Video formats are among the most complicated formats to handle. Decoding and encoding of a frame sequence is an intricate process that different manufacturers take a different approach to solving. One solution is to settle down for no compression, the other being imposition of standards. There is one body, namely Microsoft among a few more, that embeds elements which are never agreed upon in the IT community. This corruption of inter-operable formats includes documents, spreadsheets, mail and even Web pages. Norway has had enough of that.

I would argue that there is no reason to get bitter. No open format, no view. I was never a huge TV/video anyway. When Microsoft change the encoding of text or textual formats, that descends to an entire new level though.

Flexbeta have published some Internet Explorer 7 screenshots, which were taken in a recent demonstration. RSS will apparently be well-integrated and sit in the core of Longhorn.

Microsoft seem to be catching up and perhaps it is not too late given that Mozilla Firefox has captured only around 10% of the market. A question lingers on in many people’s mind: how can Microsoft ‘inject’ Internet Explorer 7 to the public? They have had a hard time persuading businesses to upgrade their operating system.

One final nugget: Microsoft are trying to break software of their competitors by actually ‘extending’ RSS.

Windows Longhorn: will it sell or perish?

ne issue is particularly detrimental to OSS: the issue is branching. Implementation takes different directions (often due to third-parties involved) and compatibility begins to break. Linux and its distros are one valid example. Here is an example taken from skinning (AKA themes) to support the argument.

Different unique ‘skins’ for an application get distributed or different stylesheets written for a Web-based application. This gives a rich variety to choose from, but here is the snag:

• The user gets accustomed to the new interface
• A new version of the application comes out
• The user might have to re-install a new ‘skin’
• The user relies on the ‘skinners’ to carry on maintaining the project

Some may have heard of GIMPshop, which wraps the GIMP in a Photoshop-like environment. It can serve as a practical example for the pitfall.

The take home: it is safer not to be ‘distracted’ by minor components or release variants of main-stream systems.

obert Scoble, the renowned and popular Microsoft evangelist, has come under attack by various authoritarian figures like Joel and came up with defensive statements that, in my opinion, can seriously wound Windows.

Robert Scoble about Windows:

Does it have problems? Yes.

Is OSX ahead? Yes.

But Apple has always been ahead.

Might Longhorn mark a slow death of Windows?

I have been following the writings of John Dvorak for several months and in his column, he expresses the main difficulty that Microsoft are now facing.

All we hear about Longhorn, though, seems to be about the removal of one promised feature after another…

…These were the fancy file structure, the new presentation manager, and a communications system—things that were going to make the OS a platform for what were described as Service-Oriented Applications (SOA).

Longhorn is often characterised as Service Pack 3 and it can motivate a large proportion of Windows users to seek alternative platforms. One might add the statistic that half of all businesses still use Windows 2000, so can Longhorn give a compelling reason to upgrade? Clearly this will be a serious hurdle to Microsoft.

After Apple’s recent switch to Intel, let us see if Mac OS becomes available to third parties. This can easily balance the cost of hardware with the added value of security.

Longhorn: screenshots of prototypes

Fortune Magazine reports that Michael Dell, who has already become Linux-friendly, is interested in licensing Apple’s Mac OS.

…Dell (the company) has for several years fearlessly—and lucratively—sold servers loaded with Linux, the operating system Microsoft reviles and dreads. And as the industry’s top dog it wields more bargaining power with Microsoft than other PC-makers. So I emailed Michael Dell, now the company’s chairman, and asked if he’d be interested in the Mac OS, assuming that Apple CEO Steve Jobs ever decides to license it to PC companies. (For now, Jobs says he won’t.)

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

How long can this go on? The BBC reports that yet another Windows flaw has been discovered. And once again, hundreds of millions of obedient users will go out of their way and patch up their operating system.

Windows users are being urged to download the latest security updates from Microsoft to fix critical flaws.

The software giant has warned that three loopholes affecting Windows and Internet Explorer allow an attacker to take control of a personal computer.

In the mean time, ever since the Apple move to Intel, some people have installed pirated versions of Tiger (Mac OS X 1.4) on their Intel PC‘s.