Author: Fred

Microsoft Unveils New Linux Hate Site?

The post Microsoft Unveils New Linux Hate Site, refers to Microsoft’s replacement for their “Get the Facts” site as a “Linux Hate Site”. I saw the same comment on Digg a couple of days ago.

What are these people smoking? Where on that site is there anything “hateful” about Linux. Microsoft is a commercial software organization. They sell operating system software, including some for servers. They consider Linux to be competition. Hence, they have content which compares their products to their competition (Linux, mainframes, etc.). In typical marketing fashion, their site shows that their products are better than the competition. It would be sort of stupid to do otherwise.

How is this different than the marketing efforts of pretty much every other commercial organization in the world?

I also noticed a rant in a comment on Digg about how badly designed the page was, because the person making the comment could not find the so-called “comparison”. I think the tabs along the top point to the comparison pretty clearly, as does the big piece of white text on bright orange background that says “Find out how Windows Server compares to Linux ->”.

The point I am trying to make here is that the Linux community damages its own cause by making meaningless, fact-deprived statements. Stop ranting about MS and do something useful.   

Microsoft Windows Vista and Paranoia

There is nothing particularly new in this article Forget about the WGA! 20+ Windows Vista Features and Services Harvest User Data for Microsoft – From your machine! – Softpedia, but it was referenced on a blog post I came read this evening. I few thoughts came to mind:

  1. From what I have seen of the various services which collect information, most seem to be collecting information to improve the OS, adapt to threats, or protect the intellectual property contained within the software (I am not arguing for or against the IP protection, but if you installed the OS, you accepted the EULA, and are bound by it – no one forced you to do so).
  2. Despite the deep paranoia of the various conspiracy theorists, Microsoft really has little use for most of your personal information, and it is not really worth the time or effort to collect it. You are not that important.
  3. Unless you are doing something illegal, none of the information collected is a threat to you.
  4. It is interesting and ironic that a site posting this article to help protect all of us from evil Microsoft collecting our information, requires you to register and provide your eMail address in order to post a comment.
  5. That in a world where much of our personal information, communications, and movement is tracked in great detail (and with questionable legality) that people can get this excited about anything Microsoft might be collecting! 

More OOXML Standarization Noise

I found this post by Mark Shuttleworth interesting and well written (I found it after reading a ZDNet article referencing it – I will not link to it, since the ZDNet blogs do not seem to handle trackbacks) Emerging consensus in favour of a unified document format standard?

I agree with a number of things in this post.

Is Microsoft investing heavily in getting OOXML accepted? I would be pretty sure they are – I would be.

I agree there are technical issues with the current OOXML spec, based upon what I have read elsewhere. I do not believe that these issues are a reason to abandon the spec, only that “fast-tracking” the spec without fixing them is wrong. The OOXML spec should go through as much review as is necessary to satisfy the standards bodies that it is ready.

I agree that ODF supporters (and other OOXML opponents) should make their opinions known in a technically meaning full way to their representatives on the standards bodies.

I also believe that supporters of OOXML should do the same.  

I still disagree with the belief that there must be one “standard”. It still seems strangely ironic to me that the open source community is very much in favour of having alternatives, as long as the alternatives do not come from Microsoft.

Is Vista as bad as they say?

Over the last few months (or the last year or more), it has become extremely fashionable to beat up on Vista. Heck, it is a great way to generate hits on you site or blog, maybe get Dugg, whether you have anything useful to say or not. I am talking about posts like this, or this, or this whole blog.

Personally, I run Vista on several machines, and have few problems which were not related to the failure of third parties to provide updated drivers, or updated versions of software for Vista (sometimes makes me wonder if there has been a conspiracy on the part of other vendors to purposely sabotage Vista – but it is more likely just not bothering to provide what customers pay for). I also still run XP on a couple of boxes, and Win2K3. On my main development box, I also run a number of operating systems in VMWare, including WinXP, Win 2K3, Fedora, Ubuntu, and several “minimalist” Linux distros for playing around with.

An unfortunate fact of life is that all operating systems available right now suck, at least in some aspect or another. Linux suffers from many driver limitations (though this is getting better), and a wannabe user interface that spends far too much time trying to look like Windows, while missing the point of usability altogether. Windows (all versions) suffer from security issues, and from performance and stability issues inherent in trying to be all things to all people. I will not comment on Mac OSX, because I have not run it. It is also kind of irrelevant, since I cannot run it unless I buy Apple’s hardware.

