Don Reisinger Needs a Vacation

Sorry for the low blow Don but this article is way off the Mark. I agree with a lot of what you are trying to say, um… Leopard is the best OS out there for many reasons, but Vista is hardly the pile of junk (I like to think of it as the adolescent with acne and glasses, and even now it is suitable in many more situations than Leopard. Don’t just jump on the bandwagon because Apple is cool, find out why you like it and then talk about that. This statement you made came from a think tank on Mars I think.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue, one thing is abundantly clear: Microsoft fears Google (okay and we are good up to this point) and is doing everything it can to become the Google slayer instead of competing in its core business–software.

That’s not even blogging I don’t think, it’s trolling, but I guess it’s open for interpretation! Microsoft is expanding, the shareholders are demanding it and the only way to expand the Monopoly/Near Monopoly is to move into broader areas. Sure we all love the fact that when we open our Macbook Pro lids we are productive in less than 4 seconds but Microsoft isn’t going anywhere my friend. The Vista Debacle doesn’t exist, it’s just a bunch of media loving headline grabbing people out there trying to make money by reporting. Still, I can admire that you love the new OS, I did two hours of Sunday driving to get my family pack yesterday but if we take anything away from this whole stupid argument about which OS is better let’s examine a new question. What has each operating system done for computing in general. That’s the better question, and if you are honest, do your homework this time, and stick to the facts, you will find that there are too many contributors to mention but I think by order of importance it goes something like this.

Companies who have contributed to the advancement of operating systems.

1. Microsoft: Microsoft has defined OSes over the last 20 years, and I’d almost give as much respect to Apple as them so don’t kill me for this one. Let’s just agree to disagree, I am not ignorant on many things concerning this topic I guess so…

2. Apple (Tough decision to put them here but they didn’t get us through late 90s, and Leopard borrows more from Vista and Compiz Fusion than more people will want to admit, but it’s fine, copying is expected in this business.)

3. Sun Microsystems (I know, people will say I loose a lot of credibility but Sun has done more for the world of computing and even the future than you know.

4. GNU & Linux: THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE OF YOU, I FREAKING LOVE YOU ALL! You all should be number 1!

5 Debian + Ubuntu + Novell Ubuntu at home, SLED at work, open systems will someday be unstoppable.

6. IBM + Google for helping out number 4 on the server side. (OS2 had Microsoft burning the midnight oil for at least a year)

There are too many more to count and I’d like to make this list some day via a poll but it would turn into a popularity contest which I have nothing to do with. Now, I having said everything I’ve said here, I do think Microsoft is going to loose a little market share and they are in real danger, danger that I don’t believe many people recognize yet, from Google in the Enterprise. I could be wrong though.

 

Technorati tags: CNET, Don Reisinger, Leopard, OSX 10.5, OSX, CNET News blog, Vista, Debian, GNU, GNU/Linux, Apple, Microsoft, IBM Symphony, SUN Microsystems, Novel

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Leopard leaps ahead of Vista

I’m just digging into the bits over at Engadget’s Leopard vs. Vista showdown. Also of note is the project to get Leopard on regular hardware which is coming along quickly. I love the upgrade, but everyone doesn’t. The current score is 43 to 40 with Leopard jumping ahead of Vista. No word from the Ubuntu crowd. What’s my scoop? I love my Macbook Pro with in all of its–now–Leopard greatness. Here is my take. Apple is becoming more and more of a serious contender. I was just checking out the Xcode 3.0 and I think it’s just fantastic.

I am new to Xcode, but the IDE has many novel approaches to programming and I think that’s great. I was looking over the PDF and it almost seems like a lot of the GCC stuff is getting depreciated but that could just be my take. I spent two hours in the car today (there and back again) to get my new family pack of 10.5 and I’ll run you through the bullets. (I’d like to get a complex feature comparison with more operating systems than what Engadget has some day and I’d even like to point out where the features made their debut. If you beat me too it, a link would be appreciated! Here we go!

