A sad day...at least for me

On Sunday I decided to boot up my two-and-a-half year old Philips X58, which came originally with Windows Vista, but now dual-boots the trial version of Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10. It had just booted Windows up when, all of a sudden, it died. At first I thought maybe the power had gone, as the power supply was pretty worn out, but it had the battery in and as far as a I knew it had some charge in it. I tried pressing the power button, which did nothing, and that's when I started worrying because even if power wasn't reaching it from the power supply and the battery was discharged, there would be enough power left to get the battery warning light to flash, but nothing whatsoever was happening.

I noticed that the light on the power supply was flickering, rather than being steady, so I googled it, and apparently that normally means power is reaching the adapter, but can't be passed on to the computer. A bit more research led me to believe there were several possibilities:

1. The power supply was broken.
2. The connection from the power socked on the computer to the motherboard was broken.
3. The fuse in the power supply had blown.
4. The motherboard had been fried by a power surge.

Ominously, there was a faint whiff of burning from inside the computer. I took the back off to have a look and couldn't see anything obviously wrong with it, so I figured I had to eliminate the power supply as an option. So I ordered a new power supply for it.

This came yesterday, so I tried it with the laptop, but it was the same story - flickering green. So it looks like the motherboard on this machine is gone. Humph, just the Christmas present I want...

This is frustrating because the machine isn't actually that old (half as old as my Dell Inspiron). I have also noticed one of the hinges has a crack in it. I'm looking into how much it might cost to repair it, but it's a rather awkwardly-designed laptop and I'm really not convinced it's going to be a worthwhile proposition repairing it. So it's likely I'm going to have to replace it.

I was actually considering the possibility of buying a new one with Windows 7 anyway (even though I last bought one only in October, a Dell Mini Inspiron with Windows XP), so this does at least come as a valid excuse to buy a new machine. Despite my preference for Unix-like OS's, I do still like having the option of using Windows around.

I'm thinking probably another Dell - despite what so many people seem to say about Dell, all my Dell's have been great computers. My Inspiron I bought in 2004 is still going strong, and my Axim PDA works well too. The Mini Inspiron has also proven to be a good machine in the short time I've had it. My dad's Dell desktop was hit by a power surge last year which damaged the motherboard but would still power on (it just had regular BSOD's) so it was more resilient than my Philips, and it was easy to repair. I've found Dell's to be simple, reliable, efficient machines, and that suits me fine. The only issue I've had with them is the crapware they install, and even Apple do that (cough...iWeb...cough).

Maybe I should branch out into getting a desktop as I've always had laptops in the past?

What would you do if you ran Microsoft?

Here's a little thought experiment for you. Microsoft has been a phenomenally successful company, with a market share of nearly 90% of the desktop computer operating system market, a not insignificant chunk of the server market, near-domination of the office suite market, and fingers in many other pies, including mobile phone operating systems, the console and portable music player markets. Its founder became obscenely rich, and the company has come to represent for many people the sheer potential to make money in the computer industry.

On the other hand, the company has also been no stranger to controversy. It has been subject to a number of investigations as a result of its near-monopolicy in the operating systems market, and has a reputation for anti-competitive practices. Also, it's never been a company people like the way they like Apple or Google - mostly people are ambivalent about them. Windows has attracted a lot of criticism in the past for its vulnerability to malware when compared to other operating systems (some of which can be attributed to its greater market share, but certainly not all), and Windows Vista was widely regarded by many as a flop. Windows 7 may have marked a turnaround in the company's fortunes, but at present it's probably too early to say.

So, what if you had the chance to run it? Say Steve Ballmer threw one too many chairs across the room and had to be escorted from the building? What if they picked you to succeed him (let's ignore the slight issue of most of us not being qualified to run a company that size, I know I'm not)? What changes would you make?

Here's a few suggestions of my own:

Contribute to WINE development:

I'll probably take a LOT of criticism for this, but stick with it, I promise, there is a logical reason for this!

The WINE project could be seen as a thorn in Microsoft's side in that it's trying to deprive Microsoft of sales of Windows by allowing other platforms to run Windows applications. That's a very negative view, but it seems to be the view Microsoft hold at the moment. I've even heard rumours that Microsoft have used Windows Genuine Advantage to prevent Microsoft software working on WINE.

