2011 October 28 archive at Robert Pogson

Archive for October 28th, 2011

One Place FireFox Beats Chrome is Thin Clients

Published by Robert Pogson October 28th, 2011 in technology. 3 Comments

I have been using Chrome browser for a while and find it very fast and efficient. Last year, I ran it on thin clients with no problems. This year…

Number one issue is the “smooth scrolling” which smooths scrolling by refreshing the screen multiple times between shifts, basically making a movie… This is deadly on thin clients as the network lag between shifts is multiplied by the number of shifts. For thin clients it would be great to turn off smooth scrolling and just jump to the next view. It works pretty well in FireFox but there is no option in Chrome browser…

The result is that I am forced to use FireFox from my thin client to get acceptable performance. I can turn off non-smooth scrolling in FireFox (http://about:config).

The thing I really hate about FireFox is the two separate windows for URI and search. I am told that the latest version of FireFox is better. I can type two search terms into the address window and FireFox does a search but with one word, it tells me this is not a valid URI… I do a lot of searching and I don’t want to type in two words when one would do.

- Robert Pogson

Ubuntu Gets Retail Shelf-Space In 220 Retail Stores In China

Published by Robert Pogson October 28th, 2011 in technology. 22 Comments

While Dell seems mean to GNU/Linux in USA and other developed markets, Dell has agreed with Ubuntu to supply units with Ubuntu GNU/Linux on board to Chinese stores. These stores will have

branded marketing collateral in-store,
trained staff positioning the benefits and advantages of Ubuntu to consumers, and
a retail team of Ubuntu merchandisers, set up to support the stores

On a side note, Canonical claims, “With an actively growing base of over 20 million users this represents another significant endorsement from one of the world’s major PC vendors.” That’s more than 1% of the world’s PCs. Since there are several very popular distros in comparison to Ubuntu, that means far more than 1% of the world’s PCs now run GNU/Linux.

see Canonical’s Blog

- Robert Pogson

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.