 

Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard

1. A New Desktop, a very cool new CPU/GPU intensive dock and "Stacks" a new way to get organized. Included are some great new desktop back rounds
2. A New Finder: good ole Coverflow ala iTunes, looks great so far.
3. A New Finder Sidebar: OSX took a few hints from our pals at Redmond and I can say that OSX is becoming more of a task oriented OS like Windows has been since XP.
4. A new Spotlight: Notable improvements in style and now network friendly searches.
5. Screen Sharing: Remote Desktop for your mac. I’d like to see an used standard here that works on both Windows and Mac and I realize that one already probably exists. (can’t remember the name right now)
6. Sharing: Apple is starting to take sharing to the next level. You can share web sites, preferences, your screen and much more. I’d like to see this keep expanding.
7. Back to my Mac: Great for grabbing that file you left back home, you can now get it from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.
8. Quicklook: Like in Vista, you actually see a thumbnail of files instead of an icon which is very useful. Apple does this a little better than Microsoft though with their highlight and "Blow up" type feature. Think Preview pane for most file types. I haven’t messed around with collections enough to truly understand the benefit.
9. Timemachine: Think backup and restore like XP, or actually it’s more like the Vista backup image feature but a little nicer and easier to use and understand. Don’t take my word for this though because I’ve not tested it yet.
10. Spaces: This if my favorite feature and I think all operating systems need it. It’s the ultimate in productivity and I’d like to think of it as the alt tab of the future. As far as I know, this multiple desktop idea originated either with Compiz or Beryl–a moot point–because they’ve both merged again into a product called Compiz Fusion. The Apple version is not nearly as "Cool" as Compiz Fusion, but very easy to use, and contains zero bugs as far as my three hour testing has went. This feature is going to make you want to max out your ram because you’ll want to have everything open in it’s own window and if you think about how that all pieces together it could totally change the desktop paradigm and make us folks who have to go to work with only one monitor much more productive. 
11. Mail.app: Much nicer. RSS is supported very nicely in this version and there are so many cool template for just about every kind of email you would ever want to send. Taking a note from Yahoo!’s Zimbra mail server environment, the program will now auto parse events into iCal events as well as phone numbers and contact info. It will even pop up a Google Map for an address although doesn’t use a small popup DHTML type window like Zimbra’s Zimlet does.
12. iChat improvements: Another one of my "Most Improved applications" Instead of having a video desktop ala Compiz and Windows "Dream Scene" you can now have a waterfall or any motion video running concurrently behind you. Now you also have something call iChat theatre where you can get business done like share presentations with the new build in screen sharing. That’s not all, you now get Tabbed chats (awesome!!) Presence information over any Jabber service and Apple has implemented the one killer feature we’ve all been waiting for support for concurrent connections to all of them, AIM, Gtalk, Jabber, and those two .Mac holdouts. My favorite feature I saved for last, to my friends dismay, I can now send them SMS texts to their mobile phone.
13. Dashboard: Many updates. A new Programming IDE called Dashcode, "Webclip" using Safari  you can now clip any part of a web page and have it show live updates in your dashboard environment. Soon wee will need "Spaces" for Dashboard, there are so many new and cool applications being created.
14. Safari: Tabbed Browsing! (No Comment) Find, or the ability to search for a sting of text in a web page (No comment) Native PDF viewing (hopefully not using the bloated PDF view but I’m sure it will work faster on a Mac than in Windows. Oh, there is a way to suck the bloat out of PDF viewer for all of you guys that hate the load time on your Windows boxes.
15. Parental Controls: Very nice! Parents can now set time limits, content limits, Mail and iChat limits, and best of all, you can monitor what they’ve been up to! Great if you don’t like getting letters from the RIAA who will in a heartbeat still your kids college tuition from you. =) This can now all be done from your own Mac, no need to make adjustments on your son or daughters mac.
16. Photobooth: Shares some features from iChat, you can take shots now with video or cool shnazzy backdrops. Create a pane of 4 shots or do movie clip backdrops right from Photobooth.
17. Frontrow: A new Photogallery, and the killer feature is the ability to stream your library over your network for those of us who like to have a home build NAS box.
18. Bootcamp: Ah, the ability to run all of my favorite Windows applications like Windows Live Writer, and Office 2007 right from my Macbook pro make me very happy. I think I’ll stick it out with VMWare but for now, I’m going to give this a shot in the next day or so. Vista now supported, thank god, I have an extra copy of Ultimate that’s never been opened.