But, there's an alternative viewpoint, and that's this:

"Users like Microsoft's software so much that they want to run it on other operating systems"

In other words, Microsoft need not invest their own time and monies in porting their software to another platform because someone else is prepared to create software that will allow it to run on this platform. So thanks to the work of the WINE developers, Microsoft can sell its own desktop applications to users of other operating systems, at no cost! Okay, that's a VERY positive spin on it, but that doesn't make it wrong.

After all, the margins are much higher on a copy of MS Office than on a copy of Windows, yet Office is probably a simpler product to create. So it makes sense to help people who want to run Office on Linux, for example. By shutting themselves out of that market, they may be shooting themselves in the foot because they are ceding that market to competitors such as OpenOffice and StarOffice.

Any contribution need not be terribly substantial - perhaps changing a few licensing terms and providing the developers with copies of documentation that isn't normally provided to the public, thus eliminating the need for time-consuming reverse-engineering, would alone provide a massive boost to the project. More active participation, such as having Microsoft engineers contribute, bringing their knowledge to the project, would be of huge benefit.

Do more to assist the Mono project, including taking further steps to assuage the fears of free software advocates

The Mono project has never been far from controversy, ever since its inception. By reimplementing the .NET framework and the C# programming language, among others, it has allowed developers to use their existing skills with Windows for developing on other platforms. But there are a lot of concerns that Microsoft could one day launch a patent suit, preventing the use of software created using Mono.

In all honesty I don't think there's any one way that Microsoft could calm these fears, but there's plenty of scope to improve the situation. They've already done quite a lot to help (the community promise, and open-sourcing the .NET Micro Framework), and just need to continue down the same path, open-sourcing as much as they can and ensuring that developers need not worry about the threat of patent infringement hangin over their heads.

Mono allows developers to use their existing skills in Windows development to create cross-platform applications quickly and easily. By ensuring the future health and wider adoption of Mono, Microsoft would be encouraging developers to use .NET technologies instead of competing cross-platform development frameworks such as Qt.

Make heavy use of open-source software

That is bound to be another controversial one, but it's logical. Apple have shown that a hybrid approach, with some open-source code and some closed-source, can work well. It allows them to leverage the power of the open-source community and avoid reinventing the wheel.

For instance, what if Microsoft switched Internet Explorer to a Webkit base? Webkit is a mature, fast and stable open source technology, and also complies with current web standards. Doing so would greatly simplify the job of maintaining Internet Explorer, and would make web developer's jobs easier too. You can make similar arguments in favour of GCC in the form of MinGW, and I'm sure plenty of other people can suggest other software that's ripe for replacement by an open-source alternative.

Open-source software may not always have the polish of its closed-source counterparts, but there's no denying it does sterling work behind the scenes. By leveraging its strengths, Microsoft could lighten their own workload while also contributing to the open-source community. Bugs and vulnerabilites would be fixed quicker, and we'd all get better quality software.

So, that's my suggestions. What about you? If you took control of Microsoft, what changes would you make? Creative and inventive answers are great, but nothing too outlandish - remember, you would still be accountable to the board, so things like "give the shareholders their money back" would be turned down flat!

Why the Budget All-in-One Desktop Will (NOT!) Fail

I just read an interesting post on Wired about the phenomenon of all-in-one desktop computers, built with laptop or netbook components (for example the Asus Eee Top). They point out that budget devices such as netbooks do well in poor economic conditions, and that compartmentalisation has proven acceptable in many Apple devices. However, they then go on to claim that these devices will fail because they're not mobile. Huh?

These devices aren't intended to be mobile! They're intended to be cheap and cheerful desktops that nonetheless look good. The fact is, great as netbooks are, you would NOT want to use one as your primary computer, unless you used it for only a few minutes a day. For a price that's not much more than a netbook, these devices offer a full-sized screen and keyboard. And I don't know about anyone else, but I find I'm often more productive on a desktop than a laptop for tasks that require you to spend long lengths of time typing, such as coding. An ergonomic desktop will always be more effective for that kind of task than a laptop which is designed for mobility.

Furthermore, they're missing the point. These are affordable, stylish devices for the ordinary user, rather than the type of user who reads Wired. They don't actually need to be that powerful. Here's what the ordinary user tends to use their computer for:

• Web browsing (typically Facebook or another social network, eBay, maybe Flickr etc, and sometimes buy something online)
• Email
• Instant messaging
• Writing letters
• Sync their iPod

And that's pretty much it. These machines will perform fine for this kind of task. Ultimately they are designed for people who use their computer primarily as a portal to the Internet.

