What started off as a way to meet women in college with his friend (who of course, had a natural Jean-Claude Van Damme impression), quickly turned into a handful of viral videos on YouTube and FunnyOrDie, and ultimately a legitimate career.

After doing some recent online work with Disney as “Tom Cruise”, which was packaged with content for the Twilight series, Ferrante says his career took off with corporate gigs and commercial work at home and abroad (apparently the Tom Cruise impersonation business is huge in Australia). His next move: an upcoming HBO documentary, Teenage Paparazzo, a project he co-produced that will apparently not include any Cruise cameos. Our brief backstage interview with Ferrante is below.

What does this have to do with TechCrunch’s Fifth birthday? Absolutely nothing, but it is a gold mine for TechCrunch readers who’ve always wanted to see a slightly amused, slightly confused Arrington bombarded by a barrage of Tom Cruise-isms.

Original article…

Pretty funny, makes a good ringtone.

The short version: pants-on-the-ground.mp3
The full version: pants-on-the-ground-full.mp3

Video

Lyrics

Pants on the ground, pants on the ground Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground
With the gold in your mouth, hat turned sideways Pants hit the ground, call yourself a cool cat, lookin’ like a fool
Walkin’ downtown with your pants on the ground. Giddy-up!
Hey, get your pants off the ground. Lookin’ like a fool Walkin’, talkin’ with your pants on the ground. Giddy-up! Hey, get your pants off the ground. Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground.

If you have them host your DNS, you can not make simple changes such as modifying the TTL of your domain.

I just had a conversation with a tech, “Alex”.  He was adamant that TTL settings are set across the board to 1 day (86400), and that it is their policy that this can not be changed.  They run Linux Bind DNS systems, which means this is about as simple of a DNS change as can be made.

It seems they just resell godaddy domains, so if nothing else just get your domains through godaddy and use thier DNS management interface.

Please be kind and review a couple of the advertising links.

• The notebook does not detect wireless networks and the wireless adapter is not detected in the Device Manager. [sporadically]

It was not until recently, when I read about this, this and this, that I started to search on HP’s website and found a Limited Warranty Service Enhancement for my laptop.  I thought this was a good thing, but I didn’t want to go through the ordeal of replacing my laptop for something that was a minor inconvenience. 

But as of last week, I am also experiencing another symptom:

• The notebook does not start.

I decided to finally call HP and request service.  They happily agreed that this was a defective unit and are sending a package to ship the laptop back in.

Now, onto my issue.  I will be without a laptop for about two weeks. I own a business and provide 24×7 server monitoring / management and require a laptop at all times.

I suggest that HP should send me a loaner laptop (or the laptop they will already be replacing mine with) because of a defect in thier product line.   Why should I have to pay double (by purchasing another laptop) for a manufacturing issue?

I spoke with Stephen M. of HP’s customer complaint division, and he said that it is simply not possible, they will not provide me a loaner laptop.  I believe that HP should be required to send me a replacement laptop and let me swap the hard-disk / battery / RAM and send them the bad shell. The will likely send me a new machine anyhow.

Because of this experience, my next laptop will not be coming from HP.

I am ranting a bit here, but I think of how short-sighted HP is for not considering how much direct influence many people have over millions of dollars per year in hardware equipment purchases, and how a simple laptop replacement could effect these decisions.

I believe that all companies need to stand behind their product and name, and need to understand how much they inconvenience and cost their customers in terms of time and dollars.

I downloaded the Desktop ISO image, and burned the CD. I placed the CD into the drive and rebooted my computer. My plan was to overwrite all existing information on the machine, and not be concerned with migrating data.

On boot up, I was presented with a screen asking me for the preferred language. I selected english and was then asked how I wanted to proceed. The menu options were quite clear for the initial install: Try ubuntu without any change to your computer, Install Ubunu … I chose Install Ubuntu. For the next 1 minute 58 seconds, I watched an ubuntu splash screen boot into the install section.

