Investing in cloud computing

Today I read a article from the Motley Fool on cloud computing and how it will affect investors. Although it sounds like a great idea to invest in Google which has Google Docs, Knol, the most used search engine in the world (Google Search), App Engine, Google Project Hosting, and many other services Google's stock price was a whopping $470.30 per share on Friday so... some people would be afraid to buy something that high. Although Google has fallen a lot in the past year it might even fall more. In the Motley Fool article it says it's not to late to buy Google. I think that most people use the desktop solution with most of their computing and they seem to not be very interested in "Cloud Computing". I certainly am not. I even edit this web blog using the KDE application: Bloggilo. I have tried to use Google Docs or Acrobat.com but I still use OO.org and Nano. The thing that certainly should take off is Thin Client Computing. Although Microsoft has been trying to do this Novell seems to do this better. So... Novell's stock will probably go up a lot when people start computing with thin clients rather than with fat clients. Some people will also want a server that is not at home probably because of electricity bills or extra work thus, VPS and Dedicated Server hosting will rise in share price. One company that seems to do VPS and Dedicated Server Hosting very well is rackspace (Symbol: RAX) hosting. Red hat may also go up but I like my desktop apps and am not giving loosing them. X11 solutions seem to work best for thin client computing causing enterprise linux stock prices to rise. Also if cloud computing beats thin clients then the stocks Novell and Rackspace would still go up because lots and lots of servers are using GNU/Linux or BSD (Yahoo uses BSD) also Rackspace sells linux VPS hosting through Slicehost causing Rackspace to rise.

Pingus Levels - Tests Part 1

Basically these are the results for my test to aliens:

1. Too hard

2. The same thing as number 1 (at least that is what I think) & too hard

3,4,5,6, and 7. Does not work at all - returns error:
Pingus: Standard exception caught!:
Parser problem: Couldn't open file 'aliens[number]-phil.pingu'.

Others:

alle.pingus - Same error as above
avaritia-cbrucher.pingus - Works but... I could not finish the game because I think that the amount that you need to save is to high (I saved ~40 but never finished the game)
blockers-timpany-tutorial.pingus - PERFECT!
blockers-timpany.pingus - Good (I have problems finishing it but that is probably because I only spent 5 min. on it)
blue1-marcotte.pingus - Works but I could not finish it because it was too hard
blue2-marcotte.pingus - Works but I could not finish it because it was too hard
blue3-marcotte.pingus - SAME THING!!!!!!!!! Works but I could not finish it because it was too hard
bomber-tutorial-grumbel.pingus - PERFECT!
bombing.pingus - Blah, the game works but is impossible to finish

Tested on Archlinux KDE with Pingus ver. 0.7.3-1
Also I will ONLY test the files in /usr/share/pingus/playable

Pingus

Pingus is a clone of Lemmings™, although there aren't many levels to play it's a great game. The main developer's description of the game:

Pingus has started at the end of 1998 with the simple goal to create a Free (as in freedom, not as in free beer) Lemmings™ clone. The Free means you get the sources and are allowed and encouraged to change and distribute them. You basically get everything that I used to create this game. In the years it has grown than quite a bit over the original goal and become something more than just a clone, we have original artwork, a built-in level editor, new actions, multiplayer and a few other features.

If you don't know Lemmings™, here comes a short introduction. It is a puzzle game developed in 1991 by DMA Design. The player takes command in the game of a bunch of small animals and has to guide them through levels. Since the animals walk on their own, the player can only influence them by giving them commands, like build a bridge, dig a hole or redirect all animals in the other direction. The goal of each level is to reach the exit, for this multiple combination of commands are necessary. The game is presented in a 2D site view. For more information you might want to visit one of the numerous visit Lemmings™ fanpages on the net.

While Pingus is based on the idea of Lemmings™, it however doesn't try to be an exact clone, it has included a few ideas of its own, like the worldmap or secret levels, which might be familiar from games the Super Mario World and other Nintendo games. It has also a few new actions, like the jumper which weren't presented in the original game. To get an impression of the look of the Pingus game you might want to have a look at some screenshots.

Also there's many other levels that may or may not be playable at the moment (I am testing them). To use those use this command:

pingus /usr/share/pingus/data/levels/(wip, playable)/THELEVEL.pingus

The game is in the main software repositorys of archlinux and ubuntu (I have not looked for others {I don't really like ubuntu}). For more information go to http://pingus.seul.org/

The K Desktop Environment

The KDE desktop environment is for people who like rich interfaces, also it gives you a better experience with qt applications such as the KDE project's applications. In fact I am using a KDE application to write this: Blogilo (Homepage: http://blogilo.gnufolks.org/ or use the KDE project's page: http://www.kde.org/applications/internet/blogilo/). KDE lets you have a more fluid experience on your desktop. If you come to Linux from a mac I recommend KDE. A con of KDE is that GTK applications don't look so good in KDE. Also KDE is a little slower than other Desktop Environments because of extra features as shown below:

From the screenshot you can see that kde has many features that you may or may not want. In my opinion KDE is the best desktop environment. The K desktop environment: http://www.kde.org/