J.Viewz

Familiar Surroundings

Ohey, long time no see! A little facelift as far as visuals are concerned, but what was really revamped cannot be seen by the untrained eye. I have taken my code–for a normal Blog-type page, from an average range of 180-200 lines down to a mere 15-20! I have done this through meticulous concatenation of PHP. Into each, I’ve woven strings into small modules and these modules into proprietary widgets. For example, the timestamps on each post are exact, yet made readable through simple English. This is only a reduction of each file's size. The number of files will greatly increase, but this comes off as being more organized when it comes to the directory list.

For once, I have linked author pages to the posts. Currently just me posting–no surprises. In the future however, I may have others post their ramblings and accompany a private area from which they can author their content.

Everything that moves is jQuery. No animated GIFs or messy Flash embeds here! It's safe to say that jQuery has saved my life. I never had the best understanding of plain JavaScript, but always needed its many useful functions. jQuery cuts a lot of coding time and real-estate. The coding language is a library seated on top of the heavily supported JavaScript web-plugin. Very easy to install, fairly easy to impliment.

Ubuntu Invasion

When most, normal people think of computers, they think of problems, blue screens and wasted time. This is likely the reason most people make the switch from Windows to Mac. For the last 5 years, I have used a different operating system: Ubuntu Linux. All the way back from the first release Warty Warthog, I loved the different look and feel of the Linux distribution. After exploring different software and features, I realized how powerful Ubuntu really was. When the newer distribution alphas and betas came out, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the new designs and latest technology. When it comes to new releases for Windows and Mac like 7 and Snow Leopard, there are little to no changes made to the user interface design. No real, tangible features. Yes, maybe optimized background processes and a new button here or there but when it comes to new features and customization ability, Ubuntu has had the most groundbreaking updates to date. Of course, with every good thing, there are going to be spin-offs and in Ubuntu's case, there are plenty of imitators. I have tried many of these Ubuntu imitators such as Mint, Manhattan and Sabayon. The biggest problem with them is that they improve on one area but neglect others; Such as driver support, which can deter most people.

So if I was so happy with Windows, why did I ever leave my comfort zone in the first place? Truth is, I never left Windows. I have been dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows since Ubuntu came out. The reason I added a Linux-based operating system to my arsenal is because--like everybody else-I often have problems with Windows such as viruses where I become locked out or restricted access to files. Having Ubuntu separate of Windows gave me a place to go where I could access all those files and possibly repair the issue. Since these problems rarely happen anymore, I still keep Ubuntu around to fix family and friends' computers with such problems. I have found that Ubuntu is also a great data-recovery resource. About a year ago, my laptop's hard drive failed, mid-sentence (literally). So I removed the hard drive and plugged it into my Ubuntu Desktop and recovered the paper I was typing and all my important files successfully!

In general, Ubuntu would be great for someone looking for a good internet, email and text editing system. After all, that's all most people want out of a system. More than anything, people want a system that's reliable. A major plus for Ubuntu is its cost: free. All I have to say to the big operating systems is, watch out.

Solaris 10

Right off the bat, the install process was difficult. This may have been because I wasn't prepared. I wasn't prepared in that I didn't have a UFS-partitioned filesystem larger than 16 GBs readily available. At this point, I was half-way through the lengthy process and had to restart back into Windows to make the appropriate partitions. This is when I decided to just install and run Solaris on a virtual machine, atop of Windows. Ironically, Sun Microsystems makes a virtualization manager for Windows called VirtualBox! After setting up VirtualBox correctly, the rest of the process was long, but not overly difficult. After giving my name, keyboard configuration and distance from GMT about six times, it started up! I also found out that I had environmental options. The Java Environment--Custom Desktop Environment (CDE), is basically like a Linux distro. What is nice about the OS is that it supports most modern file types such as: iso, png, doc, docx, pdf, etc. But really, this operating system is not for everyone, as you can tell by the install process, it is not easy; neither is finding all your drivers that support your keyboard, mouse, display and speakers.

So far in my search for the best OS, Windows still tops them all. Macintosh comes in second and Ubuntu (Linux), a close third.