Install

1. Welcome screen. Simple enough, select forward.
2. Where are you? Choosing a timezone, I am in Detroit. Click Forward (note: the map selection could be a little smoother or maybe zoom in as you click a region before starting the magnification mouse movement process).
3. Select a keyboard layout. This is easy, but maybe it should default to USA/USA (or localized based on language selection on the boot menu) and the provide an advanced option, to reduce any confusion for the less knowledgeable users.
4. Prepare disk space. Well, this would likely confuse a non technical user. My options were: Guided – Resise IDE2 master partition #3 (hdc3) and use freed space, Guided – use entire disk, Guides – use the largest continuous free space or manual. I know what I would choose, but thinking as an normal user, this should also be simplfied or the text should be more readable with terms like: Save my existing data, and install into free space. I chose guided use entire disk.
5. Who are you? Enter your name, and login details. This seems pretty straight forward, and most people are used to logins now a day.
6. Ready to install review. Click Install.

Well, 6 total steps is impressive. Just a few minor comments, but so far so good.

The installation finished, and the machine rebooted in 25 seconds before asking for the password, and was completely ready for use in under 1 minute! Thats nice and helps people think it to be OK to shutdown the computer. I often don’t shutdown my windows desktop, as I hate the boot up time when I just want to check something quickly (weather, directions, movie show times, email, .. ).

Next thing I wanted, was access to my network based printer, and HP Photosmart C6180 — Wow, setup was a breeze and just worked like you would expect.

Then I applied the updates that were waiting to be applied. A small window popped up alerting me that updates were available. I clicked installed, and waited while 256 updates were downloaded (5 minutes) and applied (20 minutes).

Then to top it off, I added my Linksys wireless card to the machine, and without an issue it was detected and up in running. This was a nice change, as I had to custom compile drivers in the past to get this working.

All in all, this has been my best Linux desktop installation and use experience to date.

The next part of this article will follow up with daily usage, after my wife notices I changed her desktop (she was a Fedora Core 6 user).

To start, I run a managed server company. We provide remote / onsite Linux support and implementations for small to enterprise customers. We have recently been approached by Ubuntu to join their partnership program. Being affiliated with Ubuntu is a good thing in my opinion, as it allows us to have a more diversified portfolio of services to offer. But for us to recommend a shop use Ubuntu vs. Red Hat seems like a risk today, and in some cases is not even an option (SAP implementations).

We must think of our customer first, and what is in the best interest of the business when architecting and implementing the technology infrastructure. So, is Ubuntu a safe bet for our customers? And, is it the right distribution? Why?

I know these questions must be scenario dependent, but Red Hat is a one size fits all for everyone of our customers as of today (Note, we are not providing desktop support to any of our customers as of now). Some of our customers are Novell shops, so they like to leverage the existing relationship, and deploy SuSE rather than Red Hat.

I am not trying to start a flame war here, but rather am looking for insightful reasons to start recommending Ubuntu vs. others or rather should we be implementing Ubuntu over other distributions for our customers because it actually is a better distribution.

What about support? Can anyone provide me with some reference to compare the support structure and abilities of the various distributions? A comparison (or customer satisfaction survey) between Red Hat/Ubuntu/Novell would be beneficial.  I have had great luck with Red Hat support, and a few mishaps with Novell (lack of communication), but overall when I have an issue both are on top of things, and Novell has even sent developers on site for debugging (kernel bug). Can we expect the same from Ubuntu?

I do see Ubuntu as an innovator, and having another company knocking on the doors of Red Hat and Novell will only benefit the Linux community.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – March 11, 2008) – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the speakers for its 2nd Annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit.

The Summit, heralded as the only place where Linux kernel developers, distribution and system vendors, ISVs, and end users meet face-to-face and collaborate, takes place April 8 – 10, 2008 at the UT Super Computing Center in Austin, TX.

The Collaboration Summit is designed to accelerate collaboration and problem solving in the Linux community by bringing key stakeholders together in a neutral setting. While there are a variety of industry and developer conferences, the LF Collaboration Summit is the only one to combine participation from developers, users, vendors, ISVs, attorneys and C-level executives to tackle the most pressing issues facing Linux.

To apply for registration, please visit: https://www.linux-foundation.org/events/collaboration.

