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"You get what you pay for" is a common FUDphrase used to discredit Linux and FOSS, because so much of it is available free of cost. Which scares the purveyors of overpriced crapware, who would rather walk barefoot through broken glass and burning dung than write software that customers actually feel happy paying for. It's hooey and we know it. But there is a related truism that is valid, which is "Whoever pays the piper calls the tune." You could shorten this to "money talks." And that is definitely true.

"The cloud" is just a new buzzword for an old concept, hosted services. While a number of grumpy old geekbeards swear they will never embrace "the cloud" because they do not trust their data in other hands, it's already happening. Google Mail, for whatever reason, is cool in ways that Hotmail and Yahoo mail never were. Google Apps are also cool. Inexpensive hosting services have been a staple of the do-it-yourself geek since forever. So, does refusing "the cloud" mean that the hardcore refusenik is condemned to a life of isolation? No, because there is a third alternative, and that is the Peer Cloud.

Some folks will never ever understand FOSS, or anything worthwhile, because they think the universe starts and ends with money, and that the pursuit of money justifies anything.

Maybe there a FOSS application that is roughly equivalent to your crucial app, but it needs more developers and documentation writers. So don't sit there crying-- give them some help. That's the beauty of FOSS: if it doesn't exist or needs some help, just roll up your sleeves and pitch in. You'll get there a lot quicker than waiting for the robber barons of tech to have a change of heart.

Just the other day I was sitting around complaining to my dogs, who are devoted, attentive listeners, that finding out how well hardware devices are supported on Linux is still more work than it needs to be...At any rate both dogs gave me their best "You can complain, or you can do something constructive. Like come outside and throw the ball a few thousand times" looks. So I threw the ball a few dozen times, and then came back inside and decided to write about some of my Linux hardware experiences.

All of this apologetic crud makes me very grumpy. It's like Linux has low self-esteem and is constantly fishing for compliments. "Oh I know I have all these rough edges and you'll probably hate me. But I have Compiz bling if that makes any difference. And I'm free, as in no cost! I won't bore you with nonsense about freedom because what you want to hear is free and easy! If that matters...no, I guess not, you still hate me. It's OK, I understand."

I've not ranted very much about this in the past because I'm chicken-- I'm afraid that if I start pointing fingers at the shortcomings of other journalists and tech writers, they will poke back at me. But there comes a time when a person has to grow a spine and start pointing. So I am pointing at all the alleged journalists, reporters, and so-called analysts who write about Linux and FOSS when they don't know one single blinking thing about it. What is it with people? It's shameful enough to spend years on the same beat without broadening their knowledge the slightest bit, and it's worse when they pontificate as though they actually know something.

This whole "intellectual property" mania is a mental illness that deserves its own entry into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It's like that great movie, "Aguirre: The Wrath of God." Give yourself a treat and watch it; it's a wonderful film that takes place after the fall of the Incan empire. Lope de Aguirre, played by the perfectly mad Klaus Kinski, leads a band of Spanish conquistadors on a quest for El Dorado, the legendary City of Gold. The quest is doomed, of course, as they struggle through hostile terrain and hostile locals, pushed onward by their own greed and ruthlessness.

I've been using Linux since 1995, and while that doesn't quite elevate me to grizzled geekbeard status, it's long enough to have observed a whole lot of growth and changes. Most of them are good; but some of them are rather alarming. The changes that bother me the most are the ones that make it harder to understand and control your own system by adding needless complexity and layers of obscurity.

It's been an interesting week. My main workstation crashed; it boots to a Busybox prompt, and emits all sorts of interesting "drdy err, unc" errors. whichs sounds like there is a pervert inside my PC who is related to me.

