Centauri's Thoughts

When the information technology guys discover how painful it can be to upgrade their current PC hardware to Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 7 — the successor to the much-maligned Windows Vista — they may be tempted to switch to Linux or Apple’s (AAPL) Mac OS X.

Part of the problem is that you can’t install Windows 7 beta directly from Windows XP. Instead, you have to upgrade to Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later before attempting an install — a process the Channel Web team found to be non-trivial.
Among the scariest quotes in their report:

• “While Microsoft has assured the world that if the hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7, the reality is that is misleading at best.”
• “We’ve almost lost count of the number of blue screens we’ve seen in the CRN Test Center during the Windows 7 evaluation process.”
• “We tried to do the upgrade on an Acer TravelMate, but were stopped in our tracks by Bluetooth driver incompatibilities.”
• “On a series of 3-and-a-half year old ThinkPad T43s, an IBM security processor refused to let the notebooks boot up with Windows 7. We needed to crack open a couple of four-year old desktops … to add memory just to try to get a system image.”
• “Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, “known issues” and unknown issues.”

Bring it on! It cant happen soon enough for me to see legions leaving the crippling M$ world and come to their senses.

The entire article can be read at http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/02/25/windows-7-trouble-on-the-upgrade-path/

Thousands of Microsoft's Zune media players - the software company's answer to Apple Inc.'s iPod - unexpectedly conked out Wednesday and showed users an error message, prompting references to "Y2K for Zunes." The problems appeared when people tried to start up their devices.

Frustrated users lit up Microsoft's online support forum for Zunes with more than 2,500 messages by Wednesday afternoon.

Late Wednesday, the Redmond, Wash.-based company said the outage affected only the 30-gigabyte Zune models and was caused by a problem with their internal clock. Microsoft expected the problem to clear up as the clocks ticked over to Jan. 1, though users will have to jump through some hoops to get their Zunes back to normal, including letting the batteries die down completely before the devices will restart successfully.

They cant even do a leap year, and they want to put their software in cars?

Reference

Microsoft Corp.'s Internet browser lost a notable number of users during the last half of 2008, according to recently published data, a trend that underscores the growing competition in a market long dominated by the software giant.

Maybe because its buggy and a security problem?

According to data from research firm Net Applications, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser registered a 68 percent market share in December, compared to a nearly 74 percent share as recently as May.

Thats still 68% too much

Firefox captured a 21 percent market share in December, compared to 18 percent in May, according to Net Applications, while Apple's Safari captured a nearly 8 percent share in December, compared to a 6 percent share in May.

Good for you, Firefox!

Reference

And its about time!

Serious flaw in Internet Explorer not fixed yet

The flaw lets criminals commandeer victims' machines merely by tricking them into visiting Web sites tainted with malicious programming code. As many as 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week to exploit the browser flaw, according to antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc.

Many security experts, meanwhile, are urging Internet Explorer users to use another browser until a patch is released.

I say use ANY other browser and give up on IE completely. Its too tightly bound to windows, and always will be because M$ made it that way on purpose in the Netscape-IE browser wars eons ago.

Reference

I ran across some more info for those that think, "Vista isnt that bad". It has the potential to cause increased hardware costs for all of us, running M$ or not (because of agreements with M$ for years to come).

The DRM (Digital Rights Management) is causing problems for legitimate users, and its been talked about before.

Here then, are some topics from the story and at the end a link to the whole paper (which I encourage you to read):

Disabling of Functionality
Decreased Playback Quality
Elimination of Open-source Hardware Support
Elimination of Unified Drivers
Denial-of-Service via Driver/Device Revocation
Increased Hardware Costs

Basically, if M$ even thinks your drivers dont pass the DRM muster, its suddenly disabled. (Look under the 'Denial-of-Service via Driver/Device Revocation' for that one).

The article in its entirety is here as vista cost

I love it! As much as I've wanted to open people eyes to the possibilities of unix, some people would just not listen and Lo and Behold, Windows Vista, The best thing that ever happened to Linux.

The whole DRM and remotely disabling your computer is now a reality, and warnings were first written a while back.

I see that THIS has been updated to include Vista and IE8, in addition to the lengthy history.

But its not just me talking about How Windows Vista is turning people to Linux. There are many others.

You know, I have ALWAYS hated the practices of Gates, but THIS really tells it all.. from his crafty (and un-ethical beginnings) up til now.


If I tried to quote and include even 10% of this comprehensive 7 web page article (each page is many pages long, really), this one post would be well over 20,000 words. All I can say is go read some.. bookmark it and when you have more time go read some more. Then go think about it and see WHO in YOUR IT dept is "in bed with M$" and is ruining your productivity... *ESPECIALLY* if they are ramming Active Directory down your throat lately over Novel.


M$ is the "cancer" not Open Source. They are the leaders of proprietary protocol and standards stopping and hijacking.


There isn't much more I can say than to read that link, and think about the contents and history.

In the near future, when you try to install software to time-shift your favorite Real Audio webcast, your PC might disable all media player applications. Until you remove the software, your PC will remain crippled. Or perhaps you want to watch a downloaded movie on a wide-screen TV, but your PC might turn off its video card's analog output.


