Windows 7

Ok, there have been a few interesting developments on Windows 7 since I last blogged about it.

For starters, the starter edition will no longer have the 3 app rule. For those who don’t know, the 3 app rule was that you could not run more than 3 apps at once (not including A/V software). Their reasons were that the netbooks couldn’t handle it, and that most people won’t use more than 3 apps. So, it is interesting that they have stopped this, as they seemed to be taking more and more control over netbooks as time went on.

I wonder what made them change their mind. Was it the bad press? Was it the hundreds of people being unhappy bout it? I guess we will never know…

Second of all, windows 7 seems to be running at a base install (no AV software) at about 400mb on a 32-bit computer. That is interesting. It seems to be a lot better than Vista, but still quite heavy. 400 as apposed to about 150 for a base ubuntu install running compiz. But ach well, it is a step in the right direction.

Third, it seems Windows 7 will only be released as a full install in Europe. They will have an upgrade option, but it will just be the full install disk. I wonder what the point is…? But also, it will be much more expensive than in America. Up to double depending on the actual version that you choose.

So, good and bad things going for Microsoft and Windows 7 just now. I would like to point out that the RC seems to run slower than the beta.

A few predictions from earlier in the year

Ok, some of you may remember I put down my 10 predictions for the coming year. Well, a few of them have come true. Lets see…

2. Apple won’t wait till Christmas to release their new Iphone, which is what they said they will do. – Turns out I was right with this one. They have released the iPhone 3Gs already, halfway through the year
5. I will get my computer working again. – This one did happen, but I didn’t update you with it. I got my money back for my old motherboard, and bought a new one.
6.Google will release 2 more versions of their G range of phones, taking as long to release the source code as they did with the first version. – Turns out this one is right as well, with the release today of the HTC Hero
7. Canonical will make an increasingly stupid name for version 9.10 of Ubuntu. Kranky Kangaroo or something. – This one happened as well. As we all know, it is called Karmic Koala
10. Thunderbird 3.0 might get released…that would be nice…taking long enough. – This one might happen soon, as we currently have the Beta 2 of Thunderbird, and mozilla don’t do many betas (ha…)

So, looks like a very successful year for me so far in predictions. More to come people…

Dropbox, UbuntuOne? No? Ok…how bout Spideroak?

Let me say before any of this – this is not an UbuntuOne rant, like everyone else seems to be doing over at Ubuntu Planet. It just so happened that I just found out about this today.

I have used dropbox for a while – I use it to share things between my Desktop and my uni laptop, and also as a sort of document backup thing. Now, this is all very well and good, but what if dropbox dies? (I know, very unlikely thing, but ya never know, you can never be too careful). Well…Canonical just released UbuntuOne. A cool new dropbox-esk thing.

There are a few problems with UbuntuOne. First of all…it currently runs only on Ubuntu. It can be packaged for, say, fedora or opensuse or something, but as far as I can see, noone has done that yet. Also, it doesn’t run on Windows or Mac, and although I don’t like them as operating systems, we still need to agree that they do actually exist, and we need to create apps for them. They are not my choice of OS, but isn’t diversity everything that Linux stands for? The choice? So we need something that will run on more than just Linux.

Second of all…and I know…this sounds like a pathetic thing to say, but the back-end is not opensource. Now, yes, one might say “Neither is Dropbox”, but dropbox don’t say they stand for freedom and opensource. Canonical have said that it would be easy to create a server very similar to UbuntuOne, because it is based on, I think they said iFolder, am not sure though.

In this case, why the heck is it closed? What is the point in closing it, if it is easy to put the exact same thing together? I do use some proprietry things (dropbox, nvidia drivers) but I object to a company saying “We do opensource” and having something closed. This is, IMHO, pathetic.

So, I’m not happy with UbuntuOne, so what will I use as my dropbox’s “backup”? Well, Paul Mellors posted about SpiderOak, a new dropbox-esk filesharing backup thingy.

So, I tried it out, and I’m very happy. I much prefer it to dropbox, in fact. First of all, you have none of this dropbox folder nonesence. That drives me insane. I don’t want to link everything to my backups, thats stupid. I want them to backup where they are, and SpiderOak does this. Which is brilliant.

SpiderOak, like dropbox, comes with a free 2GB (which is all I need for my documents and pictures just now) and has a paid 100GB service (and 200GB, 300GB etc etc) for $10 per 100GB that you want. As mentioned, this works out at under £7 per 100GB of space that you want. Not bad, one has to say. Better than dropbox anyway.