I'm toiling every spare minute to finish my latest book, "Building a Recording Studio With Audacity." There is a chapter for golden-eared audiophiles, who have been left behind in the rush to lo-fi MP3s and poorly-engineered CDs with no dynamic range to speak of, no balance, no nuances-- just shove all the levers to the top and call it good. So, as usual, to do it right we have to do it ourselves, and one interesting option is DVD-Audio. It supports higher audio resolutions than CD-Audio, and now there is a good GPL authoring application for creating DVD-Audio disks.

I have never had a successful Ubuntu dist-upgrade, so I had low expectations. Amazingly, it was successful on my computer... ...which surprised me because the poor thing gets thrashed in all kinds of ways. I'm forever installing weird software and hardware, and doing source builds and backports and you name it, and it keeps on chugging anyway. I gave it a good housecleaning first to give it a fighting chance and deleted all the weird junk, and it went fine except for one thing-- those dratted NVidia drivers. We hatess Nvidia.

The British Royal Navy is actually boasting of rolling out a new "next generation" installation of Windows 2000 and XP on their entire fleet of 18 nuclear submarines, and they're so pleased with it they want to do the same to their battleships...In my younger days I had big dreams of being a successful fiction writer. As you can see, real life is far stranger and more implausible. This has to be a hoax. Please, make it be a hoax.

It seems that anymore all we hear about Linux and FOSS is it's free of cost, and that desktop Linux is just as good as Windows because it's all pointy-clicky and you don't have to touch the nasty command line which is frightening and must be avoided, and "just like Mac and Windows" you don't have to learn a thing because it's all magic.

I never tell anyone that I'm a writer, because then I get bombarded with requests to edit their manuscripts and find them paying gigs and all kinds of things I would rather not do. Or they bore me with how they have all these ideas that they are really going to write someday, but for now they prefer to bore me with them. For those of you who are serious and not afraid to work hard, it is possible to get paid to write computer howtos. So as long as you promise to not come to my house and pester me, I will share some tips with you.

Last week we learned a few tips for writing better documentation, and talked about why good documentation is so important. Which seems self-evident, but some folks aren't getting the message :). Today we'll talk about letting clear, precise examples do the talking, and why being strictly literal is so important.

Have any of them-- has one single vendor, whether it's Symantec or Trend or McAfee or F-Secure or anyone-- ever said "Quit throwing your money down a rathole-- stop using Windows, or at least don't put it on the Internet"? Wouldn't that little tidbit of honesty be refreshing? But no, they'll never do that. If the same conditions existed in, say, the small home appliances industry people would be getting electrocuted by their toasters and hair dryers every day, and the manufacturers would advise them to learn correct handling of live wires, and a thriving industry of insulated safety garments would prey on the survivors.

The Internet is full of software and hardware forums, tips, tricks, and howtos from all kinds of people. It is a wonderful thing that there are so many generous users sharing what they have learned. Chances are you'll find better information from these outside sources than on the official project sites. Naturally the quality is pretty uneven because it's people from all walks of life contributing-- young, old, non-native language speakers, and so forth. Nobody expects Nobel-winning literary excellence, but there are a few simple techniques for writing better documentation that anyone can learn.

Ever notice how Microsoft plasters the Windows name on everything it can reach? Splash screens, stickers on computers, and advertising everywhere. There is no escaping it. Except when it's yet another malware outbreak-- then all the news organizations go inexplicably deaf, dumb, and blind, as this latest story demonstrates:

Virus hits nearly 75% of systems on Afghanistan military base.

Is it serious? Well....

"...the intrusion was severe enough to raise the INFOCON status, the information security equivalent of the DEFCON alert, and also necessitate the briefing of the president."

The U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is tomorrow, and so, like everyone else is going to do today, I'm going to ponder some of the many things I have to be thankful for. I'm thankful that at age 51 I'm healthy, sort-of fit, and have a multitude of things to look forward to. There are so many things I want to do I'll need three lifetimes to do them all. I have a great job, and awesome co-workers. (Hi Dan, Michael, and Vangie!) I'm thankful that I have a nice home, a wonderful significant other, a varying herd of critters large and small, great neighbors, and the best views ever...