infosoldier.com

Forrest: Hey, Bubba... Bubba: Hey, Forrest. Forrest, why'd this happen? Forrest: You got shot. Forrest: (voice-over) Then Bubba said something I won't even forget. Bubba: I wanna go home. Forrest: Bubba was my best good friend. And even I know that ain't something you can find just around the corner. Bubba was gonna be a shrimpin' boat captain, but instead he died right there by that river in Vietnam.

Forrest Gump went home and became captain of a shrimpin' boat. It was then that, without thinking it, Forrest Gump did the best thing a friend can do; and that is to honour your friend even though that friend is no longer with you...
I live in an accelerated lifestyle, jumping from task to task. I am always working, either for professional or for personal reasons. I admit then even tough I tend to my social network I've lost sight of the individual people. I seem to have lost the capacity to recognize friends as such... I feel sad that I don't think of myself as someone's friend. Have I lost the meaning of friendship?
I am always there when I am needed. But I have transformed that into a duty I must fullfill, a mechanical process instead of a sentimental one. As such I don't think of myself worthy of being labeled "friend".
But even I, like Forrest; I know that someone that calls you friend isn't found just around the corner...

Perhaps I shouldn't even talk about this, but I can't let it pass without a small comment: The guys from redboricua.com seem to be talking about things thought in a vacuum, no knowledge of what government has accomplished or what it's real needs are, no concrete solutions presented either... I fear this may be counterproductive to what I am trying to achieve.

The information soldier knows that battles must be lost for the war to be won...

I like everything that has to do with databases. I will even go so far as to say that Microsoft Access is the best RAD (Rapid Application Development) tool when you need to make a database driven application.

I also love the concept of the data-driven website. It is here where Access fails miserably because what integration it does provide is severely limited, AFAIK, and also YMMV. I planned to remake some projects I worked on previously, using Access, to the whole Web format. Simply put, make some web-enabled applications. The aim of the project was to have better knowledge of web-enabled applications in general. I would also teach myself the tools, the languages, etc. A caveat however, since this a not-for-profit project I would only use open-source tools.

This was quite some time ago and long story short I've learned a great deal about PHP, Apache, MySQL, etc. I made some headway into my projects and got basic functionality working for each. However I got into thinking about database abstraction or even into application abstraction. Because data in a database tends to be arranged in logical ways; why shouldn't the site you program reconfigure itself automatically once it's seen your data? Ah, but I digress... I don't think I'm smart enough to actually build such a site... Not yet anyway...

So I started thinking if propietary (read Microsoft-connected) tools would allow me to build my projects faster... With a little help from a friend I got a lead on the tools I might use... And the result of my testing will find it's way here...

But be warned, I'm an open source advocate through and through, though I will try be objective. Next! My current (almost open-source) setup.

The information soldier is a critic just like everyone else...

I was recently asked, by my (microzombied) friend, "what piece of software represents open source's best software?"

I admit the question caught me off-guard since I thought there were too many examples: apache, php, perl, Linux, netbsd, gcc... I could fill the page and not end. I was tempted, finally, to say EMACS. But trying to explain to him what EMACS is, isn't... Well , that would have required more patience than I had right there and then.
In the end I settled for BIND. BIND as in the de factointernet domain name server. Why BIND? One simple reason. If, somehow it was unlawful to use open source software and you could no longer use BIND the Internet as we know it would shut down almost completely. And here's the kicker: there is a company behind it, a company you can buy support from. (Yes, yes I know there are many other examples of this... but he does not)

Maybe I should have said Apache. Apache is open source software that makes it possible for you to access 70% of the Web's Sites in existence at the time of this writing. Perhaps there is some other OSS application that I don't know, that better represents the achievements of open-source software: bash? kde? firefox? vi?

What would you have said?

I realize that implying that the computer revolution was in 1984 may send some people into fits of rage, consecutive fits of rage.

Today's title links to an excellent recounting of the early days of modern computing and the emergence of Unix, the Internet, the World Wide Web, Linux and of course, open source software. Previous chapters can be found on Groklaw, and I encourage you to go and read them, it is pertinent to what you are doing now, whether you do it on a propietary or a free platform.

The information soldier knows that by studying the past he becomes at present better prepared for the future...

You see computers in the newspapers where enormous, costly, forbidden things only enterprises and scientists owned. mi computer however talked about a different kind of computer, a personal computer... A computer I could own!

Oh, what lovely things of wonder they were! A wonder box no bigger than a typewriter that promised to do everything you wanted, if only you tethered it to your television. Apples, Sinclairs, Commodores, Ataris... Steve Wozniak and Jack Tramiel every word, not only those found in mi computer, became gospel.

Little did I know, that the year before Apple's Macintosh had been unleashed to the world. Only recently have I seen the fabled 1984 commercial that introduced the Apple Mac, though it was subject of my dreams and hopes as I viewed IBM's big mainframes as the antithesis of that which I desired, my own computer.

That same Macintosh became an obstacle in itself because, sadly, my father lost an opportunity to scale the ranks of the company where he worked to a new employee who was computer savvy. One of the conditions before that new employee was hired, was that the company buy him a Mac. And they did... I am sure my father saw me with the same the same kind of disdain that he reserved for that employee when I asked for a computer. Of course, he eventually got me one, and also lost me to it I should say...

And that is the story of how I, almost, was part of the computer revolution... Born too late, if it weren't for that magazine... Who knows what I would be doing now. I would like to think I would be trying anyway to be a pioneer and a revolutionary by pushing the open source movement forward right here in my country.

The information soldier hopes he may have been born on time for another revolution...

Twenty years ago, I arrived exactly one year late for the computer revolution... Too bad I was then too young to do anything except read the financials in the paper.

Yep, financials.

Some members of my family always comment how I'm the only person they know who will read the financials part of the paper. I was a strange kid back then, but it seemed perfectly logical to me. You see, back then the only place I knew where to read about computers was the paper's financial section. That was before they started announcing a magazine in the TV, it's name was mi computer, I waited impatiently for it.

Back then it never occurred to me that the neighborhood pharmacy might not carry it. I had already gotten the habit of reading and I used to save my lunch money for a weekly 10 minute walking trip to the neighborhood pharmacy. Every Saturday I went there to get American comics translated into Spanish, comics from Spain, Mexico... One day the magazine, mi computer WAS there... I promptly paid for it. I don't think I'd had money to buy anything else, nor did the thought enter my mind.

The computers in mi computer were a lot different than the ones in the newspaper. Read the next installment to see how...