Be Excellent To Each Other

Reading Goatboy's thread about Vista and the vagaries of 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, I wrote the following. It's stuff that's of great interest to me currently, but contains no jokes, so, serious faces on everyone!

Similarly to Vista, Internet Explorer 7 has been a flop, making no improvement on their rapidly declining browser share. Unlike the long wait between versions 6 and 7, version 8 is due in the next few months. And they've made quite a big thing about going 'It passes the acid2 test! Come back to us!'

Similarly again, Silverlight whilst a quite cool technology, hasn't had nearly the amount of take-up and attention that they'd have liked, partly because there are so many similar rival platforms out there (of which Adobe AIR is arguably the most successful, in a minor sort of way).

Meanwhile, this week they announce that they will be erm, soon announcing Windows Cloud, their new operating system 'for the cloud'. The Cloud being the new buzzword terminology for the Mobile Office - keep this is mind at all times if anyone you know starts evangelizing about the concept of the Cloud.

Why? Partly because of the above. Their browser share is dropping at a massive and ongoing rate. Needing a specific browser for a specific site is now considered (in polls I have seen) a pain in the arse, rather than a sign of IE's dominance and superiority.

Meanwhile, the like of the ASUS EEE PC and the (lovely, I have one) Acer Aspire One are receiving massive demand. Maplin sell their own version (the first one I saw 'on the streets'), and of course, there's the One-Laptop-Per-Child project marching on

The platform you use for basic IT purposes is closer to being irrelevant than it has ever been. Buying a Mac instead of a new Windows laptop is something which is really quite risk-free now, unless you of course expect to play all the latest Windows games, or being able to upgrade it yourself later on the cheap.

The funny thing is, IBM predicted this decades a go, in a way. Just as 'IBM-compatible' calmed the Personal Computing market, web standards and compliance with popular technologies is calming the Online Computing market. Back then, IBM firmly predicted that Thin Clients were the way to go. It took a delay of some years, but that's come about. Similarly, the term 'Netbook' which is being used to describe the tiny laptops I mentioned above, was a dream of Psion, ten years ago.

It all basically goes back to that old quote (I forget who, I suspect an IBM or Intel employee), referring to the even older quote from erm... someone (again I forget, but IBM or Rank Xerox probably), about how they "...said that one day, we might need as many fifty computers around the world. Which of course we all know now, is ridiculous! There really only needs to be just one."

Windows Cloud is Microsoft audibly making a hash* of shifting gears, dressing up .NET and pretending it's a new paradigm. That's all it is, incidentally. It's basically a new facet of .NET, with an eye on trying to control the contents of your browser, and the inter-connectivity of the sites you visit within it, even if they can no longer control which browser it is.

Similarly, the hilarious new Sony Erriiccssoonn, which takes a mobile phone, puts Windows Mobile onto it (in all its bulky 'glory'), and makes you use a basic touch-screen to interact with it. OMG TEH IFONE KILLA! To be fair, the iPhone may yet die laughing. Where Google Android stands here, I dunno.

But in short - Microsoft are flailing, their web presence is failing, and their OS presence is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Ironically this is due in part to the success of their own console. Who's bought a new graphics card recently?

And now, I'm going to make my Windows Cloud joke which probably other people have made but which I claim as mine.

"Windows Cloud? Sounds like vapourware to me."

That was my Windows Cloud joke.

* mmm... hash...

Or to put it another way:

How fucking blind and useless are Amiga, eh? Imagine if it was the AMIGA Aspire One lighting up your local Currys. Sigh.

Microsoft aren't innovaters. They gained marker share by being very very aggressive.

Back in the 80's Amstrad were about to grab themselves a huge slice of the UK PC market (about 40% at one stage). At that point an IBM PC would cost you about 2 grand. Amstrad were going to do it for 400 quid and throw in a DOS and a windowed OS (GEM).

Amstrad licensed DR DOS for their new machine. Microsoft got wind and dispatched a top operative to speak to Alan Sugar. Sugar wasn't interested in software and didn't care for MSDOS. He had his OS. Every day the Microsoft guy would turn up at Brentwood House and beg Sugar to buy MSDOS. Every day Sugar would tell him to piss off.

In the end Microsoft ended up licencing Amstrad *2 MILLION* copies of MSDOS at a price so low that Alan Sugar couldn't refuse. In fact he had to sign a non-disclosure contract and can't even reveal it today over 20 years on. But what he can say (and on the interview I saw he actually smiled) is that it was low.

But actions like that are how Microsoft got their foothold. Not by being the best, but by forcing their foot in the door by offering their software at a price that even Sugar couldn't refuse.

