Nosce te ipsum

SiliconValley.com is kicking off an event tomorrow that is sure to be of interest to many of you in the Mac web. SiliconValley.com has assembled a diverse collection of people to discuss the future of Apple computer. Normally, this kind of event might not be all that interesting, however is gazing at the list of people that they've managed to get involved, it looks like there should certainly be some diverse points of view being raised at the event. To mention just a few of the folks involved in the event:

• Tim Bray
• John Gruber
• Leander Kahney
• Brent Simmons

That's just a brief sampling of some of the people who are going to be involved with this thing, however it also reads like a partial who's who of some of the people who have and will continue to have made significant contributions to my own life and way of thinking on a variety of different fronts. I often forget just how intrenched the web has become in our own lives but every so often I'm reminded about how lucky we really are to have such empowering technologies at our finger tips. Without it, it's likely that I would have no idea who these people are, let alone have a vehicle to be able to get in touch with them in a moments notice regardless of their geographic location. Here's a bit about the event from Siliconvalley.com

If there's any area in which Apple Computer has maintained unrivaled dominance over the years, it's in public market for speculation and rumor. Thanks to its history of innovation and influence, its faithful fan base and its rock star CEO, no other tech company has a more closely watched product pipeline or a more vigorously debated set of strategies.

Apple is once again involved in a transformation that has stoked the chatter. Its break with longtime processor provider IBM and its new alliance with Intel leave open a raft of questions about motive, implementation and risks. The company also faces the challenge of building on the unmatched success of its iPods and iTunes Music Store in the face of unrelenting competition. And theories abound on the path Apple will take as it aims for a central role in digital home entertainment.

A brief, but very important, word about the roundtable:

While public access to this conversation has been restricted to read-only, we encourage your participation. You may submit your questions and opinions for publication by posting to the roundtable forum. Public submissions will be added to the conversation only after they have been reviewed and approved by an editor.

Enter the Roundtable

I am a huge fan of Live Linux CDs and I believe they are partially responsible for a lot of people trying out Linux for the first time. First timers to the world of Linux are (rightfully so) often frightened by the thought of setting up multiple partitions on thier drives, which file system to use, knowing the countless details about their particular hardware, etc. The one thing that I hear more often than any other when talking to newbies about getting Linux up and running is that there is almost always at lest one particular piece of hardware that just does not seem to work properly, usually it's either a sound card of wireless network card but slowly drivers are starting to emerge to fill those voids.

Alas the world of Linux Live CDs are quietly growing into a very formidable list where you can now try out half a dozen different Linux distros without ever having to install a single one in order to get a feel for the nuisances of each distro. With the install obstacle removed right up front, people are far more willing to try new things and this weekend, I downloaded a couple different iso's including Gnoppix, Slax, Kanopix and a one that I had previously not tried, ELive. Elive's angle is that it's based around the windowing system known the world over as Enlightenment which is bar none, the most eye candy rich system known to man. To see a properly setup system running Enlightenment is to witness a true thing of beauty. Getting to that point used to be a real challenge but in the world of Live CDs, you can be up and running within just a few minutes.

This is by far the most Mac like interface that I've ever seen on any Linux distro (and I don't mean that in that they copied Mac OSX concepts, it's just very polished and unique). The biggest thing about Enlightenment is that it was always designed, from day one, to be extremely customizeable down to the most minute of details. If you want to see some truly amazing screenshits of what can be done with Enlightenment, take a look over here. Some of these shots look like something straight out of a science fiction movie. Years ago, making Enlightenment behave took some serious effort but much refinement has been done since then so if you are even the least bit curious having one of the snazziest desktops this side of Cupertino, give ELive and Enlightenment a look.