The Mystic Bird

If you’ve read this blog any recently, you’ll remember I bought a new laptop with Vista as the OS (operating system) on it. Well, the laptop in itself is great! I love the look and feel of it and the keyboard layout works well for my hands. I’m using it mostly for my projects plus a few games and I was enjoying using it even with Vista’s annoyances. Until lately that is.

The Toshiba has 2 gigs of memory from the factory installed and is the same amount I have on my desktop machine that runs both Ubuntu and XP Pro. Thing is, the laptop will nearly run out of memory while running Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Notepad++ along with having some open windows for searching for images, docs, etc.

I’ll get a warning box telling me that Vista is low on memory and I need to save then close any open applications. That’s a load for Vista? I never get this on my desktop and I’ve had way more apps and windows running on it no matter if I’m in Ubuntu or XP!

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, right now as I type this…Vista’s memory is hovering right around the half-way mark. All I have open is Firefox and Google’s desktop app. That’s it. (more…)

According to an article over at TechCrunch (Microsoft To Give Students Dev Software For Free) this would seem to be true. Bill Gates will announce at a talk tomorrow, that they are making much of their developer software free to college and university students. The program, called Microsoft DreamSpark, will be run by Joe Wilson, Senior Director of Academic Initiatives.

Now, after all this time that M/S has been painstakingly seeing to it that MGWA (Microsoft Genuine Windows Advantage) has been rolled out to prevent pirating, buying up as many startups and/or companies that they deemed even slightly competitive due to their inability to create original software that would stand up to competition and outright bullying the competition into believing that some how Linux was created out of some hacked Windows code…this just seems like an about face for them.

I’m wondering as I’m sure others are as well, if M/S is beginning to feel some heat in the OS competition arena. Ever so slight as it may be, it’s still evident they are beginning to hedge their bets with this offer. According to the article and I quote:

“Covered software includes Visual Studio Professional Edition, XNA Game Studio, Expression Studio, SQL Server and Windows Server. Students were previously able to license this software at greatly reduced prices, or got access via their CS department at school (or through other, less legal, means). Now they’ll be able to get the software for free.

Only students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. will have access for now, other countries, and pre-college students, will be added later this year. Microsoft requires verification that you are an actual student - in the U.S. they are partnering with Journeyed, who maintains a database of students.”

This is obviously a wonderful perk for students and rightly so seeing as the software is now free. It also looks like they “recognize they have real competition (including open source alternatives) when it comes to IDEs and other developer tools.”

I’m curious to see how this works out in a few months. Linux is making great strides every day because the developers want to see it get better. M/S on the other hand…they seem to only want to buffalo people into thinking that their OS or software is the only path to go down.

Blatant marketing move by Microsoft, but still, good deal for students.

Well by now I’m sure a lot of folks out there are wondering about the same thing…do we go with this new Vista operating system (OS) and all it’s seemingly expensive requirements? Or, do we stick with our trusty copy of XP Home or Professional that has served us so well?

To be absolutely honest with you, I’m sticking with XP Pro for now but with a hitch. I’m presently experimenting with a couple distributions of Linux as my next choice in an OS. Reasons why are many. They range from security, adaptability, productivity and also…cost. That last reason is a good start for this post.

The cost of a distro (distribution) of Linux is usually free. That’s right, I said free! The reason is that it is considered open source software and as such is free to users world wide to do with as they wish. Modify it, use it, screw it up…makes no difference. The copy they use can be done with as they wish. Now, this is a rough explanation and it is better explained here as they are much better at it than I. I’m merely a newbie at this at this point but, I’m learning!
My recent trials have been using Xandros Ver. 4 Professional and Ubuntu. The former is a paid for distro and the latter is a free one. Reason why is that I wanted to see any differences between the two as one has a price and the other doesn’t.

I have them both set as a dual boot on both my laptop and my desktop to see if there were any issues that were prevalent to one or the other. So far, so good.

Dual booting is the method I chose to test them out as I wanted the ability to be able to save files, emails, photos, etc. on each whereas if I chose to boot from CD (which is called Live CD) I wouldn’t be able to. You can choose your preferred method of testing that suits you.