 

All in all over 300 hundred new features. I’ll post again after I’ve had a few days under the hood. Looking good though and I want to see more competition in what I’ll start calling the fat client space again.

 

Technorati tags: Apple, Apple 10.5, Leopard, Leopard 10.5, OSX 10.5, Zimbra, Dashboard, Parental Controls, Leopard Spaces, Bootcamp, Boot Camp, FrontRow, Leopard Finder, iChat, Mail.app, Mail, Email, Zimlets, RSS, Vista, Engadget

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Microsoft Heats Up Facebook: Real Advertising Sans Google?

The New York Times has posted an article which demonstrates they understand the true value of Facebook. Facebook represents in some small way, the beginning of the Semantic Web. Microsoft has paid 240 million for a 1.6 stake in Facebook which would value Facebook at 15 Billion.

As part of the deal, Microsoft will sell the banner ads appearing on Facebook outside of the United States, splitting the revenue with it. Last year, Microsoft struck a deal with Facebook to run banner ads on the site in the United States through 2011.

Facebook is popular to different people for different reasons.

1. Technologists, understand the ramifications that social networking has to advertising, and data mining and the advancement of an Internet which is connected in a way which is compelling and more easy to navigate.
2. Our Youth: Loves Facebook, it’s their new playground with new free toys popping up all the time
3. Our Parents: The baby boomers can’t wait for the IPO. But I’m worried about current revenue verses current valuation.
4. Companies: This represent an almost paradigm shift in the way corporate America can reach out to America, but in order to be successful, these companies have to realize that the citizens are smart and it will take a new novel, non-traditional approach to touch these people.

This sends a clear message to everyone. Microsoft is serious about advertising, and Mark Zuckerberg the 23 year old guy from Harvard is ready to take on the world. As for the IPO, this cash and likely engineering help will be critical to match the pure brain power that Google will now focus more clearly in order to squash this threat. Microsoft will try to keep blocking Google moves. This is great for us consumers, especially because Facebook will still be able to innovate without major interference from the larger Microsoft. One thing is clear to me though, Mark Zuckerberg is a hungry man.

Technorati tags: Facebook, Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook IPO, Advertising 2.0, Social Networking, Semantic Web

del.icio.us tags: Facebook, Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook IPO, Advertising 2.0, Social Networking, Semantic Web sans Ray Ozzie

Linux in the New York Times

The New York Times has a nice write up about Ubuntu which is meant to let your average NYT’s reader understand the state of Linux, or for many, explain again what that Linux word means. They don’t go into details but I have to slightly disagree with the Summary:

After using the operating system for writing, Web surfing, graphic editing, movie watching and a few other tasks, it is easy to conclude that Linux can be an alternative to the major operating systems. But since common tasks like watching a movie or syncing an iPod require hunting for and installing extra software, Linux is best for technically savvy users or for people whose needs are so basic that they will never need anything other than the bundled software.

I hope that’s not too much of a clip, but I didn’t want to take that last sentence out of context. Linux is great for an increasingly large number of things, including being a full fledged Music Studio. I’m in the process of getting ready to install Ubuntu Studio on my fathers older Windows 98 machine (will be pulling some stuff out) and I am giving a lot of thought to also using it on my MacBook Pro.

The good in this article is that everyone is learning that you don’t need to install Windows anymore, there is vibrant competition and Dell is selling an increasing number of Linux Computers from what I hear. Not to mention Novell who’s Sales are through the roof, and Apple, who’s sales are through the roof. With Vista in the state of disfavor that it’s in, let me be the very first to say it on the web (probably not but) If things don’t change, Microsoft will soon no longer have a desktop monopoly. They will need to be held in check for quite some while I think, or at least closely watched, but I think it’s fair to say that unless they start innovating at a faster pace on the Desktop, Windows will continue to loose market share for the next few years. I don’t know how much further, but I know some.

Technorati tags: Linux, NYT, Microsoft, Ubuntu, Windows, Vista, Windows Vista, Ubuntu Studio, Mac Book Pro, MBP, Desktop Marketshare

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