Save Windows XP? Save yourself first!

Around 3 years back, I had a good friend of mine, apparently working on Windows XP team, quit Microsoft Corporation. He made a good choice to pursue something that would be more useful for his career, rather than developing something that no one knew when it was going to launch, or whether it was going to launch at all
! We remember so well the innumerous times when Microsoft had delayed the launch of Windows XP against its promises to the public and computer manufacturers, due to bad planning and unforeseen complexities I would expect.


Within just a few years, Microsoft has now announced that it will stop selling Windows XP by June 30th, 2008. They still have the benefit of dictatorship mainly because of their monopoly in the Operating System market, but nevertheless, this is definitely not going to help the computer manufacturers like Dell and HP, nor enterprise corporations for their huge investments in XP environments. Millions of people, those who use XP, claim no reason to shift to Vista, nor are they happy about Microsoft's sad strategies.

However, there are some useless campaigns like the Info World's Save Windows XP campaign, where they ask for Windows XP users to sign the petition to Microsoft to not force its user base to migrate to Vista. I believe that Info World is just ruining its own reputation by hosting this campaign, although I understand that such petitions are the craze these days and they've just fallen prey to another of those. Individual users and enterprises must at least now start believing in open source and not continue to fall prey to the strategic gimmicks of Microsoft. They are going to do that forever, replace one version with another and then force the users and corporations to migrate, resulting in unnecessary costs for the information technology infrastructures.

People, look beyond Windows. Save yourself, not XP!

Firefox starts to pick up market share...

Co-Firefox Lovers and Users, here is some good news on the Browser trends over the last couple of years. When there was only one browser in the market, which was IE, people had to use it. That is not the case anymore, with Firefox and Safari slowly starting to eat into the IE market. The scars of Microsoft IE are starting to get exposed, as Microsoft has been losing its anti-trust lawsuits in the EU especially for unfair competition by bundling its IE browser (and its Windows Media Player) along with its Microsoft Windows operating system.

Good moves ahead for Firefox, with close to 20% market share now. Way to go!

Microsoft buys FAST for $1.2 B

Microsoft buys the financially/legally troubled FAST (FAst Search and Transfer - recursive acronym ?) for their Enterprise Search Platform (ESP). FAST is a Norwegian-based company founded in 1999, and is traded on the Oslo Stock Exchange. ESP includes a software framework for efficient indexing of searchable content, along with a series of search-derivative applications (SDAs) that could be used for online publishing and business intelligence.

It certainly is a good move for Microsoft. At last they realize that they are not good at search and cannot compete with the likes of Yahoo! and Google, and decide to indulge in a buyout strategy. They're paying 42% above the closing price a couple of days back when they placed the bid. The deal is expected to close in Q2 this year.

It's a pity that, they still do not even own the domain http://www.fast.com yet, as when I tried to look it up, it currently redirected to the website of another communications provider called PAETEC.

Encoding movies in Ubuntu - Why?

So much to my heart's content, since it's been quite some time that I've been out of school and don't need that crappy OS on my system (you know what I'm talking about) I upgraded myself from a dual boot of Windows XP and Fedora Core 3, to a single boot Ubuntu. After a lot of self-debating and reading from forums on whether to migrate to Core 8 or Ubuntu, I went with the Gutsy Gibbon 7.x flavor of Ubuntu. The installation was like eating a piece of cheesecake. Almost a single click installation. Even if Microsoft were to reverse its name, they can't beat this. And remember, although I installed it, one can run the OS directly from the CD. Isin't that cool?

I'll write about some of the cool things of Ubuntu later, now I want to talk about how to encode movies in Ubuntu, since I just went through the process. I had bought an Iomega 500 gig Screenplay which is a hard-drive with multimedia playback capability. I bought that so that I can use it as a hard-drive and at the same time connect it via RCA or S-video to my TV and play directly.Reviews on that product to follow later.

Now this player has some limitations, it plays only AVI, MPEG-4 (with Divx 3.x, 4.x, 5.x encoding), and of course, MP3, JPEG and all that. AVIs just played perfect. Now, I wanted to play some .RM and .WMV movies, that my Iomega player wouldn't normally play. That's where MPlayer and MEncoder came to my rescue. MPlayer is the world's best and most-equipped multimedia player, hands down! Just imagine, if I were to switch to Windows, just to substitute the capabilities of MPlayer, I would need at least 10 different players or softwares. All supported here by just one Mplayer with the appropriate codecs. That's the power of open-source. That's the power of Linux. MEncoder is the encoding engine that comes with the MPlayer and separate.

