Jamie's Random Musings

I've just made a somewhat brief test of Foresight Linux. I find it to be an interesting contradiction. It should be good, it is in fact mostly good, but it is weak in just enough areas to spoil it for me.

The basic idea of Foresight Linux is very good. It is Debian Linux, with the Gnome desktop, and its major "claim to fame" seems to be the "Conary" software management system, which looks like an improved RPM system. That in itself sounded good enough, and intriguing enough, that I was anxious to try it.

The distribution seemed a bit odd to me - for the standard "Foresight GNOME" edition, you have a choice between a DVD image or two CD images, but if you choose the CDs, then both disks are needed for the install. There is also a difference in the way the install process runs between the CD and DVD images, causing the DVD install to be much faster. There is also a "Foresight GNOME Light" edition, which includes English language only and does NOT include OpenOffice.org, and which then fits on a single CD. I chose the DVD image of the full Foresight GNOME distribution.

Installation was smooth and easy, much like installing most of the other Linux desktop distributions. At the final stage, it offered me a choice between the GRUB bootloader and EXTLINUX, which might confuse some novice users. The good news is, for most ordinary installations, either one will be perfectly adequate, so you can't go too far wrong there.

After installation I was surprised to see that it had gotten the default resolution of my laptop screen wrong - 1024x768, rather than 1200x800. This was running the laptop alone, not on the port replicator or with the external display, and both Ubuntu and Mandriva have been able to get this right without trouble. I'm still working on figuring out why it got it wrong...

The Conary package management system does seem to be quite nice; whether it will be enough of an improvement to justify the average user choosing this distribution is an open question.

I still have more testing to do, not only with the display but with the networking, especially the wireless networking, and some of the other drivers. I'll report again next week.

jw 29/8/2008

I have just tried out another new Adobe Flash-based video IM program, SnapYap. Like other such flash-based programs, there is no separate program or client to download and install on your computer. That means that it should be platform-independent, and indeed I just tested it with a call between my two laptops, one running Vista and the other running Ubuntu, and it all worked very nicely.

Spontaneous calls with others who are not registered SnapYap members are easy; when you register you are given a URL which you can send to anyone else, and when they go to that address it starts a SnapYap call with you - if you are online, that is. If you are not, they are given the option of sending you a video message by email, which is a rather nice touch. The recipient actually gets a URL to the video message, which then plays in a browser as well, so there is no worrying about video formats, media players and such.

To call other SnapYap members, you currently need to know their SnapYap username, which can be a bit tedious if you have very many contacts. There is currently no "friends list" or directory, but I have heard there will be a new SnapYap release within a few weeks, and I suspect that might be one of the things they are adding.

You have the option of either calling or sending a video message to another member, and if you try to call and they are not available, you are again given the option of sending a video message by email.

The audio and video quality in a call seem reasonably good to me - typical of flash-based video chat, at least. Like the other flash-based chat programs (TokBox and the web clients of ooVoo and SightSpeed), the audio/video data does not appear to flow from peer-to-peer, but rather through a server somewhere on the internet - at least, on my tests here, when I connect two systems which are on the same subnet, I can see the data activity not only for those two systems, but also for the internet connection.

During a video call, the incoming and outgoing video are presented in equal sized, side-by-side windows. I did not see any way to reduce the size of the outgoing video preview to make more room for the incoming video. There is a "Full Screen" button, but what it does is not quite what I would consider full screen. it basically expands the SnapYap main window to fill the entire screen (without browser borders), but because the incoming and outgoing video are still displayed side-by-side, the actual video view you get is still quite a bit short of a full-screen view.

There doesn't seem to be any way to make multi-party video calls, at least yet. Trying to call someone who is already in a video call results in the "user unavailable" message, and clicking on the "call" button while already in a call says "starting a new call will disconnect the current call". However, the presence of that button during a call leads me to suspect that they might be adding multi-party calls in some future release.

In summary, SnapYap looks like a nice addition to the Video IM space. It is pretty much what it claims to be - a video communication too which is as straightforward as possible. It will be interesting to see where they go with future releases.

jw 27/8/2008

With American Airlines having started offering Aircell's in-flight internet access, and several other airlines due to introducing soon, articles on using VoIP in flight now abound. Practically every one reads like this: "Making a VoIP call in flight is a BAD, BAD thing, and here's how to do it....", or "I hate it when the person in the seat next to me is yapping on the phone, and here is what I did to get around Aircell's VoIP block, even though I was getting dirty looks from the person next to me the whole time...".

What's going on here? Do we all have to prove how socially aware we are, by saying we are against in-flight phone calls, AND how technically savvy we are by saying that WE know how to get around the rules? Can we not just say that making a phone call when you are packed into an airplane like sardines is rude, inconsiderate, and most importantly AGAINST THE TERMS OF SERVICE that you agreed to when you started using the in-flight internet connection?

jw 27/8/2008

As a result of my QuickCam Software write-up, I've had a couple of exchanges with the Guru from the Logitech User Forum, and one of the Logitech software engineers. I would like to make a couple of things clear...

