Archive for the ‘Operating Systems’ category

Does Windows Phone Stand a Chance?

February 22nd, 2010

Does Windows Phone stand a chance in an already significantly saturated mobile OS market? It very well may if Microsoft plays its marketing correctly. After reading an article on PC World about Windows Phone and Meego (a collaborative effort by Intel and Nokia), the importance of a good marketing strategy became apparent for a new phone OS.

Currently, iPhone, Blackberry, and Android OS dominate the smart phone market. While the iPhone is incredibly popular and revolutionized the smartphone market with its apps, it is limited in market share by only being carried on AT&T and its inefficiencies in a business context. Most businesses require employees to have Crackberries because of their functionality. This is an area where Windows Phone may be able to steal market share. Early demos of Windows Phone have not shown it to be app- heavy as Android and the iPhone are. Microsoft seems to be relying on their Xbox success to promote the product as having gaming capabilities which would compete with apps; however, a more business focused marketing scheme would make this product a bigger success.

Microsoft is known for its Office suite which lacks on Blackberry. Blackberries come with the ability to view docs when attached to email, but it is difficult to view such documents or do any editing. If Microsoft can market directly to businesses who want their employees to be able to view and edit Word docs or PPT, they may be able to tap into Blackberry’s business market.

As this article states, Windows Phone runs the risk of straddling market segments and relegating to a “Zunish niche.” Because of this real possibility, Microsoft must be careful in its marketing strategy and target. I believe Windows Phone will most successful if it markets towards the business world and heavily promotes the Office suite and Outlook messaging capabilities of the OS.

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Posted in Mobile Market, Operating Systems

Operating Systems or Applications?

February 21st, 2010

It has been well argued that computer technology is now moving away from its original focus on operating systems, onto more user focused ones. Just look at the iPad, with its introduction well under way and people already anticipated for its release the new application based operating system seems to be the future.

For the longest time, people always went by the file based operating system and the Windows limited construct. Now that there are programs like Linux available and technology like the iPad soon to be commercially sold, why should anyone have anything else? With this user based software, Linux creates an interface that is so simple anyone can understand its mechanics within a short time. The even better selling point of their system is that is does not cost anything and everyone has the ability to use it.

In the article by Matt Asay “The application is the operating system” , he argues that windows is going to become disadvantaged by the time that the iPad and similar technologies become more recognized. Especially when you consider the superficial side of the consumer hype, people are going to be attracted to iPad not because of what it is but what is can do. There will eventually become less and less windows based operating systems and more and more application-user systems. It’s just the nature of technology, new ideas are released and then everyone eats it up.

But what about the other side of the coin? What happens when there are a lot of problems with the iPad and the user interface is not as quality as the marketing techniques led people to believe. We can truly only speculate at this point until the iPad is actually unveiled. But one thing is for certain, people are going to have high expectations of this product, and if apple does not perform than another company will. People demand instant gratification more than anything in our modern society. No matter how much people resist it, the concept of intergrated operating systems and their conveniences to our daily lives seem impossible to live without.

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Posted in Applications, Operating Systems

Symbian OS finally in the race with iPhone and Android

February 8th, 2010

Thesymbianos Symbian Foundation announced that it will be opening the source code of the Symbian 2 Operating System under the Eclipse Public License and other open source licenses.  With that and the announcement of new Symbian UI they are finally going to be able to compete with the popular Google Android and the iPhone.

The Linux base mobile OS was one of the first OS to go head to head with the Windows Mobile OS back in the day when smart phones were just starting to come on the market. It gained popularity back then and in 2008 was bought by Nokia and used in most of their cell phones and especially their high-end N900 mobile computer. With the rise of the smart phone and the incredible success of the iPhone, Nokia once the biggest mobile company, was left behind and now it is trying to reclaim its fame. That will not come easy since it is not just the iPhone they have to go against but it is also the Google’s Android open source mobile OS.  So Nokias’ decision on opening the source code to its Symbian OS should not come to us as a big surprise. The Symbian Foundations claims that their Operating system is being used in more than 330 mollion mobile phones in the world. Now any company or developer can download the source code and modify it to its likings and use it for its needs with that expanding the number of systems that will be running the OS. There is also a development kit that is available on the website of the foundation making it even easier for developers. With that they will enter into a direct race with the Android which is open source too and allows the same freedom to its developers.

Nokia has also announced its plans on overhauling the OS interface with a brand new Symbian 4 OS that is planned to be released in 2011. The changes that they are planning to make to the new UI are auto-saving features, minimizing user prompts, the same look and feel for all apps and a new interface layout. The UI will have four main views: contacts, music, photos and applications and users will be able to create shortcuts, placed on the home screen, to access specific content items or collections. Also context-based menus will be implemented by using a long press and that should provide faster access to common commands. All those new changes and improvements targeting the new Symbian 4 are just a proposal made by Nokia to the Symbian Foundation and are waiting on approval. Changes to the mobile OS and its interface are going to be made also to the Symbian 2 and 3 versions that will come prior to the Symbian 4. Some of the changes to those two include customizable home screen, single taps throughout the touch-based user interface and multi-touch gesture support.

