Windows

Putting fuel in my truck was the last place I expected to get into a confrontation.

Especially concerning Free Open Source Software. I mean, come on...

It was one of "those vans".

You know, the brightly colored ones that promises to propel a computer tech or two as it goes down the road? The one that pulls up in front of houses with people who have broken their computers?

...

I could now see through the windshield of the van at the pump and there was another person sitting in the passenger seat...a person I had not seen earlier. The guy I talked to was behind the steering wheel and he rotated between jabbing his finger in my direction and then turning his head sharply back toward the other person in the van as he spoke. It did not seem to be a tranquil conversation. As I came within ten steps of my Rodeo, the driver got out of his van and approached me.

It wasn't a friendly approach.

We made contact just under the edge of the canopy. I say "we" made contact...the initial contact was his right index finger stabbing into my chest.

"It's _____ ________ hippy freaks like you that are costing us our jobs. You got any idea how many people are getting pink slips because of your b_________? Every time you put that ____ on someone's computer, some guy trying to feed his family has to go home and tell his wife that he lost his job. How about I snatch that silly little ponytail and give you a tour of the parking lot?"

The veins in his temples were at critical mass and he physically spit as he screamed at me in front of his van. This is where the narrative is going to stop, and it's going to stop for two reasons. First, there's no good way to tell the rest of the story. Second, it's because that's when any verbal communication between him and I stopped. He made first hostile contact and I didn't do anything but react. In the end it was no big deal...but of the two of us...

I am the only one of the two that did not involuntarily leave his feet that day.

Besides, that "silly little ponytail" represents all the hair I have left. Just protectin' the real estate.

The guy in the passenger seat came streaking out of the van with a laptop in one hand and a cell phone in the other. A small crowd had semi-gathered to watch the show but it was over as quickly as it began.

As I spoke with the other guy, it turned out that he was the crew chief of that team and a salaried member of that company's Field Management. The driver had used the truck laptop to go to our website and blog. It didn't take him long to figure out I am an Open Source/Linux Advocate. From talking with the supervisor, I found out that their store location had taken a beating from November of last year until the present. "Memos" had been circulated amongst the management teams, giving advice and training on how best to deal with the "Open Source Threat."

And are you curious as to the machine that is creaming their laptop AND desktop sales?

The Dell Mini 9. It's killin' 'em.

Also I didn't know, the fewer machines they sell with Windows, the fewer positions in the field they can justify. And he said it so I didn't have to.

"We schedule a technician visit for six months in the future with every home visit. Both they and we know their registries and computers will be messed up again by then."

That I did not know.

So what I learned is that "Microsoft Technicians" from this company actually help the particular store project sales and profit in six month blocks, for their "call-out" business that is.

Interesting.

That lead me to think about an entire nation of computer techs. Do they "project" their profits based on the duality between the customer's computer ignorance and the product's inherent insecurity and instability? Do they project their frustration and anger at self-serve gas stations? Geez...how many of them do you imagine there are?

PEOPLE encountering Ubuntu for the first time will find it very similar to Windows. The operating system has a slick graphical interface, familiar menus and all the common desktop software: a Web browser, an e-mail program, instant-messaging software and a free suite of programs for creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

While relatively easy to use for the technologically savvy, Ubuntu -- and all other versions of Linux -- can challenge the average user. Linux cannot run many applications created for Windows, including some of the most popular games and tax software, for example. And updates to Linux can send ripples of problems through the system, causing something as basic as a computer's display or sound system to malfunction.

And computer idiots running Windows have no problems, no flaky hardware drivers, no BSODs, no viruses, trojans or spyware and a clean format fixes everything right away? I reformat at least a dozen computers a year that run Windows and every time I need to deal with pain in the neck drivers that I have to hunt for.

As noted above, Microsoft had "fixed" Vista a long long time before the ads appeared. And as I noted at the time, too, maybe Apple itself should have fixed its own incredibly buggy recent products--MobileMe, iPhone/iPhone 3G, and Leopard among them--instead of hypocritically and falsely calling out a competitor.

Did Apple launch MobileMe poorly? Beyond a doubt. But it seems they got the bugs out of it after a few months. Leopard? Fine on this end and I was an early adopter there. iPhone? I had the original and now a 3G (the applications available brought me back and justify the cost).

