A while back, my father (knowing I'm interested in these things) sent me a link to this article, in which the author supplies a critique of the windows 7 user interface. Here's my response, which I thought I'd share:

Good article, the author raises some interesting points. I definitely agree with him where he says that interface design seems to be stuck in the '80s. One thing I disagree with, though, is his optimism about Microsoft's ability to resolve these issues.

The problem is, you have a small group of 'specialists' trying to guess what people want, and come up with a single solution that is good for all -- power users and casual users, and perhaps more importantly, those who have invested a lot of time learning the old ways of doing things and those who are willing to experiment with new (and hopefully better) approaches.

Of course, the solution to this would be to have a selection of different interfaces designed for different types of user, but I don't see Microsoft adopting this approach anytime soon. On the other hand, this is exactly how the Linux world works, and is actually one of the main reasons I'm into Linux. For a start, you have the two main desktop environments, KDE and GNOME, both of which offer fairly conventional user interfaces, but tailored for slightly different sets of users. Then there are some less common environments, like Mezzo and Etoile, which have their own ideas about the user interface.

The great thing about this system is that it works on the 'survival of the fittest' principle -- the success of a given project depends on how well they serve the purposes of their users. If too many projects exist in a given niche, the weaker ones will die out, and if there is a niche that is not being addressed, projects will spring up to fill it. In fact, this applies across all applications in the free/open source world, not just desktop environments (remember how Firefox supplanted the Mozilla suite?).

Well, currently I just installed Jaunty, and it seems to be okay. I'll start off with the installation.

It was rather straightforward. I used the install option rather than booting to the LiveCD desktop. First thing you'll notice is the installer is full screen. As well, they also fixed the partitioner. It now shows the disk properly, and the more partitions you make it works correctly, rather than going off screen. I chose Ext4 as the default FS, and it's okay, but more on that. It took a grand total of 15 minutes to install, the fastest I've ever seen it yet.

The first boot was fast, as are all the subsequent boots. My 1.6Ghz, 512Mb Ram craptop boots in 30 seconds flat now. The login screen is very nice too, revamped and more modern.

I started by moving my backups onto my drive -- 115GB of video, music, and games. It worked fine. I installed a list of applications that I find standard -- mplayer, smplayer, gcc, build-essential, and of course, armagetron. They plus 300+ other MB of download files installed correctly.

The menus are snappier, gnome notification is much more professional, and everything is generally more responsive. After I added all the repos and did 'sudo apt-get update', then ran hardware drivers, it picked up my broadcom just fine. Everything just works.

However, there is a problem. Ext4. Don't install this if you want a stable computer. Removing things to your trash is safe, but don't be doing anything essential if you're emptying it. Deleting files can hard-lock your pc. Even "<ctl><alt>REISUB" doesn't work. It requires a hard boot. Stick with Ext3, but if you were unlucky enough to install 4, there will be a patch in about a month, so it's not forever.

The update manager went through some changes. Only once a week it will notify you about an update for files, and it will notify you immediatly if it's security related. However, if you close it when it's security related, it comes back right away -- very annoying. This is changeable, but I haven't gotten around to it.

 Overall, besides Ext4 and the UpdateManager, I haven't many complaints about 9.04. Installs quick, apps just work, and everything seems to be nice and dandy. I recommend it to anyone. Good job Canonical.

Not a lot is really ever said about Apple and Linux. Sure, and I heartily agree, Apple stole from BSD to make a profit (Maybe now they'll change their licensing scheme?), but that in the end helps Linux users. There are some pros and cons to this though. I'll start with the pros.

First off, if Apple does succede Microsoft as number one dog in the computing industry, making ports for applications should be easy. There will be little excuse not to provide a Linux build, as directories are layed out similarily enough, along with having similar applications, all available to each other. Also, if people get used to the Mac filesystem layout, it will be easier for those who come from the Windows layout to see how the filesystem works. But there are more cons I suppose than pros.

 Well, judging Apple simply by their current marketing scheme, it's easy to see that they'd not be a kind competitor. Lockouts would be most definate, and most PC marketers would be out out business, as Apple refuses to let anyone else make hardware other than them. So, this would mean you'd be forced to use Mac hardware, and it would no doubt you uncommon features to make it difficult to install anything but OSX on.

Overall though, I think it would do the Linux community good it Apple only had 30% of the market share. This would give developers excuse to make things for Mac's, and when it's made for a Mac, it's easy to build for Linux. This would allow the Linux market share to grown, and  it would then have it's own set of developers wanting to produce. 