Nokia and the Symbian Foundation are finally entering the big race of mobile dominance and are on the right track to success. Only future can show which company will come in first but a little bit more competition is never a bad thing and only good things can come from it accompanied by new innovative ideas and technologies.

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Posted in Mobile Market, Operating Systems

Microsoft is Seeking Redemtion

October 13th, 2009

*First, a qualifier:  This is just an opinion based on my limited experience and the documentation available from Microsoft themselves and various reviews. Feel free to comment, but give me a break allright.

The only constants in life have always been death, change and abundantly buggy Operating Systems from Microsoft that require months to actually work after shipping. It looks like that might be changing with the newest offering in Windows OS. Windows 7 was put out there as a beta quite a while ago, with the hopes that this time the bugs would be found and fixed by the time it was pumped out to the masses on every new computer.

I must say that I was quite taken by surprise when I heard nothing but good reviews, discounting all the die-hard MS haters and proponents of the other comparable operating systems. And, on that note I must concede that no matter how functional and usable a piece of software is it does not detract from the “Evil Empire” status Microsoft has earned. But, I digress. I haven’t heard a single person use all the common epithets that were associated with the releases of ME, XP or Vista. People like it. I actually like it a lot too.

The features that were mixed up and tricky in Vista have been altered slightly, new features were added and general performance has been improved. Windows 7 was purposefully created with multi-core processors in mind to better allow for multi-threading, assuming other software developers implement the same functionality in their apps. Touch screen capabilities were also built in. The look, feel and performance of 7 really seems like a fixed version of Vista with some Linux and Mac touches.

For example: you can dock open windows, there is a keyboard shortcut for almost anything you could want to do, you can burn ISO files without third-party apps, run any program as admin, and even open OpenDocument (.ODF) files with Notepad. I think that my favorite feature is the Problem Steps Recorder.

The Problem Steps Recorder

The Problem Steps Recorder

With this handy little utility the user is able to record a series of events in an HTML based slideshow to display the exact replication of any errors they are running into. Being in the help-desk field, I see this as an extremely useful tool for troubleshooting difficult to explain incidents.

There are also lots of new eye-candy touches added or improved upon from the previously released versions. This not only helps to make the system look nice but also lends itself to a more customizable environment. The opacity of the windows, shading of icon text, the “gadgets” on the desktop, the start menu and task bar can all be modified and personalized.  Of course the real benefits of the new version come from under the hood modifications.  I am in no way qualified to explain or compare the kernel, multi-threading, UAC, Branch Caching, security or the rest of this stuff so I’ll leave it to you to look into that if you’re interested.  I can however tell you that I have read a few things about how all of those things I just mentioned had been re-tooled.

What I think it really comes down to is that Microsoft saw the light and with their latest OS release they fixed what they already had working and improved it instead of creating an entirely new system and in the process making the users deal with all the issues that arise from unfinished QA. So if you already use Windows  I would highly encourage you to upgrade your PC to version 7.

Below are a few links to pages that describe how to use the features and how to more easily customize your Windows 7 experience and a Cnet spotlight from YouTube.


•  http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2009/01/12/the-bumper-list-of-windows-7-secrets.aspx

•  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/desktop.aspx?tabid=2&catid=2

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Posted in Operating Systems

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What’s the deal with Ubuntu? Why bother?

October 7th, 2009

Click here to link to Ubuntu.com

When looking into a new operating system most of us first look at the practical application and usability of the system, if we’re still interested we usually look for support and reviews. Once we have determined that this new OS seems reasonable and we have a simple grasp of how to use it some of us actually look into the history. So let us do exactly that. Let’s look into the Operating System that is what some would consider the first modern competitor to MS Windows and Apple OS. Let us look to Ubuntu. Ubuntu is an Operating System that can be used on most current PC or Mac desktops, laptops, netbooks and servers. The name is from South Africa and stands for “humanity towards others” or “a person is a person through other people” which is representative of its open-source community based ideology. In short, Ubuntu is a Linux interface wrapped around a UNIX core. Without getting into too many specifics Ubuntu is a “flavor” of Linux that has been developed based off of the Debian Linux model and adheres to UNIX standards.

When thinking about practicality many have been turned off by UNIX and Linux releases by the limited graphical user interface or “GUI”. Most users want to be able to “just turn it on and make it work”. Ubuntu is one of the many flavors of Linux that is making major headway moving towards a much more accessible and enjoyable desktop interaction than was previously associated with Linux. Ubuntu has a classic desktop environment which utilizes many of the best features of any Mac or Windows desktop environment. Typically, the idea was that Linux was only for geeks or techy nerds. The power of Linux was also its most imposing feature. The command line based systems offer tremendous amounts usability, security and control over GUI systems, but they require a level of patience have a learning curve. The truth is that with Ubuntu the average Mac or PC user can do fine due to the blending of both command line and GUI.

