September 29th is both the Tech Café - Adobe AIR session at Bucketworks and Adobe's OnAIR Chicago. We are going to be taking the train down to Chicago, going to the OnAIR (it's free - but you *have* to register on the site!), sharing a hotel room (free wifi, I am sure - all night coding sessions, anyone?), and going out for Jordan's birthday (shh, don't tell him I told you). It should be a lot of fun. ^_^

It'd be great if we could get a bunch of BarCampMilwaukee2/Web414 people to go. If you want to come along, let me know and I will include you on the planning emails!

"First God made the Internet. The internet was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the web. And God said, "Let there be search"; and there was search. And God saw that search was good; and God separated the search from the darkness. God called the search Google..."

The Google story reads a lot like the Christian Bible. Many believe Google to *be* the internet, the alpha/omega of search engine's (to continue on this horribly blashemous analogy), or even a synonym to searching (much to Google's chagrin).

The rumors have been circulating lately about our buddies at Google releasing their own branded Linux distro. I haven't been able to find any solid proof either way, but as a certified Google Fan Girl (TM) and a lover of the OpenSource movement (and secretly wanting to see Microsoft get pwned within my lifetime), I am interested to see where it goes.

Goobuntu (not my name for it, mind you) would compete more directly for Windows user's attention and this is probably the easiest audience to tackle for them, anyhow. Everyone knows an aggravated Windows user at the end of his ropes - Mac users seem to be more in the Hindu Cow camp - safe in their happy, aesthetiquelly perfect bubbles (that isn't sarcasm, my Mac friends - it's envy :D). Google and the Open Source community is really at an excellent point in the OS war - Windows users are ready for something more "grown up" - of which Vista is not.

Supporting the Rumor

Google has been strattling the line between online and desktop for quite some time now. They have brought Mac-style widgets to both Windows and more recently Linux with Google Desktop. They are trying (and succeeding) at taking the traditionally desktop apps to the web - with things like Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail & GCal, they have almost entirely removed the need for MSOffice. They are still lacking in some functionality, but the time between major developments has been much shorter than the same for Microsoft Office & Friends(and MS seems to be more successful at shipping things that need major patching).

The fact that Google has gobbled up smaller webapp companies as if they were bon bons during it's favorite soap opera help to support the rumor. With companies that specialise in presentaions, desktop enterprise security, and video conferencing in it's ever-growing arsenal, what would be the natural progression?

Google already has a lot riding on Linux & Open Source's future - the data centers that power it's search run on Linux. Microsoft trying to take down the OIN would cripple Google.

What Google can do for Open Source that it can't (easily) do for itself

Google has a few things up on the Linux marketing peeps. Most importantly, Google's audience is composed of both inexperienced users and the exact opposite - and (nearly) all trust the brand. Linux seems to have the "only for geeks" stigma surrounding it - even though that has fallen away over the past year or two with the positive press that Ubuntu has gotten.

If Google released it's own OS, would you play around with it?

Resources

• Google To Join Group To Protect Linux From Possible Patent Challenge
• Google Partners With OIN For Linux
• Goobuntu on Wikipedia
• Google at work on Desktop Linux
• Google denies plans to distribute OS based on Ubuntu
• Absolutely no truth to the rumour…

Responses

• "Goobuntu must be more than a Google branded Ubuntu" - Gabe Wollenburg

A few weeks ago we took a tour of the space that we would be holding BarCampMilwaukee2 in. We started talking about what groups in Milwaukee we could pitch BarCamp to and, being the only woman present, John December asked me if I would like to personally approach groups comprised of women like the Society of Women Engineers. I thought on it a bit, letting it rattle around the inside of my head.

Over the past few months there has been a lot of talk concerning the level of involvement of women in the web industry. From speakers at conferences to the attendees, the ratio of men to women is staggering - and is, apparently, making some people not only uneasy, but downright angry.

As a woman and someone who works in and appreciates a very diverse atmosphere (I am not only the only female in our technical support department, but the only white person as well; the men are Russian, Vietnamese, Mexican, and African American.), my mind ping-ponged back and forth between how I would handle this. Is the way I am thinking wrong or do I need to change my outlook to be more open-minded?

