Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)

HILE one of the biggest direct threats to Microsoft is Linux (among Linux laptops in poor countries, Google on Linux), IBM are yet the biggest threat. IBM continue to urge businesses to find cheaper solutions and make use of Linux. IBM’s revenue from Linux is expected to triple within the coming year, too.

Microsoft’s latest response is an initiative to challenge IBM on their own turf, according to last night’s news. In other words, making software recommendations to customers is a task the could be delegated to a vendor. This is worrisome, to say the least.

Y site has just returned to Google’s top 50 for “roy”, after I had dropped to oblivion last year. I was never truly trying to get there. I never aimed for the site to be affiliated with the keyword “roy”, but this was a side effect of anchor text (words adject to or within hyperlinks). More oddly, my domain name and front page title make no mentioning of Roy. This, anchor text must matter a great deal; More than many of us realise, that’s for sure.

As another example, take the main developers of WordPress. They are ‘Googlebombing’ themselves in ‘out of the box’ installations of the software Web-wide. Try searching Google for “matt”, “mike”, or “alex”. You will see what I mean.

Photo which goes back to circa 1984

N hindsight, I believe that resigning from my job was an excellent choice, from a career ‘s perspective. I think I made the right choice by reducing a workload which provided income. For those readers who are lost, my last day at work was yesterday.

My life remains divided between voluntary contributions to Open Source and some jobs and duties, which help make ends meet. I recently mentioned my departure in terms of hardware depletion, which is of course irrelevant in any respect. What I care far more about is that gap and distance that will prevent me from seeing old colleagues and friends. This proves, as a matter of fact, that social aspects in a workplace can help in attracting and keeping valuable and talented staff. Luring people in is another matter altogether. It is no longer surprising to me that certain people work for one single company throughout their entire life.

I have held this particular job for 3.5 years. No doubt it will be remembered as quite a nice occupation. My other job I have held since 2001 and I will probably finish my contract this September, which will leave me far more independent. I guess it is simply a matter of moving on, probably to bigger and better things. Maybe even freelancing!

During my service at Manchester Computing I got to know many people, which made it hard for me to ever decide to leave. I once thought I would leave after a year, but here I am several years later, saying farewall rather late. This was probably long overdue, yet I remain rather saddened. Behind me I leave a place that had served me well in many ways.

Looking back at the E-mail archives from work, it is evident that I helped many people. Above all, I helped keep a variety of things running. It is a very important matter to me, as I once wrote about in “my creed of life” or “why I do what I do”. Many of the people involved were academic staff, who are nothing to sneeze at. My memories and experiences (more latterly at the Visualsation Center) will be tattooed in my memory forever, I am sure. If not, perhaps the blog will have me remained one day. Being an on-line diary, it is a avaliable tool for reminiscing.

To mark the occasions, I had a blast last night. A bunch of us went out to Rockworld and got wasted. Fortunately, no hangovers like the last time! For the first time, however, I spotted a case of complete memory loss. I cannot recall how I got from napping position on my dining table onto the bed. I guess the combination of heavy drinking and sleep made this reminiscent of insomnia.

NCE again, a timely article that covers zombies (and so-called “bot armies”) — these which are being used to carry distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks — fails to point out an important and crucial fact. It is only Windows computers that get hijacked en masse as part of extortion schemes. Snippet from the article lies below:

A new kind of denial-of-service attack has emerged that delivers a heftier blow to organizations’ systems than previously seen DOS threats, according to VeriSign’s security chief.

Not even once did the author mention the culprit. This is the third such article I come across which neither includes the word “Windows”, nor does it allude to “Microsoft” in any way. Fortunately, CNET give the E-mail address of the author, so I voiced a complaint. I still get hammered by about a thousand Windows zombies a day, which costs bandwidth. As yet, there is no sign of abatement.

I am aware that most CNET readers are using Windows, so might behave defensively and demand respect for the platform. I am also aware that the Windows EULA forbids such criticisms. Nevertheless, I think the article is flawed.

Here’s my response to the author:

I am somewhat appalled that in your article, much like in many similar articles, the main culprit is not even mentioned. All zombies are Windows. I happen to have strong feelings about this because my site has been attacked since September. The BBC are yet the only ones to have mentioned Windows in this context.

Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)

ILL Gates has found himself subjected to heavy criticism after he had mocked an initiative to give laptops to children in third-world countries. These Linux-powered laptops were mentioned several time before in this blog. They could potentially reach half a billion children within a few years and achieve connectivity in a peer-to-peer fashion, which makes them very affordable.

To make matters worse, while mocking the low-cost laptop, Gates pulled out his own little gadget and raved about Microsoft’s Origami, as if a circa $1000 computer could ever reach every children in Africa.

Shrimp-like USB drives. And who said innovation was dead?

Check out this interview with a senior figure at IBM. It reminds me a great deal of classic predictions that nothing could be invented after the 19th century. History repeats itself.

An era of inventions ended with the passing of the 20th century, says a prominent thought leader from IBM.

Remember: being adverse to common hypotheses grants attention. I believe that such statements should serve as an example. The first among these videos explains it rather well. People tend to thing that a peak has been reached at present date.

VER the past few years I have accumulated new workstations, which joined what would become ‘legacy hardware’. The neat thing is that modern workstations can collaborate with the older ones and greatly benefit from their existence, e.g. for backup purposes or the use as a remote terminal. The key step is that which involved delegating tasks to each workstation, depending on its available capacity.

Currently, I have three machines at work. Ubuntu Linux is my pride with an admirable uptime (09:57:27 up 148 days, 1:47, 5 users, load average: 0.04, 0.05, 0.01), but there is also a Windows box and a Mac, none of which I bother to switch on anymore. There is one more computer at the University (SuSE), one at home (SuSE), and a laptop that I recently handed over to my sister. If it counts, I still have a Pentium at home, but it runs Windows 98 and it is not even connected to a source of power. It simply lies in storage and occasionally brings back memories from my mid-teens.

Giving up on one of my jobs is something I decided to do last week. I will still be left with another job, as well as the full-time Ph.D., on which I must concentrate. Thesis composition should probably start within weeks.

This departure from the job will leave me with 3 machines less. A post on my resignation should come up soon, once all is confirmed. I am obliged to come in for my last afternoon of duty tomorrow. I am saddened to think that the better choice was to resign. But not doubt it was.