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

Foreword: I syndicated Robert Scoble’s blog for a few months in the past, mainly in order to keep an eye on Microsoft’s ‘software politics’ and developments. I thought I would see the nicer face of an aggressive corporation, but I soon dropped it like a hot plate.

consider very few things to be “shocking”. There are very few things as adverse-to-logic and even shocking as Robert Scoble using Firefox and running his blog on WordPress (LAMP technology). This has been the case ever since his so-called ‘Net dad’ had weblogs.com sold out to VeriSign — a rather evil company. Scoble is a Microsoft evangelist, but he decided to practically infiltrate a world of Open Source. At some stage, it ended up badly.

Before Scoble became Dave Winer’s ‘surrogate child’, he wasn’t doing anything too admirable, but he was among the first people to blog. Then, years later, he would rave about ‘RSS this and RSS that’. It was Winer’s technology. Scoble only understands computers as a user, rarely realising the underlying issues in depth. He is no developer and no great writer either, yet his reputation and momentum, as well as being outspoken and critical of Microsoft while being paid by them is what makes him somewhat exceptional. His reputation is overrated.

When it comes to technology, I found that Scoble cannot tell his ass from his face. Microsoft employed him only because of his Web statistics. It is a public relations trick — companies buying readership (through popular voices) and promote propaganda to improve the Windows brand name and image. Microsoft had plans of employing many freelance bloggers to promote evangelism, using money. Scoble now runs on Linux and when I mailed him about it, he could only come up with a lame excuse about this choice.

If you seek a popular blog to aggregate, skip Scoble. It is an utter waste of time. Grossly overrated.

ILL Gates comes from a dynasty of businessmen and politicians. Over the years he was trying to commercialise software and nowadays he monopolises it. So what gives?

Commercial software companies liquify no assets into cash. They merely sell binaries (not even code) and offer little or no direct customer support. Accruing profits in such a matter is just lush, but is it acceptable at all? Is the final product doing what ‘it says on the tin’? Often it is not the case. Microsoft will soon sell a product to fix yet another broken product of theirs, which is absurd. Rather than offer refunds and benefits, which somehow compensate for a broken operating system, more money is extracted from the customer.

The above leads to serious questioning. Such marketing tactics do not appeal to anyone but the obedient Microsoft programmer whose understanding of hacking is flawed and often inexistent. That perhaps is why Windows fails to cope with that vital aspect which is security. That is why minor DDOS attacks pose a big threat to Windows servers, machines get hijacked and remote execution of code has become worryingly prevalent. Planting of programs and vandalism from afar is a face of evil that continues to take place. And yet, only few among us choose to blame the real culprit — Microsoft software.

Shut your ears, stop the radiation and avoid the fumes

O this date, I loathe the prevalence of high-intensity antennas, particularly those that serve mobile communication. These are often installed on the top of roofs of businesses, which in turn get paid (bribed) to tolerate consequent inconveniences. It was only last month that I came to discover one such controversy. This happened at a hotel I used to go to, where demonstrations by local residents were sparked by a decision to install monstrous antennas.

I still refuse to embrace telephony (alluded to in this previous essay) unless it is vital. I am aware of the ‘radiative implications’ of cellular phones, especially when they are active, i.e. on call. Vis-a-vis, my father encouraged my older sister to always use headphones and a microphone with her cellular phone, if not limit its use altogether. The issue of radiation lingers on and exacerbates as time goes. The reason: wireless communication rises owing to customer demand and bandwidth greed.

To digress, then comes the issue of wireless Internet networking, which I have always been wondering about with health complications/implications in mind. Whether commonplace Wireless or even Bluetooth, such radio frequencies of strong magnitude increase the risk level or rate of tumour growth and development. Turning over to some recent news, you can finally find a University where wireless access has been limited due to health concerns.

Criticism of wireless network is somewhat of a taboo, still. You cannot comfortably point this out among your surrounding colleagues and friends. The crushing majority does not care and does not want to know about the long-term consequences, which are yet to affect the young(er) generation most prominently.

