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

From previously-cited writer comes yet another ‘killer essay’.

if (Windows Rules) then (Linux fails)

Part of the problem with the documentation and identification issues I talked about last week – and will talk about more later – is that it is very hard to separate information from disinformation.

Disinformation comes in three major forms:

1. innocent mistakes;
2. intentional disinformation (aka FUD); and,
3. (self) delusion.

[...]

Read on…

Also see: Linux is not Windows

ARGE quantities of Red Hat-based terminals are expected to reach the African people. This comes a month or two after Microsoft refused to give Africa cheaper software, arguing that skills were needed rather than more software.

South African news site Tectonic is reporting how KDE terminals are Giving South African Farmers a Leg-up.

[...]

The government’s IT manager said “People’s perception of open source is that everything is command-based, text-based. Our pilot projects are meant to address that perception.”

On the same topic: 100 Dollar Open Source Laptop

When your data is only readable to a program

EVERAL weeks back, I came across concerned Palm users in the forums. They were uncertain and confused with regards to their Palm data formats. Some were wishing to migrate their data, while some just wanted to rest assured that they were not susceptible to vendor lock-ins or needed to jump through hoops to make a transition, shall it ever be required.

Palm’s software certainly offers data export facilities, yet these are not flexible enough. The range of supported formats simply does not cut it. It appears to adhere to legacy formats from the previous decade, which is probably the cause for many other limitations, which make older Palm models compatible with some of the latest.

On the other hand, Palm’s compact formats make data access and writing quick, which is crucial for low-end mobile devices with weak CPU‘s. The formats are rather compact, although not easily compressible. As always, there is a trade-off between openness and performance. OpenOffice and Microsoft Office are just one example of that. At present, Palm appear to have learned nothing from the former. Until they learn that lesson, the observations below are worth making.

Looking more closely at a variety of PIM data files, I quickly discovered that they could be classified as “proprietary”. They were rather opaque too. These files comprised a mishmash of binary and text, which means that knowledge as to how to interpret such files laid in closed source code from Palm. It was not easily recoverable, although programs like JPilot and KPilot are able to import all data apart from the calendar (DateBook), which is the most complex among all. Likewise, there are Palm to HTML convertors that run under Windows, but they can only handle AddressBook and MemoPad data, in line with relevant, unofficial documentation.

I could not help feeling disappointed by that discovery, which means that personal information is cumbersome to access. As the Web guru Jeff Veen recently said, “Give me my data” is the quote that immediately sprung to mind. Therein Jeff talks about heart rate monitors, but here we speak of calendaring data, including extensive archives and PIM, which puts a barrier in front of its actual owner. Palm should have stuck with a more canonical form such as “vCalendar/iCalendar, which is already mutually supported across multiple platforms. This type of Move to iCal or vCal (vCalendar, iCalendar), or even comma-sparated list was discussed many years ago.

Alternatively, why not use something standardised and generic such as XML, which can be easily parsed and manipulated? Is it not a foreseeable option, especially to Palm who combat a king of proprietary, thus misunderstood formats? As I continue to look at my Palm archives on my computer, I am filled with despair. I relveal that my records are interpretable to no calendaring software other than that which comes from Palm themselves. I would definitely recommend that Palm consider re-working their formats as it can become a major selling point.

Nowadays, More and more people (and even governments) come to discover that their old mail is often meaningless and inaccessible due to formats that are vendor-specific. Berlin, Paris and Massachusetts are only few among the loud protesters against undisclosed data formats and mockery of standards. It is only today that we hear of promises (as of yet doubtful) from Microsoft, according to which Office formats will become open.

Microsoft will on Tuesday announce it is opening up access to its Office file formats to competitors, as part of a move to ensure the software giant does not lose lucrative government markets for its Office software.

Let us wait until those fine prints become legible.

