After almost a week using Ubuntu, I'm pretty much a happy camper, with the exceptions described in Day 2.

• I still haven't been able to set up my Exchange 2007 account in Evolution, despite several comments here and on Twitter. I managed to receive e-mail using IMAP, but the IMAP setup requires an SMTP server, which my ISP apparently has decided to leave out. I tried Thunderbird as well, but with the same result. I don't know if this is a general problem with the Exchange 2007-platform, and we can always hope the next generation will be better, but for now, while using Webmail works, it is not a great solution.
• The dual screen setup is also still annoying. I got the drivers from NVIDIA installed, and am now using NVIDIA setup. A couple of notes on my setup. I use a Dell laptop, XPS M1330, with two monitors, a Dell W2407 connected via HDMI and an old IBM 17" connected via VGA. I was able to close the lid without all screens going blank, but now, whenever I restart, I have to reset the monitor setup. In other words, Ubuntu does not remember my monitor setup, and spending 5 minutes setting up my monitors every morning is enough to make me grumpy.

Now, everything else seems to be working quite nicely, but these two issues are bugging med to the extent of going back to Windows. And with Windows 7 running like a dream, with Exchange, and remembers my monitor setup, I'm running out of reasons NOT to switch to the Redmond OS.

I have a few invites to Google Wave. Leave a comment with your e-mail address, and I'll put you on the list.

So installation of Ubuntu 9.10 in dual-boot with Windows went fine, but I did encounter some problems on my first workday. For good solutions, feel free to comment.

• We're using Exchange 2007 for email, contacts and calendars, and I think I have tried every combination of servers and domains available in Evolution with no luck. I'm sure there is a solution, but it is certainly not easily found. This could be what makes me drop Ubuntu alltogether if there is no solution.
• Dual screens posed quite a problem, and it's still not solved completely. I use a 24" Dell via HDMI and a 17" IBM via VGA from my laptop, and after some fiddling, I managed to get them to work. However, I can't shut the lid on the laptop without all screens going blank.
  (Update: This seems to be an issue with the upgrade to 9.10: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/416236. I assume it will be fixed pretty soon.)

On a positive note, installing a Dell 3115cn printer via WLAN was completed without a hitch, and OpenOffice seem to to the job so far.

More to come, have a great weekend!

I'll admit it right away: I'm a Windows fanboy, so testing Ubuntu as a work platform less than two weeks after the launch of Windows 7 seems a bit weird. Anyway, I like to have the ability to choose and customize, so last night, I decided to dual boot, with the intention of not having to say the following sentence in the next month: "Nope, I can't do that. I'm using Linux."

I read quite a few stories about 9.10 being buggy, but decided to go for the new version anyway. So here's the story in handy bullet style:

• Downloaded Ubuntu 9.10 in less than 20 minutes from http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download.>
• Installed from Windows 7 RC with Daemon Tools Lite, which was smooth and took about 15 minutes. No complaints so far.
• Rebooted into Ubuntu, and that was it. A less-than-a-minute update from Update Manager, and I was up and running.
• I use Twitter pretty actively and need my Tweetdeck, which requires Adobes Flash, but this did not pose any problems. Tweetdeck is now up and running.
• Downloaded and installed Dropbox for Linux, which now is syncing my almost full 2 GB free account.

It's been years since I last attended a proper concert, and back then, even bringing a cell phone to the arena was not allowed. And a camera? Forget about it! 

This Sunday, I saw MUSE in concert. Great show from a great band, but what struck me was how technology has changed the experience. A few
points:

• The arena, Oslo Spektrum, had an open wireless network, "muse", available for everyone. 
• A few people, granted, not many, tweeted before, during and after the show, and posted pictures to their Facebook profiles, thus instantly  spreading the word. 

This photo was taken at the beginning of the show. How many cameras and iPhones do you see?

Sometimes, I don't have the time or energy to write a post of my own. But when I read, and share, a few stories on a daily basis, I figured I might as well share those posts here as well. So here are my recommended posts for this weekend:

• How to blog
• What Does Your Twitter Avatar Say About You?
• Amazon and Zappos, PR2.0?
• HOW TO: Translate Your Tweets
• Quid Pro No
• Facebook: Who you know; Twitter: What you know
• Three Great Articles on using Twitter for Business
• It Doesn’t Matter if the Client is Ready for Social Media

At some point this week, some 70 of my 1,600 or so followers on Twitter "disappeared." I, along with a lot of other tweeple, wondered what happened, and now Twitter gives us the explanation:

For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.

However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.

Now, I wasn't aware I had that many spam-followers, but I guess Twitter's right. And I'm not missing any obvious contributors either.

Have you lost a lot of followers, and a were they all spammy? And by all means, if you're not a spammer, feel free to follow me...

A couple of weeks back, the story about NBA star LeBron James being dunked on was all over social media. Not because of the dunk itself, but because photographers and videographers had their tapes (or the digital equivalent) confiscated by a Nike representative. The whole story is described in full at The Hoop Doctors.

So did this prevent the dunk from getting out? Of course not. Now, not one, but two videos have surfaced. One is from TMZ, the other from  eBaum Nation.

Is the dunk really an embarassment to LeBron? Personally, I don't think so, but you might be of another opinion. Is the handling of the case an embarassment to Nike? I think it certainly is...

Like it or not, as a child of the 80s, I couldn't avoid Rick Astley and his songs, and the same goes for Nirvana in the early 90s.

Now, German DJ Morgoth has manged to combine Rick Astley's voice on "Never gonna give you up" with the instrumentals of Nirvana’s “Smells like teen spirit.” The beats and the lyrics match up almost perfectly, and the fact that the videos are intertwined as well makes the result absolutely brilliant.

Update: Seems like the video isn't available to everyone (anymore), but here's the tune at least.

For a while, I've been trying to find a way to put my followers on Twitter on a world map. With an open API and a bunch of other mash-ups, you'd think this should be a breeze, but I haven't been able to find a good solution.

Until now. Foller.me launched in June, and digs deep in your Twitter stream to extract some interesting data.

You input a Twitter name into the searchbox and hit enter. Foller.me gets access to the profile of that user via the Twitter API, scans all the public info and the latest 200 tweets and builds up three tag clouds: topics, #hashtags and @mentions, all based on the user’s recent activity. In addition, you get a nice little Google map where your followers, at least some of them, are marked.

I suppose I should mention that this service seems very much in beta, and I did have to try a few times to get it to work.