I have always been one of the only women in a lot of the things I do - as a gamer, a comic book reader, an athlete, a tech geek - I am used to being in the minority and I am going to have to say that I really don't mind. It is something that, it having always been that way, I have gotten used to and feel comfortable with. I like it, too, for selfish reasons - people don't have a hard time remembering you when you are different - and my being a girl in a sea of guys means that I am pretty easy to spot.

I can see where other people are coming from, though, wanting to involve more women in the community. It brings a nice balance to the field and makes it easier for women to be recognized and respected when people are seeing other women do well. This means more female speakers, professors, and professionals bringing something different to the way things are done in the field - which I am definitely for - but I don't think that my being female makes me any more of a "hot commodity" than a guy or someone who is Indian or 7 feet tall. There are differences yes, but I don't think that they are major enough to turn the world on it's head.

On the other hand, the idea that because I am a woman I should specifically be behind the idea of driving more women to the field doesn't really sit well with me, either. I don't see sex or race or any other dividing factor when trying to get people involved in things like BarCamp or Web414 - I am looking more at what one might be able to bring or take back from the community.

I just want to get the word out - if that changes the demographic, so be it. Will I go about with the idea of doing so? Probably not.

For those of you who have never lost a good deal of data when your roommate decided to vacuum next to your computer tower and it erases your hard drive or your server host suddenly flees the country (both instances actually happened to me; I can't make this stuff up), backing up is something that is tucked into the back of your mind as something that should probably be done eventually, but on the list of things to do it falls pretty low.

Not all of us backup as often as we should. I, for one, have forgotten for months about backing things up - especially my laptop's hard drive, which I use as my main computer and holds all of my freelancing and financial data. If you have never heard Pete evangelize about the importance of securing your digital life I would suggest starting up a conversation with him about it. And as people like Aral can attest to - losing data isn't so fun.

I have data spread over three computers and to the far ends of the internet. Taking the time to pull all of the data from all of these different places can be not only time consuming, but aggravating. I have spent the past couple years perfecting my process.

Where to save my precious data - Two Strategies

• All important data in one place. I know what you're thinking - "all your eggs in one basket (what is up with horrible chicken cliches?)?!". Relax. Take a deep breath. I have one main folder for all of the data on my laptop. Inside I have probably 25 or so folders dividing the data from there: music, pictures, code/projects, financial, school, etc. This makes it easy to quickly back everything up from one place to one place.
• External to begin with. I have specifically recommended this strategy to people just because I know they will never back things up. This saves me a headache because I don't get the call at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night saying that you just fried your hard drive and everything is gone, and to comefixitrightawaykthanksbye. This is simple enough - get a flash/external drive that is about twice the size of the data that you are storing (you never know when you'll have to save some big files) and just save everything directly to it. The flash/external drives are, for the most part, very portable, so taking them with you to work, school, the library, or a friend's house is very easy. Also, it has been years since I have seen a computer without a USB port, so you won't have to worry about not being able to move your data to other computers (dependent on OS, of course, but we won't get into that here.)

