Month: August 2007

Categories
Operating System Technology

Acers preloaded with Linux

Acer LaptopYesterday I received two PC fliers at home, one of them was from the multimedia megastore and the other one from acer. I noticed that all acer PCs and Notebooks are preloaded with Linux (except the Ferrari-Acer ones that come preloaded with Vista Ultimate) but they didn’t mention which Linux Distro they are using so I decided to send them an e-mail asking.

I also had a few other questions:
Most people I know do not even know what an OS is, they think all PCs come with windows so I also asked in the mail if acer explains to people what they are really getting? Do they offer windows for those people? And if someone chooses to keep Linux, do they provide support for it?

The General Manager of Techno-mania (Acer’s dealers in Lebanon) replied to my E-mail quickly answering every question in it, so here’s the list of questions I asked and the answers I got:

Q1: What is the Linux Distribution you are using? and why?
A1: ACER PC’s ship preloaded with Linpus Linux (the version may vary according to the ship date of the products)

Q2. Do you provide support for Linux?
A2: As an Authorized ACER Service Center we support all ACER products long with their original preloaded O/S (Linux / Windows)

Q3. Most of the people in Lebanon do not know what an OS is and think that when they get a PC they get it with windows and that’s the only option out there, so do you (and the resellers) explain to those people what are they exactly getting?
A3. We state very clearly in our marketing campaigns and our price lists the O/S for each PC, and all our resellers are aware of that. In addition, we do our best to relay this message to the end-user. However, since we do not sell directly, most of the interaction is between the end-user and the reseller which bares the responsibility of clarifying any questions related to the O/S.

Q4: Do you install Windows if the customer asks for it?
A4: Only If they have a licensed Windows Operation System, we can install it at our service center.

In addition, it worth mentioning, that you will find ACER PC’s with preloaded Windows O/S specially with the new Aspire Gemstone notebooks introduced in the market at the beginning of August.

In the reply, Mr Joseph Haddad said that my questions were also forwarded to the sale team, so if I get another reply from them I’ll update you.

Personally I like the fact that you are getting Linux with the PCs, I compared the prices of acer laptops with similar laptop from other manufacturers and the acers are cheaper by about 150$, Windows Vista Home premium costs 132$ in Lebanon, so you can switch to Windows if you want without paying more then you would pay by getting a PC from another manufacturer.

Now the only question remaining is can people move to Linux this fast! I’ve been trying Linux Boot CDs for 2 years and I recently installed Ubuntu on a Virtual PC, I won’t move completely to Linux anytime soon because of some softwares I use that will only work on Windows (Microsoft Visual Studio), now imagine a guy that bought his PC for the Bluetooth and the Integrated webcam in it (some people actually do that!), how will this guy adapt to Linux? Will he even know what kind of step he is taking? Will he understand that he has to get windows to get his “normal” PC? I hope resellers explain to people what Linux is, and get people to move to Linux, not force Linux on them. A lot of resellers are honest people but I am sure some only want to sell not caring about the customer needs so to avoid all that, in my opinion Acer should sell the PCs with Linux and offer an optional ?downgrade? to windows for a little more money, this way the customer will get what he needs and people wanting a PC with windows will not choose another PC manufacturer because they don’t want to have to get a separate copy of windows and get it installed.

Categories
Lebanon Politics World

Weapons for Money

Apparently in Orlando they have a day to let people turn in weapons they have in exchange for money or sneakers with no question asked, so yesterday a guy turned in a surface to air missile!

They should do that in Lebanon! we all know a lot of people have illegal weapons so a day like this one could help us get rid of the weapons people have at home, but the problem is that with the current political instability more people are looking for guns! So the first thing they should do is lower the tension in the street, and I am sure people will be glad to turn in illegal weapons and live in peace afterward.

Weapons

Categories
Lebanon Politics

Gebran… and the Lebanese Miracle

Here’s an article from this week’s Nahar L Chabeb written by Martyr Gebran Tueni on the 15-04-04, It’s a message to the Lebanese youth asking them to leave those old rotten political parties behind and form new ones to build a new clean Lebanon.

After seeing the stupidities some people are doing these days, you would think this article was written recently, sadly Lebanese don’t learn and articles written by great people like Gebran are always relevant, I just wish people would listen to the words of Gebran instead of following those killers and thieves, so we could finally build the Lebanon Gebran dreamed of!

Here’s the article in Arabic:

Gebran… and the Lebanese Miracle

Categories
People World

Girl stonned to death in Iraq!

Every day hundreds of people are dying in Iraq for religious reasons, usually they die in suicide attacks and bombings but this girl was stoned to death in Mosul for marrying a Muslim man! Isn’t religion based on humans loving each others and living in peace! wtf is wrong with those people!

Note that the videos in the link are very disturbing.

From Digg

Categories
DVD TV Series

Review: Dead Like Me

Dead Like Me LogoI just finished watching the first season of Dead Like Me, a comedy about a girl who dies when she gets hit by a Toilet seat from the re-entering Russian space station Mir.

