OPEN BYTES – cave quid dicis, quando, et cui.

Did you buy Vista?

Did you then buy 7 to replace Vista because it wasn’t fit for purpose?

well-done! Now start saving for Windows 8! Microsoft is allegedly looking for a Senior Program Manager for Windows 8 (amongst other roles).

Remember what Microsoft was telling you about Vista when it wanted you to buy it?  Well, forget all that because now it wants you to buy 7, its forget Vista and buy 7, “come on in the waters lovely”…I am sure when 8 is released there will be a plethora of issues and reasons why 8 is a must purchase.

How much longer will users put up with this?  Vista was around for approximately 3 or so years and despite complaints about it, Microsoft appeared not to recognise any issues.   Bloomberg is reporting:

Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer says the company got the wrong impression from early positive feedback on Vista and won’t make the same mistake with the software’s successor, Windows 7.

Really, Mr Ballmer got the wrong impression did he?  So not one Microsoft employee said “Hang on a minute….this Vista’s a bit of a pig”? Not one employee (or even Mr Ballmer) realized that there were issues with Vista and rested their entire opinion off early positive feedback?  and this is a company which people trust for their software solutions is it?

Of course thats totally at odds with what another Microsoft employee states (Bill Veghte)

The problem for Microsoft wasn’t that products like Vista were bad, It’s that the company wasn’t telling its story well enough

and we covered that on this article: http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/windows-7-beats-harry-potter/

So whats the truth?  Microsoft not telling its story or Microsoft only listening to early positive feedback?  It would suggest from Mr Ballmer’s alleged statement that once Vista hit the shelves he never used it and was blissfully unaware of the problems users were having happy in the knowledge that the early feedback was good.

I think its time that users looked very carefully at what their computing requirements are and if they need to continue this cycle of silly stories and failing OS’s.  Windows 7 may be what Vista should have been but then thats hardly comfort to the users that paid for Vista and until now have never seen Mr Ballmer make statements like the above.    Ive always said to type “Microsoft blames” into Google as you will see it never appears to be Microsoft’s fault.

WINDOWS 7 IS GREAT – NO PROBLEMS HERE!

Those users who were on the Net when Vista was released will remember the praise and great comments that were showered on it.  Even late last year the MS faithful were still saying that Vista was great and in fact one of its IMO biggest champions (Andre Da Costa) was making comments like “Vista is loved”.  That is until recently (maybe because Microsoft wants you to buy 7), where Andre made the following statement:

…its a shame Michael Jackson didn’t live to see Windows 7

I wonder how long it will take 7 to be dismissed by the faithful?.  Moving on from Mr Da Costa and his sympathy for the Jackson family:

We’ve covered the different campaigns used by proprietary companies to promote their wares.  It must be a frightening time for them right now  since there is so much choice (and much of it FOSS) for the end user.

Let me introduce you to http://twitter.com/alie4251 or allegedly Michael McLeod (yep I’m buying that) who wants to tell you about Windows 7:

just listening to music and haveing a wonderfull life with windows 7 i have been running windows 7 for almost a year and NOT ONE CRASH

Bless, thats really good news, but what is the point if they have no followers?  Well, the suspicious minded person could think that a tweet like this would be picked up by a RT bot and posted around Twitter, great little advertising shot and if you don’t followup on the user posting it then to all intents and purposes it is an ordinary Twitter user who is happy with Windows 7.

Of course I couldn’t resist replying to that comment and so posting them the following:

LOL….Im sure…New Twitter user are you? Are you associated with Microsoft either contractually or directly?

To which I have received no reply.  Maybe this Twitter user only posts Mon-Fri 9-5? since at time of posting this they have made no other comments.

Of course that comment in itself says nothing, but what intrigued me further was the “testimonial” claim the user highlights when they say:

What People Are Saying About Windows 7: http://bit.ly/wMkLl via @addthis

and its not what “people” are saying about Windows 7, rather one user with only 15 followers.  Hardly a definitive testimonial is it?

This is but one example of what I believe to be dubious activity on Twitter.  Regular readers may remember when I exposed the Optionetics poster who was promoting Microsoft stock and alerted the real company Optionetics to the fact their name was being used.

It really is worth keeping an eye on any Twitter user who praises proprietary software, in many cases they are not all they seem.    In the meantime if you want to learn more about whats crashing Windows 7, Microsoft have a Twitter account called Microsofthelps where you can see the Windows 7 problems as they come in thick and fast:

Error 0×80070017 while unpakaging windows7-32bit downloaded from student offer webpage…please help me. I´m just frustrated, been trying this 3 days.

