Monthly Archive:: November 2012

"I was prepared to write that the Windows 8 interface was forcing unnecessary touchscreen controls on people who wouldn't appreciate them, particularly if they were simply grafted onto a traditional laptop. But the more I've used Windows 8, despite its faults, the more I've become convinced that touchscreens are the future - even vertical ones." I can see his point. I, too, have often felt the desire to touch regular and laptop displays, especially when doing things like photo and video.

This is remarkably cool. "Plan 9 occupies an interesting niche in the open source operating system world. It is a full-fledged descendant of Unix, but not in the way that most systems out there are. It took the bones and beating heart of Unix and then built a brand-new cybernetic exoskeleton around it, with lasers, and heat vision... oh wait. You want to boot this bad-boy up, right? Well, okay, we'll do that. But what hardware shall we run it on? Hey, you got a Raspberry Pi? Well then, read on!" A ready-made image to run Plan 9 on your Pi.

"Once you've got used to it, and that the Hub is the home screen, BB10 is by some distance the most brutally efficient multitouch interface I have used so far. It makes the others look like hard work. Yes, the odds are stacked against RIM - and when it comes to the as-yet unseen hardware, it needs to pull some crackers out of the barrel. But phones sell on the user interface, and this is very good indeed." Basically how I feel about Windows Phone. Much more pleasurable and fun to use than the childish and condescending iOS, and the at times confusing and messy Android (more Holo please, developers!), but sadly, the rest of the world doesn't really care.

The Register is running a very interesting article by Dominic Connor, telling the insider story about OS/2 1.0/1.1 development in the old days. From the terrible management in IBM, to the hilarious coding practices of Microsoft, there's lots of stuff in here - and it's only part one. "The unholy alliance of IBM and Microsoft unleashed OS/2 25 years ago with a mission to replace Windows, Unix and DOS. Back then, I was a foot-soldier in that war: a contract bug hunter at Big Blue. Here's how I remember it."

Financial analyst Charles Sizemore predicts that over time, a persistent Microsoft will come to not only thrive but dominate in the mobile computing space, because Apple has no "moats" to prevent customer attrition and its insistence at heavily controlling the ecosystem will drive customers away, while Google's offerings are too "shoddy." It's a bold prediction, but I suppose betting on Microsoft to be persistent and build on its strengths is a safe bet. But will persistence and flexibility be enough?

"Today, I want to share a bit more detail about the growing Surface family of products and Surface with Windows 8 Pro, specifically around pricing. In January, Surface with Windows 8 Pro will be available in two versions and pricing will start at $899." Stefan Constantine noted on Twitter: "For the price of a Surface Pro ($899), you could buy a Nexus 4 ($349), Nexus 7 ($299), and a Chromebook ($249). Do the math." No matter how hard people are going to shout the Surface Pro is an ultrabook competitor, people will compare it to an iPad.

Not even GNOME itself could ignore the GNOME 3 criticism for much longer. "As part of the planning for the DropOrFixFallbackMode feature, we've decided that we will compile a list of supported gnome-shell extensions. This will be a small list, focused on just bringing back some central 'classic' UX elements: classic alt tab, task bar, min/max buttons, main menu. To ensure that these extensions keep working, we will release them as a tarball, just like any other module."

"As we pass the one month anniversary of the general availability of Windows 8, we are pleased to announce that to-date Microsoft has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses. Tami Reller shared this news with industry and financial analysts, investors and media today at the Credit Suisse 2012 Annual Technology Conference. Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 in terms of upgrades." Not bad, but there are the usual asterisks, as Ars notes.

Cryptoparty is a global initiative to introduce privacy concepts and free tools to the public. Recently they developed their free handbook, a 390-page pdf that covers all aspects of privacy for web browsing, email, passwords, and encryption for files, disks, IM, and phone calls. Download it free here.

Do you depend on your computer for your living? If so, I'm sure you've thought long and hard about which hardware and software to use. I'd like to explain why I use generic "white boxes" running open source software. These give me a platform I rely on for 100% availability. They also provide a low-cost solution with excellent security and privacy.

Hard to believe, but articles are popping up at business websites claiming that venerable Hewlett-Packard may fail. In their most recent fiasco, HP wrote off a loss of $8.8 of their $11.1 US billion acquisition of Autonomy and have alleged fraud in the deal. Revenue is down 7% from a year ago and the stock has hit a 10-year low. The company is laying off 27K employees but that may not be enough. Some speculate HP might be broken up into parts with buy-outs involved. This article from last May offers a good in-depth analysis of how all these problems came to pass.

Since its 4.4.10 release way back in 2008, Damn Small Linux languished as an inactive project. But a month ago John Andrews announced 4.11 release candidate 2. It includes updated apps and bug fixes. Download from here (only 50m). More on what's in the release candidate here. DSL is popular for making older computers useful and also works well as a tiny live distro.

A California man is suing Microsoft, alledging that his Surface tablet did not provide the advertised amount of disk space. The 32G device has 16G of space for users, as the operating system uses the other 16G. The 64G Surface leaves 45G free for users. The case will turn on whether Microsoft has clearly explained to customers how much free space the Surface leaves for their use outside of the OS. How much disk space does your OS consume?

Haiku R1/Alpha 4 had a couple critical bugs that were immediately identified and resolved shortly after release. These issues affected a significant number of users, and Haiku developers felt it made sense to do an Alpha 4.1 point release to provide a better experience for subsequent user downloads. The new download links and torrents have been provided, and they encourage people to update.