Archive for April 2008
Ubuntu 8.04 is is a big step forward
Just installed Ubuntu 8.04 on a 3 year old Compaq laptop and a 1 year old Acer laptop and both are running well straight out of the box. When I say well, I refer to the installation process being seamless and the hardware detection / driver installation was spot on. I used the WUBI installer and installed it from within Windows. It auto set up the boot menu and everything well along.
I was pretty amazed and shortly after 5 mins of fiddling in the Ubuntu environment, I set out to enable the Compiz composition engine and it worked on both graphic hardware! The 3 year old Compaq is on ATI Xpress 200M while the newer Acer is on Intel 945 chip set and man, Compiz is just visually amazing. If you have seen what OSX brings to the desktop effect scene, Compiz is pretty close. (though there are a lot more effects to choose, it does not help with any productivity and you might get bored after 10 mins with it… ripple effect…)
So far it’s been over 6 hours with the Ubuntu and my impression is pretty good. The environment is nowhere as polish as OS X or Vista and the applications are pretty inconsistent but it is adaptable and I think that is key to Linux being successful as a mainstream desktop operating system. The open source application packages are huge and Ubuntu makes it very easy to add new packages available online for free… and it comes with a lot more games out of the box than Windows or OSX. 🙂
With cloud computing already here, there is less and less need for most user to rely on desktop application and I think that’s a good area where Ubuntu, with its free nature can really go mainstream. I am for it and will certainly recommend to any budget DIY folks to install Ubuntu before forking out some cash for other Operating System. Heck, even non budget folks should give it a try. At least for now, it’s virus / spyware free. Use it for your online surfing.
Good job Ubuntu! Keep it up.
Live Mesh Preview
Extracted from Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows… Here is Live Mesh Preview:
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At its simplest, Live Mesh is a platform that encompasses an Internet operating system (exposed as a Web-based desktop), your PC or Mac computer(s), and your mobile device(s). I should note here, that this view represents the plan for Live Mesh. Today, with just the first tech preview of Live Mesh available, the reality is a bit less dramatic. There’s a basic Web-based desktop and there’s PC software. You can sync documents and other files between the Web-based desktop and your PCs (but only at the folder level). You can also remotely access other PCs using a Remote Desktop-based experience. I’ll get into details in a moment, but that’s about all that’s available right now.
To understand why this limited set of services is still revolutionary for Microsoft, note that the PC desktop is not at the center of this Live Mesh platform. Instead, Live Mesh is envisioned as a ring or circle, where your PC(s) and Macs(s), mobile device(s), and Web desktop are all equal partners, like spokes on a wheel. All of the capabilities of the Live Mesh, today and in the future, will work identically via each entry point. Note, too, that Microsoft intends to support non-Microsoft PCs and mobile devices with this platform. Mac users will have a native Live Mesh client. Linux users? Maybe not, but they’ll at least be able to access Live Mesh fully from the Web.
It’s also important to note that what makes Live Mesh important is that it’s a platform. Microsoft Evangelist Jon Udell said recently that the folder sharing and remote access components of Live Mesh that are available today are essentially trivial and shouldn’t obscure what’s at the heart of this project. What’s really going on here is that Microsoft is creating a cloud computing platform in which the PC is but a component. Like it or not, most computer users today don’t actually use just a single device. People increasingly use multiple PCs (and/or Macs), both in the home and at work. They have desktops and laptop computers. They have smart phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, and other mobile devices. And they have a host of online personas via email and instant messaging services, social networking memberships, e-commerce sites, and other online communities. We, as users, manage these disparate components separately and with great complexity and difficulty.
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Read the rest of the article here.
Vista has not yet settle in… and already the buzz on the next Windows is kicking in… oh man!
For those anxious about the Vista successor… Extracted from ThinkNext.
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Can’t believe it? Yes, again, news about Windows 7.
