Categories
Open Source Software

Microsoft Office

Anyone else thing Microsoft Office is way overpriced? Take a look at your options. $149 is Academic (you’d think for that money, you get Professional on an Academic license, but your wrong). The cheapest upgrade is $239.

Wouldn’t mind upgrading to have XML support, but is there anyone who can justify those prices?

Microsoft should be ashamed at their pricing. Thankfully there is OpenOffice.

Categories
Mozilla

NVU 1.0 PR

Glazou needs some credit on his accomplishment for a 1.0 PR release. It looked pretty solid on the Mac. The one thing I noted was the prefs window appeared slightly to small (horizontally) cutting off a few things, and the same for the “ping us so we can count our users” window.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, go grab some bits. It’s a pretty solid product, and not even 1.0.

Categories
Apple

I told you so

Well, it’s not much of a secret that I’m an Apple Zealot. I admit it right away. Apple’s hardware and software far exceed that of any other company in the industry, no exceptions. A bit more recently this is starting to become a more common mindset. Hixie recently admitted how Mac users seem to always solve the problems (scroll down to Wednesday). Now Paul Graham posted an great bit on how the Mac is making it’s way into every Geek’s heart.

I guess I was just way ahead of my time. I still love my Macs. and I’m aching to get a Wireless card for my Mac Mini so I can get that sucker online.

Mac Users seem to so rarely have problems. Computers run fast, stable, UNIX based OS, quality hardware. I can’t remember the last time a Mac friend told me about their hardware problems. My PC friends tell me about it all the time. I have about the same number of friends on each side of the platform fence. Nor can I remember ever needing to reinstall the OS because of problems. My PC friends (and my PC) have that done all the time. Mac’s just work. They are easier to use, and do the job better.

And if you haven’t figured it out yet, the Tiger theme on this blog is in honor of Mac OS X 10.4 coming soon.

Categories
Google Software

Google’s got to get moving

Google supports a handful of file formats. Yahoo supports a fair amount of what I use on a normal basis. The biggest missing is Thunderbird and Firefox.

Now when is Google going to get updating? Are they going to let Yahoo come in and steal their thunder?

Categories
Mozilla

NVU 0.50 Released

NVU 0.50 has been released by Daniel Glazman. Awesome new build. Some cool new features. Spell Checking is my favorite (and hope to see it in Thunderbird soon).

My real pet pieve is this:

Spell checking invokes to early. It should invoke when you press space, or return, not when your still on the word. Otherwise it marks it as an error until you complete. That flashing red line is just plain annoying. An option to delay it until you ‘leave the word’, or better yet ,make that the default, would be greatly preferred.

Daniel did a list documenting the new features, so no need to re-write that. All around a great build. All html geeks, and non-geeks should be checking it out. Makes web development easy.

Categories
Apple

Apple a Phone Service

Business Week’s Alex Salkever has an interesting article about Apple creating it’s own Skype like system. I’ve talked briefly about Skype before. I’m a huge fan. It’s a solid product. But Apple should take it to the next level. Allow me explain:

Ideally, for anything to become a good communication standard, it must be a standard. Skype is proprietary. While free, it’s not something that will be ported to a billion obscure systems anytime soon. There is also no guarantee it will stay free. We can only hope and trust. We need a standard. Something that can never be taken away. Apple, is an Open Source company these days. Look at how much open source is under the hood of Mac OS X. Clearly standards are a part of Apple’s future. Apple also has a history with communications (AppleTalk, iChat, Rendezvous). Apple has lots of experience with rich media (QuickTime), as well as streaming rich media. Apple is the perfect company for the task.

What’s needed?

An open platform for voice communications that meets the following requirements:

  • Secure
  • P2P
  • Needs to be a Standard
  • Needs to be built on standards (TCP/IP, etc. etc)
  • Nothing proprietary in the protocol
  • Someone with an eye for how to do things “right”
  • Directory Mechanism
  • Method to prevent abuse (spam)

Now if Apple created some protocol with a few partners (Motorola, of a PPC relationship also has a stake in communications) create a standard, it’s got a good shot at taking off. A great place to integrate Rendezvous. Or a similar technology perhaps based upon it.