Vista? I'm still telling those who buy computers to avoid it if possible and stick with XP.

And advertising budgets? Well, Apple has a hefty markup on the products they sell (unlike, for example, the xbox) so they need to spend that money someplace.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced that Circuit City will be the first to offer a new Office subscription service, first known by its Albany code name and now dubbed Equipt.

The idea behind the subscription service is to convert more new PC buyers into Office buyers. It plays on the fact that although most people don't buy Office at the same time as a computer, many do purchase a security software subscription.

Microsoft is trying to tap into the fact that while many people would rather find a copy of Office that they don't have to pay for (either an older version or a pirated copy) they are willing to pay for security software. "Security is basically the No. 1 thing that gets attached with a PC," said Microsoft group product manager Bryson Gordon.

What Microsoft should do is realize that Windows is far from perfect (or good for that matter) and offer a secure version of their operating system without cost to their customers, instead of bundling it on.

Instead they're basically saying "Oh, you want Windows, OK, well that will cost you $100." ($200 if you're not upgrading.) And then you say to them "but Billy G, I've got all these viruses and popups in my internet explorer" only to be told "Oh, well, if you don't want that, pay us an extra $70 per year."

It's as if it is in their best interest to not only write crappy software so you constantly have to buy new (not for new features, no, you should buy new to fix older problems) but also so they can see you the software subscription that fixes the software that you bought last year.

You might be surprised to learn that Microsoft licenses are nearly twice as expensive in Brazil in absolute terms. I imagine Microsoft charges about the same and Brazil's brutal tax burden makes up the rest (the taxes are built into the price). But the interesting result is the relative price of licenses in each society, captured as % of GNI per capita. As a proportion of national incomes, business licenses are nineteen times more expensive to Brazilian society and home licenses are fifteen times more expensive. While GNI per capita is not a perfect figure, it reflects the incomes people make, how much they spend to live, and how much they pay in taxes. It is a crucial number when it comes to public policy; it's not hard to understand why rational policies must dodge licensing costs when possible. If there's any hope of widespread computer access, then surely we can't expect people to spend 7.8% of their annual income on Microsoft software licenses alone. The burden on small businesses is also prohibitive. This order-of-magnitude difference is a fundamental problem that can't be solved by piecemeal license giveaways. Suppose Microsoft gave out Windows and Office wholesale to all schools. Then what happens if those kids need a computer at home or in their parents' business? License costs are simply out of whack with respect to most of society. Using Linux in public schools, rarely attended by richer kids, seems inescapable.

Microsoft has lost its appeal to remove class-action status for the 'Vista Capable' lawsuit that has already resulted in some embarrassing internal e-mails being released publicly. As Computerworld reports, in its appeal to the US Ninth Circuit Court, Microsoft argued (among other things) that 'continuing the lawsuit might mean new disclosures of insider e-mails, which could "jeopardize Microsoft's goodwill" and "disrupt Microsoft's relationships with its business partners."' Given what's been released so far (158-page PDF), not to mention Microsoft's history of rather frank internal e-mails, that's probably putting it mildly. There could be some interesting reading ahead.

Local mirror of Vista Exhibits

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called Windows Vista "a work in progress" on Thursday, but he stopped short of committing to extend the life of its predecessor, Windows XP.

Windows has been a work in progress since the start. There are some steps forward (Windows 2000) and some steps backward (ME, Vista).

http://tinyurl.com/5ryr4w is the new Rick Roll. This one is actually bad (beyond words). Prepared to be... Vistacized!

They parodied everyone in the E Street Band perfectly except for Max Weinberg.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Friday indicated that Windows 7, the next major version of Windows, could come within the next year, far ahead of the development schedule previously indicated by the software maker.

In response to a question about Windows Vista, Gates, speaking before the Inter-American Development Bank here, said: "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version." Referring to Windows 7, the code name for the next full release of Windows client software, Gates said: "I'm super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways."

Considering Vista sucks, this sounds like a good idea.

In a blow to Microsoft Corp., a federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit late Friday alleging that Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system, called "Vista Home Basic."

The slogan was emblazoned on PCs during the 2006 holiday shopping season as part of a campaign by Microsoft to maintain sales of Windows XP computers after the launch of Windows Vista was delayed.