In a recent interview with Douglas Leland, general manager of Microsoft Corp.'s Identity and Security Business Group, we are told that MS is concerned about both the security and the price of IT costs.

To me, security officers and IT leaders are the unsung heroes in their organization. They accomplish amazing things by integrating multiple solutions and securing their environments. But vendors generally haven't done enough to make this easier. Tight budgets in the current economic environment exacerbate this tension, though security remains a top area of investment. Forrester predicts that companies will devote 12.6 percent of IT budgets to security in 2009, up from 7.2 percent in 2007.*

Indeed, I will agree about the IT leaders being the unsung heroes in organizations. He is also correct, that vendors do sell their software, not for cheap. But on the other hand, Microsoft doesn't sell theirs cheap either do they?

Security managers are telling us they want to be more responsive to the needs of their business. They want the solutions and guidance to protect their organizations and manage compliance, but also to empower their information workers. Perhaps most important, they want to make the most of their current IT investments and the infrastructure they have today. All of this signals the need for a shift to what we think of as "Business Ready Security."

Companies do want to make the most of their current IT investments, but how many of them really want to have to pay fees in order to be up to date with the software that is available. While it may cost a little (or lots) to move to OSS, it's worth it in the end as licensing becomes a non-issue, and updates are free.

For example, today we are introducing Forefront Online Security for Exchange, a Microsoft Online Service, which protects e-mail from spam and malware. This is the first of our Forefront Online services to complement our software-based Forefront offerings. Note that we have expanded the Forefront brand to cover our portfolio of identity and security solutions. For example, our Identity Lifecycle Manager product is now officially named Forefront Identity Manager. We see the Forefront brand as synonymous with Business Ready Security.

Another important solution in this area is Microsoft code-named "Geneva," a new set of technologies that make it dramatically easier for customers to build security-enhanced access into software and hosted services.

Well, this one's easy. With a switch to Gmail, most spam will also become not an issue. No need to pay more fees yet to keep your email accounts clean. As for project "Geneva", would it not just be easier to use Linux, as the security is pretty good to begin with. Not to mention how much it costs to use this technology, and how restrictive the licenses are going to be in how you may use the software and distribute the end result.

Three, we want to help customers extend security across the entirety of their enterprises. That means continuing to build security features into Windows and our IT software solutions. It also means interoperating with non-Windows environments through partnerships and open standards.

Security will always be an issue for an Microsoft. They designed Windows from the ground up as a one man, no internet OS. The multiple users running as admin and having internet capabilities tacked on will always result in security issues for them. And as for their partnership with open standards, we know that they aren't friendly when it suits them best.

Well, you can read the rest of the interview at this page, as it is just Leland claiming that it's cheaper to use MS products, and he gives a couple examples of companies using MS technology where security and price counts.

Just read the report from ECIS (European Community for Interoperable Systems) which I found through Groklaw. The report adresses the Microsoft history of anticompetitive behaviour throughout IThistory and it's indeed intriguing.

I believe Groklaw does a better job than me in making the points - it just confirms my standing conserning Microsoft.

Openly admitting that I'm occationally reads "Boycott Novell" one could argue that I'm somewhat biased. The fun is that the credit for making me a 100% Linuxuser must be granted to Microsoft. I do quite a bit of filtering before accepting "Boycott Novell" material as solid.

 Trouble is, that whenever I find something that attracts my attention, I'm more often than not in line. Often it matches information obtained elsewhere, and the pieces matches holes in the puzzle I try to solve.

 I'm increasingly concerned about Mono and the .net implications, and after a coupple of discussions arising out of the C++ version of Tomboy - Gnote, I'm a bit concerned about the Novell influence over Gnome  as well. Somehow my thoughts regarding Mono and the Gnome 3.0 projects are not positive. At all. 

 I suspect (and the rumors are) that Microsoft will drop the forthcoming Windows7 trial version into the wild just after the release of Ubuntu 9.04.

Strategicly smart, but what everybody are adressing at the moment is the 3 application limit on Windows 7 for NetBooks. I do not believe it's a market strategy. More likely it's due to the demanding Vista 6.1 kernel. It doesn't seem to have changed much, and the applications are as demanding as ever. So Windows 7 will probably run smoothly on NetBooks - if you don't do anything that is.......

