August 27, 2012
by sjvn01
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Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one

Forumswindows8.com, the self-proclaimed largest Windows 8 help and support forum on the Internet, is filled with posts on such subjects as how to try to terminate a process in the Windows 8 task manager when access is denied and the state of Winodws 8 HP printer drivers. These hard-core Windows 8 early adopters group recently polled their users. And, 50,000 votes later, they found that their memberships’ favorite Windows operating system was overwhemling Windows 7.

The breakdown for favorite version of Windows, from top to bottom, was Windows 7: 53%; Windows 8: 25%, XP: 20% and Other: 2%. Research house Gartner wouldn’t argue. In a Webinar, Gartner analysts Steve Kleynhans and Michael Silver argue that if your company is still using XP you want to upgrade to Windows 7 and not be distracted by Windows 8.

Kleynhans said, “Get Windows 7 done, and then you can start to experiment and dabble with Windows 8, but don’t let Windows 8 derail your Windows 7 upgrade project.” He continued, “”We really don’t think Windows 8 will get significant traction as a PC OS in a corporate environment.” Gartner’s clients are certainly following that course. Those who plan on upgrading are are moving to Windows 7 and plan to skip Windows 8 for PCs entirely.

Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one. More >

August 27, 2012
by sjvn01
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The History of the Floppy Disk

In the fall of 1977, I experimented with a newfangled PC, a Radio Shack TRS-80. For data storage it used—I kid you not—a cassette tape player. Tape had a long history with computing; I had used the IBM 2420 9-track tape system on IBM 360/370 mainframes to load software and to back-up data. Magnetic tape was common for storage in pre-personal computing days, but it had two main annoyances: it held tiny amounts of data, and it was slower than a slug on a cold spring morning. There had to be something better, for those of us excited about technology. And there was: the floppy disk.

In the mid-70s I had heard about floppy drives, but they were expensive, exotic equipment. I didn’t know that IBM had decided as early as 1967 that tape-drives, while fine for back-ups, simply weren’t good enough to load software on mainframes. So it was that Alan Shugart assigned David L. Noble to lead the development of “a reliable and inexpensive system for loading microcode into the IBM System/370 mainframes using a process called Initial Control Program Load (ICPL).” From this project came the first 8-inch floppy disk.

The History of the Floppy Disk. More >

August 26, 2012
by sjvn01
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The 5 most popular Linux distributions

These conclusiosn aren’t from a formal survey. IDG and Gartner only look at pre-installed server operating systems and Web browser surveys, such as StatCounter and NetMarketShare, don’t drill down far enough to say which Linux desktop distributions are the most popular. So it is that I have to turn to DistroWatch, the master Linux desktop tracking site for useful desktop Linux use data.

Before launching into this though, I should point out that the most popular end-user Linux of all is probably in your pocket and not on your desktop. That is Android of course. With just over half of the U.S. smartphone market, and hundreds of millions of smartphones around the world, Android is the most popular Linux distribution ever… even if 99% of its users don’t realize that their Linux users.

Moving on, DistroWatch comes right on and states that “The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.”

All true, but for better or worse, it’s also the best data we have.

August 25, 2012
by sjvn01
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TiVo Premiere: Over the Air DVR and Internet Video in One

When I cut the cable there was one thing I regretted: The ability to record TV. Sure, I didn’t have cable or satellite anymore, but with over-the-air (OTA) TV I still got over a dozen channels. At the same time, I wanted a DVR that could handle Internet TV. With the TiVo Premiere you can get both for a mere $149.99 list price plus the monthly service fee.

I’ve been a fan of TiVo since it’s first days and I was pleased to see that the company recently came out with a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) that could handle a cable-cutter’s needs.

The TiVo Premiere has two tuners so it can record two shows at once. It also comes with a 500GB hard drive. That translates into up to 75 hours of HD video. There are other models–the TiVo Premiere 4 with four digital tuners and the TiVo Premiere XL4 with four digital tuners, far more storage, and THX audio—but the basic TiVo Premiere is what you want for OTA and Internet video. As you would expect with a 2012 video device, this new model TiVo can support up to 1080p video.

TiVo Premiere: Over the Air DVR and Internet Video in One. More >

August 24, 2012
by sjvn01
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Apple vs. Samsung verdict: It doesn’t matter

The jury in Apple vs. Samsung, doubtlessly eager to be out by the weekend, rushed their way through the approximately 26 pages and 55 questions of their instructions and decided that Samsung did indeed violate some of Apple’s patents just over a billion bucks.

Impressive? Not really.

This is not the end. This verdict doesn’t even matter in the long run. This was just another clash.

This case was going to be appealed, no matter who won, the second it started. This is just one more encounter on the case’s way to the Supreme Court. Samsung has lost this skirmish, but not the war.

Let me refresh your memory. Apple started this by suing Samsung around the world. Samsung has replied in kind. Antarctica may be the only continent where the two aren’t locked in battle. The U.S. District Court is just a single battlefield in a much greater war.

Apple vs. Samsung verdict: It doesn’t matter. More >

August 23, 2012
by sjvn01
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Open-Source virtualization management coming for KVM, Xen and VMware

I like using the right tool for the right problem, but when it comes to running multiple virtualization hypervisors I don’t want to run individual management management programs for each one. I want one tool to rule them all. That tool may prove to be Convirture‘s next version of its open-source ConVirt Enterprise Cloud 3.2 program.

ConVirt Enterprise Cloud is currently used to manage virtual and cloud infrastructures based on the open-source hypervisors KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) and Xen. VMware remains popular on on August 28th, Convirture will release a beta of the program that can manage VMware as well.

Jay Lyman, an analyst for 451 Research, describes ConVirt Enterprise Cloud as a “single management tool for virtualized, private and hybrid cloud infrastructure (Subscription Required) so enterprises and service providers can consolidate the management of their varied resources. With current support for SLES 11 SP2, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and the latest versions of Amazon, Eucalyptus and OpenStack clouds, Convirture plans to add support for CloudStack by the end of 2012. ConVirt Enterprise To further expand beyond open source hypervisors, Convirture is also adding support for VMware vSphere in its products. The company claims that this places it more in a systems management category and while we would still consider it primarily a virtualization and cloud provider, its vSphere support does expand its market to include those relying on VMware and others for systems management.”

Conviture argues—and I don’t think anyone could disagree with them—that, “the heterogeneous datacenter is real and is not going away. IT managers are deploying whatever tools they need to get the job done. In the world of virtualization and cloud computing, that means multiple hypervisors–open and proprietary–are being deployed side by side.” That being the case, having a tool that can let you manage all of them from a single interface would be a real time-saver for administrators.

Open-Source virtualization management coming for KVM, Xen and VMware. More >

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