State of the Blog:

I’ve been going through a blogging funk here lately. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started blog-posts and then discarded the draft. In fact, this is the third day, and third discarded draft of a post on Windows 7 I’ve been working on. I know what I want to say, but I can’t get it out the way I want it. I will promise this; once I do get it out it will not be “just another Windows 7 blog post”. I have some definite ideas and opinions on Windows 7, and what it will mean to client Operating Systems and to Microsoft, I just want to make sure I word it correctly to properly convey my thoughts.

I’ve also got some other stuff I’m going to be working on. A while back I asked you, my readers for input on what you want to see here, and only Garry stepped forward and provided some suggestions. I do like one of his suggestions, and that is using the blog to answer specific questions and provide technical help. By using the blog, not only do I help the person with the question, I help anyone else that might read the post. I haven’t worked out how I want to set this up – I might get readers to sent me question via Twitter, or perhaps I’ll set up a separate e-mail account for users to send questions and/or article ideas too. Heck, I might do both! I will post once I finally decide and get everything set up. I’m pretty close to getting my ideas on this finalized, and you might even see a post later today, or tomorrow at the latest with instructions!

As for articles and content provided by yours truly, I really do want to get back into the swing of the Open Source world. I took some time off from being really knee deep into the community (at least at the level I’d maintained for the past few years). I’ve been spending most of my time in Windows and just kinda doing my thing – not really being adventurous other than trying out Windows 7 and a spin w/ Fedora 11 last week. My friend, coworker and “boss’ boss” Dean ribbed me (in fun) on twitter the other day saying he was pretty sure I formatted my computer at least 4 times a week here at home – well, actually it only just seems that way sometimes. I’ve had my desktop PC I built a few months back 100% locked and loaded with Windows XP x64 edition for quite some time now, and it’s also running a few other test machines in VMware Server in the background. My newest toy is my Lenovo notebook, and toy is exactly what it is, and what it will continue to be. It’ll never be a place I keep important data, and can be formatted “at will”, and judging from it’s performance under Fedora 11, it should make an excellent Open Source OS test machine, with it’s "all Intel" hardware. I do plan to keep a Windows 7RC partition, which will most likely become a true Win7 partition once it’s released (since I got a free upgrade since I bought after June 26). The second partition is "up for grabs” and I have a few things I want to test and write about for you all:

• Fedora 11 (Already tested, need to write article)
• Ubuntu/Kubuntu 9.04
• PC-BSD (Never got into BSD, and I think it’s about time to look into it!).
• Debian Testing/Sid
• OpenSolaris 2009.06
• Sidux since the KDE4 Migration (how will it compare to Debian Sid)
• Slackware64 (My longtime distro of choice now has a true, official 64-bit version, and I just have to check it out!)

I’m also looking forward to seeing what’s up with KDE 4 nowadays. It’s been a long while since I’ve looked at KDE, and as a KDE user for many years, I really hope what I’ve been reading is true, and that it is finally coming of age in it’s newest versions.

The ultimate goal, besides getting a nice string of articles for you all is to pick and choose an Open Source OS to live on the second partition of this notebook full time, along with Windows 7 in a dual-boot config, so get ready for a bumpy ride, because there is going to be some hard-core distro-hopping going on here

These articles will not be full fledged reviews and will actually only hit the blog if there is something worthy of mentioning once I test it. Each new distro that gets released gets written about all over the web. You can always find screenshots and the generic “I installed it and went through all of the menu’s and clicked every icon” review on a 100 other blogs and websites. If I find something particularly cool or interesting, I’ll write about it, and even then only the really cool and interesting bits. So many times in the past I’ve simply re-hashed what was written elsewhere, and I’m going to stop doing that. Also, once I find something I “like” I might just stop right there. I have all of the ISO’s mentioned above already downloaded, but I may not get to all of them. If the first one I try works wonderfully – that’ll be my new “Open Source” OS and that’ll be that. I’ll save the “me too” reviews for other bloggers.

Also, remember, I’m no "fanboi", and I do use Windows *and* Linux/UNIX together on a regular basis. I’m not the type that’s going to sit here and bash one distro over another, one Linux Desktop Environment over another (no KDE vs. GNOME flame wars here – I like ‘em both), and I’m not a Microsoft/Windows basher either. If that is what you are looking for there are other blogs around for that as well. This is one of the few areas of the Open Source community that has always turned me off. You are free to use what you want, and remember, even Linus Torvalds himself commented in an interview recently that he does all of his presentations in PowerPoint because, simply put, it’s the best tool for the job. That’s what I believe in – using the right tool for the job. Always!

Again, I’d like to thank Garry for his dialog on my other post, and for the idea of doing series of Q&A type posts. I will be posting back soon with instruction on how to get your questions and/or article ideas to me.