Advantages for Apple

  1. A vast new communications feature for Mac OS X/iChat. This could serve as the core, as they add features for their release. Able to use what’s contributed by other companies/individuals.
  2. Gain a reputation of not just being a hardware company, but a standards company
  3. The “digital hub” concept so far is pretty encompassing but to date, everyone forgets about the most common electronic device: the telephone
  4. A system that will connect to much more than just Mac users. Any OS where someone wants to support it.

Apple was afraid of being left behind with the Internet, after Microsoft got fussy, so they created Mail.app and Safari, to ensure Mac users always had the Internet (despite Firefox rocking on the Mac). Guess what the next big Application is? That’s right.

But Apple is a Hardware company

True, but there are still advantages. Besides for the fact that the OS is crucial to make a computer worth anything, did you think how much Phones can be worth? That’s right. Who is to say Apple or another company can’t make a landline phone that uses WiFi and/or Ethernet to plug right into the net? No more phone bills. Just use our sleek phone. Using iSync, it keeps in touch with your Address Book on your Mac, so your address book is on every iPhone in your home. It can go anywhere via WiFi using Airport. Use an Airport Express to extend the range so you can be in the backyard with your cordless phone. Does anyone see how much hardware software integration there is here?

This is a market ripe for Apple to pick. Not to mention Apple already has the perfect domain for to host the project: www.iphone.org

Categories
Politics

The Politics of Tech

I’m not political, so here’s my political analysis geek style:

Republicans

Analysis

  • Prefer proprietary technology
  • Invalid HTML is universal across sites, minimal web standards)
  • Choice in media players (QuickTime, Windows Media, Real)

Cases
Republican National Committee
GOP
GeorgeWBush.com

Democrats

Analysis

  • Prefer Open Source (most of the time, especially DNC website)
  • Prefer Web Standards at times
  • Choice in media (Windows Media, Real, Quicktime)

Cases
Democratic National Committee
JohnKerry.com
Democratic National Convention 2004

Others

Analysis

  • Varied, platforms but better than Republicans
  • Web Standards seems more important
  • Choice in media players (QuickTime, Windows Media, Real)
  • Lower budget websites

Cases
Nader
Cobb (Green Party)

Seems Contributors tell quite a bit about what to expect in the parties tech, as well as their policies [Republican | Democrat | Nader]

Sidenote: Of these, only the Bush Campaign seems to be using lots of negative campaign tactics. Even on the website it’s very obvious. Third parties use virtually none. Kerry has one ‘politically correct’ worded message on ‘Why Bush is wrong for America’. Bush makes it the focal point of his website these days. There seems to be more on Kerry than George. An interesting observation on tactics.

This isn’t scientific, or an endorsement of any candidate, just a quick little analysis on how parties view the internet, and web standards as well as open source platforms and comments as I feel appropriate..

Categories
Software

Windows XP SP2

I installed Windows XP SP2 today (yes, a day early). More in a day or so, when I really get a chance to kick the tires.

So far, no issues to report.

Categories
Software

Skype is pretty good

I rarely do software reviews, but thought I’d quickly give a mention to Skype.

Skype is not VoIP, but allows you to voice chat with other users. For free. But it’s better than it’s competitors.

AIM has “talk” but it doesn’t work behind any firewalls. Quality isn’t great. Yahoo works behind some firewalls, but quality is even worse. Skype works behind firewalls and has excellent quality. I’d say better than most phones. It’s also encrypted for your protection (using AES) Skype is overall very sexy in performance. Minimal bandwidth, and optimal quality. My hope is that they manage to keep PC to PC calls free forever (without ads).

I do hope however that some open source alternatives become available. This technology will be big in the next year or two. Just as VoIP is kicking off, this going to be something worth looking into for many people. But I hope it will be open protocols like Email, rather than a closed protocol mess like IM. This has the potential to be a real golden internet tool. Hopefully it won’t loose out to patents and proprietary networks.

Anyway. It’s a great product to look at, and give it a shot. I’m personally convinced this concept has finally come of age. It’s just a matter of them opening the protocol so others can build clients to use their network (and perhaps subscribe to their paid services), or if the open source community needs to create their own universal network.

Categories
Mozilla

Firefox 0.9 Released

It’s out. Get it now.

Here’s an idea: everyone try and turn on at least 1 person to Firefox today. More if you can. Lets see how great M.O.’s ftp mirrors are! So come on, get someone who hasn’t used Firefox today to take the plunge. Tell them to visit:

http://www.getfirefox.com

@ only 4.6 MB’s, it’s worth a shot right? Come on, spread the word.