SpiderOak allows you to add as many computers as you want to your account (Windows, Mac, Linux) and just syncs whatever folders you want on all your computers, and puts them wherever you want. I think you can also choose NOT to sync specific folders with specific computers, but will have to test this out (Ooooo…I can feel a sequel post coming on).

Finally…it is not opensource, but they are going to opensource it soon, which is good. So…for everyone who wants a (soon to be opensource) alternative for Dropbox, but isn’t running Ubuntu (or doesnt want the limitations of UbuntuOne), but doesn’t have the money to spend on their own server, I would recommend this highly.

RANT: The Sims 3: We have a contract with hardware manufacturers.

Disclaimer: My title is not a quote from EA, nor have they said anything.
I do not work for EA, and my opinions expressed here are my own,
and there is no fact in whether EA have contracts with any hardware
or software manufacturers, or anyone else in that case.

Now that I’ve done the legal stuff…on with the rant.

I bought my girlfriend a pre-order of the Sims 3 for Christmas, as she really likes Sims 3. It was meant to come out on Feb 26th. Which we thought was an OK time to wait. Then, however, they decided to delay the release till June. Now, obviously this is something that couldn’t be avoided, and this is not what the rant is about.

What the rant is about, is the system requirements for The Sims 3. I shall quote from http://www.thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/feature6.jsp:

The Sims 3 requires at least the following:

FOR WINDOWS XP
* 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
* Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
* 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 1.5 GB RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
* At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB
of additional space for custom content and saved games

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows,
the game requires at least:
* Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
* 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
* 0.5 GB additional RAM

Now…I’m sorry. But a 2.4Ghz processor? 1.5 Gb of RAM? 6.1 GB OF DISK SPACE WITH AT LEAST ANOTHER 1 GB FOR SAVES?

What do they expect people have? Not everyone has a supercomputer. My computer could run it…but my girlfriend’s laptop (which is the computer SHE has, so it needs to run on that) has nowhere near that spec. Whether the RAM is total RAM for Windows as well…I’m not sure. But even still, her laptop only has 1GB in it.

I just have a feeling that EA has a contract with hardware manufacturers to bulk it up so people have to buy new hardware to run the Sims 3.

I mean…come on. The Sims 3 needs more system resources than Crisis for goodness sake.

Video of the Week: Bumptop

I haven’t done a Video of the Week for a while, so decided to give you another one. Enjoy this super fantastic, amazing, special great video, and get as excited as I am. I sooo can’t wait for this.

They are currently in Private Beta with the Windows version, working on the Mac version, and will start work on the Linux version soon.

Hope you enjoy this.

Tech Predictions

Right, ok, so its that time of year when everyone tries to say what they think will happen with tech in the next year/few years.

Now, I don’t know why people keep doing this…because they are almost always wrong. Let me give you a few examples.

Bill Gates 1982 – “640K is more memory than anyone will ever need”
PC World in 2000 – “Within 3 years we will have PDA and phone batteries that last a year, like watch batteries.”
Alan Sugar 2005 – “Next Christmas, the ipod will be kaput”

If you want more you can go here http://listverse.com/history/top-30-failed-technology-predictions/

So…the question we all ask is…why on earth do we do it?
I have an answer…because its fun.

I am not expecting anything I say to be correct…but at this point in time this is how I feel it will go this year.

1. Microsoft will postpone their deadline for Windows 7. (Currently at 3rd quarter of this year)
2. Apple won’t wait till Christmas to release their new Iphone, which is what they said they will do.
3. 10000 people will once again say that this is the year of linux.
4. This will be the year of linux.
5. I will get my computer working again.
6. Google will release 2 more versions of their G range of phones, taking as long to release the source code as they did with the first version.
7. Canonical will make an increasingly stupid name for version 9.10 of Ubuntu. Kranky Kangaroo or something.
8. We will see the start of the silicon -> something else switchover, near the end of the year.
9. Google will release a desktop OS, because they don’t have one yet.
10. Thunderbird 3.0 might get released…that would be nice…taking long enough.
11. 3d desktops will become all the rage, and noone will believe linux users when they say we’ve had the cube for 6 years.

Ok, these are my predictions. If I think of anymore, I will put them in, but I will post one at the end of the year discussing what was right, and what was wrong.

Maybe I’ll be quoted as one of the top 30 worst predictions ever. Nah…that crown belongs to the people in the link above.

Want a world without walls…?

Well according to Microsoft, this is what Windows gives you.

