Kaotic, Kreation, Design

So, I’ve noticed that while I finally made the switch from Windows, other people and organizations are starting to get the idea that free is better. I for one will not be paying the $200+ for Vista.

The French Police department has decided the same thing. I saved about $200. The French Police department has decided to upgrade their Windows XP systems to Ubuntu (free Linux distribution).

Thats right. They will be migrating some 70,000 PC’s over the next 5 years. Now thats an upgrade =)

Microsoft is slowly losing the “operating system war” as more and more companys realize that by switching over to open-source software, they are not only saving money, but gaining more control over the software as well.

Don’t like something about Vista? Too bad.

Don’t Like something about Ubuntu? Change it.

Ubuntu as well as other Linux solutions is completely open source, giving you the power to configure the systems in any way you see fit. Obviously you need to know how. In the case of the French Police, they can out source the changes and still save millions of Euros.

As for price I can only imagine the cost of the site license for 70,000 copies of Windows Vista. On the other hand, Ubuntu costs, well lets see, 70,000 x 0 comes out to about…well you guessed it…nothing.

This is not the first switch to open source alternatives the French police have undergone. Two years ago they made the smart choice to ditch Internet Explorer, and three years ago they got rid of Microsoft Office opting for the free OpenOffice.org alternative. (Which is a far better option in my opinion).

This switch to open source solutions is thought to be the largest among any public organization. Hopefully this change makes a few more realize all the money they are throwing away and helping to make Microsoft rich at the same time.

Till next time.

//Brandon Leon

French police plan Windows-free jails, offices

written by Brandon Leon \\ tags: Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org, OS, Software, Windows

As some of you know, I’ve always been into photography. I don’t have a nice SLR like my buddy Jesse over at RansackNation (yet) . But I do have a fairly high resolution Sony Cybershot, The DSC-P200 to be exact. 7.2Megapixels.

Anyway, one day I was just screwing around with some silverware I just washed before tossing it back in the drawer. I had a pile of it on the counter and decided to snap a few pictures for the hell of it. I really liked how some of the shots came out. I submitted one to Deviant art.

I hadn’t logged into Deviant Art in quite awhile. So when I did go there other day, what did I find? A comment posted on that very picture. (the one you see to the right) It was used along with a large selection of other silverware based art.

And just in case anyone is wondering what camera I have my eye on next, I’m looking to pickup a Nikon D80.

Follow the link below to the article that featured the artwork to the right.

News: Silverware Art. Don’t Worry, I’ll Spoon You.

written by Brandon Leon \\ tags: Design, photography

So if you’ve installed the new 1.1.3 on your iPhone, you’ve more than likely already noticed all the new goodies Apple has given us for the new year. One of my favorites is the ability to have the phone triangulate my current location using cell phone towers. While this sometimes gives you an area of roughly a one mile radius, this is still close enough to get basic directions. I use this feature almost every day.

Now on to the Web clips.

A web clip is a bookmark to a site. Not only just to the site though, this bookmark also remembers where on that page you were looking, as well as the zoom level.

Why post about such a simple feature? Today’s post is partly for the developers out there.

Ever wonder why some pages have a small screen shot of the site as the web clip icon while others have the site logo? It’s all because of a little file named apple-touch-icon.png.

For example, if you go to the following link here you’ll see blog.kaotickreation.com’s current webclip icon, which as of this writing is the same as the icon to the left. I may change it in the future but for now that’s it. And you’ll see the icon to the left when you add a web clip to your home screen.

Safari on the iPhone checks for the existence of this file. If it exist it downloads this file and uses it as the icon. If it doesn’t exist, it scales down a screen shot of the page and uses it for the icon.

In order to set up your own icon, simply create yourself a 57×57 pixel image. Be sure to leave room on the corners as the final image will have rounded corners. Also leave 1-2 pixels around the edges free for clipping caused by the gloss effect applied to your logo.

That’s right. You don’t have to apply the gloss effect to make it look like other icons. It’s done automatically. Then simply toss this file alongside your index.html (or .php) file in the root of the web file system.

So for all of you out there that want your own custom web clip, get going and create your clip. You can have it done and in place in 5 minutes. Or I can do one for you for a small fee. Leave a comment below with your email address and I’ll get right back to you.
Till next time

//Brandon Leon

written by Brandon Leon \\ tags: Apple, iPhone, Web Design