Practical Technology

for practical people.

July 8, 2009
by sjvn01
1 Comment

Why Google Chrome OS matters already, on Day 1

At last. At long last, there’s a real challenger to the Windows desktop, and its name is Google Chrome OS.

Why is Google Chrome OS going to be real trouble for Windows? After all, technically, desktop Linuxes like Fedora, openSUSE, and Ubuntu, long ago left Windows in the dust. Mac OS X Leopard is also darn good and it and its upcoming successor, Snow Leopard, are easier to use than anything else out there. So, what’s so special about Google Chrome OS? I’ll tell you.

The most important single fact you need to keep in mind is that everyone who uses a computer already knows Google, and most of them trust it. Only PC power users know about Linux, and the ones who know what’s what about such top-Linux desktop distributions as MEPIS 8 and Mint 7 are numbered in millions compared to the hundreds of millions who know Windows. Pretty much everyone knows Apple, but, even as Apple has gained some desktop market share, CEO Steve Jobs has never moved from his stand that Macs are high-end PCs. Apple builds sports cars, and it’s not interested in selling you a truck, an SUV or, heaven forbid, a station wagon.

Everyone knows and can afford Google, though. They may not know much about Google Docs, but they trust Google for their searches and many of them are already Gmail users. You see, unlike the other alternatives to Windows, Google has the singular advantage of already being well known and well liked. That will make all the difference in the world.

That said, here’s what else you need to know about Google Chrome OS.

  1. It’s Linux-based. It is not a simple presentation layer that vendors could put on top of Windows 7. Google will be delivering a complete desktop software stack — Linux foundation, graphical environment, and Web-based application stack.
  2. The whole package will be open source. Google isn’t saying which, if any, existing distribution it will be using for its foundation. Google certainly has the chops to roll its own desktop Linux. The desktop interface is not going to be either GNOME– or KDE-based. I’m told by sources, however, that it will be using the Portland Project’s desktop APIs (application programming interfaces), which will allow existing Linux desktop applications like the groupware program Evolution and OpenOffice to work with Chrome OS.
  3. That said, Chrome OS is not a traditional desktop operating system, like Google’s own desktop and device operating system, Android. It’s a new kind of operating system that sits halfway between the old desktop operating system model and the newer idea of a Web-browser based operating system.

    At first glance, the idea of a Web browser as an operating system looks silly. It’s not. With HTML 5’s adoption, it’s functionality has made it possible for Google to create Web-based applications that can work both off and online.

    Here’s how it will work in Chrome OS. When you launch an application on the Web, say Google Docs, Chrome will use Google Gears to not only provide the ability to do work offline, but also to cache your online data in the open-source lightweight DBMS Sqlite. As a user, you’ll never see any of this. You’ll just find yourself doing most of your work in the Chrome browser interface.

    Once Google has this working really well, you may not even be able to tell when you’re on the net and when you’re not. I’m told off the record by Google engineers that the goal is to make the desktop invisible. You’ll be spending 99% of your time in the browser.

  4. This isn’t Android, is it? No, this is a different take on the desktop. Android is much more like Symbian on a smartphone or XP on a netbook. With Chrome OS, the plan is to bring Google’s strong points, it’s unparalleled collection of Web-based applications, straight to the desktop.

    This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this idea. GOS (Good OS) used it first. What’s different from the forthcoming Chrome OS and gOS 3.1 is the level of integration. GOS is a Linux desktop with a lightweight interface that uses many of Google’s applications. Chrome OS is a Linux desktop that has Google’s local infrastructure programs, like Gears and Sqlite, built in.

  5. When will we see it? Vendors are already working with Google to deliver netbooks with Chrome OS by the second half of 2010. Can’t wait that long? Don’t sweat it. I’m told by sources that bootable beta Chrome OS images will be available by this fall.
  6. How much will it cost me? Nada. Nothing. This is Linux and open source. Where Google will make its money is where it does now: online advertising and, as Chrome OS takes off in businesses, subscription fees to Google Apps. So, for businesses, instead of spending several hundred dollars a year, on average per user, for Windows, Microsoft Office, security software, etc., etc., you’ll be able to pay a flat $50 a year per user for the whole office desktop kit and kaboodle.

Take Google’s well-known and respected name, combine it with an unbeatable price tag, toss in Linux’s unmatched security and stability, and what do you get? The most serious competition Windows has seen this century.

The original version of this story first appeared in ComputerWorld.

July 7, 2009
by sjvn01
0 comments

Stop piling on Mono already

I have no love for Microsoft, most of its products, and nothing but contempt for its now annual, anti-Linux patent threats. On the other hand, I don’t see Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET programming environment and its related languages, as being an open-source “infection;” or particularly “dangerous,” much less that “MONO people have poisoned your minds and infiltrated Ubuntu to get power to enforce their will.”

Get a grip people!

Yes, Mono is based on Microsoft’s .NET. Like it or not, several valuable open-source programs like Tomboy, a well-regarded note-taking program; Moonlight/Moonshine, which enables you to listen and view Windows Media-bound music and videos on Linux; and Banshee, my personal pick for the best Linux music player, are Mono applications.

Would it be better if these applications were written in some more free software ideologically pure language? I doubt it. They were written in Mono, not Python or C++. It’s a pointless question. If you don’t like them, write better ones in another language. It’s the open-source way after all.

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July 6, 2009
by sjvn01
1 Comment

Taking a beating with Windows 7 pricing

When you buy a PC what do you think the single most expensive part? Is it the CPU? Nope. The hard drive? No way. It’s long been Windows, and, with the coming of Windows 7 on netbooks and lower-priced PCs, Windows may not only be the priciest part, it may cost you more than everything else in the PC combined. Now, that’s real value for your money!

