Tsikbal: from my perspective

When Valve announced SteamOS , I was really excited about it. Since its based on Debian , it meant that a serious gaming OS was coming to the Linux side. And if all went right, it meant that at least some publisher might offer their games on other Linux distros in time. As such, when I read on Extremetech site that Steam's machines sales have been abysmal , I can't help to feel somewhat sad and disappointed. Though I disagree that the games offered for SteamOS are indie is a bad thing, it would help to have more AAA titles available. Personally, I enjoy far more indie games than I do AAA games. The same goes for many of my friends, we feel that indie games offer something more than AAA games do. Yet I do see the need to at least attract some AAA titles to make the platform more widely appealing, specially to new users or those who prefer AAA games. To be honest, I'd love nothing more that see SteamOS go mainstream. But, I wouldn't mind seeing it going as ...

Nowadays that information is at the fingertips of so many people, it's hard to believe that it's still not accessible to everyone. There is still a significant large groups of people who don't have access to the Internet, or to other information technologies, with all the benefits that come with having such an access. We still have some way to go before we can say we have a 100% coverage, but as a whole we are getting closer. There some power groups that fear that everyone has access to modern communication technologies for various reasons. Still, we need to have everyone aboard, if we want want to truly change things. We need to give everyone access to participate at least on the subjects that are interest each individual at any time. Those who fear universal access to modern the modern technologies aren't just government, some corporations and politicians don't have people freely exchanging information and views about them. Not only because of profits...

I've been using Spotify for about a year and a half now, mainly when I didn't want to listen to the music I've at my hard drive. Also, when I want to explore new artists or tracks. Yet, for the last couple of months now I've been using Spotify's Android app heavily. I use it at work, to give me some music the I like to have as background, and it gives a wider variety of music than radio would. And though I've my music collection on my smartphone, I prefer Spotify for when I just want music I love at the background. Having my whole music collection and Spotify at my device sure has changed my music listening habits while I'm on the go. I used to mainly use Spotify and the fm radio app, but since I got a micro-SD card capacity enough to store all my media on it I virtually stop using the fm radio app. I jump between the music app and Spotify depending on my mood, where I am or with who. Though I've Spotify on my laptop, I find myself using it...

Nokia used to be my favorite mobile phone manufacturer for several years, since I liked the devices themselves and Symbian was my favorite smartphone OS. When Nokia made the deal with Microsoft to produce only smartphones using Windows Phone OS, since Android seemed to be a better option. With time, Nokia's choice became its downfall, since Android along with Apple's iOS have become the dominant smartphones OSes. Yet, it seem that Nokia's has licensed to bring back the brand to the smartphone arena. The new smartphones and tables will come with Android, which it makes sense. The only misgiving I've, is that the market is already somewhat crowed. As such, the devices they bring have to be the right mix of quality and price to be able to take hold. Personally, I'm happy and interested to see what offering they bring to the market. If they continue with the good quality of the smartphones produced under Nokia's brand, powered by Android, it should...

While I'm an Ubuntu user, and fan, I've done some distro hopping. I've used Linux Mint, Fedora, Ubuntu Mate and openSUSE, yet I always come back to Ubuntu. While at work I use Windows 7, I feel more at home on Ubuntu. Ubuntu just works for me, while is the Linux distro that I personally find most aesthetically pleasing. The two Linux distros I recommend are Ubuntu and Linux Mint, on that order, since they are the ones that work best out of the box. I know that Ubuntu is not the OS that will be a fit for everyone, that's where the strong point of Linux is. There is a distro that is focused on your needs, so it will allow you to work the way you want. The best OS for you, is the one that disappears on the background allowing you to focus on the app that you are using at the time. Ubuntu does that for me, it allows me to concentrate on what I'm doing at the time. No matter what I'm doing, I can focus at the task at hand. The Unity user interface al...

I started using Android about two years ago, after using a Blackberry Bold and an Nokia E63 . So far, I've had three different devices that run Android and I've really enjoyed using the OS so far. My current device is a MOBO MB400 (Spanish and its a PDF), and so far it's the one I like the most. It has enough RAM, and with an 16GB Micro SD card, has more than enough power for the use I give. With it, I found that for me a 4" screen is the sweet spot for me. It's big enough for what I use my smartphone for, while fitting my hand as a glove. I used a 5" MB505 (Spanish and its a PDF) for about 6 months, and it never stopped feeling somewhat awkward to use for me. Before coming to use Android, I was somewhat weary about making the jump. Mainly because I really liked the physical keyboard on the Blackberry, and the Android devices with a physical keyboard weren't all that good. But after talking to some friends about their experience using An...

