The most interesting thing that admirers of Cory have been toasting the late President for – especially those who were in the streets fighting against the dictatorship even before the EDSA Revolution unfolded – is for playing a big role in helping to bring self-respect back to the Filipinos. This sentiment is best expressed in the the Apo Hiking Society/Jim Paredes-penned Anthem, “Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo”, which came together shortly after February 1986, when the people were still in a state of euphoria. In one of the interviews given as Cory’s remains lay in La Salle Greenhills, Jim Paredes, in a panel with a couple of the artists that also featured prominently in Handog, reflected on the writing process that eventually resulted in the anthem. Whereas the writing process is often thoughtful, according to Paredes himself Handog came together rather carelessly, with no thought to how the song may be heard by whatever faction was out there, and no filters to restrict the content. He seemed to say that the words were written by him but were not his – it was a song of the times and of the people.
Kay sarap pala maging Pilipino?
It rang true then. After twenty years of Marcos’ Dictatorship, more than a decade of which was under Martial Law (formally or otherwise) a people emerged – angry and defiant – and fought to gain its dignity back. I can only imagine how it must have been, to be at EDSA and to hear the news that Marcos had fled. To know that a Strongman, albeit a sick and dying one, wielding the full arsenal of the captured weapons of the State, was pushed out of power not by Guns, Goons, nor Gold, but by an emboldened mass voting with their feet, their voices, and their courage to emphatically and definitively express a loss of confidence in what had degenerated into a mostly self-serving rule.
That I was not able to share in that pride, in that sense of achievement, in that singular moment of unity and camaraderie is something that will continue to dig up feelings of envy and longing. Since then, we have only had fleeting moments that resemble what went on in February 1986 and in the months that followed: things that somewhat approximate but never equal the meaning and power of EDSA.
Yes, I – with my generation - had my own EDSA. As a college student I participated in what came to be known as EDSA Dos. It was memorable in its own right, but the decade that has followed it –a farcical decade spent watching a cast of characters from the old school gleefully playing musical chairs: Trapo-to-Jerusalem, ver. x.0 – has taken a lot of its luster away. Almost ten years after EDSA Dos and, politically at the very least, things are worse than they had been at the turn of the millennium. Politicos are still the same brand of politicos, but with no meaningful reforms on the processes that churn out political leaders could this have been any other way?
Another side of governance, the bureaucracy, has stagnated and is in a state of atrophy; public service is inefficient and misguided, public servants are unmotivated, or rather are hardly motivated to work on behalf of the public good. Respect for Public Institutions is at an ebb, their credibility crumbling Рand, sadly, in a lot of cases deservedly so; meritocracy is pass̩, patronage politics is the norm and has unashamedly been rearing its head in public. Justice, held at knifepoint by her own caretakers, has been forced to take off her blinds and shift her scale to favor those who have, often at the expense of those have not - to prostitute herself to those who could buy her.
Saddest of all, the people – just two decades ago proud and optimistic, united by history, in control of their destiny – are now divided and cynical, and worse seemingly indifferent and helpless in the familiar face of corruption.
I am aware that these ills can be traced beyond EDSA Dos – before Gloria Labandera, before Erap Para sa Mahirap, before Tabako’s Philippines 2000 – and back into the events that happened shortly after the EDSA Revolution. That is true. In some aspects, President Aquino’s Administration failed to institute the massive changes that a popular uprising of that scale and historical importance – unprecedented in its peacefulness – deserved. But as Jim Paredes opined in an interview during the commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the EDSA Revolution, EDSA did not fail us, we failed EDSA.
A while back it became en vogue to speak dismissively of popular uprisings that sought to replicate the EDSA Revolution. Even the President herself – her own seat in power granted to her through one such an uprising – expressed an opinion, in the face of one of the public scandals that threatened her presidency, that movements like the EDSA Revolution and EDSA Dos, were relics of the past: that the people were tired of them. Wisdom of innocence and the naiveté of age was a phrase used by Conrado de Quiros in his eulogy of Cory, and I think that is a fitting description of this era’s mentality.
Kay sarap pala maging Pilipino?
For our sake I hope we rediscover that magical time in 1986 when we swelled with pride at being Filipinos. I am a child of EDSA, to have been conscious only after EDSA had already unfolded is my generation’s gift; it is, as is usually the case in such things, also my generation’s (and the subsequent generations’) curse – with every year that passes, the importance of the EDSA Revolution is further relegated into obscurity. The death of its most prominent icon, sad an event as it is, will have hopefully helped to reintroduce the story of EDSA to our youth.
