nubae's Habari | Linux and Education

Seeing as I recently purchased a macbook Pro for the nice price of 600 euros, I searched around for the easiest way to create a dualboot system, one with osx, the other with the latest Ubuntu. The procedure was actually ridiculously simple.

They really couldn't have made it much easier than that...

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Your best bet is to rely on the ever so popular and admittedly reliable Eclipse development environment. With a couple of steps, you can be up and running developing, though the steps can allude the average individual (like myself),which is why I've decided to document the steps I took for getting Eclipse ready for Android application development.

To be honest, there are probably hundreds of sites that will give you "some" method of getting things up and running, but what I found is that it really only requires 2-3 steps to be on your way.

1. Before setting up Eclipse to use the Android SDK, its advisable to install that first, so go ahead and download that from: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Then go ahead and est it up (u may need to use the force option to install [I had to at least], and then try and remember where you installed it, as you will need to point eclipse to it later on.

2. Install the latest version of Eclipse for your operating system (I am using windows 7, though the environment should be indentical no matter the OS.) At the time of writing the latest version of Eclipse was 3.5 (Galilleo.) In order to enable Android plugins, you have to click on the help option on the top bar, then select Help -> Install new software. There, the easiest way to enable your android plugins is by using the add option, call it something useful like: "Android plugins", and then add the following url [replacing the https for http if it causes problems]:
https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

Clicking Add should take you to the "available software" viewscreen, where you must click on the new addition, and then enable the checkbox next to developer Tools. Click next, various times, accepting the license agreements, until Eclipse asks you to retart. Do so, and now you should have the android plugins available to you in Eclipse.

3. Making the Android SDK available to Eclipse is relatively simple. Point it to the location you downloaded the Android SDK folder (usuallly a subfolder of the main download, for example mine was: "C:\Users\nubae\Downloads\android-sdk_r06-windows\android-sdk-windows"
Then click appply, and ok.

Ok, if everything has gone as planned so far, then you are on to the final steps. I am going to paste a url rather than repeat the already well written instructions:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html#components

Well, the above link should really just be an overview of components installed to allow you to create android apps. In other words, you are now ready to go forth and develop. A I begin my own development, be sure, to read my progress here. Good luck, and so on....

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So, to me it all seemed like a craze just 2 years ago, something I thought would fade with time, cause lets face it, who has time to constantly be updating their blogs/tumblogs/tweets/dents/miniblogs, or any other number of the new creed of content names. Well... it seems like just about everyone has at least something to say, which just goes to show the luck of human psyche the twitter folks were able to lock on to (or was it really a caclucated psychological trait?)

Either way 2.0 is here to stay, and you might as well jump on board if you haven't already. So... which ones do you actually get on board with.... cause there is a serious social networking bubble right now... with grwoth rates approaching those of the earlier more general dot com bubble.

Well, I for one would start off with at least a blog... if u dont want u're own site... there are plenty of choices that alllow for pretty nifty changes to layout, look, and feel, and even content. OF course, if you want to have it all, u probably want to be running your own site on your own server... say something like Habari.... (shameless plug), but there is also wordpress which htough does force some advertising on you, its a great choice for the starting blogger... and then there is of course blogger itself, and probably hundreds more, all free and mostly surviving through advertising on thier pages

Now of course thats not elegant, but running your own show might be more elegant, but it certaiinly doesn't mean you'll be making any money from iit. Even if yoiu're an SEM whizz (don't worry if u dont know what the term means.... its just a fanct word for internet marketeter) chances are, the reason for running a blog are passion, and scratching your own itch. The latter is more like a journal. My site started off in this fashion. Rather than having to re-do everything whehever there was a new distro in town or a good reason for upgrading your server. This also lead to people becoming more active in the wikis (especially the Ubuntu and openSUSE ones) which arguably are web 2.0 technology too.

So... if I had my own site, and had chosen between the miriad of open source blogging software, these are the additions I would certainly at least consider attaching (at this point its more like playing with puzzle pieces, where eventually you come out with something beautiful to look at, but that fiuts in all the right places too..

1. Twitter and Identi.ca
- Say what you will, but these 2 are really the beating hearts of the web 2.0 revolution. They hurtle information across social networks at alarming speeds, and though identi.ca is much purer in concept and licensing (its pure open source), twitter, somehow seems to have something that non of the other competitors has,,, its growthg and folllowing are truly phenomenal. I mean, is it really just because they were the first kids on the bkock? Anyway, if it was my site, I'd use both social networks, one as a more general talk about everything kind of place, and the other for more specific group and event based information. I would use twitter for the first, and identi.ca for the second.
There are those that would group ident.ica and twitter to get the same message to more peopel, but I'm a strong belieever that those running identi.ca are also probably running twitter.too unless they're real purists and refuse to run anything that isn't GNU. And there are more of those people than you would imagine at first. But just cause you run twitter, doesn't mean you knoiw identi.ca even exists.... there is the slight irony in this entire debate. But... since you are reading this article, you know they both exist, and server different or the same purpose depending on the purity of the reader. I'll leave up to the readers to guess where I stand :-)

2. Facebook and MySpace
- For the longest time I tried with all my might to avoid both of these, and myspace, at least has not won me over :-) With a slight sigh of disbelief, I fear facebook is actuallly more useful than I once admitted. I still thing its a time waster, but if used correctly if can be a a great tool. But its one of these tools that almost has all the charactersrtics of digital porn/virtual procrastination. I find it difficiult to put words to it.... its like a drug you don't really need, but you think you need, and it makes you feel good cause you have the illusion of being connected. But you see, this is where the entire Matrix symbolism can come iinto play,. Which pill do you take? The one that violently rips you out of the virtual bliss of having 500+ friends with hundreds of updates and thousands of comments, links to applications 50% of which you dont use or even know what their use is.
Myspace came first, and seems to still be a place for musicians to be able to self publish, which I think is a wonderful idea in principle... but perhaps a little ahead of its time, and with the requirement of some serious competition (I suppose this is coming now slowly), but eithewr way... its hard to escape these 2 tools, no matter the personal feelings you might have for them.