Step one: Web to local backup & local backups

• Gmail to Thunderbird. Like many others, I use Gmail as my primary inbox. All of the email from my server (and my client's server logs/messages, for that matter) is dropped into that box and moved around from there. Important data sits archived there and losing it would mean not only a loss for me, but for my clients as well - which could directly result in a loss of business - not good when you're a freelancer. Although I am not the biggest fan of Thunderbird, it is a great way to back up my email; plus, I trust the Mozilla brand, so they get a brownie point there. Configure your Gmail to backup to Thunderbird.
• GReader to Thunderbird. The number of feeds I read fluctuates every couple of months from about 40 to around 90 before I purge my folder of unreadable things again. Half the people I read I don't think I have links for in my del.icio.us, so I wouldn't be able to easily find them again. Aside from being able to backup my emails, Thunderbird can also handle my feeds. Just export the opml file from the settings in Reader and import it into Thunderbird. Easy peas-y!
• GCalendar to Sunbird. I am a calendar nut. I don't do anything without consulting my calendar (which consists of 13 different categorized calendars, of course). I keep all of my bill's due dates, friend's birthdays, meetings, and project deadlines on my calendar - losing that information would have me running around like a chicken with it's head cut off (ohs noes, not the overused chicken cliches!). Sunbird is an app that is also in the Mozilla suite of applications that handles the data with relatively few issues. Sync Sunbird with Google Calendar.
• del.icio.us bookmarks to Firefox. I have hundreds of bookmarks in my del.icio.us account and rarely bookmark locally anymore (thanks to Jordan :} ). Delicious makes it simple to export your bookmarks by going to https://secure.del.icio.us/settings/YOUR USERNAME/bookmarks/export, save them, and then easily import them into Firefox.
• Flickr to Picasa. For the community and the interface, flickr owns all of the other photo sharing sites. I love the desktop Picasa app, but the web version leaves a lot to be desired. I use flickr backup to pull my photos from flickr and then organize them in Picasa. As a bonus, you can drag files from Picasa into the flickr uploadr to go right back to your flickr page. (Unfortunately you don't have the ability to go from Picasa directly to flickr. Damn the Google/Yahoo! rivalry!)
• UPDATE: Backup your Firefox settings. For those of you that have your Firefox optimized - settings, modules, themes, etc - and saving bits and pieces of your life - passwords and bookmarks - losing all of that can be devastating. Mozbackup allows you to save all of that information (and hey, you can put it on the other computers you work for a seamless move between them!). (Thanks to KeVroN for the link!)

Step Two: Local to Remote

• To an external drive. I use SyncBackSE to backup the files from my hard drive to an external drive (accessible to all of the computers on my network). It is nice because it is all automated - I decide the time and the day for it to backup and it does it for me. I can leave my laptop on when I go to bed and it will do it at 3 in the morning when I know nothing will be happening on the network.
• Back to the web. Obviously there are some flaws with this in the doom & gloom sense - what if that goes down, too? The chances of everyone pulling the rug out from you at the same time are pretty slim to none, but keep in mind that it could happen. Amazon runs a service called S3 that allows you to host files at a per GB cost. There are tons of other services like this, but I would recommend doing research before deciding on one, as you don't want just anyone holding all of that precious data.

What do you do with your backups?

Let's face it - not everyone shares the same enthusiasm for keeping the earth clean. Of course it isn't within everyone's means to install solar panels or to buy a hybrid car, but there are things you can do to help the environment without majorly changing your lifestyle. And, as I have found, making a little change in your life can lead to bigger ones down the road.

