Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

With Leopard coming out soon and the iPhone later this month, Apple decided to lauch a public beta of Safari 3 during the WWDC. Not really surprising except that Apple launched a PC version as well (both XP and Vista). Now that IS a suprise because apparantly Apple is now also entering the continuing 'browserwar' as well. My first idea was: "Why do we need yet another browser? I see no reason why, actually. On the other hand, as I am "computer-dextrous" (I work on both an Apple and a PC), I find Safari on the Mac a nice, sleek and fast browser (I also use FireFox and Opera to test stuff). So I more or less presumed the PC version of Safari to be at least up-to-par with the Mac version.
Well, as they say: "presumption is the mother of all fuck-ups". I have hardly seen a browser (even a beta version) that renders pages so bad a Safari 3 for the PC. It doesn't even render Apple's website the way it should! Makes you wonder if the boys at Apple even tested the damn thing? Or did they just decide: "ah who gives a fuck, it's for Windows users - they are used to crappy software anyway - let's release this thingy and get it over with". Kind of like the old adagium "Publish and be damned"? In short: what where they thinking?

From a free market perspective I am all for choice; so more choice in browsers is a good thing. From a developer view it sucks: all browsers have their specific problems and tweaks and developing a website that has nice features but needs to work on a multitude of browsers and platforms is a pain in the ass. Also, the fact that that Apple just wipes their ass with all Windows standards in terms of keyboard shortcuts and GUI (just like with iTunes for the PC) is annoying as hell. Why the total non-Windows look? I find it confusing as hell. Sure, many people will like Safari's unobtrusive design, fancy roll-up interface features, and possibly its speed.

But before they can possibly like those things, it needs to work first!

No, dear Steve, this application got un-installed about 15 minutes after I installed it on my PC.

Ps: my experience with Safari 3 Public Beta on my Mac is 100% opposite of the PC version. There it just.... works....WTF?

I finally got Joost(pronounce as "juiced") today! Oh yeah! Joost is an interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer tv technology, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa). The program is based on P2PTV technology and is expected to deliver near-TV resolution images. It turns a PC into an instant on-demand TV without any need for additional set top box. News updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget overlays.

I installed it on my PC and I am currently watching a Brittish TV program about cars, called "Fifth Gear". I also downloaded the Mac OS X version so I could install it on my Powerbook, but sadly enough it only works on Intel bases Macs (grrrr...). So far the quality of the movies is good, but the interface and the program itself is rather sluggish on my 2.8 Ghz Pentium IV HT. But hey: it's only a beta and it can only get better! The only thing that might become irritating is that Joost will have ads (no such thing as a free lunch).

And I must say they already have an impressive list of channels you can watch. From MTV to sports (poker channel!) to documentaries, live concerts and stand up comedy (Boom Chicago). The only thing I see is that certain channels are not worldwide! Why? Why can't I watch Ren & stimpy? Why can't I watch VHF?

Oh well, I can't complain: Joost is free just like Skype. For now I am just going to channel surf and see what is interesting!

What's Joost?

I just installed Windows Vista Ultimate. I got my hands on the final version and decided to scratch my Linux partition (see previous blogs) because I kept having trouble with that ratchet Xorg Xserver and my Nvidia driver. As before the install was very quick: 25 minutes and I was done. I did a clean install and now have my system setup as dual-boot with XP Professional; I will see how things go and then decide what to do with it. I first want to test and see how well it performs agains the beta's I tested (with mixed results). As before setting up the network and downloading updates to enable my various hardware was a bit of a hassle, but so far so good. There is an updated driver for my Logitech Quickcam Pro 500 for Vista and that works fine. I use AVG Free as a virusscanner (not the best, but it's free). So far I installed only things like Skype and iTunes. Speaking of iTunes: it crashes on my PC when I try to add my whole music library at once and like before it is a terrible performance hog! Apple really needs to fix that!

Speaking of annoying: like before Vista's UAC (User Account Control) is a MAJOR pain in the butt. I already hate it so much I think I will disable it! According to Microsoft it should make things safer, but since when is it safer to annoy a user to death? Apple really was spot on with this when they came up with their ad about this new "safety feature".

Speaking of safety: I can confirm from my own experience that the latest Vista activation workaround is for real. Eat that Bill! (However, given the nature of the workaround I think Microsoft should not have an trouble correcting it).

