The time of Christmas is obviously upon us. Programmers and bloggers all over the world are putting down their text editors, meaning there’s no news for us to report on (unless you want to talk about yet another set of rumours about the Apple tablet). Still, I couldn’t let this day go by without a story.
I just got home from a short trip to the super market, to get some stock built up to survive the coming two days when everything’s closed. Living in a small town in the middle of nowhere, there’s none of the Christmas rush of the city or big shopping malls – one of the reasons I actually prefer living in such a small town.
Anyway, as I was walking home, carefully minding my step since the partially melted and then re-frozen snow is extremely slippery, I overheard two people, who were talking quite loudly. I think they were a mother and daughter, and it turned out they were arguing – loudly and pretty aggressively. They were walking in front of the Nieuwe Ursula Church. On Christmas eve.
The irony certainly wasn’t lost on me.
Of course, we here on the web, and OSNews in particular, have more or less made a habit out of arguing over things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Whether you prefer Mac OS X or Windows, this preference is not going to change or affect the world in any way. All our discussions are fleeting.
Now that it’s Christmas eve (in my time zone at least), it’s time to set aside our differences for the coming two days and just accept that we all use and prefer different things, and that maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly our strength; that maybe, just maybe, it’s something we ought to cherish, instead of bickering over it.
I would like to wish you all, on behalf of the entire crew, a very, very merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you might (or might not) celebrate. Please, leave your computer for what it is, and spend as much time as you can with your family, friends, and loved ones – because just like our discussions, life is fleeting.
As a final gift to you, here is Fiona Apple’s rendition of Sally’s Song from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was part of a special edition of the film’s soundtrack, released in 2006. Enjoy.
monodevelop finishes removing GPL-ed code.
Source: http://monodevelop.com/Download/Release_Notes/Release_Notes_for_Mon…
Old news. We already reported on this over a week ago:
http://www.osnews.com/story/22621/Mono_2_6_MonoDevelop_2_2_Released
Try to keep up
.
Edited 2009-12-24 18:05 UTC
Merry Christmas to you Thom and the OSnewss staff!
May 2010 be just as interesting to follow OSnews as last year.
How so—what would you say were the interesting things that happened this year?
Happy clearance day (http://j.mp/7zzZsm) for everyone!
Video Lan Movie Creator:
http://vlmc.org/
http://digg.com/d31Dey1
Mozilla releases Jetpack 0.7:
http://mozillalabs.com/jetpack/2009/12/23/announcing-jetpack-0-7/
Mozilla works on L20n — an entirely new localization infrastructure:
http://diary.braniecki.net/2009/12/17/the-new-era-of-software-local…
https://wiki.mozilla.org/L20n
A localizizatitoninin framework.
What? Is that supposed to be funny comment?
How about articles about next year’s predictions in the tech industry?
Oh please God, no.
Sorry about that.
I was just wondering when that was coming, we will see it. If not here, it will happen somewhere else
I did spend some time with my family, friends, and loved ones,, but I must say I cheated though; My HTC Hero was in my pocket all along
I love HTC Hero!!
Edited 2009-12-24 22:05 UTC
I love my shiny new HTC HD2 even with the 24 month contract with Vodafone I had to sign.
I never thought I’d say this but WinMo 6.5* is actually very good. Maybe it’s the HTC Sense UI covering the worst…..
*Our house is a 100% OSX, Linux, BeOS home. Well it was until I bought the HD2 anyway!
So does that make you a Hero worshipper? Sorry, couldn’t resist. And yeah, I cheated too except in my case it was an iPhone in my pocket with the Kobo Ebook reader app open. Nothing like a good book to distract me and yet still make it look like I’m paying attention to everyone.
The Hero isn’t perfect but comes close to perfect and here are some of the flaws:
– ‘Sometimes’ things can get sluggish like when you scroll – the scrolling can be a bit sticky due to not enough power I believe. Also when you pinch and zoom, the animation is not smooth.
– 288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM where 192.4 is available as RAM according to a particular program I am using. My phone hovers around 30-60MB RAM however its sweet point is about 50 which is ok but if you try to “actually” use the phone as a PDA, you will quickly go down to sub 30MB which is very disappointing. This is my very first smart phone and I didn’t know what is enough but ever since I forked out $AU700, I figured out. I just had to have a smart phone and didn’t want to get an iPhone.
– Internal hard disk is not big enough. What were they thinking? Also the RAM is nothing special. Next phone I get will have at least 512MB of available RAM.
– You cannot transfer files via bluetooth. This is fixed with Android 2.0 I think.
I believe HTC is releasing Android 2.0 or 2.1 Sense UI ROM and hopefully the sluggishness will be addressed and perhaps it will give up more RAM. 5-10 MB more would be nice.
I read rooting the phone fixes bluetooth and lets you install programs on SD card which is nice.
Edited 2009-12-25 20:29 UTC
Merry Christmas to one and all!
oh and use Linux
Edited 2009-12-25 00:42 UTC
Peace, Thom.
We’ll all continue arguing in a week. 
And keep up the good work.
Merry Christmas everybody!
Thom and all your staff:
Merry Christmas and thank you because all your good work!