It’s has been 2 months since my last post about Windows 7 Milestone 1. It was interesting and funny to watch how skeptics around the world reacted to my news. Many people denied and tried hard to prove what I posted was not true. Well, skeptics here is very reasonable but the evidences they used were merely those not-yet-updated ‘Vista’ in version windows or dialogues, and, many F words. That’s not reasonable, nether works. How desperately I hope those guys know more about software development and engineering.
You know there is something like the dark side of the force, especially when you have control on something and feel a little bit more powerful than the people you’re watching.
I’m afraid I’ll kick those guys again since today I bring you new bits of Windows 7.
This time it’s the 2nd release of Windows 7 Milestone 1. Version 6.1 (build 6574.1.{SECRET}). The {SECRET} here means I won’t expose detail.
No, even Milestone 1 isn’t a single release. Microsoft releases multiple versions of M1 with different minor version numbers. Well, for me it is the 2nd one I’ve gotten but I’ve no idea about how many releases Microsoft did before. I’ll use Win7 M1 R2, which stands for Windows 7 Milestone 1 Release 2, to describe it in the following. Please be noted, ‘Release 2’ is my naming convention, not Microsoft’s.
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For the rest of the article, click here.
Fixing Windows Vista, one machine at a time…
A good read from Ed Bott from ZDNet on the process / experience of grabbing all the junkware preinstalled onto two beautiful laptop from Sony…
I have dealt with a friends’ Lenovo laptop before and it is exactly the same crap that is on there… all trial version… all taking up the startup process, reminding you again and again to purchase the full version… The out of the box experience just sucks.
All the non Apple hardware maker out there… please read the above article or learnt something from the community. Home user regardless, should not put up with such crap… Yes I heard that per machine, Sony makes around 60 bucks just to put all the crapware on it… but you will drive away more consumer to Apple… Why do that? 🙂
Entrepreneurs… below 30.
Here’s a summary from BusinessWeek on the latest round of entrepreneurs… below 30! Get inspired and get to work on something in your head!
And the Drupal guy is there!!! You just gotta love him for what he has done to the open source CMS system… Can’t wait till version 7.
Microsoft Research… the biggest threat to competitors
Microsoft has a world class research team spanning all over the places and has been instrumental in driving some innovation in the commercial realm. From the recent stuff like Photosynth, World Wide Telescope, Desktop Search and much more… The challenge I presume is converting those research into real world applications.
But I seriously believe with all the firing that Microsoft is getting lately from all over the place, linux and open source, Apple and Mac OSX, Google and the cloud computing / advertising model… it should accelerate those conversion from research into application. 🙂
Testing Blog It… application for Facebook.
Testing Blog It, an application for Facebook that allows one to post from within Facebook to other sites.
If this works, I will recommend it fully.
Testing Pownce…
Two great inspiring article I read today… on two individual
One is titled ‘The American Dream: 17 Years of Engineering Software’ which is a walk down memory lane on Alex Iskold who is a well known programmer / entrepreneur.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
” Seventeen years ago, on April 10th 1991, a plane landed in John F. Kennedy airport. That plane had just crossed the Atlantic carrying, amongst others, passengers escaping the crumbling Soviet empire. One of whom was me. I walked off that plane with a first ever taste of Coca-Cola in my mouth, a lame teenage mustache, and not a clue about what to expect.
When my sister emailed me on April 10th 2008 and reminded me of our immigration anniversary, I was suddenly overwhelmed with memories. A lot has happened since then. 17 years is such a long time that it is difficult to fathom. I am left with bits and pieces of memories and the person that I am today. Each memory by itself is rarely strong and profound. A single memory is a just a dot in your timeline. But when you pile the memories on top of each other, you get a bigger and better picture. Here is to everyone who made my American Dream come true and all of you who helped me grow as a software engineer.
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The other is on the famous Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google.