Of course a few years later it was Microsoft shipping a faulty version of MSDOS that cost Amstrad a huge amount of market share after Amstrad were one of the first manufacturers to ship the latest MSDOS which turned out to be bugged. And then all the HD controllers failed to pile on the woe.

The problem with Vista (and IE 7 to a large extent) is not that they are shit, it is that there is no incentive to upgrade. I only upgraded because I knew that XP was never going to utilise The Power Of My Ninja PC properly. If it was just a 2Gb Core 2, I'd probably have stuck with XP Pro.

I'm not going to apologise for Microsofts past - only to point out that Apple are doing many of exactly the same things and getting away with it - but their software right now is as good as most. Visual Studio 2008 is lovely, Sharepoint 2007 is pretty nice.

I even like Office 2007 and so do many people once they get past the shock of the ribbon. In comparison, Open Office looks and feels very old fashioned and offers nothing over Word 2003.

You are right about the Eee PCs and their like though - however it is depressing that they already seemed to have abandoned the £200 price point in favour of another hardware arms race. It misses the point of the netbook entirely.

Oh Apple are bastards as well. But they have the advantage of running their OS on limited amounts of hardware. + They have reasonable approach to software costs and activation. As I understand OSX has no serial numbers or anything.

Let's face it, Apple only look good because Microsoft are just so evil. There's lots of great stuff Microsoft do (XP was one of them) but they have a massive ability to fuck up really badly. Half the problem with Vista (for me) is that it's trying to be OSX and not Windows. Windows 95 was something a bit different and fresh. 2000/XP was the true refinement. It will be the next release before Vista gets refined.

Don't worry, whoever owns the rights to the Commodore name this week is on the case!





http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/09/02 ... nches_scc/

To be fair, that's a lot easier to do when you've forced everyone to buy a copy of your OS with the machine whether they want it or not.

I agree broadly though. Apple is every bit as evil as MS, they just have a much, much easier job and several more slavishly loyal fanboys.

I dunno, a lot of people love their windows

But very few seem to consider it a lifestyle choice.

I actually went into the huge Regent Street Apple store t'other week. Some idiot arty guy actually said "Obviously I use a mac... because I'm a creative individual".

I then left.

Ja. I think the reasons why are starting to quickly fall away though. I'm not saying "hahaha, let us dance, for the evil M$ are dead!" because, whilst I'm pro-linux, I'm not anti-Windows.

If you could get World of Warcraft for the 360 (or any console, but I think particularly the 360), I truly think that would shake things up massively.

@Dudley: to be fair, a wanker does technically create wank

@tossrstu: is that real? It's... hideous! What's its name? Lemme guess... Commodore Asphalt? Commodore Woodchippings?

Fucking Gravel. I still can't get over that.

Close, but no cigar; Commode has clearly learnt from previous naming mistakes as it's been given the catchy moniker of "Commodore UMMD 8010/F". It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Makes sense though.

"Do you want to buy a netbook? It's a Commodore."
"UMM."

"You are computer is rubbish"? For shame, CUS.

So, yes, I've bought a new graphics card recently, although it was mainly to get it working with Linux at a rate worth a damn and give the ATI to my girlfriend. I'm certainly not planning on upgrading it again any time soon so I agree with you on that point.

I have pretty much the same stance as you on the OS front, pro-linux without being anti-Windows. The happy thing is as Mac gains more market share, any games for Mac will begin to work better across the board, as things like World of Warcraft prove. It actually runs BETTER in Linux for most people than it does in Window (as long as you've got an Nvidia card).

The thing I always see in the Mac is the ghost of the Amiga, in that people were PROUD to own their machine. In much the same way as the Speccy/C64 thing, it was a coherent thing, customisable enough for you but the same enough to know everyone else was having the same experience as you. A PC is a just a mash of crap in a box, there's little of that computing fun there. I find Linux puts a bit of that magic back, but that's because I'm a geek. The Mac allows the magic in a time where there is little to be found, and it allows it while being a pretty solid machine to use (although the last ones I used were Powermacs at school).

I'd say there's a reason MS is pumping so much money in to the console market, amongst other new "pies", and that's because long term, they know that the other platforms are pretty much good to go as far as day to day computing goes.

Where they go from Windows Vista will decide a lot of things, as people who buy a PC will just use whatever copy of Windows they were forced to have with it, until the OEMs start pushing their Linux alternatives. And it's already happening in the netbook sector.

Incidentally, someone buy me a Mac. I only own a Performa and I never managed to get it's network card to work.

Does nobody read subtitles anymore?

It probably would "just work" if I broke out the old 28.8k external modem and hooked that up to a phone line. But I don't have a phone line any more.