The first smartphone OS I came in contact with was Symbian on a Nokia E63 , then I used BlackBerry OS on a BlackBerry Bold. I had good user experiences with both, though with the BlackBerry Bold, my carrier tried to force me to a contract to use cellular data. So, when I came to my first Android device, I was somewhat uncertain about not having a physical keyboard. Other than that, I've had heard only good things about the OS and it runs all the apps I prefer. So, making the jump to Android made a lot of sense for me, since the other viable options are Apple's  iPhone running iOS or a Windows Phone , both options that don't resonate with me for philosophical reasons. I decided to try a MOBO (site in Spanish) device, mainly because they sell vanilla unlocked Android devices. Currently I'm on my 3rd device, a MOBO MB400. I used a MB500 before, which had lasted 6 months, since the battery got busted because of short circuit and it wasn't user replaceable....

There is no doubt that cloud computing and streaming media are here to stay. It's quite an useful tool, there is no question about that, since it allows a level of collaboration not seen before. Besides, it allows to share data among several people or devices in a much convenient way. Yet, I don't see everyone going completely to the cloud. While having some files in the cloud, or using some streaming services is something almost everyone use for practical reasons, sometimes local storage is a better option. On the streaming media side, there is some music, movies or series we like but not enough to own a physical copy. As such, we are content enough with having a service that will make it available to us on demand. At the end, we'll own just the media we love enough to have a copy from stored at our hard drive or other physical medium like a CD, vinyl  album or DVD. That's way I see that most people using a mix of local and cloud storage. Everyone li...

When someone ask how FOSS (Free and open-source software) can be any good, I just have to point them to Firefox or LibreOffice . Both are FOSS apps that are cross platform, meaning that why run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, that are FOSS and are really good apps that anyone can use. There are many other FOSS examples to give. On the OS level there are Ubuntu(which is my favorite) and Linux Mint, and other apps include GIMP to edit images, Kino an video editing app,  Pitivi a non-linear video editing app, or Rhythmbox as an audio playback app. Granted that there isn't a substitute for every proprietary out there, yet with every passing day this is less of a trouble. As of now, I'm quite certain that there is an FOSS alternative for almost every user. Personally, I've been using Ubuntu or Linux Mint for almost 6 years now and I haven't run into any significant problem that can't be easily solve by a Google search. As I said, if someone isn't ...

As an Ubuntu, and fan I must confess, every six mouths is a good time since I get a new OS. This time around, I couldn't contain myself and upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS a few days earlier than usual. I've been using it for almost a week, and so far I do feel that the Xenial Xerus(the code name for the 16.04 release) is really a good one. I've encountered no significant bug do far. It actually it seems to be a step forward from Ubuntu 15.10 even though it's a conservative one since Ubuntu 16.04 is a Long Term Support release. While is a boring release in terms of features added, for me it has been a good one. I do see my laptop a bit being faster, and in some cases being quite more stable. Not that 15.10 gave any more trouble, it just feels like LTS version is just polishing some of the rough edges of the OS. Ubuntu 16.04 is turning out to be a solid release for those who need an OS that will have a relative long life(for five years), and a nice upgrade for ...

As this article at techrepulic.com points out, Microsoft has been opening up to open source and Linux because it needs them to stay relevant. It's more of a pragmatic move, rather than Microsoft changing it's hearth about open source software. The irony is not lost on me, but I'm happy about it all because it validates what the open source movement stands for. No matter what Microsoft says, Linux has shown that open source development of software is the way to go to develop software successfully. That even Facebook, Google, and Apple do open source in some way, gives even more credit to the open source development model in both hardware and software development. Even if they do it on behalf on their interests, at the long run it helps everyone that they open to everyone their designs. Not only that, they benefit themselves, since any improvement made by anyone would also benefit them by allowing them to use it to improve their machines as well. In some way, i...