In this case it seems this user is not having such a good time as our friend mentioned in this article.  I am sending a message to Alie4251 informing them of this article.  Maybe they will respond….maybe we’ll have to wait until they return to work?

I have many more case-files which highlight what I consider dubious activities in favor of proprietary wares on the net.   I decided to run with this one first as its the simplest, however as you will see in future (more complex) examples, a proprietary shill can be a slippery customer.

Of course alie4251 has a right of reply.  If I receive one it will be printed here and I hope you look at the example here and draw your own conclusions.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Its the Karmic Koala! Ubuntu 9.10. I am busy getting Kubuntu! Whats your flavor?

Today is the official release day of Ubuntu 9.10.  Jono Bacon ran an Ubuntu party channel in IRC (for which I was present) Its aim was to get 1000 users in the chat channel.   It took about 3 hours from the time of his first Twit inviting people to the channel that 1000 users was hit, so well done Ubuntu and Jono!

The chat room is still active and you can visit via browser at: http://bit.ly/2riV0p

Meanwhile I am downloading Kubuntu in my on-going quest to get into KDE!  So in 30 or so minutes I will be experiencing 9.10 in KDE loveliness on my distro-hopping machine.

Over on Twitter Trends Ubuntu is receiving attention just as Windows 7 did, the naysayers who claim Linux is a minority OS are starting to have less of an argument now as more and more people are trying Linux and in particular Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 9.10 is called Karmic Koala, this is a little obvious news to most Linux users who will be well aware of Ubuntu, but for those that are not, why not give Linux a try?  Ubuntu is a very user friendly Linux which doesn’t expect you to part with cash to use it (unlike Microsoft offerings).  If you were considering an upgrade to Windows 7, why not try Ubuntu first?

You can visit the Ubuntu site here.

There is a great Youtube clip below comparing the boot speeds of Vista, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04/9.10.  Of course Ubuntu wins hands down, but what is even more interesting is that Vista boots quicker than Windows 7!

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Thanks to Brandon LeBlanc and his Twitter account, I was made aware that allegedly people are selling the Windows 7 loot that is being supplied for these Windows 7 parties that have recieved a rather dire reception on many sites.  We’ve documented much of the public feeling on this issue and we don’t need to go over old ground.  Suffice to say you can check out the following articles for more info:

http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/news-roundup-51009/

http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/is-microsoft-saying-please-use-our-products-ms-pleads-for-support/

Brandon LeBlanc had this to say in Twitter:

its sad people who signed up to host a Launch Party are now turning around and selling the kits on eBay. Totally lame.

To which a user responded:

Like the launch parties.

After reading this exchange, I decided to look on Ebay and found that a signed copy of Windows 7 was for sale for £150.  You can see that item here.  There were 5 other copies in total, for sale and at time of writing none have received any bids.  I wonder how much they will go for?  Is this the excitement for Windows 7 we have been hearing about?!?  If a user is selling his/her copy already does this bode well when Windows 7 hits the shelves?  and what sort of launch party will these “winners” be having without their copy of Windows 7? I’ll let you decide.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Bing, Microsoft’s attempt to claw away some of Google’s market share has experienced nearly a 1% decline in use during the August 09 month.  These figures are reported to have come from StatCounter where the CEO has  said:

The wheels haven’t fallen off, but the underlying trend must be a little worrying for Microsoft

Ive commented before that whilst Bing had made some good initial inroads when it was launched, that it was probably due to a few cheap hits from IE defaulting to it and the initial curiosity of users trying it out in comparison to Google.

It is also reported by Net Applications that Bing was down 3.52%  in September.  I can’t see the shareholders being very happy when its rumoured that Microsoft has spend nearly $100 million on advertising for its Bing product.

So where does these leave Microsoft?  Well for the time being (until Steve Ballmer calms down) everyone is standing in Redmond and the chairs have been removed to a safe location.  There was plans for the offices to upgraded to welded to the floor chairs however since Microsoft is busy cutting the fat in an attempt to make its next set of profit figures a little better, that will have to wait.

I joke of course, but it does highlight my view that Microsoft just “can’t get it” and that they always seem to arrive late to the party with alot of noise and little substance.