3. Deliciious and Digg
- Delicious is a bookmarking service that allows you to create bookmarks that can then be shared with other users or sites, and depending on how one uses it. it can be a great way to generate an interactive links page that will be both useful to you and to others. Similarly, Digg is a way to generate publicity or give rank to existing links/blogs/or general web pages. Though I tend to use digg less than I could, its all a question of time, and right now, I would invest in generating a nice delicisious list which you can then post/share on your blog or website

4. Tweetdeck and Yoono
- These 2 applications are ways of multitasking or compartamentalising the set of web 2.0 faciliities you choose to use. Both have the ability to show a kind of control panel that lets you have an overview of all your web 2.0 applications at work. For example, I use Yoono as a sidebar for my firefox app, that shows me whats going on with twitter, facebook, flickr, gtalk, linkedin, msn, and aim. It would be practically impossible to keep track of so many applications while having the ability to post to one or all of them at the same time. I started of using tweetdeck, which I thought was wonderful, but it has its limitations. For example, it requires adobe air to run, and is not quite as cross platform and robust as yoono, which can be run as a standalone app, or as a side bar to explorer or firefox. I've been using yoono only a short while, but I wouldnt know how to cope without it anymore.

Its quite impressive how quickly dependent we can become to these new social networking apps, be it twitter or linkedin, or more playful ones like facebook and freindfeed. Where once I tried to keep my distance, I now find myself quite immersed in these appsl using them on a daily basis, and wondering what the net was like without them. A more lonely place for sure, but I now believe these web 2.0 apps actually have great financial and business potential. Something that businesses are finding out quickly.

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Until now I've always looked at making my Linux environment as windows friendly as possible, using tools like Samba for file and printer sharing, as well as domain joining with or without the help of LDAP (an ldap client will go a long way to help with attaining a truly single sign on system if your server happens to be windows based. Other tools like Wine, Crossover, Cedega and windowblindas (I do believe the latter has recently changed named) help run most windows apps natively without an emulator. Then you can always install a virtualisation solution for those truly troublesome apps that absolutely must have a windows environment. These usually amount to older proprietary applications. The installation of Vmware, or preferably (at least imho) virtualbox. There is always KVM or XEN for those wanting true CPU based virtualisation. In any case, the point is, one can pretty comfortably create an environment where windows applications can live inside a truly Linux operating system.

Recently though, I have tried doing the reverse, in which I create a Linux like system running on top of a windows environment like windows XP (which I still have to admit has its advantages in many cases, especially those where either specialization is required (A music media machine, or high end graphics machine [think auto cad]), or the needs of the frequent gamer are met. As I am a computer specialist, requiring many different kinds of applications, a bash environment along with the tools that go with it, as well as the many open source applications I use from day to day, I seriously wondered if the latter would be possible. I am happy to say that with today's grat efforts at cross platforming, this has become a reality, and I find myself oddly attracted to such a system.

Where I do draw the line is on the server machine, which I cannot foresee running anything non Unix like. But with today's many tools, it is easy to work on a windows XP based desktop, which has been highly modified to resemble and duplicate the functions of a Linux desktop (reading and writing to Linux partitions, virtualisation for compartmentalizing Linux services and applications, and running a host of QT and GTK based apps which though originally written for Linux will run on Windows too. On the fly virtualisation like Quemu is of great help too, especially in the case of multi-partitioned usb sticks. Installing a bash environment with bash tools along with my essential programming kit (Python and LAMP, along with nice IDEs like Eclipse or more specialised ones like Wingware for python and phpeditor for php) are a must, but are also relatively stable and workable.

Since we are now in a relatively ancient incarnation of the best functioning windows (XP), it too can be tweaked to behave like Vista and Windwos 7 without adding all that unnecessary bloat, yet still giving a modern look and feel, as well as some essential tools that were lacking in the original incarnations of windows XP. Granted, it takes a good 2 days to get a working windows XP environment that contains all the elements of a Linux system, as well as the many open source tools one needs, integration with a Samba server, LDAP and LTSP if one so desires, but the outcome seems to be well worth it. From the XP distribution I am using (Dark edition V 6) I can create an ISO of the highly tuned system, so I can then revert to a working system should anything mess up my system (this is windows after all, and I can only trust it so much.)

Anyway, for the time being, I'm working with this environment so as not to have to constantly dual boot, or sacrifice my game time (the only real reason for running windows), but at the same time, I feel the system runs a tiny bit more smoothly when it comes to playing video across the network, or listening to music across the network. Perhaps its a novelty thing, but I hate to admit I would actually recommend a similar system to computer engineers requiring a plethora of tools, networking with a unix or linux server, and the occasional gameplay, alongside a system optimized for web/design, system administration and programming work.

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