Category: General

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Overwhelmed by the press coverage

First of all, as a free(dom) software advocate I am obviously biased towards all proprietary software makers. Anyway, this position can sometimes make me see things from a different perspective.

Now here is the big news these days: Microsoft had Windows 7 in pre-order for a bargain price, but only a limited amount of licences (e.g. 76 000 licences for France). And they were overwhelm by demands from users!?!

Wait a minute, how come overwhelm? Basically, many users (no numbers were published) connected to Microsoft servers to go through a couple of pages in order to pre-order Windows 7. Basically, this is just a few requests to some servers to download web pages (a few kilobytes). Does Facebook, Twitter, Gmail or even Windows Live (Hotmail, MSN, etc.) services just collapse because people are using them? In comparison, Facebook handles 120 millions connections per day!

So there are three solutions to the fact that Microsoft servers could not handle the amount of requests :

  1. Microsoft Windows servers are too poorly performing for such a job as handling web pages: obviously wrong as Windows Live seems to be able to handle such loads ;
  2. Because of the rarity of the amount of licences on sale, people rushed to be able to buy one. Thus, servers could be overwhelm by demands for a really short peek periods ;
  3. Microsoft purposely under-scale its servers for the big sell, so the web will relay the info.

First solution seems wrong. Perhaps it is a mix of the second and third solution, both can create a buzz around Windows 7 sales, and this is what exactly happened as many news related Windows 7 high popularity because so many people tried to buy it that even Microsoft could not handle their requests. Congratulations to the marketing guys, the operation reached its goal!

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You have 4 followers

Counting until 4 is accessible to most people, and ought to be mandatory for any computer related software or web pages.
It seems that this is not the case for Twitter!

Twitter indicates 4 followers, but only 2 do exist.
Twitter indicates 4 followers, but only 2 are listed.
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Microsoft vs. the European Union: let’s boycott Opera!

Butterfly browsing, Nepal
Butterfly browsing, Nepal

First of all, no I do not boycott Opera, but some persons do want that for the reason that Opera Software triggered the whole antitrust browser case in Europe. In support of Opera Software, I am now writing this news using their browser!

The big news that triggered it all is that Microsoft, in response to the EU antitrust browser case, will be removing Internet Explorer 8 from Windows 7 in Europe.

I have to say that I am happy and delighted to hear this news. My point is that Microsoft should only be shipping a raw Windows. The computer manufacturer should then integrate Windows with a software solution of their choice, a software solution that integrates of course a browser and other tools. Just like Windows does not shipped with an office pack, but major computer vendors are adding office software applications to their computers offers.

Continue reading “Microsoft vs. the European Union: let’s boycott Opera!”

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What is cloud computing?

Original author: AJ Ashton | License: CC Public Domain
What is?
For a short and quick answer, cloud computing is moving your computer experience from your desktop to the internet (the cloud!).

From the consumer of computing services perspective, it means having those services accessible from the internet:

  • Online application (e.g. Google Mail, Google Docs, etc.) ;
  • Online storage (e.g. S3Fox + Amazon S3, Flickr, Apple MobileMe, etc.) ;
  • Online services (e.g. Google Maps, Airline reservation, etc.).

From an IT person or software developer perspective, it means that you deploy your application on a (potential virtual) infrastructure or platform on the internet:

  • Virtual infrastructure or grid (e.g. Sun Grid, Amazon EC2, though both have their own specificities) ;
  • Platform (e.g. Google Apps Engine) ;
  • Identity verification, storage, payments, etc.
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Re: Why I love Windows 7, hate Linux, and think the Mac is lame

Source: ZDNet.com | IT Project Failures

The article on ZDNet is about why Michael Krigsman (CEO of a IT consulting company) loves Windows 7, hates Linux and thinks the Mac is lame. The article is pretty short and gives 3 reasons to be satisfied by Windows 7, by presenting an old screenshot of Linux to present it in a miserable way and displaying a fake version of Apple Mac vs. PC advertisement. All a good laugh if it was not serious.

