The last few days I've been thinking about my current involvement in the Technology news industry, and I've come to a few conclusions:

1. I'm not a journalist. I know, shocker, huh? The fact is that I've never had any formal training in journalism. The closest I've come was the series of cultural anthropology classes I had taken in college, but it's not the same. I'm not even entirely sure if professional journalism training is required in today's blogosphere-centric world.  Nevertheless I bring my own preconceptions and preferences to the table whenever I write an article or open my mouth in the OSNews podcast. This is a given.
   
   
2. When and how we record the podcast has an effect. As myself and others have stated several times before, we don't have a script when recording the podcast. If I'm particularly lucky, I'll have some lead time as to what we'll be discussing and I will be fortunate enough to have the time and wherewithal to research the topic. Most of the time, however, it's just what recently happens. With a vacuum of knowledge, point 1 comes into play again. I seem to do my best when the topic is purely technical -- which reflects my interests and education.
   
   
3. Comments, read them? Don't? I really don't know what to do with comments. While the conversations on OSnews are certainly above par, the law of averages is still in effect. Many comments are either malicious or in the least, not helpful. Often I find myself stuck on what one or two people had said from behind a username for days or weeks at a time. I had at one point considered quitting the podcast altogether for that reason. A lot of the fallout from that made me realize just how much point 1 and 2 govern my opinions on the podcast. 
   
   
4. Surprise! Being a woman in technology is difficult. While in my professional life I've only run into this problem a handful of times, the podcast does tend to make this all the more apparent. Strong opinions aren't expected from a woman even in 2010. Once given, a woman may be characterized as a "know it all" or in the least "annoying". If you reserve or delicately present your opinions or thoughts, you may be inundated with "help". A good example of this was when I posted about finding the perfect KDE Linux Distro -- in which I was deluged with suggestions several of which I had already dealt with in the post itself.  Many simply assumed I didn't know any better -- despite the fact that I had already tried CentOS, SuSE, Gentoo, Kubuntu, Mandriva, and a dozen others. 

Today was difficult due to a bad bout of insomnia last night. For whatever reason, I just couldn't seem to sleep no matter how much I lay there in bed. My mind raced in spite of grogginess, revolving predominately around my soon-to-be-arriving toy.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm excited about my new phone. Over the last three years having a proper smartphone has become essential to me. I use it as my music, device, my podcast system, often my IM client, and almost my GPS device. It's the modern Tricorder.

It's also an escape. Working for a tech company, I spend a huge amount of time in front of a monitor. For many years I couldn't imagine that coming home to spend more time in front of another monitor would have been a problem. "The trick," I told people, "was not to see the monitor, but to see through the monitor." The last year, however, that trick has become less and less effective. 

For whatever reason, that's less a problem with a smartphone. I can still maintain a social online presence without feeling the constant need to be productive. It's easier for me to lay on a bed, belly down, reading a book with a blackberry or an android device nearby without becoming tangled up in the notion that every, single, moment, must, be, productive.

The first social network I joined was LiveJournal back in 2001. At the time, I thought of it purely as an online journaling system. I didn't understand how the friending mechanism worked, nor the deceptive name applied to the feature (something that has thankfully been replaced with "following" on other sites). I often wrote entries there expecting no one to ever read them. It often felt like writing letters to no one in particular, then casting them upon the will of the four winds to whomever would find them.

The anonymity emboldened me. I wrote about things that were actually on my mind, instead of bottling them up as I had been raised. Frustration, fear, worry, depression, quixotism, fascination, and humor. Many say that the internet is where people put on masks; to me, it was the first place I was able to take mine off.

Things changed of course. LiveJournal became all the rage, creating a sprawling online community of people. I continued to write, but often with growing apprehension. I slowly began closing the loop and locking things down. No longer was it a wide open vista, but a room. The door was often open and the windows could be easily seen through, but there was a clearer separation between the Internet at large, and my little section.

Events occurred that forced me to close those openings completely. The windows were shuttered, the door was closed and locked. Little did I realize that the supply of fresh air was now also depleting. I ventured out rarely, and often only to lock things down all the more. Bars were installed. Boards nailed to the wall, cartoon-fashion.

Social networking often works the best for outgoing and open individuals that feel they have little to hide, or no one worth hiding from. My pessimism can't help but see that attitude as naive.

Today, the social networking scene has exploded across the entire world. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Identi.ca, and the new contender, Google Buzz. It's hard not to feel overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of information one is required to read every day in order to say current. And lately, I often feel much like this:

Please note that many of the apps below are available through Blackberry App World. Please download that first as it will also check for software updates!