Here’s the excerpt from the article found here:
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On December 16, 2005, 16 months after the company’s high-flying initial stock auction, Google closed its biggest deal yet: a $1-billion advertising partnership with America Online, the popular Internet service provider.
That evening, by coincidence, I am meeting with Sergey’s parents at their home in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Michael Brin, wearing a black fleece vest emblazoned with the multicolored Google logo, greets me in the driveway. I ask if he has heard the big news. “We spoke with Sergey earlier today and he didn’t mention anything,” he tells me. “He did say he was on his way home from yoga.”
Michael, 59, a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his wife, Eugenia, 58, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, are gracious and down-to-earth and still somewhat astonished by their son’s success. “It’s mind-boggling,” marvels Genia, as family and friends call her. She speaks slowly, in a syrupy, Russian-accented English that quickens when she is competing with her husband. “It’s hard to comprehend, really. He was a very capable child in math and computers, but we could have never imagined this.” Michael, in his milder accent, adds with typical pragmatism, “Google has saved more time for more people than anything else in the world.”
They sit me down at the dining room table, clearing off papers to make space for a spread of cheese and fruit. The room itself is simply decorated, even sparse; the only signs of wealth I can see anywhere are a big-screen TV in the living room and a Lexus in the driveway.
The Brins are a compact, young-looking couple; Michael is skeptical in demeanor with a precise manner of speaking, and Genia soft and nurturing. Both have sincere, easygoing laughs. We talk for several hours, interrupted occasionally by Michael’s cigarette breaks, for which he heads outside with the family dog, Toby. Smoking is a habit he brought with him from the Soviet Union in 1979, when he immigrated to the United States with his mother, Maya, Genia and Sergey, then six. (A second son, Sam, was born in 1987.)
One of Michael’s stories particularly strikes me. In the summer of 1990, a few weeks before Sergey’s 17th birthday, Michael led a group of gifted high school math students on a two-week exchange program to the Soviet Union. He decided to bring the family along, despite uneasiness about the welcome they could expect from Communist authorities. It would give them a chance to visit family members still living in Moscow, including Sergey’s paternal grandfather, like Michael, a Ph.D. mathematician.
It didn’t take long for Sergey, a precocious teenager about to enter college, to size up his former environs. The Soviet empire was crumbling and, in the drab, cinder-block landscape and people’s stony mien of resignation, he could see first-hand the bleak future that would have been his. On the second day of the trip, while the group toured a sanitarium in the countryside near Moscow, Sergey took his father aside, looked him in the eye and said, “Thank you for taking us all out of Russia.”
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What are you going to do today? Study Math? 🙂
Salesforce + Google part II… more on that collaboration
Here’s a write up on the Salesforce Google integration of their web app… from Mashable.com
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Google and Salesforce.com have announced the launch of a jointly developed product that integrates the key features of Google Apps with the key features of Salesforce.com, the leader in web-based CRM software with more than 41,000+ corporate customers. Called “Salesforce for Google Apps,” the new product is available immediately at no cost to Salesforce.com customers, and includes tight integration with Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Talk.
As someone who once worked in a sales organization that utilized Salesforce.com, and currently depends on Google Apps daily, the integration certainly appears to be something that could be immensely useful and propel Google’s office and enterprise ambitions forward. I had a look at the four key integration points in a demo on Friday, and here’s how I’d describe them, in as non-businessy a way as possible:
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Another important piece of the partnership to note is that developers can now build applications specifically for the Salesforce for Google Apps product. There are already 7 third-party apps available at launch, with many more in the works. Through AppExchange, Salesforce has a huge developer community – think of it like the Facebook Platform but for business users, with a lot less super poking going on.
While not an exclusive deal (Salesforce.com also offers integration with key Microsoft products), the partnership is a big win for Google, as it puts their web-based office suite instantly in front of Salesforce.com’s thousands of big corporate users. It’s also a big win for web based office software on the whole – organizations who adapt Salesforce for Google Apps will essentially be saying goodbye to the days of continually emailing around attachments, scrambling to find the latest versions of documents, and leaving tons of data (email and chat correspondence) in silos.