I mourn the passing of a great woman – a rarity for having, by most if not all accounts, integrity, honesty, and humility in spite of wielding the power and influence that bestowed unto her. The fact that she was the first President since Marcos to gracefully step aside (and sadly the last since) is admirable in itself, and is something our current crop of leaders should take their cues from.
Salamat Cory!
Before anything, allow let me clarify a few things.
Now I’ll ask you to put those three in the back of your mind as I make this statement: It’s a shame that not more Filipinos are using Linux.
Linux has been a viable option for everyday users for a while now. The old stereotype of Linux only being for geeks (and I use that term with the upmost fondness and respect) with a fetish for punching away on the command line has long been outgrown by the modern distributions. (Caitlyn Martin has a very interesting article in which she reacts to a post about Linux having already outgrown its old stereotypes. In the same post she posits why Linux, despite being ready for primetime, still has been unable to capture the imagination of the public – it’s quite an good read.) Today’s distributions are sleek, functional, and easy to use once installed. The getting-there-part (i.e. the installation) is not the headache that it had been, with constant improvements in hardware detection and compatibility coming in with every new Distro edition. And even if one does encounter a problem, the Internet has made it very easy to get in touch with people and communities that are very willing to do the troubleshooting for you.
Why even consider using a Linux Distro in the first place? The most compelling reason is its price: it’s FREE. Sure there are variants, especially ones that have been tweaked and geared towards Enterprise users, that are sold; but most of the Distros are available for free. And not only is the operating system available for free, so is the software ecosystem that comes with it: fully featured office suite (check!), web browser (check!), email and personal information manager (check!), instant messaging client (check!), multimedia player (check!), photo editor (check!). And excellent software not bundled with the stock install are often readily available as the modern Distros usually provide a GUI (i.e. point-and-click) way of searching for software from a community maintained repository. (More on this later.)
So how DID I end up deciding to install Linux?
I had decided to improve my backup system by investing on a high capacity external hard disk drive. Most of my files were backed up in a single Western Digital Passport, and I realized that if for some reason that portable hard disk were misplaced or stolen (since I’m always up and about AND hopelessly absent-minded, this is an uncomfortably plausible scenario), I would end up losing a lot of important personal data, work-related or otherwise. My backup philosophy has been geared on the idea redundancy where multiple instances of files are cloned on different media (this way, there is no single point of failure – if one device for one reason or another loses my data, there would still be a backup copy on another medium); it just got to the point where the total capacity available to me was no longer sufficient to fully implement redundancy.
So I went ahead and bought a Western Digital MyBook, and for a while I was content with my new setup. Eventually though I found that moving files around, among three primary hard disk drives (not to mention several USBs) was a bit tedious and decided that I needed an extra hand. It dawned to me that setting up a home server made sense – I already had an Internet-connected home network up and running anyway, why not setup a server to better maximize the network’s capabilities? Aside from being the command center for my file backups, I intended my would-be Home Server to facilitate media sharing/streaming across the different computers and devices in the network, and to serve as a cross platform (but in particular a Windows-friendly) file server.
I went online to canvass for a low-powered computer setup and ended up settling on an Intel Atom Dual Core powered rig. Since the server will be running most of the time, I decided that it would be best to economize on electricity costs, thus the Intel Atom: at maximum loads, a level of stress rarely reached, my particular setup consumes around 40+Watts; being on for 24 hours straight should cost around Php 9.00, as computed through the Meralco Appliance Calculator. Since I didn’t have any means of benchmarking power consumption myself, I had to settle for a good enough proxy: I found a setup profiled at Silent PC that has specs very similar to my Home Server’s – the differences are that my server’s RAM has been maxed out to 2GB and it has a true-rated power supply. I could have alternatively opted for a single core setup, but I decided that since I also intended to use the Home Server as a Desktop Computer on the side, a Dual Core Atom would be able provide a much smoother experience. (For more on computers’ power consumption, Michael Bluejay has a somewhat old but nonetheless informative page about computers and their power consumption.)