While on the subject of self-damaging habits amongst society, choice of headphones should be yet another important matter. Many choose in-ear headphone and listen to loud music. Some of the local clubs would leave my ears ringing for 2 days afterwards, so no doubt damage is being done.

Lastly, my last health concern is related to smoking. Fortunately here in Britain, nightclubs and pubs were very recently requested to inherit and embrace the “No Smoking” policy, thereby joining other venues like the workplaces. Surely enough, some of us could abstain from going to smoky places, but what about the staff — those who do not necessarily smoke? The smoke-free workplace arguments collide. Some employees at the pubs, such as bartenders, may spend dozens of hours per week passively exposed to constant inhalation of damaging smoke. It clogs up the lungs, ruins the voice, and makes the clothes reek. That is not a matter of choice, but a way of making ends meet.

Two recent articles, which are definitely worth reading, are listed below.

• Search Engines as Leeches on the Web

Search engines extract too much of the Web’s value, leaving too little for the websites that actually create the content. Liberation from search dependency is a strategic imperative for both websites and software vendors.

• Another article I enjoyed reading is a critique of Web 2.0 hype

To you who are toiling over an AJAX- and Ruby-powered social software product, good luck, God bless, and have fun. Remember that 20 other people are working on the same idea. So keep it simple, and ship it before they do, and maintain your sense of humor whether you get rich or go broke. Especially if you get rich. Nothing is more unsightly than a solemn multi-millionaire.

This reminded me of a fun blog which is purely dedicated to Web 2.0 bashing.

My Web-based mail access (primarily Horde)
click image to view in full size

HIS is going to be the type of post that potentially leads to friction, but I simply cannot hold off. I even created a new category due to this item and aptly named it “Rants”. I will stick to anonymity in order to prevent sensitive criticism from having context.

15 minutes we spent in the weekly meeting. 15 minutes discussing the mail problems that have plagued this department for the past week. You’ve guessed it. The Department has got an Exchange mail server. People are unable to send mail at times, Web access is flaky, and popups keep coming up to inform the user about error in the local mail client, which to most is Outlook. Fortunately, I metaphorically took my toys and left this mail system 2 years ago. It seemed unreliable when I first joined the Division.

In the interim, people still suffer from mail issue. I do not take pleasure in the misery of others, but I could not feel better about my foresight. I did the right thing by ditching this mail system very early on. This is only the pinnacle of something that has culminated after months of recurring issues. More interesting is the following observation: At no point throughout the meeting was the mail system criticised. Not Exchange, not Outlook, not even the support staff. The IT department suggests that there is a single Outlook user which is the catalyst for this issue, probably without any awareness. They can’t identify who it is (not me of course, just for clarification!).

The staff would defend the only thing that they know and consider to be trustworthy: pricy Microsoft products. This loveaffair is by all means expensive. Linux to them would seem as though it serves only be a step back. It may be the effect of age and earsay. Regardless, the most amazing thing is that the entire meeting revolved around blaming an anonymous user who had the system crippled due to its deficient nature. Exchange cannot cope with something as simple as manageing 100 mail accounts. A single user can have it grind to a halt for very long periods of time, burning the valuable time of both support staff and research staff. There is no solution on the horizon either, other than speak to each individual user which is bound to the mail system. The staff might also need to verify that the system is properly configured on each individual workstation.

I find entire the scenario rather pathetic. This is probably why I was never fond of the Microsoft-friendly attitude among academic IT departments. Due to issues of liability and large available budgets, brand names are often picked at the expense of quality.

Needless to mention, these mail issues are irrelevant to me. I could not be happlier with my mail system. I had my mail hosted in my Linux-based domain for over year without any downtime or quirks. It never ceased to work, just like the positive Linux myth. Need it be mentioned that my server is responsible for mail accounts of just a single individual and not an entire Department? This is not the first time that I mention Exchange server disasters.