Fun with Open Source – Electric Sheep

Once again, I am absolutely amazed at the amount of open source software available. Since most of my experience with open source has been directly related to fulfilling a need rather than just searching for and trying different things at leisure, I decided to see where a search like that might lead. Of course, the search result hits were pages long, but I stuck to the first page. One of the coolest pages I found was Datamation’s Open Source Software List: The UltimateList. It is an incredible 10 pages long and boasts an amazing 1,345 items. Each item on the list provides a brief description of the software with a link to its’ home-page. There are recommendations for everything that anyone, including business and enterprise, could possibly be looking for in an open source software solution.

Since fun was a requirement of this excursion, I chose a screensaver called Electric Sheep, which are not actual sheep shapes. Not so simply put, Electric Sheep is a self-perpetuating system for the production of algorithmic art (winner of the Lumen Prize).

From the website: Electric Sheep is a collaborative abstract artwork founded by Scott Draves. It's run by thousands of people all over the world, and can be installed on almost anything. When these computers "sleep", the Electric Sheep comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep".

Anyone watching one of these computers may vote for their favorite animations using the keyboard. The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global audience.

The name is also a very cute pun, and one that I’m not going to explain, as it’s much more fun for you to “get it” yourself LOL. It was late at night when I chose this program, and it took me a moment for the “proverbial light-bulb” to come on. However, as with most “proverbial light bulbs” 99% of the enjoyment of that moment of understanding comes from the actual enlightenment (pardon this second pun, I couldn’t resist) rather than having someone explain it for you.

Electric Sheep is an organic genetic “Darwin” type algorithm system that creates images with mutations, cross-overs, and of course, crowd source code submissions (constantly evolving since 1999). This is an awesome example of what happens when “open source software” TRULY goes VIRAL.

Downloading and installing Electric Sheep was simple and quick. Electric Sheep is available for almost every platform, including, Mac, Windows, Linux, and as an app for iPad, Apple TV, and Android devices. As of this morning I haven’t had any sheep appear. I believe I may need to tweak my PC’s sleep or hibernate settings. According to the fact files, the screen saver needs to download the sheep into the cache file from the server. As I am a total proponent of both free and open source software, I decided to join the Gold membership which, like most open source software is a very small donation ($2 per month) that I am happy to make. I am excited about seeing this screensaver in action and contributing my votes…..  more will be revealed.

What Is GalliumOS

At the beginning of this year’s semester I needed a portable PC and had very little money to spend, so I couldn’t afford a full-size laptop. I settled on a little refurbished Acer Chromebook, that was under $100. One of the reasons I chose the Chromebook was because I learned that if one chooses to use a different OS, the process for installing a light weight Linux OS seemed pretty straightforward.

Chromebooks come with the Chrome OS installed, which is a cloud based open source OS used primarily accessing the web: browsing, emailing, social networking etc. Although, it is a great little OS, I found there were times when certain programs either weren’t available, or if they were, didn’t have the capabilities I needed. For example, Google Docs easily converts MS Word documents to the Google Doc format however, saving a Google Doc in the MS Word format (required for my courses) isn’t so simple. Hence, my decision to install a Linux OS.

After searching, reading reviews and checking out the forums I settled on a fairly new Linux OS, that's tweaked especially for Chromebooks, called GalliumOS. I had tinkered with other installations of Linux on a few older, “relic” laptops that I had laying around, but hadn’t really gotten far enough to use them for everyday tasks. Providing one locates the correct directions for their model of Chromebook, the process of installing GalliumOS is on the lower side of a medium difficulty. Not for a beginner, but easy enough for someone with basic computer knowledge and a little patience. As with most Linux OS distros, I had to download the ISO file, and another program of my choice that would write the ISO file to a USB drive, making it bootable, similar to how a DVD of an OS installation disk works. Another example of a task that I needed my desktop for as it wasn't possible from the Chrome OS.

Once installed GalliumOS ran smoothly and fast. Everything works fine and I have had no issues with the software. It comes with a built-in package manager, and I was able to download Abiword, an open source word processor that allows me to save documents in a MS Word format. I also looked around and read reviews for few different text editors for coding in my html class. GalliumOS comes with Gedit built in, but I decided to try Lime Text which is an open source solution similar to the popular program Sub Lime. I really dug Lime Text it was definitely my favorite.