The hardware amounted to Php 11,000.00 (roughly around USD 230): this was for the motherboard and processor, a 160GB hard disk drive, a DVD/RW, a multi-card reader/writer, and a Gigabyte Case w/ a true-rated power supply. (Thanks TipidPC!)
With the computer physically in place, the only thing left was to install an Operating System on it, and at the end of the day Linux was my only practical option. Sure, even at the time there were alternatives, and at one point I seriously considered installing Windows Home Server 2008. There were several major hitches, however: (1) a licensed copy is hard to come by in the Philippines; (2) even if I were to have a copy sent from the US, it would set me back at least USD 100 (roughly Php 4,800.00),just for the license; (3) Windows Home Server 2008 only plays well with devices running Windows.
Since it would be my first time to setup a Linux Home Server, I decided to go with a popular Distribution that had a large community of users. I thus settled on Ubuntu, which was (and still is) one of the most popular and widely used Distros. I downloaded an ISO of its latest Desktop Edition (Ubuntu 9.04, a.k.a. Jaunty Jackalope), burned it to a blank disc, and used the Live CD to install Ubuntu.
Installation was a breeze and, at least for my particular configuration, was easier and less time consuming than a similar Windows install. (I’ve verified this in subsequent attempts to install Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Home Server 2008 trial, and Microsoft Windows 7 in a different partition on the same computer.) The hardware detection worked wonderfully as only the microphone settings needed post-install tinkering everything else worked on the first boot; in contrast, the different Microsoft Windows installations necessitated the installation of a host of drivers, even for the chipset and the LAN, not to mention several system reboots. I realize that results may vary, but clearly setting up Linux is not as hard as it used to be.
Once setup, Jaunty Jackalope’s desktop experience is wonderful. As is the case for most modern Linux Distros, Ubuntu comes with a software package that has everything an average user would want from his/her computer: OpenOffice.org for office work, Mozilla Firefox for web browsing, Evolution for email and personal information management, Pidgin for instant messaging, Rhythmbox for music playback, and Totem for video playback, among others.
Jaunty also comes with Compiz Fusion, a composite windows manager that adds visual and functional pizzaz to the linux desktop. I could try to describe what a Compiz-enabled desktop looks like, but it would be easier if I showed you instead. (The subsequent videos were shot on a mobile phone camera, so I apologize for the quality.)
What’s great about this setup is that even with Compiz Fusion fully enabled, Ubuntu eats up a little less resources than would a basic Windows XP install, and significantly less overhead than would a Vista install. (To give you an idea, my Vista Business workstation consumes 700MB just after start up; on the same computer, an Ubuntu 9.04 partition only consumes slightly more than 300MB on startup.)
Another thing casual users may appreciate is the impotence of all the pesky Windows viruses on a Linux install. The security situation of Linux is such that it is unecessary to install Anti-virus software, as there are hardly any Linux Virus to protect against.
Ubuntu/Linux is ready for the people; for the most part, people just seen uninterested in trying it. It’s a Windows world after all, even in poorer countries like the Philippines. Even businesses and home users who cannot afford to use Windows, or are not willing to pay the full amount for a legal license, nonetheless end up with Windows on their desktops. (This applies to a lesser extent for notebook owners, as often brand new units come with Windows preinstalled.) There are valid reasons for wanting Windows of course – it is a great, feature-packed operating system with a large library of compatible software – but the ethical issues involved in continuing to promote a bootleg culture cannot be dismissed.
I will not dwell too much on this as I do not want to oversimplify what is an undeniably complex issue: Intellectual Property rights is a massive, amorphous cloud – the moral issues are still pretty much up in the air. That being said the legalities are less so, and for the most part the population of computer users are aware of what’s allowed and what isn’t. What kind of message are we sending, especially to the youth, when we purposely propagate a culture if intellectual dishonesty? (However we may try to skirt around this, we cannot avoid or deny this consequence.)
The best thing would be if more people gave Linux a chance – whether it be home users or businesses. It’s not yet for everyone, mainstream software library is miniscule compared to Windows – for instance serious Gamers will lament the dearth of titles available for Linux – but isn’t this is a chicken-and-egg thing? Software developers will continue to go where the money is, and until enough users migrate to Linux there would just be no competing with Windows.
Non-gamers though – those whose needs are much more general – should definitely give Linux a chance. It is not a lesser OS than Windows, it’s just different.