Why Vista Sucks

Although I was pretty damn busy this weekend, I finally managed to install (dual boot) Ubuntu 6.10 on my main PC. All previous installs just went wrong because I could not control the way Ubuntu installed the Xserver. This all resulted in a severly garbled desktop, and I even could not get a decent console using CTRL-ALT-F1; the display was just messed up and my 17" TFT screen would just blank and say: "display mode not supported". It was a real pain in the neck, because Ubuntu just chooses itself what resolution and what Xserver it installs and it does not allow you to alter or even check the settings: you just have to see what you end up with. I my case it does not know how to handle my Nvidia Geforce 6600 GTS. I suppose it has to do with the fact that A) it is a AGP version (regular 6600 GT is PCIe) and B) I use a KVM switch so I can use one screen and one keyboard with two PC's (the other one is my Linux webserver that runs Ubuntu 6.061 LTS which serves these webpages).

Before I never took the time to really tackle the problem: I think it is stupid for Ubuntu to just guess what the right settings are and then just hope for the best. Anyway: this time I was determined to get it running because I wanted to test GNOME in combination with Beryl. I wrote about Beryl last week. I just wanted to see if I could get it running and what (if any) the benefits are of all that eye candy.

So how did I get things running? Continue reading "Pimp my desktop" »

So, you think you got a pimped up operating system because you have Windows Vista, right? Enjoying your Vista "Wow" factor? You think your GUI has what it takes? You think your GUI's "Kung-Fu" is better?

Wrong. Check out Linux (in this case Mandriva 2007) with Beryl. When it comes to excessive and totally useless GUI pimping/GUI candy it beats Vista hands down. I see no use for it what so ever, but it is just cool. We geeks need cool. We need more GUI pr0n :-)



Did I say cool? I meant sub-zero!

Ps: for more sub-zero cool follow the white rabbit.

I almost missed this news because I am so busy at work lately, but yesterday Apple CEO Steve Jobs issued a statement in which he explains why Apple uses DRM in the iTunes Music Store and why he thinks the four big music companies (Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI) should no longer force companies to sell online music with technical restrictions (DRM). Jobs article is very well written and explains in detail how and why Apple deals with their FairPlay DRM system. Jobs also adresses the protests that have arisen in Europe (mainly France and the Netherlands) about Apple's use of DRM. Given the nature of DRM you can only play it with certain devices and most people think this is unfair.
Jobs dicusses three alternatives he sees for the selling of online music and I think he really is spot on when he explains why the only real alternative is to have DRM free music:

(...)The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

Wow. I am stunned with his insight. Jobs for president!

As of today you can go to the store and buy Windows Vista. But the big question is: should you buy it? Is it really better? Off course Vista was already released to manufacturing on 8 November 2006 and it was officially launched to businesses on 30 November. But as readers of my blog know, I had a very rocky road testing Vista, and even today I am still not convinced it is ready. And I am not the only one. Research company Gartner (not just your average Joe Schmoo), also thinks that Vista is lacking especially in the driver department. If you are a long-time Windows user (or, as Mac users might joke: "a Windows sufferer") you might shrug your shoulders and say "what else is new?". Six years ago (Oct. 2001) when XP was launched, there was exactly the same problem: there were hardly any XP drivers for your hardware. But a big difference with Vista is, that back then you could - as a general measure - just use Windows 2000 or even Windows ME drivers. Sometimes it was enough to just change a line of text in the driver ".inf" file and it would work. With Vista you might be able to use a XP driver, but it will most probably fail.

I have experienced at first hand that something simple as a Webcam (Phillips PCV 630) that didn't need drivers in XP (native protocol) didn't work in Vista. Neither did my HP Scanjet 3300C (which is just simply a TWAIN compatible device). Neither does my TV/Video card work (in fact it screwed up many installations of the Vista Beta) nor was my onboard audio recognized. I had none of those problems back in 2001 when I got my hands on XP: everything worked as expected.

So is Vista done? Well, as Michael Silver, Research VP at Gartner put it in his blog of Jan. 4th:

Well, in a word, no. In past postings, we talked about the importance of Microsoft Update (MU) to Vista’s launch. The reality is that Microsoft could not have shipped Vista in November if real people were going to be using it en masse for real things right away. With consumers not getting Windows Vista until 30 January 2007, and most businesses just "kicking its tires' (if that) over the holidays, Microsoft and the Windows ecosystem have an 11-week extension between RTM and actual use. That Microsoft and the ecosystem are ready for the 30 January consumer availability is much more important than that they made their 2006 RTM goal.

And, as Silver wrote yesterday:

The bottom line is that, with Vista, as with any new platform, early buyers of new Vista machines should expect that there will be a few rough spots to be worked through during the next few weeks, and they will need to stay connected to both Microsoft and their PC maker.

So will I make the switch yet? No, not for a while: I have the full version already but I feel no need to install it. Maybe when I get a new PC. But for now XP is just fine for me. As it will be for millions of people. Funny thing is: when I got my first Mac with the first version of OSX in 2002, I had no problems whatsoever. In fact: I have never had those problem with my Mac.. Period...