What do you need to do to convert these RM and WMV files into AVI or MPEG, that my player understands? Read on, the how's on the follow up post...

Microsoft succumbs to Google on antitrust allegation

In response to complaints from Google, Inc., Microsoft agreed to change its Windows Vista software in advance of a court hearing that will review its compliance with a 2002 antitrust settlement. Haha! Looks like they are getting to be proactive these days on the antitrust front. So, if they knew they were wrong, I'm curious if they are committing these antitrust crimes hoping that competitors don't file them? Well, maybe you have to do such things when you get big.

Google alleges Microsoft that Vista makes it hard for consumers to use rival desktop-search applications provided by Google and others. Microsoft, which denied the claims, however said the company was willing to alter Vista if required. It looks like they've seen and experienced enough of this anttrust stuff - primarily from the Windows Media Player antitrust lawsuit in the EU and now it is desktop search! You might think - is this illegal? No, it is not illegal, but it is unfair competition and does not stand a chance under the antitrust regulations both in the EU and in the US.

As usual, these changes to Vista software are expected to go out with their Service Pack-1 release awaited later this year, which would also include fixes to other security problems and bugs......amidst, of course, other new bugs.....

Prometeus - the Media Revolution

Fascinating video on the media revolution. It is a futuristic vision of the media industry all the way upto 2050, with some interseting predictions like Google buying Microsoft and Amazon buying out Yahoo! by 2020-2030, which is little over a decade from now. It also talks about Second Life and points out that virtual life is the way of the future.

Hope you like the video

Boycott Novell - already?

While the Novell-Microsoft deal can be among the worst things that has ever happened or could potentially happen to open source software development, there are already many many calls to start boycotting Novell's products as well. Novell has already posted a loss for the most recent quarter...

For those who missed, here is a reiteration of the main points of focus of the agreement, that took place in Nov 2006 -

• Virtualization. Virtualization is one of the most important trends in the industry. Customers tell Microsoft that virtualization is one way they can consolidate and more easily manage rapidly growing server workloads and their large set of server applications. Microsoft and Novell will jointly develop a compelling virtualization offering for Linux and Windows.

• Web services for managing physical and virtual servers. Web services and service-oriented architectures continue to be one of the defining ways software companies can deliver greater value to customers. Microsoft and Novell will undertake work to make it easier for customers to manage mixed Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise environments and to make it easier for customers to federate Microsoft Active Directory® with Novell eDirectory.

• Document format compatibility. Microsoft and Novell have been focusing on ways to improve interoperability between office productivity applications. The two companies will now work together on ways for OpenOffice and Microsoft Office system users to best share documents, and both will take steps to make translators available to improve interoperability between Open XML and OpenDocument formats.

Sounds neat? Or is it actually part of Microsoft's strategy to beat its only real threat in the OS market, Red Hat? Because, we all know Balmer would go anywhere to do anything to sell Windows, Windows and Windows....Open source developers must not fall a prey to believe that Microsoft has started to love Linux...but these are signs that they've begun to feel the heat in Linux.

Anyway, that's all old news. Visit BoycottNovell.com to explore the reality behing the Microsoft-Novell deal and its subtle implications - it is a pretty interesting blog that I came across and wanted to share, which tears apart the Xandros deal among other things.

Double whammy for Vista

In addition to the world wide stock market crash today, where Dow fell 4% by 416 points, biggest fall since 2001, (I thought I'll post about that, then decided against it as it is all over the place today anyway, visit CNBC.com for expert economist opinions, or the special WSJ premium report), there were two news releases that caught my attention today

(a) What we've been waiting for has arrived, sooner than we expected. Microsoft discloses an antipiracy bug in Windows Vista, where users are prompted / forced to reactivate their Vista, even on PCs where reactivation is not required, after installing certain system drivers and utilities.
Microsoft acknowledges, "This is not a problem with any of the drivers and utilities. This is a Vista problem"

Worth the wait? Well, even worth the 'no-Vista'



(b) Worldwide PC maker, Dell to start selling Linux PCs - Wow! Isn't that awesome? After collecting some 1800 new products and service ideas from IT users and customers through an online suggestion box (in CEO Michael Dell's serious attempts to survive the phase Dell,Inc. is going through), Dell has annouced that it is going to sell a new line of certified ready-to-use Linux-loaded desktop and laptop computers. Way to go!

Microsoft needs an ethics officer

I'm not sure if they have one. But, even if they do, I'm sure he's not doing a good job. Time and again, we see this company entering anti-trust lawsuits (I can list so many cases where they were penalized by the EU). This time, it is in the U.S., for patent infringement.