First, it is important for webcam users to understand that over the years, Logitech has several times released "updated" versions of some cameras which actually have entirely new (different) insides, but look exactly the same and have exactly the same name as the "older" model. As I said, my QuickCam for Notebooks Deluxe was one example of this; my brother's QuickCam Pro 5000 was another. If you look at the Supported QuickCam 11.0 Devices table, you can see a lot of examples of this - just look for multiple lines with the same name and different PIDs (Communicate STX, Orbit MP, Fusion, Pro 5000...). What this means, in almost every case, is that as the cameras age, and they start to be dropped from the supported device list, the "older" model gets dropped first, and the "updated" model continues for a while, which means two seemingly identical cameras in fact have two different "latest driver" versions. Try to use the newer driver with the older camera, and it doesn't recognize it, and thus won't install. Continue to use the old driver with the newer camera, and you are missing out on the latest work done by Logitech engineers - and right now, that is particularly significant, because as I said before, the 11.7 and later drivers have fixes to some rather serious problems with installation, error logging and Video Effects, to name just a few.

Second, I don't mean to criticize Logitech directly for the way the software update procedure is done, or even for the warnings that come up on the software download page. Given the unfortunate situation that I just described, I don't have a better solution. If you have to choose between downloading software which you know will not work for some cameras, or not downloading it and thus leaving some cameras running an older software which could actually be updated, the choice is pretty clear - especially if you are the one who has to provide the technical support when the owners in that first group call and want to know why their camera won't work any more, or the drivers won't install for it.

My recommendation to Logitech would be, don't do that any more! If you are making a new camera, give it a new name, and preferably at least a slightly new look, so people can determine what camera they really have! Even subtle changes can be sufficient - I recall that there was a difference in an earlier model (maybe the original QuickCam Pro?) where one version had a dark-colored focus ring, and one a light-colored focus ring.

My recommendation to Logitech QuickCam owners would be, when you are considering a software update, make sure that you know exactly which camera you have. The Release Notes usually contain a Supported Devices list, referenced by 8-digit part number, (found on the black tag on the camera USB cable) or the USB/PID, found in Windows Device Manager or with the Linux lsusb command.

Lots of interesting news at the end of last week:

- Jan Geirnaert reports in his Skype Watch blog that Skype has abruptly cut off fixed-price SkypeOut offers for Taiwan (originally reported by Digittimes). This reminds me a lot of the London SkypeIn number fiasco; Skype just does whatever they want, with no regard or consideration for their customers. It makes all of their rubbish about "We love our customers so much..." sound so hollow. They seem to be very slow in learning that you can treat your customers like dirt when you are the only game in town, but when there is real, viable competition, you really should stop doing that.

- The Boston Globe reported on the state of videoconferencing technology today, and said that "Sightspeed and ooVoo have the highest quality video and most features", while Skype "is the most cumbersome to install and use".They also had good things to say about ooVoo's audio/video synchronization, and TokBox requiring no software download or installation.

- If you are able to read French, there was a question-and-answer "interview" with Julien Decot, "Principal, Strategy at Skype". Practically the first thing in the "interview" he regurgitates the ridiculous "338 million users world-wide" claim, this time with the added "officially" claim - it would be interesting to know who made it "official"? The rest of the "interview" is a bunch of softball questions, and even those often don't get an answer. For example, "Who are Skype's principal rivals?"... He can't think of one - perhaps he should go back and see who got the Dell Video Chat deal? Or perhaps he could read the Boston Globe evaluation mentioned above? When asked "Why doesn't Skype open their source code", he avoids the question entirely with mumbling about APIs and CRMs. More importantly, when asked if there is a way a business could install Skype without risking that their systems would be chosen for use as Skype 'Supernodes", and thus compromise their network bandwidth, the answer he gives is totally irrelevant nonsense. That, combined with my personal experience a week ago, lead me to conclude that you can't protect yourself from this; if you're going to use Skype, you had better be willing and able to donate a significant amount of your network bandwidth and processing power to the rest of the Skype world. Of course, what is missing from the "interview" are any hard questions about whether there is a back door for monitoring Skype calls, why Skype "Customer Support" is non-existent, why Skype continually takes users money in advance, and then refuses to provide any service, with no explanation, or even why Skype still insists on limiting their "High Quality Video" to only three "anointed" Logitech webcams, when SightSpeed and ooVoo are now doing the same video quality with any webcam which is capable of the necessary resolution and frame rate?

Not a good week, but a typical one for Skype.

jw 25/8/2008

P.S. - A couple of late-breaking updates...

- It looks a lot like rats leaving a sinking ship to me. Not a week goes by that I don't read about someone leaving Skype, or some "former Skype xxxx" being involved in a new company... This weeks example, courtesy of the Skype Cheerleading Squad no less, is the "Creative Leader Leaves Skype".

- It is worth noting that some long-time loyal Skype customers and supporters are getting disgusted with Skype "Customer Service" (or the lack thereof) as well, and see the irony in an "Internet Telephone Company" that doesn't have a support phone number. Here for example.