Interesting stats

It is kind of funny to me that the most popular post I have written (based on the number of hits, anyway) is one on Vista from well over a year ago. It is even more interesting that the hit rate on this post has gone up over time.

Of course, it is fairly easy to draw hits – just use any combination of Microsoft, Vista, sucks, etc. in your tags!

Does Vista Suck if it is Not Vista?

Interesting post over on Ars Technica – Microsoft does a blind test with Windows XP users, telling them that they are testing a new OS. It is really just Vista. And the overwhelming majority are impressed.

As I have said frequently before – Vista’s problems are (for the most part) not technical – they are marketing and perception. It reminds me of a term from (I think) Tom Peters in Thriving on Chaos – “relative percieved product quality”. It is not the true qualty that drives consumers, it is all about perception.

Interesting article on the "OS Wars"

This article from PC Magazine is interesting. It does a fairly good job of looking at the pros and cons of various OS’, without the silliness of most such discussions. The only aspects of it I think are a little unfair are the “Price” and “Installation” scores, both of which rate Mac OS better than either Windows XP or Vista.

On the price side, while it is true that you can buy Mac OS for less than Windows, you cannot (at least if you are a typical user) install it on your existing, non-Mac hardware. So the true cost of a typical user switching to Mac OS includes the cost of buying a completely new computer, at a premium price.

On the installation side, again the comparison is not quite fair. Both Windows and Linux are general-purpose OS’ which have to be able to install on a wide-range of hardware and almost unlimited permutations of hardware configurations. Again, Apple does not have this problem with Mac OS, since Apple tightly constrains (though not as tightly as it used to) the hardware configurations with which Mac OS must contend.

Overall, though, not a bad article.

Vista is a failure? Mac is a success?

This post was prompted by a post I saw on the WordPress “TagSurfer” about the current market share between various operating systems and OS versions. I cannot find that post again, so I looked up the stats at http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=10, and the numbers looked much the same as I recall from the post.

What jumps out at me from the stats is this: Vista is at 9.19% (after about a year in the wild), and Mac is at 6.81%. And yet, Vista is widely perceived as a failure, and Mac is perceived to be on a roll. How much of a roll can Mac be on if they still do not have the market penetration of a new OS that everyone supposedly hates?

What these numbers say to me is that marketers, fan boys, and other obsessives can spin the numbers to say whatever they want you to buy!

Leopard will open the Mac OS X floodgates (and embarass Microsoft)?

Leopard will open the Mac OS X floodgates (and embarass Microsoft) - nice thought, but not very realistic. The fact is, Apple will continue to eat away a Microsoft’s dominance, especially in certain segments of the market (primarily those who would not be running Windows anyway), but will not become the dominant desktop OS (and hence, will not destroy Microsoft) unless Apple stops being a radically proprietary, closed environment, and lets users buy the OS and run it on whatever hardware they want. Same battle Apple lost in the 80s – seems they never learn.This assumes, of course, that Apple wants to be an OS vendor – maybe they are not stupid, they just do not want to compete in that market.

New laptop & Another try at Ubuntu

Well, as I dicussed in a previous post, I have been in the market for a new laptop. I have finally bought one. I decided to go for a Dell XPS rather than Apple (mostly due to cost). Such is life – maybe I will try a Mac next year. It is my intent on my new laptop to either dual boot Vista and Ubuntu, or (if I have a good enough experience with Ubuntu), just run Ubuntu and do all of my Windows stuff in hosted virtual machines.

So, last night I take my brand new laptop, and my newly burned Ubuntu CD, and set out. Ubuntu boots up from the CD just fine, but the screen resolution sucks because Ubuntu is philosophically opposed to loading the drivers for my video card. No big deal, I can live with 800×600 until I get a proper install done. So, I click on the install icon, and away I go. Or, actually, I don’t. It seems the Installer UI is not expecting 800×600 resolution, and the buttons to let me proceed through the installation are lost off the bottom of the screen. I also do not seem to be allow to resize this window. It being midnight and all, I gave up. I am sure there is some way around this, but I did not feel like screwing with it.

I will probably have another shot at trying to set up Ubuntu or some other Linux distro this weekend. Maybe I will have better luck and not just give up on Linux (sorry folks – this is stuff that should just work!)

PS – Vista is working fine on my new laptop. Transfered my files and settings from my old machine using “Windows Easy Transfer” – not a problem.

Why are Microsoft doing this to me?

Why are Microsoft doing this to me?

Oh yeah? Well check this out….

 

Yes – this is real. It sat like this for about an hour before saying something sensible!

DesktopLinux.com takes a swipe at Vista to promote Linux

Looking at DesktopLinux.com takes a swipe at Vista to promote Linux, and the referenced article, I wholeheartedly agree with Loren on this, though I do not seem to have the willpower to resist commenting on this stuff. I have said it before, and I will say it again – the Linux community has to shut up about Vista, and about Microsoft in general. It hurts them, more than helping them. The kind of drivel in the DesktopLinux.com post just makes Linux evangelists sound like babbling morons. It really hurts any chance Linux has of being taken seriously.

It is also interesting to see the Linux community so excited by how much progress they are making on the desktop – as reflected by the number of diggs a statistic like Linux bypasses Windows 98 in use. Wow – Linux is outperforming a no-longer-supported OS. And they are up to 1.34%. And Windows XP only has 83%! Even the much hated Windows Vista has more than twice the desktop presence of Linux.

Face it folks, at the moment, Linux is nothing but a novelty on the desktop. In the real world, it is meaningless. Hopefully, in the future, it will become a real contender. But please, until it does, stop pretending.

Vista equals Edsel?

Vista equals Edsel?  (which just refers to http://www.linuxworld.com/columnists/2007/082307backspin.html)

Ok – here is a thought. If Windows sucks so badly (and not just Vista, because you all bitched about XP before Vista came out, and 2000 before that, and Windows Me, and so on), and I am having one of those weeks that makes me believe Windows does suck, then why hasn’t Linux won? Or OSX?

How badly must you suck if you cannot beat something that sucks as much as Windows???

(and don’t give me the “20xx will be the year of the Linux desktop” crap – you’ve been at this for 15 years – get on with it).

Microsoft Windows Vista and Paranoia

There is nothing particularly new in this article Forget about the WGA! 20+ Windows Vista Features and Services Harvest User Data for Microsoft – From your machine! – Softpedia, but it was referenced on a blog post I came read this evening. I few thoughts came to mind:

1. From what I have seen of the various services which collect information, most seem to be collecting information to improve the OS, adapt to threats, or protect the intellectual property contained within the software (I am not arguing for or against the IP protection, but if you installed the OS, you accepted the EULA, and are bound by it – no one forced you to do so).
2. Despite the deep paranoia of the various conspiracy theorists, Microsoft really has little use for most of your personal information, and it is not really worth the time or effort to collect it. You are not that important.
3. Unless you are doing something illegal, none of the information collected is a threat to you.
4. It is interesting and ironic that a site posting this article to help protect all of us from evil Microsoft collecting our information, requires you to register and provide your eMail address in order to post a comment.
5. That in a world where much of our personal information, communications, and movement is tracked in great detail (and with questionable legality) that people can get this excited about anything Microsoft might be collecting!