Welcome to the world of Windows Longhorn (now known as Vista) and the Protected Media Path, where Microsoft, copyright holders, and DRM licensors may grant or revoke permission to use your own computer and digital media.

I heard of this well over two years ago, and THATS one big reason I never ran more than win98 and have been on unix full-time since 2003


Full article is here


Control of your PC, you or M$ find out


The full scary story of Trusted Computing Initiative
Part I


Part II


Part III


Part IV

Ah, the old rant about two income families vs. single wage earner. The fight of equality vs. stay at home. The role of gender and the roles and choices in life.

Its really up to each couple to decide what works for them, but culture and habit is associated with up-bringing.

Some people prefer two income families. I think that they dont REALLY weigh all the consequences of this choice.

I have been in all manner of relationship, from an equal 50-50 in money earning to a stay at home wife.

What I found in the 2 wage earning types, are there is a HUGE increase in blatant consumerism, and nothing left over. The SMART thing to do, would be to live on one income.. and use the other for investing or savings. This almost NEVER happens, you just party and live it up more. Then you get used to it, and are in quite a bind if EITHER loses a job.. twice as dangerous!.

Then too, in a two income situation, each is expected to equally share all house and yardwork, which also rarely works.

Maybe I am a bit bitter because each time I was in these 50-50 things.. they never really WERE 50-50. I had FAR LESS choice of where the money went, even my OWN, because of this communistic "better for bofus" reasoning. Maybe I wasnt a good enough politician or lobbyist to push what I thought would be "good fer bofus".

I MUCH prefer the "one makes money, one runs the house". I can hear cries now of "tyrant" and "asshole" and all that. I would be those things ONLY if I left zero choice in the matter, and we know Women better than that, ESPECIALLY in America. Women speak their mind, and express their wishes, and really, I have YET to SEE a woman chained to the stove, barefoot and pregnant, that just not how it is.

Most of the time, any ladies I have been with, make about 25% of what I do, not because they are female, but because they are not high-end programmers or other such professionals. Its got nothing to do with "glass ceilings" in fact, most roomates I have ever had, had the same problems, they were not in good jobs, because of the skills. Fact of life.

So, given this, I have in the past years of many relationships looked for a few certain qualities. #1 of which, is "be happy with what ya got, and quit envying the 'rich&famous' because we aint gonna be". In California, this was impossible to realize, the land of Barbie in LA, the Land of DOT COM richness in Silicon Valley. Everyone wanted their cut and everyone elses. Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Jealosy. It reads like an anti-10-commandments, like all the things one should NOT do.

Society can be a complicated thing. Culture is like the memory of a society. But are people REALLY happier?, even though we know they are more comfortable. We are taught that we should all get along, yet the urbanization of the World, the movement to big cities, where many of us are too close together, only increases the laws and intolerance as what we REALLY want is space and a bit of freedom. None of these things happened when we were spread out, and the chance meeting of people was a welcome surprise, not a forced issue to the point of hardened hearts where we dont make eye contact, dont help each other, look away when we see something bad, and make decisions to "just say no" to someone begging for money, because the shucksters outnumber the truly needy.

American Cities dont EVEN compare to the unimaginable hugeness of cities of other countries. Sao Paulo, Brazil-20 million. Karachi, Pakistan-16 million - compare this to New York or San Francisco.. under 10 million.. a half to a third of these other places.

To solve many of these things, requires that we are freed from trivial labor, so that writers can BE writers, and Artists and BE artists. this means robots and computers and AI doing these lesser tasks. It ALSO means that we have a system different from the standard capitalism, because if we were to do this right now, many would be out of work. All of this depends on a system that does equally share to all, not "the rich get richer".

Consider this.. most every company in the US has given Bill Gates not ONLY $89 for a copy of windows for each PC in the company, AND $499 for MS Office, BUT.. many had to PAY AGAIN for NT or 2000 or XP, some paid EACH TIME and you wonder how that grubby Gates became the richest man in the world??? because he's super - greedy! thats why, and like he doesnt have enough money. He's ticked off that the Chinese might be using some of his stuff, and wants MORE money!! No wonder they are going to Linux. I just hope they give back to the Linux community and we shut down the Gates of Hell empire (I am a unix person, and believe in sharing code, and not hiding stuff)

LOL enough for now

Friday! Finally! And none too soon. Been a rough week since they changed the servers at work and made a total mess! Gee, lets change the machine name and top directory name.. do you think anyone will have a problem with that? Duh! only every automated program we have that transfers data.. Only every user program with built in paths! ding-dongs! and guess to got to FIX all the user programs... sheesh, like I didn't have anything better to do for 2 days.

Saw the Sunspots today through my solar filter for the telescope.. huge naked eye objects! The width of Jupiter (10% the width of the sun). Both 484 and 486 are big, bigger than I remember in times past.

Trusted Computing Initiative? I see that Gates is still trying to take over the world.. and this new TC (Trusted Computing) thing is pretty scarey.. good thing I run unix here, but this stuff causes concern for the PCs at work.

Robotics devel will gear up here again after I can save up for more equipment to test the new circuit boards I am designing. The bot needs better sensors than he has.. a few bumpers is not the way to see the world.. more like a blind man feeling around.. maybe cameras someday, Ultrasound and Infared definately could be useful.

November already (as of tomorrow) and a new year coming again.. time flies!