Editor’s Letter : We’ve come a long way in a short time

Hi geeks

Well, we’ve made it to issue 3, I know there were some of you out there thinking we couldn’t do it. Go on fess up To be honest it’s not been entirely easy, but the team are working so hard to bring you each new issue. This one should be a really good issue, we have a fantastic interview with the OpenCandy CEO, plus a feature on Creating your very own Live CD distro and many more articles covering; undo, geeks and the Internet. We’ve also hopefully got the first GeekDeck podcast coming out in a few days. It’s a musing on many things, covering; Piracy, Marios Moustache, HUDs, Bugs, and much much more.

Review : Cherry Picks of the Month: Foresight Linux

I just cannot believe that it has been a month to the day that I proudly signed off on the Cherry Pick of the Month for the second issue of GeekDeck! A whole lot has happened since then and I literally did not have a chance to get a lot of writing done. As if keeping up and committing translations for the GNOME, Xfce and LXDE projects wasn’t enough, I embarked on a 2-week-long roller coaster of a ride at work that just ended this afternoon! Have I mentioned that I am also running for the GNOME Board of Directors? My last adventures took me to a very familiar road, this time in my own backyard so to speak, as I was elected into the Foresight Linux Council and became their Community Manager.

Interview : OpenCandy CEO Darrius Thompson

OpenCandy (www.opencandy.com) is a startup from San Diego, California that allows software publishers to connect and recommend other pieces of software during the installation of their product. It allows independent software makers to create distribution revenue while maintaining a good relationship with their users or simply to recommend other pieces of free software that they like.

How did you guys come up with the idea for OpenCandy?

We were looking for a problem to solve that we would be passionate about, that would leverage our past successes, and that had a good probability of getting us to self sustainment in a reasonable amount of time.

Culture : Where have all the geekers gone?

I’m a geek. There I said it, happy now? I enjoy fiddling with technology and making computers DO things. Chances are, most of you reading this are geeks too, so some of this article may seem like I’m preaching to the choir, but please bear with me as I have a point to make. When I was 10, I started programming in QBASIC. Whilst at college I studied Maths, Higher Maths, Computing, Electronics and Physics. When I reached university I moved into Acoustical Engineering, studying Fluid Dynamics, Vibration, Acoustics, Computing, DSP and much much more. I am a geek. Probably the point that defines this more than anything else is the fact that I loved studying all those things and that today I miss the shear volume of learning that I was doing during my education.

Programming : Undo Adds Usability to our Frictionless Desktop

Everyone who has used a graphical computer interface has experienced modal popup dialogues. These are the small windows typically with “OK” and “Cancel” buttons which appear in front of the application. These modal dialogues are extremely popular with developers and are available in almost every user interface library.

Feature : Creating your own Linux Live CD from scratch

For the feature this month, GeekDeck’s come over all technical. Well it had to happen sooner or later. It’s not that we’ve shunned the technical articles at all, I think it’s probably that they take a lot longer to prepare and write than the articles about more abstract things. Putting my mindless prattle aside, let’s move on to discussing the real crux of the article.

Gaming : Me gamer, me angry!

I’ve just come home from a bad day at work so prepare yourself! I decided to play a bit of Fable 2 to let off a bit of steam but that didn’t work. It only made me madder. More of that below, but, got me thinking about some of the things that get me mad in terms of games. Here are just a few. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Industry : If it weren’t for ignorance…

Ok, this one has been on the tip of my fingers for a long time. I’ve written about it in a less obvious way on countless occasions, and anyone who knows me well will know my stance on this. It’s something that actually pains me in multiple ways and I often feel like such a hypocrite just because I’m involved with the IT industry. Ok, it’s not something that keeps me awake at night, but it has taken up a significant amount of my thought process over the last few years. Thankfully that last statement was relative and I’m not required to divulge the actual figure of cranial activity over the the aforementioned time period. I’m talking of course about ignorance in the field of IT.

Culture : The not so virtual internet

The Internet, the final frontier, where anything can happen in the safety of a virtual world protected by a barrier of anonymity and falsehood. Nobody gives their real name out on the Internet so it’s completely safe. If you meet someone you don’t like you can just block them. Never meet up with anyone you meet on the Internet. These were the so called unwritten laws of the Internet. All was tickity boo, until the little thing called social networking came along and changed the virtual world forever. The question is, is the Internet really so virtual anymore and is the Internet more real now that we’d like it to be?

Review : Lowepro CompuDaypack

A while ago my backpack broke. When I say broke, I mean literally in several places. I’d used it for a good few years and it’s straps were torn and the insides disgustingly mucky and decrepit. It had gotten to the point that I was actually pretty embarrassed to have it on my persons. Deciding that towing it 3 metres behind me in a trailer wasn’t going to do anything to improve my image, I resolved that I should buy a new backpack, but what to buy?

Sign Off : Do my eyes deceive me? A skeptic’s view of the E3 announcements

Here we are at the conclusion of another issue of GeekDeck. It’s at this point that cbx33 can breathe a sigh of relief as this month I’m going to sign off. This time around it’s my turn to look back over the past month and find something to moan about (anyone that’s seen my other article in this issue, Me gamer, me angry! will see that it’s something I’ve been doing a lot lately!)