I suspect the Wired writer may have fallen into the "power user trap". Just because a power user wouldn't necessarily find it a good deal doesn't mean everyone else would feel the same way. These are ideal computers for the following uses:

• A child's computer (I believe strongly that children should have their own computer if possible, it encourages them to tinker with it in a way you wouldn't want them to do if they had to share the family computer)
• For elderly relatives.
• People who just want to surf the net etc
• A first computer for almost anyone

They compared it to the iMac. Well, that's a far more expensive computer, so you'd expect it to have a lot more features. No-one would consider these as an alternative to the iMac, nor would they consider the iMac as an alternative to these.

In fact, I've been considering buying some kind of small form factor desktop myself, because I really don't have the room for a full-sized desktop, but I really could do with that kind of productivity boost. I have had back problems caused by using a laptop in the past, and also have occasionally suffered from RSI, so a desktop might work better for me as my main computer. I'm not much of a PC gamer, and I prefer Linux to Windows or OS X so I can get by with a machine that isn't very powerful - just use a minimal window manager like Fluxbox.

There's several options - one of these net-tops like an Eee Top, a Mini-ITX machine (has the advantage that it comes without an OS so I could just install a Linux distro of my choice), an Eee Box, or a Mac Mini. If Apple had actually updated the Mac Mini like they were rumoured to have done then I might well have gone for that as I already have a mouse and keyboard I could use, I'd just need to buy a display for it (although I strongly suspect that a Mac Mini refresh is on the cards at some point later this year, maybe when Snow Leopard is released, and if I hadn't got a desktop by that point a refreshed Mini with Snow Leopard would be a strong contender). So either the Mini-ITX or Eee Box might work well for me.

So, in my opinion the phenomenon of the budget All-in-one desktop will not fail, because it's targeted at ordinary users, and it's often hard for power users to appreciate what people like that want.

Real UNIX my ****!

I've heard that writers write about whatever gets caught in their filters, so usually they tend to write about things that piss them off. That must apply to blog authors, because I've got a real bee in my bonnet about this issue.

According to Wikipedia the current OS's which are licensed to use the UNIX trademark are AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris, Tru64, A/UX, Mac OS X Leopard (on Intel only), and part of z/OS.

Now, I don't know about IRIX, Tru64, A/UX and z/OS, but as I understand it AIX, HP-UX and Solaris are derived from AT&T's original UNIX source code, as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Sun respectively licensed this from AT&T, so they include code from the original UNIX.

Now BSD was created at University of California, Berkeley, using AT&T's original UNIX source code. Later, in the early 90's, all the code that was licensed from AT&T was reimplemented. Therefore, as I understand it, BSD contains none of the original UNIX source code, and operating systems like FreeBSD and NetBSD can't call themselves UNIX for that reason.

OK, so that explains to my satisfaction why AIX, HP-UX and Solaris are real UNIX, and I assume the same applies for IRIX, Tru64, A/UX and z/OS. But OS X?

Unless I've got my wires crossed somewhere, OS X contains none of the original AT&T UNIX source code:

• The XNU kernel consists of the Mach microkernel, which was developed as a replacement for the BSD kernel, together with userland tools taken from FreeBSD4.4. So, as I see it, no AT&T source code here.
• The shell used in Leopard is bash. Many of the other tools used are also the GNU versions as used in GNU/Linux and GNU/Open Solaris.
• I believe the X Window Server used is a fork of Xfree86.

So, correct me if I'm wrong by all means, but I can't see that OS X contains any of the original UNIX source code. If so, surely it's not really got any more innate right to call itself real UNIX than Linux has?

So far as I can see, UNIX certification means that it's been certified as being POSIX-compliant by the owner of the UNIX trademark. Well, that really doesn't mean that much, does it? To the best of my knowledge, this would just mean you'd pay The Open Group to certify it as being real UNIX. Is there any reason why any Linux vendor couldn't pay this fee and have their distro certified as being real UNIX? I really don't think this would be a good use of their money, but I see no good reason why this couldn't be done.

So, dear lazyweb, here are my questions:

1) What actual benefits are there to an OS being certified as real UNIX?
2) Does OS X Leopard contain any of the original UNIX source code?
3) If not, what right does it actually have to call itself real UNIX?