Windows 7 Starter Edition is expected to cost netbook vendors $50. That’s not much, but it’s a good deal more than the $15, and less, it currently costs them to put Windows XP Home on their machines. Adding insult to injury, Microsoft has decided that Starter Edition can only go on a netbooks with a 10.2-in. Or smaller screen , with no more than 1GB of RAM, a hard disk drive of no more than 250GB or a solid-state drive no bigger than 64GB, and a single-core processor no faster than 2 GHz.

In short, if a netbook manufacturer wants to produce a high-end netbook, Microsoft is forcing them to use Windows 7 Home Premium. And, guess what? According to a report, Mike Abary, a senior VP at Sony’s Vaio PC unit, says that Windows 7 Home Premium will “add $200 to a unit’s cost.” On an advanced netbook, or low-end notebook, that could easily mean that Windows is the most expensive part of the entire package.

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July 5, 2009
by sjvn01
0 comments

So long CompuServe, nice to have known you

If you were lucky enough, as I was, to go to a technically-advanced school or work for a high-technology company in the 70s and 80s, you had Internet access. For most of us though the only way we had to go online was via an online service like CompuServe. Recently, after 30-years of service, CompuServe closed down. I’ll miss it.

I was fortunate to be on the Internet starting in the late 70s, when I was at school, West Virginia University, and later at my jobs at Goddard Space Flight Center. But, when I was at home, I had to use a 300-baud Hayes modem like everyone else in those days to go online. So, I became an early user of online services And, by the early 90s, I was writing a column about them for Computer Shopper, back in the days when that publication was a 1,000+ page giant on magazine stands.

In those days, everything that we now think of as being part of the Web, was only available in far smaller, text-based portions on online services like AOL, BIX, CompuServe, Delphi, GEnie, and Prodigy. Today, only AOL remains in a form that any time-traveling user from 1992 would recognize.

I liked all these services. Well almost all, it was never easy to warm up to Prodigy with its slower than slow speeds even by 1200-baud bound standards and its clunky interface. But, of all them, I liked CompuServe the best.

Long before social networks like Facebook and Twitter enabled us to keep in touch with each other, many of us were being talking with each other all the time on CompuServe’s Forums. To this day, I think CIS’ (CompuServe Information Service) Forums were the best online discussion areas I ever had the pleasure of using.

In no small-part that was because while the online software itself usually worked well, it had an open API (Application Programming Interface) so that you could use off-line readers like TAPCIS and Golden Compass. These made it possible to maximize your online conversations without running up huge telephone and online service connection bills.

One of the invisible changes that the early 90s’ switchover from online services to the Internet brought was the end of hourly connect time charges. If you didn’t watch out, you could easily run up hundreds of dollars in connect charges a month. CompuServe made it possible for savvy users to get the most from the service for the least amount of bucks.

Today, the Internet is much cheaper than the online services ever were. And, you can do things with the Internet, like watch televised baseball; play elaborate games and video-conference, that we never dreamed of in those days. You know, though, both then and now I get more done and more pleasure out of ‘talking’ with people online in e-mail and in online discussion groups.

So, good-bye CompuServe, your day is done, but your core virtue, enabling people to form communities and make and maintain friendships over the miles, remains in a thousand different forms today.

This is 72441,464 signing off for the last time.

A version of this story first appeared on ComputerWorld.

July 2, 2009
by sjvn01
2 Comments

Go to Toys ‘R Us for your Linux netbook needs

One of the most annoying things, thanks to Microsoft strong-arming PC manufacturers, is finding a Linux netbook to buy at a store-front retailer. But, it turns out that there’s at least one store that still carries Linux netbooks: Toys R Us.

Why? Well, perhaps Microsoft overlooked it, but small computers, like netbooks, turn out to be ideal for people with small hands-kids. So it turns out that Toys R Us still carries 7″ netbooks.

To be exact, the chain carries the Asus 701SD, in white and black versions, and the Asus 900A. Both run Xandros Linux.

Now, neither of these computers are state of the art. Both computers, for example, uses a 900MHz Celeron processor rather than a 1.4GHz Intel Atom. The 900A, with its 8.9″ screen size, a GB of RAM and a 4GB SSD (Solid State Drive), is clearly the best of the pair. That said, no one will ever mistake either of these as great netbooks.

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July 1, 2009
by sjvn01
0 comments

London Stock Exchange to abandon failed Windows platform

Anyone who was ever fool enough to believe that Microsoft software was good enough to be used for a mission-critical operation had their face slapped this September when the LSE (London Stock Exchange)’s Windows-based TradElect system brought the market to a standstill for almost an entire day. While the LSE denied that the collapse was TradElect’s fault, they also refused to explain what the problem really wa. Sources at the LSE tell me to this day that the problem was with TradElect.

Since then, the CEO that brought TradElect to the LSE, Clara Furse, has left without saying why she was leaving. Sources in the City-London’s equivalent of New York City’s Wall Street–tell me that TradElect’s failure was the final straw for her tenure. The new CEO, Xavier Rolet, is reported to have immediately decided to put an end to TradElect.

TradElect runs on HP ProLiant servers running, in turn, Windows Server 2003. The TradElect software itself is a custom blend of C# and .NET programs, which was created by Microsoft and Accenture, the global consulting firm. On the back-end, it relied on Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Its goal was to maintain sub-ten millisecond response times, real-time system speeds, for stock trades.

It never, ever came close to achieving these performance goals. Worse still, the LSE’s competition, such as its main rival Chi-X with its MarketPrizm trading platform software, was able to deliver that level of performance and in general it was running rings about TradElect. Three guesses what MarketPrizm runs on and the first two don’t count. The answer is Linux.

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