Thom Holwerda Archive

"Apple has touted itself as the innovator in OS software; it has suggested that all the new additions in Windows Vista already exist in the most recent Mac OS X, Tiger. Microsoft might take issue with that, but there's no denying that it has struggled somewhat with Vista, which has had features cut and seen a series of delays. To find out what people on the street make of it, we asked our Vista Views panel, made up of ordinary readers, this question: Which feature in Leopard would you like to see in Vista?"

Paul Thurrot, everybody's favourite Microsoft Apple Microsoft zealot, writes on his webpage: "It's funny. Apple calls Microsoft a copy-cat, and yet, I feel like I've seen some of these features somewhere before. Many of the features, however, are just sad. Is this really the best they had to show off right now?" El Reg agrees with him, saying: "On the basis of the evidence so far the sixth release of Mac OS X is, to put it bluntly, a point release." Update by ELQ: A related editorial by Wired.

"You've probably heard of full disclosure, the security philosophy that calls for making public all details of vulnerabilities. It has been the subject of debates among researchers, vendors, and security firms. But the story that grabbed most of the headlines at the Black Hat Briefings in Las Vegas last week was based on a different type of disclosure. For lack of a better name, I'll call it faux disclosure. Here's why."

"Microsoft has reached an enormous success with its Windows product during the last decade and practically monopolized the market for home computer operating systems. But, does it mean Windows is still the best OS around, especially for power users? I'm going to cumulate my Windows XP frustrations and tell you about the top 10 reasons why I decided to dump Windows and use GNU/Linux as my primary desktop OS."

Yesterday, Steve Jobs of Apple held his usual keynote speech at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference at the Moscone Center, San Fransisco. I usually thoroughly enjoy Jobs's keynotes; they are a well-planned piece of theater, complete with drama, comedy, and even action. In between, of course, some new products are announced, and some meaningless figures are given (classic example of spin doctoring: use only the figures of your strongest market, in Apple's case, the US laptop market; ignore the rest). However, this time, the theater part seemed to far outweigh the new-products-part. And that's a shame. Note: The, Tuesday Eve Column.

Michael Phipps announced that Waltercon 3 will be held in Orlando on October 28th and 29th. Among other news, Haiku has a webdesign contest as well as an icon set contest. The new website will be based on Drupal, the submission deadline is October 1st. The icon contest deadline is September 1st.