Finally had the patience to wait for the
New Longhorn Screenshots that have been getting lots of mentioning on the web. In general the theme looks better than what XP has to offer, like the rounding of windows kinda like the default for RedHat 8.0. The new bar, other than the task bar, looks like a nice version of what unix desktops have been doing for years. I still don’t like the way they are using the Start Button and all the ectra crap in file windows seems a waste. Actually if the extra crap in file windows was moved into some fixed point in say the new bar the usability might improve. Ironicly it looks like a cleaned up version of a unix desktop, and not all that OS X influenced like some are saying. All in all the screenshots give some of the less creative theme designers something to copy for the time being.
Category: Rant
Categories
Cringely, anti MBA
The Case Against Professionalism, How We Have Managed Industry Almost to Death where Cringely goes off on not having founders, the engineers, run the companies they start. He has some good points, about the lack of research funding for short term profits, but misses a few as well.
First off engineer types that also have buisness knowledge would be a killer for running any tech company. But sadly the problem is that few engineers take the time to actually learn anything about buisness. Also the same applies to buisness folks that end up running tech companies, they really need some engineering/technical background.
Secondly the problem of long time research divisions being dropped to improve the bottom line is a problem but what is the causse? As one long time CEO, whose name I can’t remember, said, “The problem in the world of public companies is that executive officers are not gready enough. The big time profits for share holders are in the long term plans.” Until investors realise this fact they will continue to lose while there executive officers will win through artifical means.
Thirdly one situation that Cringely totaly misses on is that the engineers don’t have to ever take VC funding and go public. Like SAS or ESRI they can continue to be the engineer executive of a company that they own and control.
Categories
Cringely, anti MBA
The Case Against Professionalism, How We Have Managed Industry Almost to Death where Cringely goes off on not having founders, the engineers, run the companies they start. He has some good points, about the lack of research funding for short term profits, but misses a few as well.
First off engineer types that also have buisness knowledge would be a killer for running any tech company. But sadly the problem is that few engineers take the time to actually learn anything about buisness. Also the same applies to buisness folks that end up running tech companies, they really need some engineering/technical background.
Secondly the problem of long time research divisions being dropped to improve the bottom line is a problem but what is the causse? As one long time CEO, whose name I can’t remember, said, “The problem in the world of public companies is that executive officers are not gready enough. The big time profits for share holders are in the long term plans.” Until investors realise this fact they will continue to lose while there executive officers will win through artifical means.
Thirdly one situation that Cringely totaly misses on is that the engineers don’t have to ever take VC funding and go public. Like SAS or ESRI they can continue to be the engineer executive of a company that they own and control.
Before you run away screaming, “Not another Anti-RedHat Rant!!” hold your horses and hang in there.
Most are based in some RedHat will be or is Microsoft. Or something about how they should be more like Debian. Or even sillier RedHat will make things more consistent by altering KDE to be more GNOME, consistency heaven forbid. I don’t have a problem with any of the above, well maybe if they were more Debian but I digress.
The problem that I face is actually wanting to pay RedHat for the 8.0 but damm’d if they have made it way too confusing. See what I want is to buy some CDs for the initial installation and have access to the “up2date” functionality, think Debian apt-get or WindowsUpdate but for everything on the system, for the run of the 8.X Series or at least a year seems resonable. Now it seems like something like this product and service combo should cost something like $20 – $100(I’m in a generous mood). Now enters the problem how do I get that option, or something similar?
There is RedHat Linux 8.0 Professional, RedHat Linux 8.0 Personal and some mention of Red Hat Network Basic Service but as far as I can tell the only real difference between the Pro and Personal is $110 in price and 30 vs. 60 days access to “Red Hat Network Basic Service” but oh, wait. One can get a year of the Red Hat Network for $60. So for my high end of $100 I can get what I want, some CDs and up2date for a year.
So where is the rant if I found what I wanted, though it is maximum of my price range? Well it was way too complicated and confusing to figure something so simple out. Honestly if it wasn’t for being so pissed and writing a rant I would have blown off RedHat and went over to Cheap*Bytes and picked up Debian CDs. Still might.
It just seems that the more RedHat gets it’s act together the more find something else to screw up and that I guess is what I’m really ranting about.