I don’t think Microsoft can back out of their Bing investment now.  Microsoft’s attempts to take away Google’s dominance of the search market cannot stop, I don’t think Microsoft would want to be seen as giving in to Google and its now become a matter of pride.  Does anyone think Microsoft stands a chance?  It doesn’t matter, In my opinion Microsoft are in it for the long haul, I just hope the shareholders agree.  Microsoft ego – IMO its very expensive.

We only have to look back to July 09 where Qi Lu (Microsoft Online Division) said in relation to Bing:

We are already seeing initial anecdotal evidence that people are using it as a verb.

Really? Where?  I am seeing anecdotal evidence that Microsoft is not really part of the same dimension that I am and after the Windows 7 party ad campaign it only strengthens that view.  So people are starting to use it as a verb are they?  Who are these people?  If any of them are reading this blog, please comment.

In the same month Steve Ballmer is reported to have said:

Bing – over time you’ll see us do things in Bing that are enhanced and really special and smart to support Windows,

Would that be like defaulting IE to it without the users permission?

Finally lets end on a piece of “good news” for Microsoft shareholders, Steve Balmer earlier this year is reported to have said:

….willing to spend 5 to 10 percent of operating income for up to five years in this business, and we feel like we can get an economic return

and I’m sure the shareholders are very pleased.  In the meantime if you have started using Bing as a verb and would like to post here, you are more than welcome.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Many people were probably first introduced to the world of URL shrinking by sites such as Twitter.  Speaking of which Twitter uses TinyURL for its shrinking needs, although there are other services available and here are a few of them with their pro’s and cons.

For this review I have used the URL:

http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/a-long-time-ago-in-a-terminal-far-far-way-star-wars-ascii-style/

which is 106 characters in length and will serve as a good example of how much these services shrink your URL, but also as a comparison between the services listed here.

TinyURL http://tinyurl.com/

One of the most well known services around.  A very simple interface which will take seconds to get a result from.   It also gives you the feature to attach an alias to your URL.

RESULT:  25 characters – http://tinyurl.com/njxgqp

Shrinkify http://shrinkify.com/

A service that offers an addon for Firefox, a dashboard widget for MAC OS X and a gadget for IGoogle.  A very simple, bright and clean interface that offers you a result as either a shrinkify.com/…. or for the real byte saving enthusiasts a s7y.us/…  for the purposes of comparison we will be taking the shortest one.

RESULT:  18 characters – http://s7y.us/135m

OSMUrl.us http://osmurl.us/

A site that has a very basic (and quick loading) main page.  To obtain your URL without using CAPTCHA you must register.  This is free however and can be done quickly.   As a member you can get various stats on your links.

RESULT: 16 characters - http://h.nl.am/_

Cligs http://cli.gs/

Offers analytics on your shortened URL, but for the “average user” it gives you the facility to Tweet it from its control panel or post to Identi.ca automatically.

RESULT: 20 characters - http://cli.gs/sm3b23

Now time to reverse that URL and find out where it really wants to take you. Longurl.org is a useful service that will give you peace of mind.

Conclusion

All the URL services Ive tried have been great.  TinyURL is habit for me, however I will certainly be looking at alternatives now.  OSMUrl.us certainly has the smallest size (at present) but I didn’t like the CAPTCHA authorisation that was required for non-members.

TinyURL was the largest here (although that is probably a testament to its popularity) however it is something very familiar and thus for me a fast way to get my shortened URL.   Shrinkify offered a respectable size of URL and I particularly liked the simple and clean interface, whilst Cligs (still short at 20 chars) offered some nice features on the completed URL.

If I can break the habit of TinyURL, I will probably go with Shrinkify.  OSMURL.us would have got my vote if it had not been for the CAPTCHA feature (and I am loathed to sign my email up to another service)

So for ease of use with a short result, Shrinkify gets the prize!

Finally if you are unsure of where a shrunk URL will take you, help is at hand with LongURL which will expand a shortened URL, giving you details of redirects and the actual site you will visit.  It is used as a browser app or can be installed as a Firefox extension or Greasemonkey script.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Since the MS faithful like throwing around percentages in regards to the market penetration of Linux, its only fitting then that Microsoft listens to percentages thrown back at it.

Steve Ballmer CEO of Microsoft is a man we have covered numerous times in the past.  You may remember articles such as “A facebook of Ballmer?” and some of his more bizzare (IMO) appearances on stage.

If ever there was a reason for him to perspire (see various Youtube clips) this may be one of them.  It is being reported in a Wall Street Journal poll that around 40% of approximately 3000 readers don’t rate Mr Ballmer performance as very good at all.