I think it's more the NIC card just doesn't understand the router, and frankly I don't know enough about System7 to troubleshoot it.

I have more problems with the four Macs at my office than I do the three PCs. There's one PowerBook G4, two PowerMac G5s and an Intel iMac. All running 10.5 Leopard and they all suck, with frequent problems for no apparent reason.

Of course, the two XP PCs and the 2000 Server also have their fair share of problems, but for the most part they just get on and work.

And I still hate the way that the icons on the buttons in the window titlebars are hidden until you mouseover them on Mac OS X. Gnnnnngh.

FTFY.

I'd never go into an Apple Store because if I did I'd have to kill everyone.

It's a fucking computer. You use it because it does the job, runs the software you want and all for the right price. Simple as that.

It is far closer to the Amiga that Windows ever will be, that's for sure. Although OSX is abit Fisher Price the overall experience is far closer to an Amiga that any version of Windows.

Have you hit any bugs with it yet? Gradually, we're rolling it out as we buy new laptops in and it's not gone as smoothly as it should. Apart from it being a fair bit slower than 2003, there's an odd bug which I've not cured yet whereby you try and open a 2007 file, the program opens then says it can't find the file. Clear the error and open the file from the Office button and it works. As long as the software is already running, it can open the file.

Actually, I've hit the bug with my 2003 in trying to open certain 2007 docs.. it's odd. 2003 is still my preferred version though.

I liked the jump from IE 6 to 7, but the beta of 8 isn't much cop. It amused me that the windows update page didn't render properly in 8 though.

I've had no bugs like that with Office 2k7 at all.

Me neither. As I say, the only issue and I repeat it every time I can because I want to make sure it is picked up in Google is that there are no Access drivers for 64-bit XP/Vista.



OEMs will not start pushing their Linux alternatives. Firstly because they can make more money from Windows and second because they've already entered the hardware arms race which means their netbooks can run Windows comfortably.

It's weird - it's only happened on two or three laptops so far, running Vista if I remember rightly (we downgrade all the new ones we buy now). However, I managed to hit the same bug on my XP machine running 2003 so it rather stumped me. I'm rather hoping it'll be silently fixed by an office patch 'cos I can't be arsed trying to fix it any more

I do surveys on Ciao, and I think there was a survey about IT topics or something that would only work in IE or Opera. Gadzooks, the ironing.

Hell, when I applied for my current job, I had to dig out my then-mothballed Dell laptop as the Network Rail recruitment site refused to work (as in, nothing would happen) with any OS X browser except Opera.

I also recall back in the heady days of Netscape Navigator people objecting to their monopolizing the browser market or something, and deliberately making their pages 'Netscape Crippled' in a wet show of defiance. Crippled basically meaning writing in tags to make it show up as black text on black in Netscape, but IE and everything else showed it fine.

re: Apple Stores, while in Toronto I went to the Apple Store in Yorkdale to get a new iBook battery. The place was chaos, with dozens of staff dealing with scores of customers in one big clusterfuck of white plastic. The lady who helped me (and her male minion who got the credit card machine for me to pay) were sickeningly sweet in their over-enthusiasm and over-helpfulness. I would say they were like 'Happy Happy Gary' and 'Happy Happy Betty' from Fairly Odd Parents but nobody would know who I meant, so instead think of the camp counsellors from Addams Family Values.

You have no idea how much this kind of thing used to wind me up when I worked in an art college's IT department. Certain lecturers insisted that only Macs could do the job, despite them using software that was being used daily on PCs in other departments. Fair enough if you prefer one OS over another (though one lecturer trying to make out that creating a new folder was "so much easier" on a Mac didn't convince me), but to pretend you need a Mac to be creative is ridiculous.

I guess the only way to stop that would be to convince them that Macs aren't creative enough. Saying something like "Really? Only a Mac? The artists commune I visited the other day all used Solaris on SGI workstations. They all outgrew Macs years ago. Well, if a Mac is all you need, and isn't limiting you like it would them, then fair enough." Might not work, but it may introduce some creeping self doubt.

And let's remember, Colin in Eastenders ran an entire design company on a CPC 464. And he was a gay to boot, which means he had to be artistic (subs please check).

Further to my cussage of Ciao, almost their entire site now no longer works in Safari, the daft IE-fondling cunts.

*nods approvingly at usage of cussage*

To summarize a presentation I gave the other day: you'd have to be a moron to back IE at this point. It's like putting all your money on one horse, when the smart thing to do is find a way to make every horse earn you a bit of cash. You get the same total, no real increase, but you don't risk losing it all if your 'champion' refuses at the water hazard.