here are healthy competitions and morbid competitions. A competition which involves handicapping the opponents is always a destructive and dangerous one. Nevertheless, there are examples in industry where Xerox, Microsoft, Amazon and other leaders file laughable patents for what should certainly remain a taboo — a no-go area. After 5 years and 4 rejection, Amazon received exclusive rights to inform customers of what they already bought (history). Sounds outrageous? It gets worse…

Microsoft are patenting the custom emoticons, practically opening the door to control of social behaviour with an army of lawyers. Instead of following such footsteps, companies must strive to innovate and offer some added value, not imitate and shield uninnovative ideas that have floated around for decades.

Bill Gates posing for a teen magazine in 1985
with a Mac at the back, from which he nicked the GUI

A competition where giants impose legal barriers to obstruct smaller opponents is like taking the lead in running race, tossing water bootles back at the track. Proprietary, patents and artificial channelling of users all have this effect. At the end of the day, Bill Gates wonders why computer science is slowly dying in the United States.

Spherical desktop – experimental demo

Longhorn beta – recent screenshot

Longhorn has just become Windows Vista (also see BBC and CNN reports).

The new name, which means view, reflects on the main point of emphasis for the operating system, namely looks. As mentioned before, Longhorn/Vista will be little more than Windows XP with new colours and — as more recently seen — will incorporate transparency. It has been pointed out that Longhorn/Vista will look slightly different from XP, but will offer little or no added value in terms of productivity.

One wonders if the change of names is due to the bad reputation and rumours that are accompanied with the word “Longhorn”. The name Longhorn was derived from the name of a pub, which certainly does not add to credibility.

Linux computer for under $255 in the UK (click to enlarge)

ithin this post lies my main argument as to why Linux (or complimentary Open Source streams or movements) will rise hugely in less than a decade. The cost of production continues to slide while human intellect (development) is among the more expensive commodities. The Zipit demonstrates that by using Linux, the leading free operating system, a PDA with WiFi, 320×240 pixels display and stereo DAC can sell for as little as $99.

$299 for the entire package

In Britain, Dabs are now selling a Mandrake 9.2 Linux box (quicklinx 3QV3WS, no monitor is included) for 140 British pounds ($245) excluding VAT. Elsewhere in the world, the fully-featured MOBILIS computer (shown above) goes for only $299 list and speculations are made as to why commercial software will perish once hardware costs equate to it.

Enterprises still need software, and lots of it, to run their operations, but they are buying few new licenses. Part of the story is that the market is mature and buyers have enough software already. Part of the story is that offshore outsourcing makes it cheaper to build your own. A big part of the story is the appearance of more efficient alternatives, such as open source.

With such low prices across the market, buying a larger number of computational units is possible for prices that are comparable with that of several Windows PC‘s or Apple Macs. Server rooms will benefit in terms of performance, as they do already. Homes will be able to offer a computer to each member of the family or exploit computers for otherwise remote uses like home entertainment, productivity and automation in the garden , the kitchen (see kitchen of the future) and even the car.

PDF‘s, text files, HTML‘s and
directories in the KDE Desktop with previews (click to enlarge)

ver had the experience of staring at a collection of files, wondering which one is which and puzzled by the best way of finding the text or images you are after? This was a wide-spread operating system deficiency in the nineties (there was a brute-force barrier). Nowadays, directories reflect on their content and file previews are generated on-the-fly, even over FTP, i.e. remote data.

With a large enough icon size as shown above (an example from KDE), even entire documents reflect on their content. Similar types of previews exist for animations and — oddly enough — sound.

By obtaining this reflection on content, there is no longer a need to open files in vain. Location of content becomes an easier task as it can be done visually rather than relying on filenames. Files are simply more recognisable since they express their purpose in the most natural way. If a pictures is worth a thousands words, the user is able to scan more data, more quickly.

Preview are not the only way of improving productivity. Work is being done on extending the “drag-and-drop” functionality for items, e.g. animated folding and dropping (videos included) and richer desktop interactions. As a matter of preference, I like keeping my Desktop clean, making it a ‘yet-to-complete’ list. Previews on files cannot resolve the issue of clutter and scale; they can, however, compensate for the expressiveness of filenames.

For those who do not know yet, Windows Longhorn was intended to introduce WinFS. This new filesystem, rather than using filetables (notably FAT32), was aimed at getting rid of traditional file management and filenames altogether. Nevetheless, Longhorn ended up incorporating none of the promised innovative features though.

My machine at work, which
runs Ubuntu Linux (see daily photolog)

buntu is a Linux distribution that is based on Debian and resembles it too. This Gnome-based (also see KDE version) distro from Canonical is self-contained, very reliable and comes as a 1-CD installation (will be shipped to your home for free), which is a big pro in many people’s eyes. Its simple user environment and low level of verbosity make it friendly, much like Mac OS and Windows. Under the hood, it still offers the full strengths that Linux possesses.

Ubunutu is well-known as a great distro for Linux beginners. Moreover, its straight-forward and fast installation process (took me 20 minutes to install), as well as stability made it the subject of envy to many. It comes with many excellent programs, e.g. Open Office, the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), Firefox and Evolution. Quite amazingly, all are contained in the single CD, not to mention a wide range of drivers and add-ons.

As a final cautionary word, do not judge the whole of Linux based on Ubuntu. I run Ubuntu in the office only to function as a node by which to SSH my SuSE box at the University. Ubuntu is reliable, but somewhat weak compared with pre-loaded operating systems.

More KDE goodness with the introduction of Plasma (source)

lasma is an exciting project in progress, which will enrich the Linux desktop environment even further. Mac OS X is still ahead of Linux in terms of eye candy, yet KDE is close to catching up with the foreseeable release of KDE 3.5.

Similar items with screenshots: Next Generation of X, Operating Systems Eye Candy

IBM have officially brought to an end their ties with OS/2. They now recommend a migration to Linux and quote dates when ‘the plug will be pulled out’ on OS/2. The article shrewdly states that IBM are unlikely to recommend the same type of switch from Windows to Linux. They recently filed a lawsuit against Microsoft who later paid close to a billion dollars in Windows vouchers. Consequently, IBM kissed, made up and dropped their case. Does that remind anyone of Michael Jackson and bribery?

BIG BLUE has hammered the final nails into OS/2′s coffin. It said that all sales of OS/2 will end on the 23rd of December this year, and support for the pre-emptive multitasking operating system will end on the 31st December 2006.