I have definitely no regrets about putting Ubuntu on my Home Server – with a few tinkering I’ve managed to set it up to do exactly what I intended it to do (and then some). The Desktop experience has been excellent, and there are very few things, if any, that an average user can get from Windows that he/she wouldn’t get from Ubuntu.
Free does not always mean low quality.
If you are like me, a typical day at the office is not usually spent on just one kind of task alone. At any given time, it is likely for me to find that I have to jump from one project to another, within my computing environment or otherwise. Depending on the kinds of tasks that need to be done, and as a consequence of the limited screen real estate available, it is very easy for the the whole workday to be bogged down by seemingly endless clicks and key presses to minimize, maximize, activate windows, and so on.
This problem is especially apparent on computers that use screens with relatively small dimensions, or that have displays with a relatively low resolution. Among the population of computer users, those who own netbooks are probably the most keenly aware of this limitation; I have also had to regularly contend with this – especially when I’m out on the road, away from my dual-monitor setup – as my own TC4400 has a screen that measures only 12.1 inches diagonally, and has a small-ish maximum resolution of 1024 X 768. Portability is of course a splendid thing, but there are always trade-offs and the ease of multi-tasking is one of the most significant ones that come with ultraportable systems.
Fortunately, there are software solutions available, many of which are free-to-use. One set of solutions falls under the umbrella of implementing a virtual desktop environment, which enables the computing environment to make use of more than one desktop at a time. It is like having more than one physical desk at your disposal in your work area: for one thing, you are able to lay out more documents at a time – without the kind of clutter that would have otherwise been present – because of the increased available physical space; in addition, there is the organizational advantage of being able to segregate the documents laid out in each desk by subject matter – one desk, for instance, could be reserved for documents relevant to Project A, while the other could be set aside for matters related to Project B. It is thus much less time consuming to shift your attention from one set of documents to another as less time would have to be spent searching for and pulling files from the records or archives. Just as important, having more than one desktop makes it much easier to move information from one set of documents to another as both sets of documents are simultaneously open and available, and the workspace as a whole is uncluttered (or at the very least less cluttered).
From the alternatives available, my favorite free-to-use virtual desktop software is Dexpot. It’s name is fitting as it allows you to lord over your desktop like a despot. I like it for its robust virtual desktops (I have yet to have my OS lock up or hang while using Dexpot), degree of customization (the settings window is so saturated with options and possible tweaks that it may take the typical user a while to setup Dexpot initially), and additional windows management features.
Dexpot allows you to make use of up to twenty virtual desktops, but for practical reasons I usually only make use of two. I like to think of the two desktops as being closely connected, as if two physical desks have been connected end-to-end, and so I try to make the experience of switching from one to the other as intuitive as possible. My preferred method involves making use of mouse edges, where hot edges (any combination of top, bottom, left, and right) are defined that, when touched by the pointer, activate desktop switching. Crossing over to the next workspace is as easy as going to and across the hot edges of the screen, onto the adjacent virtual desktop. Aside from mouse edges, Dexpot has several other ways of letting users switch from one desktop to another, including but not limited to the use of keyboard shortcuts, interacting with the tray icon, and clicking on the Desktop Manager GUI.
Aside from Virtual Desktops, the other stand out feature of Dexpot is its Expose-like windows management utility, called Windows Catalogue. Like desktop-switching, Windows Catalogue may be activated through several ways, for instance by pressing user-defined keyboard shortcuts. What’s nice about Windows Catalogue – if you’ve never used Expose on a Mac, nor any of the Expose clones elsewhere – is that it gives you a fairly detailed visual preview of all of the open windows within a desktop (or across all of the virtual desktops, if you want). This is a nice way of switching to a particular instance of an application that has several windows open.
Lastly, I really like the fact that Dexpot can be used as a portable application. It does not require to be installed into and registered with a computer’s operating system for it to function. You could, for example, copy its working directory onto a USB flash drive and take Dexpot with you where ever you go.
Tools that enhance one’s productivity may well be worth spending some money on, but those that are available for free most certainly demand at least one’s consideration. Short of investing on a larger screen, or on more external displays for a multi-monitor setup, having a virtual desktop system in place provides one of the best solutions to improving one’s efficiency at multi-tasking in a cramped computing environment. And when it comes to Virtual Desktop software, Dexpot is simply one of the most compelling freeware available on the Windows platform.
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