I’ve been using Linux on servers for years, since before I started learning to code. Finally, after something like 7/8 years I am almost fully confident in severing the ties to my highly underused Windows installation on my personal laptop, but there are still a couple of exceptions. With the release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, I’ve finally settled down using day-to-day tools that are equivalent to their Windows counterparts. Much of the software I use already have Linux compatible versions such as Eclipse, Google Chrome, FileZilla, Skype etc., however not all software does. Some I am happy to use (and work quite well!) in Wine (Spotify, Adobe Photoshop). Here’s what I’ve had to switch though:
- Windows Live Messenger > Pidgin or Empathy
- Microsoft Office > Google Docs
- Pinnacle Studio > OpenShot (although I am testing other packages still)
- Microsoft Money > Same, but in Virtualbox
- Winamp > Rhythmbox
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This sort of thing really angers me and displays the fact that the web developers of the Parcelforce website will happily display total ineptitude at developing websites. To block off an entire operating system for no reason whatsoever, is simply astounding, and I can’t believe companies still employ such idiots.
Why should I not be allowed to send a parcel, just because I use Linux? There is no reason for it – especially as they support Mozilla Firefox! There is no difference between Windows Firefox and Linux Firefox, and no reason to stop me using Linux to send a parcel. Thankfully plug-ins like the User Agent Switcher exist, to circumvent such inept and naive programming.
Update: User Agent Switcher didn’t work. I used Firebug to enable the submit button though, which let me through happily…
This bears slight resemblance to the already widely publicised anti-trust/monopolising cases against Microsoft for bundling their own software with their OS, without offering the alternatives (read here (Windows Media Player) and here (Internet Explorer)). Admittedly, the competition for browsers and media player software is much higher than instant messaging software, but it’s slightly related.
Many Windows users will have already seen this install software, which is now downloaded every time you want to update a program, such as Windows Live Messenger. The program itself isn’t my concern, rather the automatic ticking of nearly every other Windows Live software on the list. I only wanted to update Windows Live Messenger, yet the program had automatically selected Mail, Photo Gallery, Toolbar, Writer, Family Safety, Office Outlook Add-on and Office Live Add-on for additional installation. That is an extra 128mb – a paltry amount, by most accounts, yet still an amount I have no need for.
To rub salt into the wound, post installation the default option is to change your search engine as well as fix your homepage. Rumours on the Internet are that if you do not remove the “Set my homepage” link, then the program installs an additional program that forces your homepage to stay the same; apparently (although I have not had first hand evidence) to the extent of not letting the user change their homepage for themselves. The idea behind it is to stop spy ware changing the homepage, yet this seems counter-intuitive to not allow users to change their homepage at all… As I said though, I cannot confirm the legitimacy of this rumour, so it may be speculative.
To summarise, Microsoft shouldn’t have these additional pieces of software automatically selected for installation – a less savvy user (family members come to mind…) might not look at this list and add these unnecessary pieces of software to their system.
Cloud Computing is a buzz word that’s been chucked around a lot on the Web 2.0 world recently, and with the announcement yesterday of Windows Azure, a cloud-based operating system developed by Microsoft, I thought I’d give myself more of an insight as to what this means.
It isn’t really a new concept, just like AJAX was never a new concept, it’s just when people realise things can be used in a certain way, it gets popular real fast. Basically, the concept of clouds is providing an abstraction layer, and normally a physical seperation between several nodes, for example cloud storage (Amazon SimpleDB, Google BigTable), cloud infrastructure (Amazon EC2) and cloud services (Google Checkout). In fact, you’ve probably already used cloud computing without even realising it… Google Maps and Google Docs are a couple of examples. Google, as you might have guessed, are pushing forward with the cloud computing bits quite a lot, and the only other real competitor in my eyes is Amazon, especially their hugely popular EC2 and S3 services.
It’s a pretty cool concept though – instead of having a laptop with 10GHz processors and 1TB of RAM and all that, we’ll all be using Eee PC with just Firefox running, most likely connected to Google. The concept of that forces buying hardware into the providers hands – the companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft etc. and all we do is use the services. I’ve not really gone into too much detail about what it is, but one of the advantages of this whole thing is that you don’t have to worry about data storage, and you can access your stuff anywhere you want.
The big thing holding UK back from diving headfirst into this cloud computing stuff is the fact that most residential UK internet connections suck. We’re still using ADSL and cable broadband for christs sake. And unreliable at that. Despite Virgin Media having a 35% market share, and BT Broadband having 40%, I still hear endless complaints about them. At the end of the day, even 24meg just doesn’t cut it (although in reality, I’ve rarely seen someone actually get anywhere near the potential throughput of a 24meg connection, due to contention ratios and all that). We need Fibre to the Home, and we need it with low contention ratio – we need Gigabit internet (or maybe 40 gigabit anyone?). The problem with that is that no-one wants to foot the £28.8 billion bill. I digress, that’s a different story…
