Where does most learning happen in any corporation? In the classroom? While my job dictates that I might want to answer "yes" to the second question, my intelligence dictates otherwise! For this reason my company now has internal podcasts, RSS Feeds, wikis, blogs, social tagging engines, and more.  The end goal is to encourage knowledge collaboration and sharing. However, knowing that everyone respects IBM, you need to listen to this short podcast interview from Radio Tuck (Dartmouth).  Here is the description:

"Chris Perrien and Ted Hoff (VP of Learning) share IBM’s definition of Web 2.0 and discuss the biggest hurdles, and the opportunities, to Web 2.0 adoption and implementation in the enterprise."

Did you know that Wikipedia has a lead article every day … as well as links to breaking news? Consider making it your home page! It’s amazing what you might learn.  Oh, yes … today’s lead … Truthiness!

I mentioned in this blog that I thought it was time to discover whether Linux was ready for prime time.  Thus, this reasonably computer literate nerd decided to install Ubuntu Linux on an old laptop. Here is my saga:

Wednesday, October 10th

• Yippee … my free Ubuntu Linux CD Rom has arrived
• Reboot computer off Ubuntu CD
• Answer five easy questions during install (keyboard, time zone, etc)
• Software starts to copy / configure … take Spot the wonderdog for a walk
• Return home … Ubuntu is installed!
• Hook up ethernet cable … Wow! (I’m on the network)
• Play around with system … make first attempt to install wireless card
• No success with wireless card … must be tired … go to bed

Thursday, October 11th

• Come home from work … start work on configuring wireless card
• Google Query: Linux, Ubuntu, Wireless, Network, Install
• Hmmm … lots of people have lots of problems with wireless cards
• Learn all about ndiswrapper
• Try to use lazy man’s way out (i.e. free trial download from Linuxant)
• Get frustrated … give up on old DLinkSys card
• Purchase new "compatible" Netgear wireless card via Amazon

Leave town … run WhistleStop Marathon in Ashland, Wisconsin

Monday, October, 16th

• New Netgear WG511 wireless card arrives
• Repeat wireless installation attempts with ndiswrapper and other tools
• Hardware profile at least knows that I have a PCMIA card installed
• Much frustration … perhaps card is not so compatible
• Google reveals many other people have similar problems
• Give up … my time is not worth this aggravation.
• I will reinstall Windows XP (ouch!)

Thus, in my assessment, Linux is not ready for the faint of heart.  I chose Ubuntu because it was supposed to install a nice clean desktop interface right out of the box.  In fact, if I only had wanted to use my computer hard wired to the network, Ubuntu worked perfectly and was a very easy install. Wireless (and I never got to the WEP problems many people experienced) is a totally different matter.
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Update later in the day:
Thanks to all the Linux folks who have contacted me. I’ll try a few of the suggestions.
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Update on October 17th (next day):
In the comments area for this post, an issue was raised over how the media often serves up misinformation with respect to LINUX. Interestingly enough, the Wall Street Journal has a very large article in today’s paper written by Lee Gomes titled: How Far Behind is Linux. As the WSJ will not leave the article in the clear for more than a few days, here are pdf copies

• Full Article
• Conversation Between Lee Gomes and Linus Torvalds

Albeit two unrelated topics, but also two new podcasts from Design News. I’ve added both podcasts to my engineering podcast search engine, and my engineering learning wiki (blogs and podcast page).

As a fyi adding links to my custom Google Co-Op search engines is dirt easy because I use Google Marker. If you’re still curious, you may watch a screencast I created on creating custom search engines. Link to my screencast page.