A little bit from this:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vs-walls.aspx

says “he thing that gets us out of bed every day is the prospect of creating pathways above, below, around and through walls.”

and then, if you click on the link that says “The possibilities” you get another little blurb

“With Windows on your mobile phone, PC, or the web, walls begin to disappear—at home, at the office, and anywhere in between.”

‘A world without walls’ seems to be Windows new motto. Which is funny. Cause to be honest, if you have a world without walls (as the usual open-source speech goes) there is no need for Windows.

I just find it funny that the biggest proprietary program in the world is trying to make us believe that they are getting rid of walls? I’m sorry…but that is pathetic. Its the complete opposite of what they do. They put up walls.

Flock – The Social Web Browser

Ok, so I recently found this fantastic web browser called Flock. Now, to be honest, it is very very like firefox, in fact it is based on firefox. Ok, it is firefox which has been edited. But the edits are fantastic, and really work.

This web browser has been created with people like me in mind. People that have joined almost every social networking site in the world, and don’t want to have all those loaded up in tabs all the time.

Flock includes a sidebar, which I then incorporate with the AIOS (All-in-one Sidebar) for Firefox. And the great thing is, you can use any normal Firefox addon as well. The built in sidebar gives you access to your Accounts, your RSS and ATOM feeds, your bookmarks, a blog editor, a media uploader, a web clipboard and a people’s status updates etc. If you add AIOS (like I have) you can also have your addons, bookmarks, history, downloads, and the source for the website, as options for the side bar.

On the right, you can see a screenshot of, almost, the default layout of the flock browser, with the “My World” page open, the sidebar on the “People” option, and the media bar on the top open. On the left, you can see my view of Flock, with the Sidebar on “People”, all my sidebar options on the AIOS bar, a black theme, on the “My World” page.

To be honest, this browser will not interest anyone who does not use Social Networking sites, however if someone was like me, and was infact a member of almost every social network on the planet, then it would be amazing.

Currently, Flock has support for adding your Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Pownce, Twitter, Youtube, Photobucket, Picasa, Piczo, Blogger, Blogsome, LiveJournal, Typepad, WordPress, Xanga, del.icio.us, Magnolia, AOL Mail, Gmail and Yahoo Mail, along with any self-hosted blog you have. I also believe that Myspace and Bebo support is in the pipeline now that they both have an API to work with, but not sure when they will be implemented, apart from the fact that on the forum it is stated that Myspace will be sometime this year, which will be great.

The accounts that I have that they currrently don’t support are – Myspace, Bebo and identi.ca. If/when they implement these accounts, I will have all of my social networking in my browser.

Open…

Ok, so I was thinking recently of all the open-source things there are now. Granted, in some cases, they aren’t as featureful, or mature, and their proprietry counterparts, because they are newer, but I can’t think of any proprietry program that there isn’t an open-source counterpart to.

There is even an open-source IM protocol (jabber), an open source micro-blogging tool (identi.ca) and an open-source map (openstreetmap.org).

I was also looking at the progress of open-source programs, and realised that, although they are newer than some, they are progressing much quicker. The problem is, a lot of the time, they are trying to use features that propreitry ones do, so that people wanting to switch to open-source don’t feel like they have to stay with proprietry. However, because of this, they are slightly behind because they don’t know what the proprietry programs are going to be doing.

Of course, in other circumstances, we are ahead of proprietry programs. Granted, Windows Vista Ultimate edition uses some 3D desktop effects, but they are nowhere near the amount in Compiz-fusion.

Microsoft Windows XP SP3

I have been looking into this and have found an amusing number of mishaps and problems with XP SP3.

• Was held up for a week before being released, because of incompatibilities with some of MS own software
• Completely crashed HP computers with AMD chipsets, with no known way of recovery.
• Stopped remote access to Windows Home Server machines.
• Put some computers into an infinite reboot loop.
• Stopped some computers from being able to boot, or even being able to access the bios!!!
• Is incompatible with some software, such as ATI’s catalyst

So, some interesting things with XPs SP3. This could be a number of things. It could be, that Microsoft have become lax with their coding, as the endless reboot also appeared in some Vista SP1 upgrades. It could be Microsoft with their “Screw you…upgrade” attitude…or they might just not be caring about anyone who is using Windows XP, so don’t need to check their patches beforehand.

All in all, I think it would be wise for any unfortunate XP users not to upgrade to SP3 until all the problems are fixed. I’m not sure what SP3 actually adds to XP, or whether it is just more to slow your computer down to make you go out and buy a new one with Vista on it, but only time will tell.