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Ian the Geek |
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March 06 Internet Explorer 8Microsoft released IE8 Beta 1 about an half hour ago; I'm installing it right now, but since it's gonna probably take some time to upload my system (the installer requires some mysterious update in order to install the program) I'll write the first impressions tomorrow. Meanwhile, this is the link to download it. February 23 iWank Recently Apple released a new ultra-portable computer called MacBook Air, which is supposed to become the new object of desire of billions of apple enthusiast all around the world. MBA's killing feature is its 0.16-0.76 inch (0.4-1.94 cm) height, which made it look more like a sheet of paper than a laptop computer. Unfortunately, to achieve this thinness, the optical drive and ports have needed to be sacrificed; MBA has, in fact, just one USB port, a mini-DVI video exit and a audio jack plug. No ethernet, not more than a USB port, nothing more than this, which is honestly a bit depressing. All of the network connectivity is supposed to pass trought the 802.11 a/b/g/n wi-fi adapter; doesn't mattere here I personally think cables are still the better way to transmit datas, the point is that not everybody has always got a wi-fi connection available (i.e. at home) all the time; what if, while you're connected to the internet trought the USB ethernet adapter given in bundle with your brand new MBA, a friend of yours asks you to send him a thing you have on a USB drive? "Sorry, mate, I have to disconnect for a while because Apple is becoming kind of racist against people without a wi-fi connection at home."? This is the stupid feature #1. Number two is the built-in battery: no way of changing it, as well as iPods and about which I won't spend one more word. It is noticeable that, for instance, Dell Inspiron's height is 0.8 inches (2 cm), just a bit more than MBA and it includes an optical drive and loads of ports (ethernet, 2 USB, IEEE 1394a, ExpressCard reader, VGA, HDMI, card reader), it has a removable battery, a larger HDD and so on. All of this costs about 1350$. On the other hand, MBA costs 1799$. This just to underline how this sounds like another of Apple's trick to gain in popularity among all of those wankers searching for good-looking computers, instead of good-working ones. (Oh, yeah, everybody is free to choose whatever he wants. Obvious. But I can't stand all of those Apple zealots telling me "there's no such thing than MacBook Air!") February 22 Openness?In these days Microsoft announced that they are working on a set of fairly broad changes in their technology and business practices, "designed to further increase the openness of our products, and to drive greater interoperability and choice for developers, for partners, and for competitors" in Steve Ballmer's words. "We will document all of the APIs and communication protocols that are used by other Microsoft products [...] developers will not need to take a license, or pay a royalty, or other fee to access any of that information. As an immediate first [...] we're publishing to the Web over 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows client and server protocols that were previously available only under a 4D trade secret license. In addition, protocol documents for additional products like Office 2007 will be published in the upcoming months. [...] we recognize that different users definitely support different file formats for different reasons. [...] we're designing new APIs for Word, Excel and PowerPoint that will allow developers to plug in additional document formats, and enable users to set those formats as their default for saving documents. [...] we're also going to document how we support various standards, including documentation of extensions we make to the standards. [...] in the area of industry engagement, we're calling our open source interoperability initiatives. This will provide a set of labs, plug-fests, technical contents, and other information to promote more interoperability between Microsoft software and open source software." These changes will pertain to Microsoft Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, Office SharePoint Server 2007 and all of the future versions of them. It is a meaningful announcement for sure, which seems to reveal an honest aim by MS to change its politics towards a brand new level of openness . No surprise there actually, since the closed-source software paradigm has shown relevant limitations in the last years against some competitors which proclaimed themselves hardcore open-source supporters (perhaps without actually being like that); Microsoft just understood the simple fact that selling constant rounds of unwanted, unnecessary upgrades to bloated legacy applications isn't going to work much longer, moreover if an easy and free alternative is available. The first step is done, but now there's the whole stairway left to go. WelcomeHey everybody, welcome to my brand new blog. Stay tuned. ;-) |
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