But lets not be too hard on him, here is a list of alleged comments that Mr Ballmer has made in his career, which show just how “on the ball” he is. (IMO)

“Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.”

“Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”

As you can see, the man clearly knows what he is talking about!?!?!

You can read the full article here. and thanks to Roy Schestowitz of Boycott Novell for finding and linking that news.   The quotes above can be found here (with many more crackers).

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

So on this day (8th of August) a year ago Openbytes was born.

Looking back over the year Ive been doing this, I can honestly say that I have thoroughly enjoyed spending my time on it.  I have met many people who I hope won’t mind me considering them online friends.  Ive met many people who have rather unique views (and also those who are unable to hold a conversation without vulgarity)  Ive also covered quite a few pieces of news on Linux and its increasing popularity on the desktop.

The very first post written for this blog is HERE and was a review of Eternal Lands, a free RPG that I have enjoyed playing on and off for a long time.  A year on and many server updates later, the game is going strong with a dedicated community of players!

Here is a WordPress graph showing the monthly readership of Openbytes from August 08 until July 09.  Obviously I have cut off August 09’s figures since the month is not yet over.

Monthly readers for August 08 - July 09!

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Lets face it, most of us have far too many disks in our collection. Cataloging DVD's is one of the many options you have in GCstar!

Lets face it, the days of shelves bowing under the weight of DVD cases & CD’s is coming to an end, but even if for you its not, in the days of cheap online stores and what seems to be all year round “everything must go” type sales, most peoples collections are going to be rather large.  Whilst GCstar won’t put all your CD’s into their correct boxes, nor will it put them in an alphabetical order on your shelves, what it will do is allow you to document your entire collection on a database.  So why is this preferable to any other database package? I hear you ask.  Well, if you fancy setting up your own fields with “genre”, “year” et al, then be my guest.  Its already been done though with GCstar.

But GCstar is so much more than that, don’t want to type in all the details for each title you own? No problem, GCstar will search on-line databases and copy the data into your collection, saving you a considerable amount of time and being far more accurate than you when you are trying to keep your attention after entering your 1000th title.

Currently in version 1.5.0beta 1 (released on 19/07/09) GCstar has matured into an essential database package for all your collection needs.

INSTALLATION

GCstar appears to be one of the rarer titles that comes with its own generic installer, making it simple to install the latest version with very little command line experience (“./install” is about as complex as it gets)  it will then proceed to check you have the correct dependencies and then install to a target directory of your choice.

Having deployed this on three machines (each with a different distro) I can report that the process is flawless.

FEATURES

GCstar caters for numerous types of collection: Movies, Music, Books, TV shows and er….Mini vehicles? as-well as many more.  It also has a database of websites that it can grab the data from in order to make cataloging your collection even quicker and easier.

There’s a whole host of other features such as being able to link a file to a database entry and open that associated file.  You have various filter options for the fields and you can also log if you have lent the title out and to whom.

Here are a list of collections you can create (from the website)

GCstar 1.5.0.beta1 manages these collections:

• Movies
• Video games
• Books
• Music
• Numismatic
• Wines
• Board games
• Comic books
• TV shows episodes
• Stamps
• Periodicals
• Mini vehicles
• User defined collections

Cataloging your games is another feature of GCstar. Never loose track of who you have lent that title to!

USING GCSTAR 1.5.0beta1

Very simple to use, GCstar offers you the choice of database at the very beginning.  Once that is selected, the screen is split into two, with your database being shown as a list on the left, whilst the detailed view is on the right.  Making a new entry is simply a matter of having to click “add” and in order to keep things simple, a new record entry has search button at hand for looking for titles.

Everything about this package is self-explanatory and I wouldn’t expect many users will encounter any difficulties in using this software.

Operation speed is excellent, with searches being performed quickly even on slower machines and large databases.

CONCLUSIONS

If you want to catalog your collection(s), you really cannot go wrong with this piece of software.  Now more mature in its life (its now a collection of data-base’s instead of single packages) its functional, fast, user-friendly.

When speaking with Linux newcomers they often complain that they are never privvy to the latest software versions since they are dependent on the repositories (and are not sure how to compile code or search other sources) that’s where the GCstar 1.5.0 installer will come into its own and why maybe other packages should consider including this approach.

The whole experience, installation & operation is faultless.  I cannot recommend this title enough.  What I would say is do not download it from your repositories (always visit the site)  I’ve noticed on a few distro’s they have packaged much earlier versions and when the software is this good, I recommend getting the latest stable release.

