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perspectives on the Open Source community vs Microsoft

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Windows Vista

I keep reading of those who find Vista to be less than they expected. I would be interested in reading comment from those who think Windows Vista is better than XP and why. The reason that I ask is that I can not accept that 5 years of Microsoft-time is going to produce something that is less than it was. My guess is that 64 bit applications will redefine the space an application can use allowing for a new kind of application that lives more in memory than on devices - but this is a structural change and probably more of a catchup by Windows with Linux than the other way around. 64bit versions of Linux have been around for years, but there are are only so many that can afford enough memory to address such vast amounts but what it can do for server applications is something else.

When 64bit games appear and the Vista versions start to hum, I suspect it will give the X-Box a run for its money.

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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Timeline of Web Browsers

Timeline of Web Browsers

This railtrack (as opposed to a roadmap) of web browser development is subtle proof that user catchup with latest versions means that update inertia affected Windows/IE users still using IE6 are using technology developed in 2001, when tardy updaters of Firefox, Safari and Konquerer (most common browsers on the Linux platform) may be using 2004 or 2005 versions.

Our advice is to keep your Windows and IE browsers up to date! IE6 is more exploitable than you think. I shudder to think of people doing their online banking using IE6, or other browsers that have published exploits for them.

IE7 is more standards compliant than any other Microsoft browser. Its document model is more like the W3C planned it to be.

Browser conformance may bring about a saner, safer web. It also allows programmers to be more creative.

Fedora 7

There are several distributions for Linux. Like the soul of Linux, Mr Linus Torvalds - I prefer Red Hat Fedora (current version is 7). As Linux distro's go - its standard feature set is good for a programmer whereas for a user, I would recommend Ubuntu.