Last year’s over-subscribed Summit took place June 13 – 15, 2007 at the Google Mountain View Campus and included more than 230 leaders from the Linux community.

Agenda highlights for the 2nd Annual LF Collaboration Summit include:

--  Fresh from his $1 billion acquisition by Sun, MySQL's CEO Marten
    Mickos will describe his plans for the future, including MySQL's commitment
    to the "L in the LAMP" stack.

--  Where is Linux growing? Al Gillen, research vice president at analyst
    firm IDC, will unveil important new data on Linux deployments worldwide.

--  Kernel Developer Panel. The Summit will be kicked off by a panel of
    key Kernel developers and maintainers including James Bottomley, Jonathan
    Corbet, Dave Jones, Christoph Lameter, Ted Ts'o, Chris Wright, and others.
    This is a unique opportunity to hear directly from these developers.

--  Mobile Landscape. The last twelve months have seen an explosion in
    Linux on mobile devices. Executive representatives from LiMO, Moblin.org,
    the new Open Handset Alliance and OpenMoko will address fragmentation and
    how they're working together to build the future's mobile computing
    platform.

--  In the last year, there has also been tremendous growth of Linux pre-
    installed on desktop and ultra-mobile devices.  This market is continuing
    to explode with dozens of design wins. Find out now what is behind this
    growing trend from senior representatives from Dell, Everex, gOS (maker of
    the CloudBook), HP, Lenovo, and VIA Technologies.

--  The titans of the Linux industry are growing products and service
    offerings on top of Linux. The 451 Group's Raven Zachary will moderate a
    panel of these influential industry leaders including: Wim Coekaerts, vice
    president of Linux engineering at Oracle; Dan Frye, vice president of open
    systems development at IBM; Christine Martino, HP's vice president of open
    source and Linux; and Christy Wyatt, vice president, ecosystem and market
    development for Motorola's Mobile Devices business. They will share what
    Linux means to their companies and where it's headed.

--  Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens will give a keynote address on the future of
    Linux from Red Hat's perspective.

“This year’s LF Collaboration Summit has attracted a veritable who’s who of Linux leaders,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “We’re looking forward to a packed house and a lively group. These people will be defining the agenda for the next stage of mass collaboration, and in order to fuel that collaboration we need to make participation in the Linux ecosystem as easy and efficient as possible.”

This unique, invitation-only event brings together the brightest minds in the Linux ecosystem to collaborate on the advancement of the Linux platform. In addition to plenary sessions, workgroup and breakout sessions include: Desktop Architects, the Virtualization Mini-Summit, Mobile and Embedded Linux, Power Management on Linux and Carrier Grade Linux. All of the key players necessary to make real and immediate contributions to the platform will be in attendance.

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms. For more information, please visit www.linux-foundation.org.

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Third party marks and brands are the property of their respective holders.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft had a deliberate near-miss with Enceladus on Wednesday afternoon, passing about 31 miles above its surface at a speed of more than 32,000 miles per hour. Over the next couple of years, Cassini is to swing by another seven times, scrutinizing this little moon more than all of the 50-odd others circling Saturn, except perhaps Titan.

The flyby is a risky maneuver. If just one millimeter-size piece of debris hits the spacecraft, it could be the end of the mission. But the chance to fly within 31 miles of the moon and 398 miles of the geyser’s plume was just too tempting.

LinMin, a systems management software provider in stealth mode for the past several months, today announced the availability of its first product, LinMin Bare Metal Provisioning (LBMP™). LBMP can remotely provision (natively install and configure Linux and customer-specified applications) as well as image (snapshot and rollback entire systems for disaster recovery and clone systems for mass deployment) servers, blades, PCs, appliances and virtual machines. LBMP enables systems to be rapidly deployed, repurposed and recovered. LinMin delivered the successful Beta version of the product to customers several weeks ago.

In the past I have deployed Storix to accomplish similar tasks, with great success. An alternative open source recovery solution is Mondo Rescue.

More information about LinMin here.

What are you using for your bare metal recovery / provisioning?