As a company, they must learn to compete ethically and produce innovative products with their own creativity. Alcatel-Lucent had accused the world's largest software maker for infringing on its patents related to standards used for playing MP3 digital music files. A U.S federal court found Microsoft guilty today and ordered the firm to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.52 billion in damages. This is a large sum to settle a suit, even for Microsoft, which is used to paying in the order of hundreds of millions for the anti-trust lawsuits that it faces frequently.

I'm not very surprised at this, this time. I adjust my thoughts to believe that this is what happens when a company grows to this size. It loses its controls on ethics. Today, it could be Microsoft, tomorrow it could be anyone else! Microsoft, of late, have been more of a follower in terms of products -

Playstation ==> XBox
Apple iPod ==> Zune MP3
Mac OS X ==> Vista (3d graphics, etc.)
Google Docs ==> MS Office Live
Google Earth ==> MS Virtual Earth

All these put together suggest a pattern to me - dearth of creativity at the giant!

Costco ruins Apple's image, reputation and creativity

Picked this up from Greg Miller's UnixJunkie blog. This is so sad for Apple!


Apple would rather give it away for free. Time to sue Costco for its stupidity and negligence.

Vista hits retail shelves..., only shelves...

Last week, Microsoft's long-delayed Vista hit the retail shelves to let consumers get their hands on their coolest operating system in their history...., but not many did. Stores saw only a trickle of early adopters on Tuesday. Retailers around the world held special midnight events Monday or opened early Tuesday when Microsoft released its Vista and Office 2007 products in 70 countries.
However, for example, at a CompUSA store at Raleigh, NC, only a dozen customers braved the late night to stake their claim on a copy of Vista.

Do not misunderstand, this is not the trend. Just the week before, the video game World of Warcraft - The Burning Crusade hit the shelves and sold a smashing record of 2.4M copies in just 24 hours worldwide. I don't have the numbers on Vista's opening day sales yet, but no where close!
Simply because

• It is a Microsoft product, let's wait for them to fix the bugs
• What is the 'killer' application in Vista? Why should I upgrade?

Nevertheless, new PCs shipped from the manufacturers like Dell and HP will go with Vista henceforth. That should be something to cheer about for Windows lovers. But, is this the best that the world's richest and largest software company can do? C'mon....they've spent half a decade in developing the product and planning this release...

A piece of advice on the Keynote videos

Hello,

Here is a piece of advice to those intending to watch the keynote addresses( from the previous post) from Bill Gates (at CES 2007) and Steve Jobs (at Macworld 2007) - which both took place during the same week. Just to see the popularity among these speeches, Steve's keynote was viewed more than 11,000 times already on YouTube while Gates' was viewed only around 700 times.

And once I saw both, it was pretty evident why. What Microsoft claims to be cool in its Vista and Office Live, are no longer cool. They claim to take entertainment from the PC to the next level, whereas if you watch Steve Jobs' demo of the iPhone, you will understand that Apple has already taken entertainment to dozens of levels ahead.
While the iPhone's demo was receiving applause every 20 seconds, Justin Hutchinson, who was demo'ing the Vista at CES (see video Part-2) thought he demo'ed something sexy and when he failed to receive any sort of applause, he had to ask for it, "No claps? " That's how embarassing it was, when I was already beginning to feel the audience were being paid to applaud. Well, I mean, they are talking about managing photos, they should have just seen how iPhone (which runs OS-X and full-fledged Safari browser by the way - no miniature WAP browsers) manages photos - that is what is sexy, that is what is next mile! The iPhone is a revolution!

I suggest you watch Gates keynote first. Else, you might dismiss it within a few minutes - I'm only trying to be as fair as possible to Microsoft and Bill Gates. :)

Microsoft announces partnership with Ford

Bloomberg Uncut

Microsoft will join hands with Ford Motor Corp to provide drivers with voice activated software that helps them play mp3 songs and make mobile phone calls. Ford will offer the system in a dozen 2008 models.

OK. Two big names making such big deals is not unfamiliar to us. However, this is how the two companies have been performing lately.


Signs of desperation? I'm not sure yet how they are working out the deal. Does Microsoft get a cut on every Ford that is sold with the Sync (that's how they are calling it I guess) system? If so, that's not going to be any heavy cash in revenues for Microsoft as we see the declining sales of Ford (along with its buddy, GM) and struggling to compete with Toyota.

Investors see these too..Shares of Nasdaq:MSFT fell 17 cents to $29.64 and NYSE:F dropped 8 cents to $7.62, when the deal was announced.

Signing a partnership with a company that is just struggling to avoid bankruptcy? Is that optimism? God bless!

25 reasons to choose Linux over Vista....