Perhaps the question now is whether this partnership sets the stage for an eventual acquisition of Salesforce.com by Google. While Oracle was rumored to be considering a buyout of Salesforce last month, nothing seems to have materialized, and it would seem that the company’s impressive roster of customers would be much more valuable to Google, who is still a relative newcomer to the enterprise space. With a market cap of a little more than $7 billion, buying Salesforce.com would only put a modest dent in Google’s pocketbook, so, consider Salesforce for Google Apps an audition of sorts.
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A good read.
Salesforce + Google = Online Enterprise Powerhouse
The future looks bright for enterprise web app, particularly with this deal between Salesforce and Google, soon the AIR app for Salesforce will be out… and iPhone integration will be launched as well after June…
Watch out Microsoft / SAP / Oracle… this is really awesome!
Gartner is really… over-hyped with this article.
A good read from Paul Thurrott on the recent Gartner analysis, which really is just plain news to draw attention. Anything Microsoft will grab big time attention… whether they are true or not. Sad to say, that’s the state of Microsoft and it’s negative image…
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Gartner is wrong. When I made the assertions quoted in the article above, Microsoft had just melded the insecure parts of the Windows 9x platform to underpinnings of the more secure NT platform and created Windows XP. As noted above, a lot of people conveniently forget today that XP’s first year on the market was even more controversial than Vista’s thanks to an unbelievable series of major security exploits. These exploits led directly to Microsoft’s security initiative, the halting in development of Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008 (then called Longhorn), and the creation of Windows XP Service Pack 2, a major Windows release that Microsoft gave away to users in an unprecedented mea culpa.
Jump ahead to today and the world has changed. The Windows Vista platform, as an extension of that XP SP2 platform, is far more secure and, more important from an architectural standpoint, far more modular and componentized (read: less monolithic) than its predecessors. In fact, you can see how its becoming even more modular and componentized (and thus less monolithic) over time via technologies like image-based setup and deployment (Vista, 2006), Server Core (Windows Server 2008, 2008), and MinWin (expected Windows 7, 2010). So Windows is actually evolving over time from an architectural standpoint. And it is doing so by sacrificing backwards compatibility as little as possible. (Though, oddly, everyone is complaining about how poor a job Vista does in this regard.)
I’d also like to point out that every single one of the problems Gartner has with Windows is true of other desktop operating systems as well. Yes, Apple is more aggressive about killing off older technologies (read: Classic) but then that has also come back to bite them (read: Adobe can’t make a 64-bit version of Photoshop on OS X for this very reason). One might argue–I will–that Microsoft’s approach makes more sense for users and is more appropriate for a company that, incidentally, does have a user base that’s over 1 billion users strong. It’s easy to be aggressive when your audience is just a tiny fraction of that size.
All that said, it should be obvious for those who read this blog and this Web site, and listen to my podcast, that I feel that the future of computing is cloud computing. But again, that’s not a unique problem for Windows, nor is something that’s going to happen overnight. If anything, Microsoft’s “Software + Services” initiative is, to me, the most logical model for moving the legacy computing world to the future. (It’s like the x64 platform, when you think about it: One eye on the future, one eye on the past.) My point is that Microsoft, unlike say Apple, actually gets it when it comes to managing a humongous user base and is actively working to ensure both that its desktop OS makes sense as we move to this future and that its online services business is poised to capitalize on this change as well. I don’t see anyone else doing this, and if anything Microsoft should be applauded for taking care of its users, advancing the Windows architecture in ways that make sense, and embracing a future computing model that, frankly, will one day spell the end of the products to which it owes all of its past successes.
As for Gartner and others of their ilk? Pfft. They’ll collapse under the weight of their own pomposity by 2011. You read it here first.
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Click here to read the whole article.
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