This package really does “exactly what it says on the tin” and Ive noticed that there are many shareware titles offering alot less than GCstar and requiring you to pay.

I say that this is the definitive cataloging software for your collections.

You can visit the GCstar homepage here: http://www.gcstar.org/

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Want MONO to stay off your system? Mononono is the answer. Download yourself a copy today!

I won’t go into detail about a subject that has already been discussed at length on many blogs, however I would like to bring your attention to a small piece of software that will prevent MONO from being installed on your distro: http://tim.thechases.com/mononono/

I had promised on #boycottnovell that I would link to this, however due to a busy schedule it completely slipped my mind.

In the meantime anyone wanting to get the C++ port of Tomboy (and according to Trmanco) save yourself 52mb of space by removing MONO bloat, get yourself over to the Gnote homepage and download the Tomboy replacement!  http://live.gnome.org/Gnote

If you a interested in reading a little more on why MONO has caused a debate (and haven’t been privy to the discussions), Richard Stallman has written a very good article on the subject that can be found here: http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono

Sites like Boycott Novell tireless help educate people to the issues surrounding MONO, and if you are a new Linux user it is certainly worth you educating yourself at to what MONO is, who develops it and the worry it poses to some people in the FOSS community.

I am sorry to all those who find this old news, I have received a few emails asking about MONO concerns and since I did say I would link to Mononono I thought I would post it now.

Billy Gate’s Teapot

Finally for a little light relief (and those who emailed me regarding “God gave Windows Vista to you”) it appears that Bill Gates has become jealous.  Here to prove there is only one Billy Gates, is his latest track “I’m a little Teapot”

Enjoy.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

We have met a couple here haven't we? People with a paid/bribed opinion....Is time up for "he who cannot be named"? doubtful but the FTC may have an impact on some of our bigger "free gift" hunters out there.

No its not the name of a new movie, nor does it signify that the Microsoft faithful has stopped with their ever increasing desperate tactics (IMO).  No its a piece of news which astroturfers may find worrying (that and seeing their cashcow being eaten by FOSS)

The FTC is allegedly planning to crackdown on bloggers/posters who recieve gifts/freebies for promoting products.   Its a practice we have highlighted here before and one in my opinion that completely destroys the faith in “honest held belief” in the writings of many bloggers.

Ever read something praising a proprietary product where it has no resembelance to your experience?  Its these type of posts which, because of the actions of certain proprietary firms means that when talking about proprietary software/products there is always a question of doubt in an honest held belief. (IMO)

The practice though is commonplace here (that being word of mouth marketing) one such company who can create a marketing buzz for you (as mentioned in the CNET article) http://izea.com/ and its worth keeping in mind when you see a person praising a product.  What are their motives for doing so?

You can read the excellent CNET article here http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10269962-38.html

“The rules could be quite strict, even extending to the practice of affiliate links–for example, a music blogger who links to a song on Amazon MP3 or iTunes that earns an affiliate commission in the process.”

So why does it matter?  Well appart from the free speech on the Net not being so free (IMO) it highlights why Twitter and similar social networking sites have been ruined by companies looking to push their products onto you.  I remember many years ago when IRC was the target of numerous spambots and in recent times even the newsgroups have been hit less in favor of Twitter et al.

So what can you do?  I make a point of boycotting any product that tries to push itself onto me, that may be by a company on Twitter pretending to be a normal user or it may be a site that is dressed up as a personal blog when in reality its a PR stage for proprietary products.

Going back to the FTC, I presume the only people who need to be concerned are going to be the US resident shills, however it does make you wonder that if the FTC is going after this practice, it must be pretty commonplace.  I do think though that the world of Bloggers is far too big to effectively police, although the FTC could concentrate on the larger, more popular names and have an impact.  For companies who rely on this practice, they could be quite embarrassed if it is made a requirement that you must disclose.

Next time someone tries to tell you a proprietary solution is great, take a step back and challenge it.  Chances are its not the only option for you and who knows what “gifts” the person saying it has received?

And to end of a lighter note, here is an example of a “dodgy” comment by allegedly an average user on Twitter (by the way, if the writer of this is thinking of removing it from their Twitter, I already have a screendump, which will be shown in due course):

“Looking at some family pics of MJ,  I can see he was a PC user, too bad he didn’t live to see Windows 7″

Answers on a postcard with the name of this legendary MS faithful poster! and I think the coment shows that there are no depths too low for the MS faithful.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com