I’ve been struggling for a tagline for Webconverger.
The previous tagline “Webconverger is a free, up-to-date Web browser kiosk live system”, was a bit of a mouth full. Now, I’ve decided that a “Web operating system” best describes Webconverger. Webconverger isn’t just a “kiosk”...
The reason why I didn’t call Webconverger a Web operating system initially, was because I didn’t want to confuse anyone.
You see I’ve read blogs which talk about Web desktops or rather Web applications that emulate desktops, “operating systems”. I think for such Web applications, I’ll call them Web desktops, to be called an operating system is just abuse.
Calling Web desktops “operating systems” tarnishes the good name of operating systems, when silly Web applications emulate broken dead WIMP win32 environments. I can’t be the only one that hates Windows. I’m not talking about Microsoft Windows. I am talking about overlapping Windows windows. 
So I have a little fight on my hands with Wikipedia and the entry on Web operating systems. Hopefully someone agrees with me that Webconverger is a Web OS.
Sidenote: I’m in the process of releasing the Debian-live etch based Webconverger 2.15 (download) which features a new textless progress bar and reset feature.
Last night I settled down to watch the Motorcycle diaries which I expected was about South America. I have a similar ambition to ride about South America…
I found the movie too long and a bit painful at times. Only at the very end I realise it’s all about Che Guevara played by Ernesto. So I read up about him on Wikipedia. Yes, my suspicions are true, he is a bit of a numpty. I can’t believe his image is so famous.
As you do with Wikipedia, I surfed around and read the Congo crisis and then Mike Hoare who was fighting against “Che”.
His name rung a bell and it turns out Mike Hoare is a resident in my home town, Durban. The next day over breakfast I mention his name to my father and he excitedly tells some stories about this mercenary. My Dad used to drink with him in some hotel in Durban and he was asked to go with him on some trip, since my Dad was born near Aldershot he put two & two together. My father said he eventually refused, even though the money was incredible. When you are that age looking for adventure with amazing money, it must have been really tempting.
Since Durban is a village there are quite a few other stories about him. In the Wikipedia article he sounds… well mad. According to my father he was “upper class”. Very well spoken and great connections with the then South African government. One funny story was about his so-called imprisonment. My father said though he was “in prison”, you could meet up with him in a pub in Pietermaritzburg on a Friday for a drink.
The most rewarding moments online for me is when someone uses my work. In the case of images, to aid this process I’ve licensed my images as liberally as possible with Flickr.
Last week a Wikipedia contributor contacted me about some pictures I took of King Sejong the Great of Joseon’s grave. He encouraged me to visit more museums and take more pictures for Wikipedia articles of Korean history featuring the Three kingdoms era. I did just that last weekend and I must say I’ve never so enthusiastically visited a museum before. Not only did I take a bunch of pictures of various artifacts, I learnt far more than usual and I even took notes. Wow.
Here is a small sample of the images that have been used by Wikipedia:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-Branched_Sword
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_King_Muryeong
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Sejong_tomb_1.jpg
Now I wish this process was a little better.
If the Wikipedia contributor didn’t mail me, how would I know he used my pictures?
I don’t consider Flickr to be my central image store and I have tons of pictures that are public domain in my own image gallery system.
I wonder how I should license/tag/meta my pictures so that search engines (Google) know they’re in the public domain and people can find them.