Frank J. Ohlhorst, from CRN, compiled 25 shortcomings of Windows Vista when he reviewed the product, and All About Linux adds their views to these shortcomings.

Here is the list, read it and get to know what you want to switch to.

BadVista campain starts getting popular...rapidly...

The BadVista campaign is an advocate for the freedom of computer users, opposing adoption of Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free (as in freedom) software alternatives.

It is the latest in a series of activist campaigns started by Free Software Foundation (FSF). Released on December 15, the campaign currently takes the form of a blog site coordinated by John Sullivan, a program administrator at the FSF. They claimed and I tried it out. Google 'Microsoft Vista' and this blog turns up already on the first page of results, thats how fast they are catching fire!

You can support the campaign by joining the FSF.

Oh man man.....here's Vista's commercial!

Watch this new Microsoft Vista commercial (in stark contrast to my previous post)

My comments -

(1) Terrible marketing - who is going to pay attention to a commercial where you have to read rather than listen to someone talk?
(2) Nobody will believe in a better Windows with this commercial. Please don't put this on TV!
(3) Why should I trade up my XP for Vista based on this ad, and further fork up $150 for the same (not forgetting any additional hardware costs that I have to incur)
(4) Ok. one of their liners read - "Build valuable solutions that meet customer needs" or something like that. Apart from sounding exciting (:-)), this gives me the impression that I've been losing customers because of using current Microsoft solutions...crap...
(5) I didn't quite understand who the target market is for this ad - people on macs and linux, or, people who want to upgrade from XP, or people who want to buy new PCs?

5 reasons to hate Windows Vista...

Obviosuly there are infinite more, but these are key according to Robert Vamosi, CNET Reviews

(1) Your current hardware won't fully run on Vista
(2) Vista's Aero graphics eat laptop battery power
(3) The user account protection feature has already had plenty of negative press
(4) Missing drivers and incompatible applications (not surprising enough heh..?)
(5) Troubled sleep for the laptop (and the user, of course!)

Visit the ZDNet link above for more details on these bugs (or features?)
However, the most surprising part of the Vista release this year is that there were no big surprises, I must admit.

French Parliament goes all Linux

France's gendarmes and Ministry of Culture and Communication have done it, and now members of the country's parliament are about to switch to open source and dump Microsoft

Starting in June 2007, PCs in the French deputy offices will be deployed with Linux operating systems w/ OpenOffice.org productivity software, Firefox web browser and an open sourced email client (I don't know which one, my guess would be Mozilla Thunderbird). Well, I'm not a big fan of OpenOffice.org though, I'm very uncomfortable with their Excel equivalent (Excel, supposedly, is the only Microsoft product that I like somewhat, I'm forced to use certain others though :)). I hope they've revamped their spreadsheet and other products under the OpenOffice.

Nevertheless, this step is going to be a giant leap for Linux. It's better use of money on better products by all means. I'm waiting to see other countries' parliaments take this bold decision sometime soon too!

Microsoft gets music player all wrong, critics say to avoid

The setup process stands among the very worst experiences I've ever had with digital music players. The installer app failed, and an hour into the ordeal, I found myself asking my office goldfish, "Has it really come to this? Am I really about to manually create and install a .dll file?"
Is this what a parent is supposed to be doing on a Christmas night or rather, week?

- says critic Andy Ihnatko

Here are the first comments of critics -

(1) I've spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face.

(2) The Zune is a square wheel, a product that's so absurd and so obviously immune to success that it evokes something akin to a sense of pity.

(3) The setup process stands among the very worst experiences I've ever had with digital music players.

(4) Only the Zune software can sync music, video and pictures onto the device; Zune is incompatible with Windows Media Player, the familiar hub of the Windows desktop media experience.

(5) Doesn't support podcasts

(6) It's incompatible with Microsoft's own PlaysForSure standard, too

(7) Incompatible with Microsoft's new Windows Vista

(7) Throw in the Zune's tail-wagging relationship with music publishers, and it almost becomes important that you encourage people not to buy one.

(8) In short, avoid it.

Dude, else you can't do business in the Euro zone soon...

Bloomberg Uncut

Microsoft has finally met its previosuly extended deadlines on Nov. 23, regarding its data submission to the EU, thus avoiding a delay fine of 3 million euros ($3.9 million). This involves submitting data on how their Windows operating system communicates over the network.

Previously, they were keeping them secret and proprietary, which was considered to be unfair competition according to the EU anti-trust laws. Now, companies like IBM and Oracle will be determining if the information provided by Microsoft solves the problem of interoperability.

Way to go, Microsoft! You don't own the world!