Essentials

• Blackberry App World
  Application store/Update manager
  http://www.blackberry.com/appworld
  
  
• Opera Mini Beta 5
  Web Browser
  http://www.opera.com/mini/next/
  
  
• Viigo
  News/RSS/Social Networking/Flight Tools/Weather
  http://www.getviigo.com
  
  
• Google Maps
  Maps, directions, GPS
  http://m.google.com/maps
  
  
• Pandora
  Online Radio
  http://www.pandora.com/blackberry

Instant Messaging

• Beejive IM
  Most solid, paid IM app for the BB. $9.99.
  http://www.beejive.com/blackberry/
  
  
• Nimbuzz
  Free, offers Skype Chat support.
  http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/4288

Music Stores

• 7 Digital
  DRM free, downloads right on your BB over Wifi.
  http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/3310

Podcasting

• Podtrapper
  30 day trial, $9.99 paid
  http://ota.versatilemonkey.com/

Social Networking

• Facebook
  http://www.blackberry.com/facebook
  
  
• Ubertwitter
  Twitter client, free
  http://www.ubertwitter.com/

Web Browsers

• Bolt Browser -- http://boltbrowser.com/home.html

I've been investigating switching my desktop distribution from Kubuntu to something more...seriously maintained. I love debian, and consider it one of the best distros out there, but Ubuntu's KDE variant is downright pathetic.

When I first started using Kubuntu, it was back in version 7.10 on Rei. After more than a year enduring Gentoo's progressively more disruptive effect on day to day use, I gave up and switched. At first, I was thrilled. The system worked with little problem, wireless configuration was dead-simple. I felt I finally found the desktop OS for me.

Then KDE 4 happened.

First of all, let me clear the air. KDE 4 does have problems, it also has a lot of potential. Plasma is a much more modern and versatile base on which to build the future of the platform. Changing that fundemental base, however, is not without it's problems. The 4.0 release wasn't even feature complete. I personally did not switch from 3.5 until 4.3 came out; call me shallow, but I couldn't live until the panel could auto-hide. As a programmer, and a IT professional, I knew that what KDE was attempting was ambitious. It wouldn't happen overnight and certainly not without user feedback. They couldn't sit on the code until it was "perfect", they needed to turn it out to users just so they could debug the thing properly. 

In short, KDE 4.0 = Plasma 1.0. Can anyone say "Early adopters beware?"

So how does this bare on my current dilemma? Distros have been slow on the uptake for KDE 4.0 for good reason (see above). Many remained on 3.5 offering the option to use Plasma as the standard desktop. Today, OpenSUSE is a shining example of what a proper KDE 4.x distro can look like. 

So why am I not using OpenSUSE? My reasons aren't terribly logical. One of my first Linux desktops ran Mandrake (now Mandriva), and package management was a damn nightmare. I didn't want to scour the internet like a Windows user looking for wayward pieces of software. It's not even a sensible strategy for a Linux system as the available applications are fewer, and installation is more complex due to library dependencies. When I was introduced to Debian, I was in package management heaven. Just login as root, type apt-get and it downloads and updates everything you need.  I've tried RPM based distros several times since 2000, but the situation hasn't improved as much as I had hoped. To date, Red Hat, SuSE, Mandriva just feel wrong to me.

If not OpenSuSE or Kubuntu, then what? I wanted to stick within the Debian ecosphere if at all possible, but I quickly found that impossible. There just doesn't seem to be a solid KDE 4.x, Debian-based distribution. Maybe a year from now Project Timelord will bear fruit and I can come back to my beloved Debian. For now, it looks like I have to go elsewhere.

But where? After some research online and a few helpful suggestions online, I've been pointed to Arch. The way they frame their Raison d'être is certainly enticing. Their installation method isn't as intimidating as Gentoo was in 2005, but it certainly isn't for the faint of heart. If the forum chatter is to believed, however, it's KDE credentials are best-of-breed.

Not having the time this weekend to do a full install, I decided to cheat a little and give The Chakra Project a spin. Chakra is an Arch-based LiveCD focusing on easy of use and considerable polish. Booting into it on my Dell Studio XPS 13, I felt I had come home. The system feels responsive, stable, and a far sight better than Kubuntu ever hoped to attain. 

Not everything is perfect, however. Even when booting with the non-free drivers enabled, my Wifi and sound failed to initialize. This unfortunately, stopped me from going any further than a LiveCD excursion today. Given my only other option is Windows Vista on my present system, I did not want to trash my current Linux installation no matter how flaky it is. Later when I have the wherewithal, I'll bother to slice off 20gb of space on my partition table and triple-boot the system. 

Until then, I won't know for sure if there even is the perfect KDE 4.x distro.