After reading Michael’s post, I cannot help but remember this: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

Continue reading “Re: Why I love Windows 7, hate Linux, and think the Mac is lame”

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On the road again

Happy travelling in Christchurch, NZ
Happy travelling in Christchurch, NZ

One month ago, we were back from our trip around the world. That was an amasing experience, it is so much a different way of travelling and getting to know other cultures! You may have read all about our experience along our way or seen our photographs from so many countries: Russia, Mongolia, China, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar (Burma), Sydney, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Easter Island, and the northern Chile and Argentina.

And we did not get it enough from it! There are still so many places that we want to see, so many things to experience. So we decided to go again on the road.

Not too long, not too many countries this time, and changing of means of transport. Our next adventure will be in Patagonia (southern tip of South America, a region that encompass Chile and Argentina) on our own bicycle.

We will be touring Patagonia for a little less than 3 months with the up and down of the road, weather and our physical and mental strengths. But we anticipate it as a great and rewarding journey.

As with our world trip, we will try along the road to write some of our feelings and experiences on our blog, a dedicated section will open soon. And if the internet connections are not too bad, we will even add new photographs!

There is a whole magical world there, and we are going to explore it!

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A thousand miles journey starts with a single step (Lao Tseu)

Hello World, we are coming…That’s it! In a few days my partner and I will do the first step of a long journey around the World. We are going to travel for a whole year, spend time together, enjoy life, people, cultures, landscapes and food together. This World seems so beautiful and magical, that it feels natural to just let’s go exploring it!

As we are going to enjoy the real life, my virtual me is going to hibernate. This blog will no longer be updated for the coming year and maybe even more. As a temporary measure, I will close commenting just before our departure, which is scheduled on the 1st of August 2007. Closing commenting is just momentarily to avoid this blog being flooded by unsolicited commercial message during the coming 365 days.

I never yet talk much about my interest in bande dessinée (a special form of comics) or comics. Though, I definitely prefer the first ones, I am fond of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip by Bill Watterson. I find this strip so refreshing and funny, if you do not know it, give it a try at your local library or bookshop! Fans of Watterson’s work may have noticed a small plagiarism I used earlier. To give credits to whom it deserves, here is the small strip that inspired us our travel blog name (magical-world.eu) and my previous sentence:

“It’s a Magical World (…) let’s go exploring!”

Credits: Bill Watterson

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Re: The Indulgences of Open Source

In reply from The Indulgences of Open Source (by Jonathan Cogley).

Jonathan, the author of the above linked post, is talking about free software projects and their relation with the understanding of “customers“. To illustrate his writing, he provides two examples of free projects: DokuWiki and AWStats.

Before I go in deeper analysis, let’s talk semantic. I am not an English native speaker, but I figure that English might be close enough to French so I do not make a misunderstanding. A customer is the person that buys or receives a product, it might not be the “end-user”, the one who is actually using the product. Knowing the philosophy behind free software, I also feel uneasy to call an end-user a customer when they go and download the project. Free software give the end-user the same rights and freedom as the producer, he can therefore be an actor and/or contributor of the project. Something not possible in the traditional producer and customer view.

Products and customers are bound to the commercial world, whilst projects and users belong to the free world.

Now, Let’s analyse Jonathan’s train of thought on each subject separately.

Continue reading “Re: The Indulgences of Open Source”

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Count out! Simple game can provide fun too

I stumble yesterday upon a funny, not complex little game that resemble pretty much mine sweeper. :-)

It is a flash animation, so this has nothing to do with free software. But it is just fun to play. It is much like mine sweeper but with numbers. A number indicates how much golden tile there are adjacent to it. This make it pretty simple when the number is 0 or 4, or even 3 next to a border or 2 at a corner.

Easy but fun . :(|) Ideal to relax 2 minutes.