Before you run away screaming, “Not another Anti-RedHat Rant!!” hold your horses and hang in there.
Most are based in some RedHat will be or is Microsoft. Or something about how they should be more like Debian. Or even sillier RedHat will make things more consistent by altering KDE to be more GNOME, consistency heaven forbid. I don’t have a problem with any of the above, well maybe if they were more Debian but I digress.
The problem that I face is actually wanting to pay RedHat for the 8.0 but damm’d if they have made it way too confusing. See what I want is to buy some CDs for the initial installation and have access to the “up2date” functionality, think Debian apt-get or WindowsUpdate but for everything on the system, for the run of the 8.X Series or at least a year seems resonable. Now it seems like something like this product and service combo should cost something like $20 – $100(I’m in a generous mood). Now enters the problem how do I get that option, or something similar?
There is RedHat Linux 8.0 Professional, RedHat Linux 8.0 Personal and some mention of Red Hat Network Basic Service but as far as I can tell the only real difference between the Pro and Personal is $110 in price and 30 vs. 60 days access to “Red Hat Network Basic Service” but oh, wait. One can get a year of the Red Hat Network for $60. So for my high end of $100 I can get what I want, some CDs and up2date for a year.
So where is the rant if I found what I wanted, though it is maximum of my price range? Well it was way too complicated and confusing to figure something so simple out. Honestly if it wasn’t for being so pissed and writing a rant I would have blown off RedHat and went over to Cheap*Bytes and picked up Debian CDs. Still might.
It just seems that the more RedHat gets it’s act together the more find something else to screw up and that I guess is what I’m really ranting about.
Categories
Lack of a good book
Went to a Barnes & Noble last night with the hope of finding a computer book for enjoyment reading, yea I know I’m weird that way. There was a big problem though, nothing there looked interesting. Well there was one exception, the 3 volume set of The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Kunth but didn’t really want to pony up the $150 price right now. I think part of the problem is the preponderance of those 1,000 page tomes that really say very little, “Learn X in Y days”, “The complete unabridged guide to absolutely everything and anything about Z”, I hope you get the point.
Now this got me to thinking about what I am really looking for in a computer book. First I listed the “good” books and noticed a couple of things. The list was surprisingly short. Second that they seemed to fall into 3 categories Reference, Page Turners and Just Cool.
Reference
- Programming Perl, 3rd Edition
- Perl Cookbook Tips and Tricks for Perl Programmers
- The Perl CD Bookshelf
Page Turners
- Programming Web Services with XML-RPC
- EXtreme Programming eXplained: Embrace Change
Just Cool
References are the must haves, books that almost always end up next to the computer and in the book bag to take to work and have at home. In most cases the occasional reference is just as good, usually better, when online or digital than the print counterpart. Online allows for search ability, a must for good reference. Also online usually means more up to date. As a genre of computer books this one is probably dead unless one is lacking in a decent network connection.
Page Turners are the ones that are worth reading cover to cover again and again. These were more paradigm types of works. Something that changes the way one thinks about using a computer. There are definitely more of these than what I listed but if something is to change one’s thinking it needs to be presented in a short mentally manageable format.
The Just Cool are just that, there were just not enough of these books, only one. The Panda books use of photos makes it something that even has life as a coffee table piece after the contents are no longer useful.
So what did I learn?
Well reference is dead. With the advent of the ambiguous network and great search tools print reference material only serves it’s usefulness when one can’t get access to the net. Very few thick books are anything but reference.
The thick books that are not reference generally have too much to say in too many words to really be useful. Maybe more Thin Books would be a start, who knows?
What started out pretty simple, no computer books for fozbaca, has gotten quite long. Time to get back to where I started.
Summary:
What I would really like to see is more thin books, something of the 200 pages or less. Drop the reference material. Something that is introducing new paradigms, methodologies and the like. Focus must be on the practical how this information is useful and worth wasting time on reading. Finally it should not be like a Unix Man page. Something that has a little life around and behind the words.
Categories
Lack of a good book
Went to a Barnes & Noble last night with the hope of finding a computer book for enjoyment reading, yea I know I’m weird that way. There was a big problem though, nothing there looked interesting. Well there was one exception, the 3 volume set of The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Kunth but didn’t really want to pony up the $150 price right now. I think part of the problem is the preponderance of those 1,000 page tomes that really say very little, “Learn X in Y days”, “The complete unabridged guide to absolutely everything and anything about Z”, I hope you get the point.