Vista has its own usability issues. Some that are pointed out are valid. The UAC implementation is moronic. The UI path you have to follow to connect to a wireless network is annoying. Here is one I discovered today – disk defragmentation. When you defragment you hard drive you get this useful dialog:

defrag

Isn’t that helpful? No progress indication. No estimated time to completion. Just a statement that it could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Gee, thanks.

The problem is, this kind of thing is not just a problem in Vista, or Windows in general. It is pervasive in all operating systems, and almost all software written to run on them. Most software is filled with minor little usability gaps like this.

So stop beating up on Vista (unless you need the traffic), and start thinking about how to make the whole situation better.

VentureBeat » Google continues its assault on Microsoft, offering StarOffice suite

VentureBeat » Google continues its assault on Microsoft, offering StarOffice suite

Two thoughts spring to mind:

  1. If StarOffice cannot compete successfully against MS Office, does it matter that Google is bundling it?
  2. If Google had faith in its web-based office applications, and in the vision of all apps as web apps, why is it bundling a desktop-based office suite?

Anyone else out there sick of “Us versus Them”? Afterthought…

This morning I had an afterthought regarding my post last night Anyone else out there sick of “Us versus Them”?

I recognize that there are cases where the debate is necessary, or at least may be perceived as necessary. So, in that case I would add one more item to my “guidelines”:

6. If you absolutely must try to convert people to your point of view (in violation of item 5), try describing what is positive about the solution you support, rather than ranting and raving about why the alternative is evil and will bring about the downfall of civilization as we know it. (“Microsoft is evil” is not a valid argument).

(Note this is one of the biggest problems of our time, not just in software, but everywhere. Look at our leadership – no one presents viable, intelligent alternatives to anything, they just bash the opposition.)

Snipping Tool in Vista

This is a nice post about the Snipping Tool in Vista. I really, really liked the design of the snipping tool that was pat of the Tablet PC Experience Pack on Windows XP. Unfortunately, I cannot show a picture, because I am not running Windows XP anywhere, but the UI while in snipping mode was very nice, with a semi-circular menu docked to the bottom of the sceen with you snipping options.

Oh well – nice post anyway.

Anyone else out there sick of "Us versus Them"?

Well? No, I am not talking about politics, war, or religion (though I guess I could be). I am talking about the software/technology business. There are days the whole business just annoys the crap out of me. Let me step back a bit…

I was just on Google Reader, reviewing my various RSS feeds – specifically my Digg feed. I know I should stay away from that feed, but I just cannot seem to – it is like watching Fox News, or listening to clips from Howard Stern, even though I know something in there is going annoy me, bug me, disgust me or otherwise create negative feelings, I just cannot resist looking.

What typically ticks me off on Digg is a post (usually more than one) on the following ongoing us-versus-them arguments:

  1. Linux versus Windows
  2. Mac OSX versus Windows
  3. Open Source versus Microsoft
  4. Open Source versus any commercial software
  5. ODF versus Open XML
  6. Java vs C++ vs .NET versus any other language
  7. Dynamic languages versus any other languages
  8. Web Applications versus Desktop Applications
  9. And many many more

At any given time on Digg, on blogs, and in the “regular” press, you can find lots and lots of people blathering on about these subjects. Sometimes, you can even find me blathering on about them. Most of these posts are characterized by the following:

  1. They are poorly written, grammatically incorrect, etc.
  2. They are very emotional, and often hate-filled (and occasionally filled with colourful metaphors)
  3. They are low on factual information
  4. They imply (or more often, openly state) that anyone who disagrees with the post is so completely stupid that they do not deserve to live

Here are a few examples: So you think that Microsoft’s Open Office XML is ‘Teh Shiznitz’?, Virtualize Windows on Linux? Microsoft Says No Way!, Surprise: Microsoft not so ‘open’ after all?, Is the era of Microsoft Ending?, and a lot of the VistaSucks blog.

There are days that I feel if I hear/read/see one more of these stories, I am going to trash my computer, tie my belongings in a kerchief on the end of a stick and become a hobo. In a more productive vein, I would like to suggest the following guidelines:

  1. Use whatever OS you like. If you like Linux, use Linux. If you like Windows, use that. Same for OSX. Heck use CPM if you want.
  2. If you are a programmer, use whatever language you want, or which makes sense for a given project. If your employer will not let you use the language you like, stop whining and get a new job.
  3. If you like MS Office, use it. Same for OpenOffice or StarOffice.
  4. If Web Applications make sense for you, use them. If you like desktop apps, use them.
  5. Whatever you use for whatever you do, please shut up about it, and stop trying to convert everyone in the world to your point of view!