All-in-all I GalliumOS  is really awesome.  As with any open source software there is a slight learning curve which I consider to be more an acclimation period i.e learning navigation, where are located, and what applications replace the Windows applications we are all so accustomed to using. The GalliumOS team has done an awesome job. There is a whole “additional software” section on the GalliumOS Wiki, that includes instructions for installing and using Adobe Flash, Skype, various games and many other application choices. The jackpot, icing on the cake was my discovery of the Reddit Noobies Guide; what to do after installing GalliumOS.

As a side note; this term, I was finally able to purchase a 17” laptop that would meet my requirements for work and school. I currently have my hard drive partitioned to boot from either Win 7 (required for work) or Win 10. Apple, in their awesomeness, has made the effort, with the creation of Boot Camp to allow Windows to install, boot and run on their architecture without, as in the past, having to use the Parallels desktop environment. The client I contract for requires Win 7 and due to licensing restrictions, costs, and total frustration with the above mentioned, which could make a whole other blog post, I am not willing to purchase YET another copy of Win 7 to install on my iMac or Mac Mini. However, the hard drive on my new laptop is huge and when time permits, I plan to add a 3rd partition in which to install Elementary OS, as it is a beautiful open source Linux OS, that most closely resembles Mac OS X. Of course, since I am an absolute “Cult of Apple” fanatic, I can’t wait to try it. 

Open Source Browsers

Currently there are 3 browsers installed on my PC, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer (IE), the latter of which I despise, as its' mission in life is to be my nemesis. All 3 are required for my job, and I use each of them daily. Logging into our VPN requires IE, from there the client’s link is available, once clicked, a Citrix network login environment loads. After logging into Citrix, IE window containing 4 choices for launching various apps opens. When one of these options are chosen, a Firefox window is opened with a blank white page containing a link to the Java run loader which opens the actual production interface. I use Chrome to access our CrowdHub community, Blackboard meetings/training sessions, tech chat room, and the scheduling and KPI report sites. Alternately, I can use Firefox to access these as well. The later 3 being a personal preference not set by VPN requirements. I'm 99% sure that that the company that provides access to our client platforms, like my college, APUS, uses a combination of closed source and open source software solutions.

Getting back to the subject of this post; Google Chrome and Firefox are both “open source” browsers that I really like. However, due mostly to habit I guess, I primarily use Chrome for everyday browsing, email, social networks, and courses.

I imagine, if I took the time to set everything set up to my liking, I would use Firefox as my preferred browser. And, I have been meaning to do just that for awhile now. One thing I am not sure about is, although one can access Gmail from any browser, I am not sure it would work as seamlessly, with all the features, as it does from the Chrome browser. I also dread setting up all my passwords and bookmarks. The main reason I am thinking of switching to Firefox, is my escalating annoyance with the countless Chrome processes running in task manager, sapping my PC's resources. This was especially prevalent on my previous PC which had only 4 GB of RAM. Not many people realize, whenever a new tab is opened, Chrome treats it somewhat like a new instance of the exe program, hence opening another process. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had 10+ Chrome processes, that I’ve had to shut down individually, in order to unfreeze my computer rather than completely shutting it down, and risk losing something important.

As far as downloading and installing. I have found that both Chrome and Firefox have always downloaded very quickly and installed practically by themselves, as well as keeping updates simple. The process for these and installing add-on's and extensions is "usually", quick and easy.

I have also used Chromium and Tor in the past. Simply put, Chromium in my opinion, is just lightweight and faster version of Chrome. It is easy to download, install, sign-in and sync everything from your previous Chrome settings. It’s actually kind of adorable, like Chrome’s little sister or brother. Although, I don’t understand all the inner workings of Tor, I find the aspect of privacy it provides very appealing. I don't know about you, but I can easily get caught up in the mild paranoia of "THEM WATCHING" LOL, especially after seeing the documentary, Citizenfour and the later released movie, Snowden, In a perfect world, I believe that everyone should use Tor all the time. However, it is very hard to get acclimated and accustomed to, as well as impractical, if not completely impossible to use for certain work and school related environments, social media sites, email clients, etc.

For a great article on open source browser choices see Techmints: 

11 Best Open Source Web Browsers I Discovered for Linux in 2016.

Open Source Initiative & Free Software Foundation

When researching open source software, its origins and definitions I quickly learned that open source and free software are the same yet different in terms of philosophy.

The Open Source Initiative explains that although most open source software is free it is still licensed. To be considered 
open source, a license must be certified by and comply with the criteria set forth in Open Source Definition. It is software that anyone can inspect, modify, and improve to their needs and liking. And interestingly, there is nothing stopping contributing developers from selling their versions of an open source program.