This lucky girl is Georgia (George) Lass, a Teenager who just dropped out of college and on the first day on a job she hates, but death is a little special for that girl who unlike other person won’t go through the “normal process” of dying, instead she will be recruited to become a Grim Reaper, a job she also hates, and that’s not it, she also has to get a normal job because Grim Reapers do not get an income from that job.

I liked watching the show, it’s different from other TV series, you don’t get a lot of action but you don’t get bored watching it, every character has a different background and a different personality and all of them have to cope with each others to get the jobs done, a job that could last for decade with no breaks and no vacations.

Dead Like Me Cast

Another thing worth mentioning is the Music, it is very well chosen for every part of the series, a little unusual sometimes but always nice.

My score for this series will be 3.5/5, because even if you don’t get bored by the story, some episodes need a little more action in my opinion.

Note that MGM is currently working on a Direct-to-DVD Movie sequel of Dead Like Me.

Rating Dead Like Me

Categories
Lebanon Movies

Caramel Trailer

In case you haven’t watched it yet here’s the Trailer of the first film of Nadine Labaki called Caramel, Everyone is saying the movie is great so I am planning to watch it next week.

Here’s the plot summary:

A romantic comedy centered on the daily lives of five Lebanese women going in Beirut.

Layal (Nadine Labaki) works in a beauty salon in Beirut along with 3 other women. Each one has a problem: Layal has a relationship with a married man, Nisrine will marry to a muslim, Rima is lesbian and Jamal is worried about getting old.

and here’s the trailer from YouTube.

Categories
Sports World

What Materazzi said to Zidane

We all remember the headbutt Zidane did to Materazzi in last year’s world cup final, back then we didn’t know why he did it, but now we do! Materazzi revealed what happened to an Italian Magazine and here’s the story:

During the game Materazzi gripped Zidane’s T-shirt for a moment, so Zidane told him that if he wanted it that much he would give it to him after the Match so Materazzi replied: “I prefer the whore that is your sister,” and you know the rest!

Zidanne Materazzi

Categories
Software

Free Download Manager and Vista

Before buying a new PC with Vista I used Free Download Manager to manage my downloads, it’s easy to use, has many great features, including one that lets you specify a download speed for a file so you can surf on the remaining bandwidth, when I got vista I went to FDM forums and found out that the stable versions is working with Vista on some system and isn’t on others, so I decided to test for myself.

FDM works with Vista, it does what it is supposed to do, but it has some problems, the first one is that when you start it, it shows an error that says: “Error in download groups”, this error is annoying when you set FDM to start with windows and you start to receive errors on your brand new system!

Free Download Manager Error

The other error is an “application” to the previous one, that’s where you see the error in the download groups, so when you want to add a download and choose a group for it you get 2 weird characters at the end of the group’s folder, for example if the default group folder is: C:\Downloads, you’ll get C:\Downloads\Ẳ-, so you’d have to correct the folder every time you want to add a download and that’s a little annoying, so currently I am waiting for the release of FDM 2.3, hopping these bugs will be fixed in it, meanwhile, I still use FDM for my downloads but now I just start it when I want to download something and not when Windows starts.

Categories
Music Technology

Sonos BU130 Digital Music System Bundle

I was reading some news when I saw the ad of a system that can stream music to all the room of my house, that’s not the first time I see an ad of a similar product but this time I decided to check it out and take the tour that’s on the Sonos site, and I like it!!

Sonos BU130 Digital Music System Bundle

The system comes in a package containing the main elements: a Remote, and 2 players.
For it to work you must connect one of the players to your router using an Ethernet port and install a software on your PC, after that you can add as much players as you want in all the rooms of your house, and you control all this by the remote, so you can choose the songs you want to play in every room from it, you can even connect to internet radios and music services from the remote and select a song for each player to play or play the same songs everywhere.

Sonos BU130 Digital Music System Bundle

There are 2 kinds of players, one with an amplifier that needs speakers, and one you can connect to an existing home theater, and all the players connect with each others wirelessly so you don’t have to worry about running cables in your house.

Sonos BU130 Digital Music System Bundle

I really liked this System, it’s for 999$ but that’s not a very high price when you think about what you are getting so I would definitely recommend it specially when the reviews about it I read on the net are all good!

Categories
Lebanon Politics

Lebanese Army using Hawker Hunters?

I just heard the LBC reporter in Nahr El Bared saying the Army might use Hawker Hunter aircraft to bomb the terrorists!

Hawker Hunter

The army has Hawker Hunter from the 60s, the last time they used them was in the Aoun Era (Video) but apparently they can still be used, so I hope the use of these aircrafts will make the operation easier for the Lebanese Army so they can finish the job sooner with less casualties.

UPDATE:

I just read this at the army official site:

– صدر عن قيادة الجيش- مديرية التوجيه البيان التالي: اعتباراً من 17/8/2007 ولغاية 19/8/2007 ضمناً، ما بين الساعة 20.00 والساعة 24.00 من كل يوم، ستقوم القوات الجوية اللبنانية بتنفيذ طيران ليلي، بين قاعدتي بيروت ورياق الجويتين، وضمن حلقة المطار فوق القاعدتين المذكورتين.

and I am currently hearing jet planes (not Helicopters) flying overhead so I doubt the army is training with Boeings or Airbuses so those must be the Hawker Hunters practicing!!