Seriously, I'm not trolling here, I just cannot see that Leopard has any more right to call itself real UNIX than Linux does on the basis of the source code. And if it's based on certification, then what's to stop a Linux distro vendor from having their OS certified as being real UNIX?

Are Macs designed for the left-handed?

I had a bit of a bizarre revelation this afternoon, which I'd like to share. I own a total of four laptop computers:

• A Dell Inspiron 1150 running Kubuntu Hardy
• A Philips X58 dual-booting Vista and Ubuntu Intrepid
• An Asus Eee PC 2G Surf running the default Xandros
• An early 2008 MacBook

Now, the Dell has two USB sockets at the back, the Eee has two on the left and one on the right, the Philips has two on the left and two on the right. So with these machines you can easily have the mouse on the left or right-hand side.

The MacBook is different. It has all the USB and other sockets on the left-hand side, so you have to plug in your mouse on the left. If you want to use a mouse on the right-hand side it effectively shortens the length of the wire. Also, the touchpad has only one button, so there's no right or left button in the same way.

So that begs the question - Are Macs designed specifically for people who are left handed?

Think about it - the ration of right-to-left handedness is about 90:10, similar to the proportion of Mac users to users of other PC's (yes, Macs are PC's!). Macs have a reputation for being used by creative people and creativity comes from the right hemisphere of the brain, which is linked to the left side of the body, meaning that creative people are more likely to be left handed. So if creative people are more likely to be left handed, it follows that they are more likely to prefer a computer designed for them.

Now, I'm right-handed, and I'm also a good example of a left-brained logical type, and while I quite like OS X (I do think it's better than Windows), I prefer Linux. Linux is more likely to appeal to the right-handed, left-brained people who like getting lost in technical details simply because you can get lost in the technical details, but also most people run it on hardware other than Macs, and like I said above, my impression is that most PC's are designed more with the right-handed in mind.

It also explains why some people absolutely rave about Macs, and plenty of others (myself included) are ambivalent about them (although I am actually writing this post on my MacBook, naturally as it's what I had to hand when I first noticed this!) and can't understand what the fuss is all about. If you were left-handed, wouldn't you prefer a computer designed specifically for you, to the point that you'd never want to go back?

It wouldn't surprise me if a survey were to find out that the majority of Mac users were left handed, and I'd be curious to know if such a survey has ever been done. Any thoughts, anyone?

Getting a new PC...

My sister told me today that the IT department at her employers have a load of old desktop PC's they no longer need, so they're going to be installing Ubuntu on them and selling them on for about £5 each. I'm guessing that they have some kind of licensing deal with Microsoft that means they get to use as many copies of Windows as they like, but if they sell them on they have to remove it, so they probably can't keep Windows on them.

I'm actually quite impressed with this, for several reasons:

• It means perfectly good hardware can be reused and made available to someone else. In contrast, my own employers, who shall remain nameless, apparently have a deal with a company to break up all their computers and dispose of them, which I think is a staggering waste, and this is a BIG company that's in the FTSE.
• People can get a working computer that's perfectly good for surfing the web, emailing and basic office tasks, for a pittance. It'd be ideal for people's kids or elderly relatives, neither of whom will care that much whether it runs Windows or not.
• It's probably actually cheaper to do this as it must cost money to have them disposed of.
• Plus, it exposes Linux to people who otherwise wouldn't try it.

She's asked if I wanted one, so naturally I said yes! So she'll try and get me one.

I see little point in sticking with the Ubuntu install already with it, as I run Ubuntu on one computer already and Kubuntu on another. So what to run on it? I have several candidates in mind:

• Sidux
• Xubuntu
• Damn Small Linux (I've grown to love DSL in the last few months)
  
• Slackware
• Gentoo
• Linux From Scratch (it'd be a hell of a challenge though!)
• PC-BSD
• FreeBSD
• Debian
• Linux Mint Fluxbox CE
• Or I could use Ubuntu Mini Remix to create my own remaster based on Ubuntu, but using a lightweight window manager. I've done this in the past to try to create something that worked better on my Eee PC (unfortunately it didn't work out too well!), but the end result was perfectly useable. I'm actually very keen on the one I created purely for the fun of making it look as 1337 as possible (it's basically Fluxbox with the Matrix theme, a black GTK theme, and an abstract green-and-black background). I'm also interested in trying out some more window managers - I like IceWM a lot, I also like Fluxbox, I'm interested in trying FVWM, FVWM-Crystal and FVWM-95, and I may give some of the tiling window managers like awesome and Xmonad a try.
  