Small steps to big results

• Change your bulbs to CFLs.This is something that we did at our house. I went online and compared a few different brands - I found that some had gotten bad reviews because they made a high pitched buzzing noise and there were others that, if you turned them on and off successively too quickly, they would burn out. We price matched the bulbs that seemed to be the best at a few major hardware stores in the area for multipacks to get the best deal. We picked up 5 4-packs at Home Depot for about $8 per pack. This might seem steep, but they last much longer and reduce your electricity costs in the long run. Another option would be to just pick them up as your old bulbs burn out - the results won't be as immediately dramatic, but you will see the difference. We actually prefer the light from the CFLs, too, so those that are living in your house that aren't as eco-friendly won't have to sacrifice their comfort.
• Be conservative in your daily routines.
  • Don't leave things on!I cannot tell you how often I walk behind people and turn off lights, radios, computer monitors, and other things not in use. This is something you can easily incorporate into your routine. Put a sticky note above the lightswitch of any light normally left on that says, "Turn me off!"
  • Get some fresh air.Open your windows instead of turning on the air conditioning or fans.
  • Turn down your heat 3 degrees and put on a sweater and socks. I keep throw blankets in our living room and an extra blanket at the foot of the bed just in case anyone gets chilly.
  • Water at night. If you have to water your grass or garden - do so at night! If you took a walk through my neighborhood during the hottest time of the day, you would see that a great number of people have their sprinklers on; why would you water your lawn when the sun is evaporating it all? When you water at night, the plants will have more time to soak up water, so the plants will be happier and so will your water bill. Also remember that less moisture on the ground means less moisture in the air so it will feel cooler.
  • Keep your refrigerator and freezer full. We buy our frozen food in bulk and pack our freezer as tightly as possible. With less surface area and air to cool, it doesn't have to work as hard. Plus you always have the food you are craving for dinner! :D
  • Cook a little extra. Whenever I cook meals that take longer than a half hour to prepare, I make sure that I make extra so I can freeze some for a quick dinner or lunch later. This cuts down on your time in the kitchen later (lights and stove won't have to be on as much), there are fewer dishes to wash (less dish detergent is going down the drain and less water to heat), and it'll keep you from ordering in on those nights that you are feeling particularly lazy (bonus money saver!). Be sure that the container the food goes in is freezer safe, the food is freezable, and that you eat it within a reasonable amount of time.
  • Use timers and/or power strips. Even while not in use, your plugged in electronics are using electricity. By plugging items into a timer and/or power strip, you can prevent that from happening. Plug your lights into a timer to have them come on when it gets dark and turn off around the time you go to bed. Put the items in your entertainment system onto a power strip plugged into a timer and have the timer shut off around the time you go to bed, too.
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Growing up when I did in the US public school system, this was a pretty high profile campaign in our early education. We made candles from paraffin wax and broken crayons in old coffee cans, recycled old magazines and newspaper into art projects, and held on to any scraps of paper in a big bin for possible later use.
  • Reduce. We buy as much as we can in bulk from Sam's Club to reduce the amount of packaging that comes into our house.
  • Reuse. When we go to the store, we either carry the items out sans bags if there are few enough items, bring our own cloth sacks, or ask for paper bags as they biodegrade quicker than plastic and take fewer chemicals to produce. We reuse the bags for all sorts of things - a bag for the dirty kitty litter, wrapping paper for gifts, and a lunch bag every Monday where we bring all of our food for the week to work, so we don't use so many plastic storage and small paper bags.
  • Recycle. I was lucky - living where we did in New York and Massachusetts, we had to recycle. The city provided us with a couple big blue bins for old newspaper, cans, and bottles. Instilling that in me at an early age made continuing to do it when we weren't forced to so much easier. Today we have three paper bags that sit in our kitchen - one for paper and cardboard, one for aluminum and metal cans, and the last for glass and plastic. Our apartment owner's provide cans outside for each of these items, so we don't have to drive to remember to put them out on a certain day or drive out to a recycling center.
• Green Exercising.
  • Get outside! Doing things like riding your bike and walking in your neigborhood versus working out at a gym will reduce your carbon imprint. Just think of all of the energy needed to power all of that exercise equipment, tvs, and bright lights!
  • Find a greener gym. Prefer to workout in the gym? There are some gyms that use your kinetic energy to power the equipment - the most common being the stationary bike; these aren't necessarily the ones that were made so famous in the 70's and 80's - the new versions have digital displays and track the same information that their energy-hogging cousins do.
  • Think outside the box. Here is an interesting idea: Eco-running. For those of you that run outside on a regular basis, this is perfect. Before you leave the house, grab a garbage bag. Any trash you see along your run, throw it in the bag. Easy, right? They suggest taking your normal route or mixing it up a bit to clean up other areas.
  • Don't forget your helmet. Pete told me about Bike to work week which he participates in. Not necessarily possible if you have an hour long commute to work, but for those of you that are closer it would work. Making it a habit to bike to work one day a week would not only be good exercise, it would wake you up, save gas, and reduce emissions!
• Carpool. Find out if you have coworkers that would like to rideshare with you and alternate weeks driving. This will help you get to know the people you are working with (which could be a good or bad thing - but let's focus on the positive here), give you more incentive to leave the house not only on time, but early, and save you money on gas, oil changes, and car repairs. Not to mention the fact that you might be able to sneak a nap in on the way to work - as long as you aren't the one driving!

Have anything else that I should add to this list? Let me know in the comments!