One may ask themselves why Microsoft has resorted to using tactics such as how much a PC costs vs a Mac. Look at their new commercials, like the woman going to find a PC under $1000. Well, if you haven't seen it, I'll let you in on it. She's told by an announcer that if she can find a PC for under $1000, she could keep it for free. Well, she goes into the 'Mac' store (yes, she calls it the Mac store, not Apple) and leaves immediately, stating that the only Mac she was able to find for under the limit was one with a 13" screen. In order to meet her requirements for herself, it was to be a 17" screen, a comfortable keyboard, and of course, under $1000. So she makes her way to a best-buy clone, and looks around. To her amazement, all the computer there had better specs, and she eventually settles on a $700 HP. Yes, not the point, she had to pay for it. Way to keep your promise Microsoft. Anyhow, that's besides the point.

Many people say that in order for Microsoft to combat the current problems they're having, they need to do a complete redo of their OS. This is a terrible idea, from a Microsoft perspective. Vista was as far as they can go at one time without losing a terrible amount of share. The amount of people complaining that their software doesn't work, games, applications, was incredible. Now, if they were to scrap everything that they have, and start from scratch, they'd be unable to achieve the market share they once had. Sure, some die-hards will continue to use Windows, and companies would likely continue to make software based on the new OS, but so many people would likely turn to either Mac or Linux. This is because they are already stuck having to try and learn the new OS, so they will try something new.

So, in reality, if Microsoft wants to keep their position at the top for as long as possible, they're going to have to continue with their current business model. If they don't, they don't stand a chance in this economy, let alone against the spectacular software available. So, don't expect a drastic change, expect Microsoft to stay Microsoft until the day they become the next BeOS.

Many of you may or may not have heard of a new project. This one is called OpenPandora. Their goal is to make an open source handheld that is very powerful. And I must say, they certainly achieved that.

It is by far the most powerful handheld in the world both in terms of raw CPU power and 3D graphics capability, it will be able to handle things such as Firefox3 or Quake3 with ease.

 As you can see, it's definately powerful enough as a system, but how about raw specs?

* ARM® Cortex^TM-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux
* 430-MHz TMS320C64x+^TM DSP Core
* PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware
* 800x480 4.3" 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD
* Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host
* Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output
* Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls
* 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
* Around 10+ Hours battery life 

If you ask me, this is the next-generation of netbooks. It should be a contender in the handheld arena, and if it is able to get itself enough publicity, Sony & Nintendo may start losing to significant market share. Which proves one point: What is safe from Linux? The answer: nothing. Check their site out and purchase a unit, support Linux, OpenPandora, and enjoy it while you're at it!

The German Ubuntu LoCo-Team has a new portal site: http://www.ubuntu-de.org

 It serves as an overview over all the different projects of the German Community and so helps beginners finding their way into the community.

With the acquisition of Sun - Oracle has come a full circle with its offering.

Now the question in everyone's mind - What happens to MySQL.  I am sure it will continue to be nurtured, promoted and all that. Will it be done with fair practices?  Why not donate Mysql to Linux community or Apache foundation or better still promote/nurture Mysql as an independent organization?

Why Linux ?

It is proven beyond an iota of doubt - How to manage community software platform with Linux? In the world of Light (LAMP) M is a very important member. 

Oraclians - please donate Mysql to Linux Foundation!!

By the way - This is my personal opinion!!

I have been in charge of setting multiple Linux terminal servers up through the years. I have also been tasked with getting Linux desktops conforming to the same user defaults and centrally manage those. Some applications that behave the *nix way are really easy to manage but the ones like OpenOffice, Firefox, Gnome and others can be a real pain because they have settings in all the different places and with different ways of setting them.

 Sometimes i wonder if many developers are very good at programming but perhaps not that up to speed on making them easily managable in a larger enviroment. Its really not that much of a hassle of making it really easy to manage settings for an application. 

 Put user specific settings in "~./appname",  the default user settings in /etc/skel/appname and distributing, altering them en masse and setting sane defaults becomes really easy and does not in any way demand anything else than very simple scripts.

 The worst of them all is in my mind Gnome that uses gconf. While i cant comment on its merits for programmers its a living hell managing as an admin where you have more than a couple of computers or on a terminal server. I totally abhorre using any kind of databases or registers for settings. I cant imagine it saves especially much time for the developers and it certainly introduces nothing but troubles for the users.

This is in my mind really something that needs to be taken into consideration for those who wish people in corporations using their apps more. Especially firefox and openoffice thats pretty hard to manage on both Linux and Windows regardless of any policy tools , scripts or whatnot.

 Linux in itself and as an OS works wonderfully in regards to settings and such, its just some of the applications bolted ontop and ran on Linux that would really need some rethinking from a management point of view.