Open source in the news

It's good news that Click has finally talked about open-source and more specifically about Ubuntu since the last few weeks.

A few years ago, Stephen Cole (remember that Click Online presenter?) said that he did not consider Linux to be an OS since it was not enough user-friendly and many hardware wouldn't work. But nowadays, all this has changed. Most linux distros have a superb GUI (Gnome and KDE, amongst others) and many devices like printers, scanners, webcams, ADSL modems, and others, have drivers in-built in the Linux distro.

And on top of all, open-source is everywhere today!

I'm using Ubuntu Server at work and Kubuntu Desktop at home. I should say that the server is really easy to install and deploy. Apt-get is really a nice thing (thanks Debian!): installing and upgrading packages are simply a pleasing thing.

Yahoo! Mail becomes limitless

When Google launched GMail, they gave us plenty of storage space - now nearing some 3 gigabytes! They told us that we'd never have to delete any of our emails... And everyone was talking about it....

GMail also introduced AJAX.

Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Mail followed later - they too gave us a few gigs of storage space and reworked their interfaces using AJAX.

But now, Yahoo! Mail has taken a lead - they say that they're no more imposing quotas on storage!

Ya-hoo-oo-oo!

Let's now see other more innovative and mouth-watering features...

Man Utd champions once again!

Despite losing 1-0 against West Ham at Old Trafford on Sunday, Man Utd are champions once again! 16 FA Premiership titles in all! That's just great!

Fans of either clubs had good reasons to celebrate - Man Utd champions and West Ham relieved from relegation!

Battle for the Macs

Photo courtesy of http://cuteproxy.wordpress.com/2006/06/18/in-review-hajime-no-ippo/

It's no secret in Mauritius:

IF you want a Mac THEN
 GOTO Leal
ENDIF

So simple as that, isn't it?

But now, it's not just Leal selling Macs. Cash & Carry also has stated to bring the powerful and pretty Mac! The piece of code is now:

IF you want a Mac THEN
 CHOOSE
   CASE1: GOTO Leal
   CASE 2: GOTO Cash & Carry
 END CHOOSE
ENDIF

The prices are a bit lower at Cash & Carry. For instance, the iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, 120 GB HD, 1 GB RAM is at R 49500 at Leal and R 45500 at Cash & Carry.

Leal's after-sale service is superb.

As with all Macs, both are offering 1 year warranty...

There's now some sort of competition between those two. Hopefully, customers like us will benefit from better services at a lower price!

Event 777 coming soon

Liquid's bosses announced the next big clubbing event in Mauritius on last Saturday's DJ's Challenge . After Tom Snare's night, they are bringing Pakito, who's going to perform live at La Citadelle on 7 July 07 (so the name 'Event 777').

DJ Pakito made a phenomenal success with its popular track Living On Video, very famous in Mauritius, last year.

I hope to get going once again. And I hope that the event will be held at La Citadelle itself, not VIP Club at the last minute, as it has been the case for DJ Laurent Wolf, on Saturday last.

DJ's Challenge at Caudan

I was at the DJ's Challenge organised by Liquid on Saturday last at Le Caudan Waterfront with some friends from college.

There was a nice atmosphere and many DJ's perform really well. Each DJ had to mix a number of tracks in a certain amount of time. DJ Giovanni Paul and DJ Bernard Desmarais, Liquid's founders, and DJ Master L, who performs Liquid's Essential Mix each Saturday night on Kool FM as from 21.00, formed part of the jury.

After each participant, the members of the jury explained how good the mix was and explained how the DJ's were given points. That's very interesting for to-be DJ's since it was a pleasure to see how to evaluate mixes.

Basically, the jury talked about

• frequency -beats
• effects - flanger, echo, equaliser
  
• beat-matching

As far as I know, these are the very foundation for the perfect mix!

IRC reloaded

When I was in Form 5, that's back in 2000, there was a craze about IRC in Mauritius. (Nearly) All guys and gals had a superb nickname and used to chat in different channels. I should say that was a superb occasion to make new friends and to find some nice people with whom we'd go out for a while or for a long time.

Here's a list of channels on DALnet servers that were putting people on fire. I've to add that each secondary school had a channel and students could join them and have a nice chat.

Channel	Description
#mauritius	The Mauritius channel
#maurice	Mauritius in French
#moris	Mauritius in Creole
#drcsss	Dr Regis Chaperon SSS
#dmc	Dr Maurice Curé
#raynal	Gaetan Raynal SSS
#cse	College du Saint Esprit
#drsss	Drupnath Ramphol SSS
#bps	College du Bon et Perpetuel Secours
#qec	Queen Elizabeth College
#lcqb	Loreto Convent Quatre-Bornes
#lcc	Loreto Convent Curepipe

Unfortunately, by the end of 2000, if I'm making no mistakes, the DALnet channel was hacked and we all IRC users lost contact.

A few months after, a new server – GigaIRC – saw the day. Unfortunately, it couldn't bring so many users back to IRC.

Nowadays, #mauritius on DALnet is back again with some life with some great people who participate in some quizzes in which I love taking part. Thanks guys!

There's also #mauritius on GigaIRC.

And all of the secondary school channels, except #cse (now on GigaIRC, not DALnet), have disappeared. What a pity :(

However, I've discovered some new channels by fellow friends: #linux on GigaIRC and #linux.mu on Freenode.

I've been a bit nostalgic here but that's life: life changes and you have to adapt, but memories last as long as we're alive.