Cited by: PalmAddict

ARNING: this item is unhealthy to self-proclaimed and avid Windows users. To me, it sometimes seems as though Windows is much like smoking. It takes a lot of your money and as the addiction grows (dependency on software), it requires you to assign a decent proportion of your wage to it. Eventually, in return, it punishes you despite its high cost.

The fact that a majority people stick to Windows does not bother me. They insist on using it and I respect that decision. Being told what is good for you is probably the toughest challenge. I continue to see my colleagues spending a great deal of their time doing things which are by all means unnecessary, e.g. filesystem maintenance and virus checks. There is also a perpetual penalty due to, e.g. trial version of software with disabled features, O/S collapses and so forth.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, some people are able to get their work done without worrying at all about these man-made problems, which inherently are inexistent in computing. Finally, returning to my point above, Windows users often punish themselves, but no deliberately so. The least we can do is offer redemption from the habit and prove that better ways exist.

CLI anywhere, at any time

CCESS to particular computers can be crucial, especially while travelling. There are a variety of ways for achieving full remote access, though simple, text-based shell access is supported by even weaker devices and light-weight software.

I recently read about someone who thought of handling Web servers from a Palm Treo, using E-mail, which is supposedly a universal API. I consider E-mail to be the wrong tool for a simple task, even if one uses cron jobs and collects the output via E-mail (similar to a hack I once mentioned. Alternatively, shell access can be obtained in one of the following ways:

• Cellular telephones: using CUTs
• Web-based: MindTerm, e.g. from Duke University
• Windows: PuTTy
• Windows mobile: I have seen an SSH client in action and it looked quite clean
• UNIX variants and derivatives: Built-in functionality
• Palm O/S: pssh, free and apparently based on PuTTy, though it is hard to tell for sure
• Blackberry: For that, one might have to pay nearly $100. That’s the chance one takes when steering away from Open Source. Palm may not be Open Source-oriented, but its users’ ideaology differs.

POV-Ray – The Kitchen by Jaime Vives Piqueres

recently wrote about Microsoft’s attempt to gently push away any technology that is not theirs. Among my list laid OpenGL and DirectX, which is a Microsoft ‘tool’ for putting an end to interoperable 3-D rendering (frequently gaming) in favour of proprietary. The added value is zilch. It is merely required to re-inforce the shackles of a monopoly.

I kindly advise that you sign the petition to stop this from happening. At present, OpenGL support is discouraged in Windows Vista, which looks grim for a world where interoperability prevails.

In the current implementation (as of 2005-09-22) of the OpenGL graphics library in Windows Vista – a soon to be released new version of the Microsoft Windows operating system, OpenGL is not a stand alone library. Instead it functions as a wrapper around DirectX, and is frozen to the vanilla version of OpenGL 1.4.

This means that OpenGL applications in Windows Vista will, most likely, suffer from severe performance loss, that, when an OpenGL driver is loaded, the Windows operating system will have odd behaviours and that future versions of OpenGL will not affect the Windows Vista platform. This would result in less developers actively supporting OpenGL, and as a result, less applications written which are easy to port to another platform or easy to maintain.

Media slowly becomes redundant
while network-based services take over

HE interesting item come from the Financial Times and discusses Microsoft’s wishful (and thus far unsuccessful) strategic move to providing on-line services, e.g. MSN and so-called Live Software.

For long-time Microsoft watchers, there was a strong sense of déjà vu about Bill Gates’s description this week of a new vision for the future of software.

The future, he declared, lay lies (I had to fix this typo that hurt my eyes) in delivering services over the internet, not selling shrink-wrapped CDs containing code that customers could load on their own machines…

[...]

But the internet’s impact on the software business continues to spread, and the idea of software-as-a-service is back in fashion in Microsoft’s Redmond HQ — this time under the new rubric of ‘Live Software’.

Microsoft’s CEO therefore admits that Microsoft’s weakest point is in fact where future IT is headed. Can the Internet become safe haven for the troubled and perplexed Windows code? Will Microsoft’s Singularity (a new O/S) become a reliable replacement/successor instead? It it all as realistic as edible manour?