Installing oggenc under Ubuntu Karmic 9.10

I was wondering how to install oggenc, a conversion tool to the ogg vorbis format, a competitor to the mp3 audio format, in Kubuntu Karmic. You need it for instance when you want to rip your CDs and encode them as ogg files.

So here is the solution, the package to install is called vorbis-tools, a simple

sudo apt-get install vorbis-tools

should do. If you use the KDE4 program audex for CD ripping you have search for the new codes afterwards. Your find that in the audex settings dialogue.

As of ogg/mp3 player I enjoy to use the ones from Samsung. The Korean company supports ogg/vorbis nicely. MP3 is patent protected by Fraunhofer/Thompson licenses but other patent trolls also try to enforce their patents. Ogg/vorbis on the other hand has the reputation to be patent-free and more advanced in terms of quality. So it is better to use ogg/vorbis.

When you need Audex with Cover fetching under Ubuntu Karmic better compile the latest version from source of fetch the unsupported packages from
https://launchpad.net/~philip5/+archive/extra
The Audex version in the Ubuntu Karmic universe repository is an outdated beta where the fetching functionality is broken.

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The Karmic law of Wikidot.com Gurus

I am a Wikidot.com user of the degree “Guru”. Wikidot is a wiki farm, that is an collaborative online content management and editing system. The wikidot platform is developed and run by a few Belgium and Polish software specialists I collaborated with in different business matters. I found Wikidot the wiki system which works best for me. But recently wikidot’s terminology caused reflections and confusions on international grounds:

basenram wonders how these terms ‘guru’ and ‘karma’ used in relation to each other in the game parlance used by wikidot guru has no karma at all. He does spontaneous action which has no reaction.Therefore he is not bound by Karmic law.
Here with all your objective skill wikidot is using wrong concept and not only that wikidot is advertising as if there is few parallel. [..] if you want to play pranks at the expense of ignorance of the mass just acknowledge!

Here is the Wikidot document page on “Karmic Law” of Wikidot use, on which the user “basenram” reacted. The answer is probably that the authors of wikidot.com don’t care for religious concepts of Karma but the prosperity and development of their online content platform.

A wikidot.com “Guru” Phil Chett goes ad hominem:

basenram.. what the hell are you on about ?
what junk mail are you getting?…

or… being as you are not a member of ant site.. are you just spamming here coz youre sad and lonely ?

Here I have to add that I get spam from Wikidot because someone subscribed me to watch the wikidot.com page:

basenram commented “nice game at the expense of indian terms inserted in
world encyclopedia” on the page “Karma” at
http://www.wikidot.com/doc:karma/comments/show#post-604093

basenram wonders [….] mass just acknowledge!

—————

You received this email because you are watching page “Karma” at
http://www.wikidot.com/doc:karma

To stop these emails, go to
http://www.wikidot.com/un/u/36024-cb9e30fe502c1e117934ee9187250e6b/a/3127958

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AMQP at Fosdem

Pieter talks about his Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) brainchild at Fosdem 2009. It is an Open Standard for Messaging Middleware developed by Cisco Systems, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Börse Systems, Envoy Technologies Inc.,Goldman Sachs, IONA Technologies PLC, iMatix Corporation sprl.,JPMorgan Chase Bank Inc. N.A, Microsoft Corporation, Novell, Rabbit Technologies Ltd., Red Hat Inc., Tervela Inc., TWIST Process Innovations Ltd, WS02 Inc. and 29West Inc.

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

• Website AMQP

• AMQP Wikipedia

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Forrester on Open Source

A new paper from Forrester Research concerning Open Source for Microsoft discusses the potential of the development model. Sure, you have the necessary portion GPL bashing folklore in there (which unfortunately prevents the substancial criticism that should be raised by neutral parties) but as a Microsoft document it sounds like Gorbatschev 1989 in Berlin, as Brenno de Winter predicted quite a while ago. What Forrester got right here is in particular the concept of best practise transfer, an embracement of crowd-based business processes:

Model internal reuse strategies on the example of successful open source communities. When it comes to software reuse, open source projects have achieved in practice what many commercial organizations have long desired: high levels of reusable components that enable rapid assembly of new solutions. There’s substance to the argument that the more transparent a component’s development, the more likely that other developers will be interested in using it. And if new developers can also make changes or extensions to apply a component into a new context, so much the better.

More thoughts should be spent on that transfer because open source as such may not be commercially sustainable for some companies. It is worth to investigate how self-selection by professionals may improve labour allocation and help to overcome ICT specialist shortage. Google is an example for a company that seems to incorporate this element in its business and development process quite successfully.

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