On the other hand, free software, although the word “free”, one’s first thought is cool, it’s not going to cost me anything, and although that is true, the actual intended meaning is “the freedom to…….. as in liberty, not price. The Free Software Foundation explains this best with their well know phrase: “Think “free speech”, not “free beer”. To qualify as free software the FSF has written a definition with 4 freedoms that a software license must meet, found at their here: The Definition of Free Software.

In conclusion, my meager understanding is that, all “free software” qualifies as “open source”, but not all “open source software” qualifies as “free software”, because some open source licenses do not meet all 4 defined freedoms therefore, do not qualify as “free software” licenses.

Regardless of the philosophical debates that may be happening around me, I for one am delighted they both exist. And, not from a developer’s perspective, as I have yet to even dream of attempting to contribute, but more from an end user. Over the years, I have been ecstatic to discover the many programs available that have been developed to replace expensive programs and applications. The list of these, especially for businesses (I just discovered), is phenomenal and way beyond what I had ever imagined in my beginner dabbling.

This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Open Source Initiative or the Free Software Foundation.

TechCrunch Review

TechCrunch is one of the leading media technology properties, dedicated to enthusiastically profiling new startups, screening new Internet products, and staying abreast of and reviewing the latest technologies.

Established in June 2005, TechCrunch and it's network page now reach more than 12 million unique visitors and attracts more than 37 million visits per month. The TechCrunch community has risen to more than 2 million friends and followers on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and other social networks. CrunchBase, their open database, about start-up companies, people and investors, has become the principal statistical resource for technology companies and dealings

The company organizes large conferences and events, including the Disrupt series Crunchies Award as well as several meetings around the world that serve as a community platform for dialogue and cooperation in the tech industry.

  

TechCrunch believes that everyone, regardless of their origin, must have access to the enormous opportunities of the technological world, while at the same time are convinced that a more diverse workforce would strengthen technology companies. The Tech Crunch Include Program promotes diversity through the selective application of resources available to TechCrunch, including publishing editorials and event platforms.

The program covers many projects and experiments, but regardless of the means of inclusion, it has these basic guidelines at heart:

• Collaborative and Open. This will call upon the wider community for ideas and community support. Readiness to work with people and individuals outside TechCrunch organizations that can provide constructive and critical ideas, and enjoy TechCrunch resources.
• Transparent and Responsible. TechCrunch will publicly announce all inclusion initiatives and announce the results of each action. This information will be tracked on the channel.
• Evolving: They hope to find success and failure while advancing, but will always apply the lesson and experience acquired to new projects and approaches.

The Machine is Us/ing Us - Very Cool Web2.0 Video by Michael Wesch, 2007

GIGAOM Review

GIGAOM is a research and technology analysis firm, focusing on helping business leaders understand the implications of startup technologies and their impact on business, the media and society. They are looking for a future with trends and tools that make up the economy in the twenty-first century: Cloud, Data, Mobile, Future of Work and Internet of Things. GIGAOM has reached more than 6.5 million unique readers per month with a mobile range of over 2 million visitors per month.

They work in close collaboration with two groups: innovative technology providers trying to understand their markets and their competitors and business leaders who need to evaluate technology and understand trends that affect their businesses and industries.

GIGAOM offers the following services:

• Individual, consulting and enterprise-level access to all research GIGAOM Research

• Research IT services, including consulting, investigation and analysis, and dissemination under the auspices of content and activities.

• Prospects for business leaders to participate in the GIGAOM Council, an exclusive web-based community, where entrepreneurs can communicate with their colleagues and GIGAOM analysts to solve the most critical business and technical issues.

About WEB 2.0

courtesy of mrplough 2008

Web 2.0 is the recent state of online technology. Defined by dictionary.com as: "A second generation in the development of the World Wide Web, conceived as a combination of concepts, trends, and technologies that focus on user collaboration, sharing of user-generated content, and social networking".

When compared to the early days of the Web, it is characterized by greater interactivity and user collaboration, enhanced network connectivity, and improved communications channels.

Greater collaboration among Internet users, content providers, and enterprises  is the major differences between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 (traditional World Wide Web). Data/Content is published on a website, and users can quickly view or download content. Increasingly, users have more information about the nature and scope of the web content and, in some cases, have real-time monitoring.

The social nature of Web 2.0 is another important difference. With Web 2.0 technology, websites can allow input, interaction, content sharing and cooperation within the community and the internet as a whole.