Now this got me to thinking about what I am really looking for in a computer book. First I listed the “good” books and noticed a couple of things. The list was surprisingly short. Second that they seemed to fall into 3 categories Reference, Page Turners and Just Cool.
Reference
- Programming Perl, 3rd Edition
- Perl Cookbook Tips and Tricks for Perl Programmers
- The Perl CD Bookshelf
Page Turners
- Programming Web Services with XML-RPC
- EXtreme Programming eXplained: Embrace Change
Just Cool
References are the must haves, books that almost always end up next to the computer and in the book bag to take to work and have at home. In most cases the occasional reference is just as good, usually better, when online or digital than the print counterpart. Online allows for search ability, a must for good reference. Also online usually means more up to date. As a genre of computer books this one is probably dead unless one is lacking in a decent network connection.
Page Turners are the ones that are worth reading cover to cover again and again. These were more paradigm types of works. Something that changes the way one thinks about using a computer. There are definitely more of these than what I listed but if something is to change one’s thinking it needs to be presented in a short mentally manageable format.
The Just Cool are just that, there were just not enough of these books, only one. The Panda books use of photos makes it something that even has life as a coffee table piece after the contents are no longer useful.
So what did I learn?
Well reference is dead. With the advent of the ambiguous network and great search tools print reference material only serves it’s usefulness when one can’t get access to the net. Very few thick books are anything but reference.
The thick books that are not reference generally have too much to say in too many words to really be useful. Maybe more Thin Books would be a start, who knows?
What started out pretty simple, no computer books for fozbaca, has gotten quite long. Time to get back to where I started.
Summary:
What I would really like to see is more thin books, something of the 200 pages or less. Drop the reference material. Something that is introducing new paradigms, methodologies and the like. Focus must be on the practical how this information is useful and worth wasting time on reading. Finally it should not be like a Unix Man page. Something that has a little life around and behind the words.
Categories
State of the Windows X86 PC
<mode=”Rant”>
I have attempted to give the Windows X86 PC industry a report card on key issues faced from watching my recently retired parents experience in buying an OEM PC this past summer. I expect their experience to be similar from stories I have heard.
Amount of standard RAM: F
Standard PC still ships below realistic system minimum needs, 128 MB RAM too low. System should boot out of the box without needing virtual ram.
Third party hardware suppliers: F
When attempting to make a simple stick of ram addition the wholesalers were entirely inadequate for any except the experienced PC hardware person. Actually they are pretty bad for the experienced.
OEM after purchases upgrades: F
I have never experienced such difficulties when trying to spend money, especially given the current economic conditions. It took 4 phone calls and once being transfered to a voice mail box of someone who no longer worked at the company to make a simple memory upgrade. At one point the sales person swore that memory didn’t exist for the motherboard, even though the machine shipped with a stick of RAM.
Ready to run out of the box: F
System received had numerous patches and service packs that should have been applied at the OEM. There is no excuse for a system to need patches more than a week old. As a very poor alternative the OEM should ship a CDROM that contains all the patches, but this is a bad alternative.
OEM documentation: F
Wholly inadequate to useless. First what limited instructions were present were borderline useless for any but the experienced. Second most of the specs for existing hardware or replacement hardware were incorrect.
“Bundled” ISP: F
Currently almost all OEM PCs come with the free 6 months of AOL and/or MSN, probably as a tie-in service like DellNet with MSN. In either case the services require unnecessary information at initial account creation and attempted to trick the user into making purchases through deceptive placement of dialogues. After the accounts are created the attempt at branding whole confuses most users. Rather providing a clean gateway to the Internet and differentiate through quality and prices of the value adds they go so far as to obscure other providers of said services like search engines.
Overall Grade: F
For all the improvements in touted in the industry they still have not came close to requirements to really expect any but those required to participate in the computing revolution. I would not recommend a Windows X86 PC to any that have not already acquired substantial experience, say through work or school, or had a very definite and real need. Honestly for most a computer and related services are a waste of $1,000+.
</mode>
I’m looking for comments on this one for any and all. I deliberately kept Apple out of the rant due to lack of recent experience.