To be honest at this point, I am leaning towards Xandros but time will tell if this is my new OS or not. Xandros works very well right from the jump so all there is to learn is a different file structure so to speak. By that, I mean that you would put files in different locations that what you were used to in Windows. Xandros has a very helpful community that can ease the transition from Windows to Linux (Xandros) for you and also answer your questions.

Ubuntu also has a helpful community to help the new to Linux folk get better acquainted with their new OS. I’d also like to add that Ubuntu is one of the more popular flavors of Linux out there and as such has a loyal following. You can see this and much more at a site called Distro Watch which is dedicated to all the different flavors of Linux.

More information can also be found at the Linux Newbie Administrator Guide, Linux Documentation Links, The Linux Tutorial, and many more that can be found by doing a search on your favorite search engine.

Windows has been overall, pretty good to me over the years. It’s taught me how to defend my computer from many types of attackers, hackers and other never do well’s that would rob me of my files, privacy or even my computer itself. It’s showed me how to locate and buy what I would assume to be the best anti-whatever to protect my investment. It has taught me that under no circumstances should I ever leave my machine “on” unattended.

But alas, now Windows is trying to show me that to better my protection and computing experience I must upgrade my machine at a substantial cost ($99 for Home Basic, $159 for Home Premium) plus upgrade the components of my machine that so far, have been of no trouble at as yet another unknown cost.

Seeing as most all distros of Linux are free and they also support many applications that run on Windows (check out each distro for what they support), where is my incentive to stick with Windows?

Here’s my Pros and Cons:

With Linux, I need not upgrade anything on my machine and most distros are free. Many applications are supported that normally run on Windows. Then, there’s the security issue…there are virtually none with Linux.

With Windows Vista, I’ll need to upgrade various components of my machine depending on the version I choose to go with plus the added cost of the version itself. Plus, the many applications that I’ve run for years on XP most likely won’t work on Vista. Security issues are stated to be addressed with Vista but, which Service Pack will address them?

For me, the answer is simple. Linux hands down. But, that’s my choice. What will yours be?

Ever since Bill Gate$ and company began their march through internet land, all we’ve heard is how this will be the latest and greatest thing to ever grace our computerized lives. From Windows ‘95 on up to XP…we’ve heard various offerings of the same thing. It’s still coming on strong with the newly released Vista OS (operating system).

Before it’s release ever became a reality, M/$ worked ever so hard to come up with a new OS that would be less buggy (M/$? less buggy?) and be much more secure than it’s predecessors were. <insert loud cough here>

M/$ even offered a test drive to a large crowd of dignitaries that ranged in profession from engineers to hackers. (Yes, hackers too) This test drive was designed to show off just how secure the new OS was. M/$ people strutted about the room with chests puffed out and the look of confidence in their faces. Too bad it was for naught (cool word thrown in here).

Several of the dignitaries began to raise their hands to indicate a hole in this so-called secure new code of theirs. Shock and awe crept across the faces of M/$ execs as hand after hand slowly rose one after another. Holes in the code were being found. Quickly too! Faces of confidence were now turning to faces of stone as the realization of yet another failure began to sink in.

Now, several months later, M/$ is rushing to sell it’s new OS to the general public. Grand reviews abound telling one and all about this latest and greatest thing to ever grace our computerized lives. Sounds familiar…too familiar. Seems in their rush to get the product to market they may have forgotten about that pesky little hole (or two or three?) in their new OS. That’s ok…they’ll rush out the patches…again. Maybe in a month or two…after they see just how quickly the real world hackers can locate the flaws.

Check this page out for more info on the 10 reasons NOT to get Vista!

All this and several hundred dollars for an upgrade to this “Leaky” Vista? Not to mention all the hardware upgrades we’re going to be forced to go through, the software drivers we’re going to have to scurry to locate and who knows what else after we find out Vista just won’t work as advertised.

Thanks M/$ but no thanks. Think I’ll just stick with my trusty Linux.