I'll have to wait and see how powerful the machine is before I can decide what to put on it, although if it's running Ubuntu OK it should be able to handle most Linux distros. That's assuming they haven't all gone!

I've never actually owned a desktop before. All my computers right now are laptops (a Dell Inspiron, a Philips X58, an Asus Eee PC 2G Surf, and a Santa Rosa MacBook), and much as I love them all, certain things, such as coding, are really better done from a desktop. It's a simple matter of ergonomics. So I'm looking forward to having a desktop computer of my own because I anticipate that it should improve my productivity.

Making computing more personal

No doubt you'll have noticed my enthusiasm for things like the Eee PC, Noahpad and Cloudbook! All of these things are fantastic new products that make it easier for people to work, play and stay connected while they are on the move.

PC vendors have really been caught with their trousers down by the success of the Eee PC in particular. Because it's been marketed to some extent as an educational tool, a lot of mainstream computer vendors utterly ignored it, while Toys'R Us have been selling it.

I'm not surprised that the Eee PC is Asus's most successful product ever - it completely rewrites the personal computing paradigm. It may very well turn out to be even more revolutionary than the Apple iPod.

Meanwhile, laptops in general have overtaken desktops in sales, WiFi is available in more and more places (sometimes at a cost, sometimes free) and web-based apps are available for more and more purposes, so it's now possible to work, surf the Internet or read e-mail from more and more places. And mobile phones are beginning to become useful for web browsing - just the other day I was out for a few drinks with some work colleagues, and using Opera Mobile on my Motorola RAZR, I was able to update my status on Twitter. And the iPhone is just the first in a whole new series of phones that will offer a browsing experience nearly equal to that on the desktop.

I'm beginning to think that personal computing is at the beginning of a series of radical changes which will shake the industry to its core. The term personal computing, at least for me, has always been something of a misnomer. It doesn't move with you, it stays on the desktop. Desktop computing would be a better phrase than personal computing. Laptops have existed for many years, but for a long time they did little to change this. On your laptop, you could work on the go, but you were often cut off from the Internet, and would have to wait till you got back to somewhere you could connect again before you could do certain things.

But now that is changing. More and more things can be done in the cloud, on any computer connected to the Internet. This has the advantages that they can be accessed from anywhere, even if you're at your work computer or round a friend's house. I myself store many documents and all my bookmarks using online services, and I use web mail. This way I can access them from either of my two laptops, the computer I use at work or anywhere else. It also reduces the need for processing power, as the application runs on the web server and all your computer has to do is display the output in a web browser, in effect becoming a thin client. Projects like the GNOME Online Desktop are good examples of this (GNOME Online Desktop may actually tempt me away from KDE, it's that good!).

Wi-Fi is also becoming more prevalent. I work in Norwich, and there is a free municipal Wi-Fi network covering much of the city centre, as well as free Wi-Fi in many cafes and bars. In the longer term, I would expect WiMAX to eventually take over from Wi-Fi, since this allows for much greater coverage using a single access point, and indeed the next-generation Eee PC will include WiMAX technology. It's not unreasonable to expect to see wireless Internet access on trains (it's already possible to get it on buses).

All this points towards a future where computing is much more personal than it has been in the past. In a few years time, we can anticipate a future where most of us have small, easily portable computers that we can slip into a briefcase, but are quite capable of surfing the Web, reading our e-mail, reading feeds and working from virtually anywhere. We'll be able to do everything we do from a desktop (except play processor-intensive games) on the go.

And what OS benefits from this the most? Linux, of course. It's lightweight, fast, supports more hardware than any other OS, and is already used on a huge variety of different devices. I can't deny that Microsoft are making moves to create versions of Windows that will work on subnotebooks like the Eee PC, but Linux is already there, is cheaper and is better suited to the task. In all likelihood Microsoft will now never be able to catch up with Linux in this area of the market. The Eee PC, Cloudbook and Noahpad all run Linux by default, as did Palm's ill fated Foleo, demonstrating that Linux is an obvious choice for such devices.

I've said in previous posts that I believe that the entire concept of the Year of the Linux Desktop is flawed. The truth is, something that could potentially be a lot bigger than that has now begun. The era of truly portable computing is just beginning, and Linux can only benefit from this.