Category: Irony

RE: Bill Gates Raves about the Mac (1984)

Have a look at Bill Gates Raves about the Mac (1984)

Too bad Apple was too stupid to capitalize on its superiority in those days – then we could all be bitching about them instead of Microsoft now! 

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.

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"?

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!

Apple’s Mac Set to Soar?

I am always amazed (and somewhat amused) to listen to the press and many bloggers pound on Microsoft, and hold up Apple as this golden idol of alternatives. Don’t get me wrong, I love Macs – I have ever since I started using and programming them back in the late 80s. I even liked the Newton. And the new iMacs – damn I want one.

But there are a few points of the Microsoft is evil/apple is great discussion that I find deeply amusing and ironic:

  1. Apple, with Steve Jobs, handed the desktop market to Microsoft on a platter. The Mac UI in the early eighties was way beyond anything Microsoft would produce until Windows 95. With that lead, Apple could have taken over the desktop. However, through the closed, anti-clone, “we must maintain the purity of the platform” view they had through the eighties, they gave that advantage away. Even though DOS was crap in terms of usability, and Windows was graphical crap, the availability of cheap clones and many, many hardware choices, the PC won out. Once again, inferior technoogy won because the people behind the better technology acted stupidly. (Note that Steve Jobs continued this stupidity with more great technology with Next).
  2. Apple has always been the ultimate “closed platform”. Standards rarely come into play. If you want to develop on the Mac (at least anything useful) you use our tools. Until recently, even all of the hardware has been non-standard. If Microsft were anywhere near as closed as Apple, the Justice Department would have shut them down. Heck, on many Apple devices, you are not even allowed to change your own battery, or add an industry standard memory card.
  3. Apple has rarely created technology which benefited (from a tech community sense) anyone but Apple. Consider Microsoft’s Tablet PC platform. Microsoft could have “gone it alone” on the Tablet, as Apple would have (and probably will). Instead, Microsoft defined the specification for a Tablet PC, and left it to hardware vendors and startups to build the hardware, and IVSs to build the application, thus creating a sub-industry benefiting many businesses beyond Microsoft. Compare to Apple and the launch of the iPhone.

Again, I love Apple, and I think they have some of the best design people in the world. But I do not fool myself into believing that they are in business for anyone’s benefit but their own.

Apple and Open XML

This post Apple Beats Microsoft at its Own Open XML Game and PC World article to which it refers are both mostly just more Microsoft-bashing fluff.

It is very interesting to me, however, that Apple has implemented programs which are able to read Open XML format documents. Given that one of the major complaints from the ODF camp is that the Open XML specification is too large and complicated, and contains references to Microsoft proprietary material, making it impossible or impractical for anyone except Microsoft to implement.

How do they answer Apple’s apparent ability to import and display Open XML documents?

Also, a question for anyone actually using the Apple programs – how is the format fidelity when importing these documents? 

Search Visualization – at least I am not the only one

There is a post About visualization tools over at Tech IT Easy. It is nice to see that I am not the only one who would like to see a better way to work with search results. Why is it that over the last 10-15 years, almost everything on the Web has become more and more visual, but search has stayed largely the same?

Another interesting article on an Electric Vehicle

Zero Motorcycles cranks out whisper quiet electric bike – Engadget

 This is another interesting concept. Unfortunately, I have a problem with the whole concept of electric cars – at least with ones with batteries which need to be charged from the electric power grid. In terms of a solution to our energy problems, or to global warming, these really make no sense whatsoever. All they are doing is moving the problem from one place (vehicles) to another place (the power grid), where the environmental impact is potentially as bad or worse. If even a small percentage of our vehicles were switched to electric, the impact on the power grid would be enormous.

While I admire the idea behind this effort, I believe the environmental advantages are largely illusory.

Linux sucks – especially Ubuntu

Now that I have your attention, let me explain. I like to play with Linux periodically just to keep current (actually, I like to play with almost all technologies, but there is just never enough time). I have also done quite a bit of development on Linux for server applications, though I must admit it has been a number of years.

This past weekend, it was time to rebuild my laptop, which I do every few months because I have a tendency to install a lot of trials and betas and other stuff that just generally polutes my system. Since I was reinstalling anyway, I decided it would be fun to use Ubuntu as my main OS, and do all my other stuff (i.e. Windows) through virtual machines. So, I downloaded Ubuntu Desktop 7.04, burned it out to a CD, booted up and away I went. For about 30 seconds. Then the installer from the disk crashed and burned. I tried it several different times, playing with suggestions I got from forums and stuff. No luck – it appears the installer did not like the X1400 video card in my Dell laptop (all pretty standard stuff). I could probably continue to play with this, and I am pretty sure I would find some way to get it installed. Or, i could use a different Linux distribution. That would defeat the point, however, as what I was really trying to check out was whether the current hype about Linux being ready to make the move to the desktop is real.

This brings me to the title of this post. Do I think Linux sucks? No, I think Linux is great. Do I think Ubuntu especially sucks? Not at all, though I did not really get a chance to find out.

As I read various blogs (Linux blogs, Microsoft blogs with comments from Linux zealots, Open Source blogs, etc.), I frequently see comments of the type “Microsoft sucks, and everything they build is crap, because I tried to install “product X” on “machine Y” and it didn’t work.” This type of broad generalization seems to be endemic in the open source and Linux communities, primarily when talking about anything Microsoft. Sure, I have run into problems installing and using stuff from Microsoft. I have also run into problems installing and using products from pretty much every software vendor I have run into in the last 20 years. It is an unfortunate fact of life (though I do not believe it has to be this way).

As much as I love open source software, including Linux, fanatics in the open source community have really been getting on my nerves lately (it is much the same way I feel about golf – I love golf, but golfers annoy the heck out of me).

So, by the logic of the open source world, am I justified in saying “Linux sucks – especially Ubuntu”?