COMPUTER CURRENTS
Almost, but a couple of niggles mean it may be a little too soon for most users
JAMES HEIN
Is it time to dump Windows and move to Linux?
Possibly, but I still think that it is not quite there yet. There are some great versions of Linux out there these days, like Ubuntu, but they still have their quirks and there are still some things missing.
On the plus side, Vista, aka the "white elephant," is still struggling to make an impact on the market. Beginners trying their first Linux installation will typically need to ask some questions of the community to get it up and running.
To be fair, the biggest problems that many people face these days is finding drivers for esoteric hardware, with drivers for graphics cards, sound cards and so on forming the main bulk of these problems.
First you will need to pick your Linux distribution or "distro". There are hundreds of these, and you can spend a lot of time researching SUSE vs Red Hat, but in the end most people pick Ubuntu, so let's stick with that one for the moment. It has come a long way since the early days and the distro names are typically animal-based.
Your next choice may be which free database to go for?
There are a number of these including SQLServer Express which is free, but the normal choice comes down to MySQL and PostgreSQL.
I normally go for MySQL, mostly because it is simpler to spell but also because of all the books that refer to it. You might also like to check out SQLite at http://www.sqlite.org. This neat little library lets you do SQL without a SQL engine, but I digress.
If you want to play with Linux but still want to retain the option of retreating to the comfort of, say, Windows, then you can have Linux executing under a virtual machine of some kind, such as VMware.
So once you are there and installed what is different? The modern interface looks a lot like a Windows Desktop. The Open Office handles a lot like regular Office and web browsing looks similar so a lot of people will be satisfied right there.
You will of course miss some things from good old reliable Windows. No Registry to get bigger and slow down your machine. No anti-virus software talking up half of your available resources.
No "would you like to send info on why the program crashed" screen. No automated updates to fix this month's plethora of bugs. No discernable delay from when you start something and something appearing like the hourglass cursor. This, and a lot of other core features of Windows, will be missing, especially all of the "helping" that Windows loves to do.
So far it all sounds fairly great, but there are still issues. Most cannot be set up with a couple of mouse clicks and why for example are there always so many text editors?
Notebook Plus works just great for me, but with Linux you get command line editors, GUI editors, console editors and all with different shortcut keys. The good news is that at least one of them will match what you are used to.
The bottom line is that you can start testing Linux and see if it works for you but don't be too disappointed if it doesn't have everything you want.
On the other hand you may be pleasantly surprised that it does.
Industry news By the time you read this, XP Service Pack 3 should have been released. SP3 contains all the updates released by MS so far for XP, and at the very least it will bring you up to date for all security patches. Microsoft has said that the update will not "significantly change" users' experiences with the operating system. There is a new Management Console version 3.0, a new Windows Installer, v3.1, and for business a new feature that checks that all upgrades and security features have been applied before the machine is allowed onto the corporate network. After the usual grace period to see what happens for early adopters it might be worth the update.
If you are looking to get rid of some of the wires around your computer then check out the new product from AudioEngine, the AW1 wireless music system. You start with a transmitter for your computer and a receiver that plugs into an AC adapter. You then plug in your speaker pair. For $149 (4,700 baht), less on the street, you get up to 30m less wires, a 340Mbps data transfer rate and a claimed signal-to-noise ratio of 91dB. You can also add up to eight paired receivers per transmitter.
Oops! Microsoft fails the OXML test. If you remember, Microsoft managed to ram its open XML standard through the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) recently on a fast track process. Alex Brown, the man responsible for maintaining the standard, tested Word 2007 to see how well it handled the standard by testing it against strict conformance.
Under the test, the spec generated 122,000 errors against the strict schemas, and 84 errors against the transitional schemas. Microsoft's Office inter- operability senior product manager Doug Mahugh felt that these results were good enough for the software giant to hold its head up high. Brown suggested that the next updates should meet the 29500 specification.
I'm not sure about the readers but if I tested my software and came up with that many errors I'd probably be looking for a new job. To be fair, OOXML, the extra O is for Office, is not the same as the standard that was submitted for approval, even though it sounds like it is, and Office tends to try and stay compatible with Microsoft versions.
The irony here is that it was forced through because Microsoft claimed that it was necessary for interoperability with Microsoft documents. Given that it can't even do that, it begs the question as to the urgency of the process. The hidden message here is that currently no one can interoperate successfully with Microsoft Office 2007 except Microsoft, which is what some of us expected from the beginning.
In the least surprising news of the week, Apple has admitted that a significant portion of its Q2 profit has been the result of unlocked phone sales.
After 29 years in the disk drive business, Seagate is shipping its one billionth hard drive and it plans to hit two billion in five years. This mark is equal to about 79 million terabytes of data storage. 29 years ago it came out with the ST506 hard drive. It had a whopping 5MB capacity, weighed about 2.25kg, and cost $1,500. These days you can by a 1TB drive for about a third of that price.
Despite the dropping of the format people are still buying the HD DVD disks and they were still 20 per cent of high def disk sales last month. Prices remain high on Blu-ray players and disks, which is reflected in the very slow uptake figures.
Email: jclhein@gmail.com.
Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Next