As far as the usability we tend to look at applications and support. Granted, with the vast majority of software and support being open-source and community based there will be many programs, such as video games and 3D animation software, that won’t run straight out of the box. The upside of the open-source movement is that any question out there is only a few forum trips away. For any program out there that you currently pay for or pirate from the bay, there is already another program out there for free. The ideology of open-source development is that once a product is out there and free to use and tweak it will continue to grow and evolve with the needs and use of community. This provides fertile ground for community help in the way of support from forums, help articles and tutorials on everything from downloading programs and opening files to kernel scripting. As well, intrinsic in the ideology of open-source software is the tenet that the community will determine how the software improves and not the commercial enterprise.

Last, when looking into the history of Ubuntu it is important to keep in mind the open-source community that were just discussing. Ubuntu was derived from a previous Linux distribution known as Debian and has been widely accepted and appreciated due in part to the great care it has taken not only to make the distribution free, powerful and secure, but also to making Ubuntu extremely user friendly and enjoyable to use. The focus of Ubuntu has always been usability and security. The core of Ubuntu is that of an OS created in 1964 called Unix, which was then modified by a guy named Linus Torvalds and thus became Linux, which in turn joined the Free-Software movement and has been the basis for a multitude of operating systems since then. Ubuntu just came out to be the favorite at the moment. You should really check it out some time. Really, you should. Plus you can even keep the OS you have installed now. It’s called dual booting, now get out there and try something new today.

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MAC VS. PC

October 5th, 2009

Have you ever noticed how Mac users can never stop talking about their Mac’s? Everywhere I go, there’s another person with a Mac preaching about how much better Macs are than PCs. They regurgitate lines directly from Apple’s marketing campaign, like “it just works.” I have the following rebuttals to this argument.

If everything on a Mac just works, then why does a website called “Mac fix it” exist? Here are a few choice topics on macfixitforums.com:

-Login window stuck!
-lower caSe “S” key not working!!
-Menu bar keeps flashing
-I can’t drag and drop!

Along with numerous amounts of other problems. Looks like your Mac’s aren’t perfect after all. Which leads me to my second point.

I don’t know why Mac users get so defensive when you mock their choice of hardware . I mean, Apple is a company that has built its entire user base around the fact that its users can’t do simple things like turn their computers on and finding the start menu.  Most Mac users can’t even talk without using their hands. User base aside, I will never own a Mac. It’s not so much that I’m a PC loyalist. I’m not. It’s that I’m not stylish enough to own one. Most iPod commercials feature guys with long hair, chicks roller skating, and people wearing fedoras. I have dandruff, and I buy most of my jeans from a grocery store. (Just kidding) I feel like in order to have a Mac, I need to be an artist or in a band.

After an Apple conference, Mac fans were elated. One person was quoted as saying “I’ve had a Macintosh now for a total of 35 days, and I’m really excited to be part of the Mac community.” Part of the Mac community? It’s a computer, not a social movement. I feel like Apple is not just selling computers, they’re selling a way of life, and I’m not ready to be that heavily invested in a product that is trying to take over the world.

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Posted in Applications, Hardware, Operating Systems

What’s good about the PS3?

October 5th, 2009

http://www.ggl.com/themes/warhawk/images/partners/ps3_logo.png

boardsus.playstation.com/

The Playstation 3, also abbreviated as the PS3, is the seventh-generation video game entertainment system developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The PS3 plays video games, DVDs, and Blu-Ray Movie Discs. It is also at a competition between Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii. The PS3’s production cost per unit was over $800, but was sold up to $600. Initially, the system was not selling at a rate Sony was expecting, therefore, losing profit of nearly $2 Billion. Eventually, Sony cut out some hardware to cut out cost, and Blu-Ray were getting cheaper to manufacture, decreasing the production cost between $250 and $400.

The PS3, as any computer, has an operating system (Referred as System Software) that is updated time-to-time. The updates can me installed in three ways: 1) By having a live internet connection and downloading it, 2) By downloading it on an external computer from the Playstation website and transferring it onto the PS3 for installation, or 3) Certain video games come with updates on the CD, in order to play the game to meet the games criteria. Also, the PS3 is capable of running Linux-based operating systems on the console.

The PS3 uses an IBM-designed cell microprocessor as a CPU, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz Power Processing Element (PPE) and eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). The system can output resolutions from 480i/480p SD to 1080i/1080p HD. It also has Blue-tooth, gigabit Ethernet, USB, HDMI, and Wi-Fi for network connection.

The PS3 also has something known as PlayStation Home. It is a virtual community-based service for the PlayStation Network. Home allows users to create a custom avatar, which can be made to suit the user’s liking. Users can decorate their avatar’s personal apartment, known as HomeSpace, with default, bought, or won items. Home acts as a meeting place for users, whom want to play multiplayer games with others.

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Posted in Hardware, Operating Systems

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