Month: November 2006

Vista goes public – Microsoft goes soft!

Posted by DarkJedi – November 30, 2006

For the few out there who cares: Microsoft today officially released their newest version of Windows: Vista… The hype around it has been tremendous, however, the launch is hardly comparable to that of Windows 95!

There is no secret in that Microsoft is betting a lot on Vista, and hopes for a quick adaptation… It took a little longer to produce, and many customers – especially businesses – fails to see the urgency in upgrading – especially with the activation problems, the EULA and more than anything its extremely high prices!

However, Microsoft has done something rather unexpected lately… apart from changing some of the most grim parts of license after users on the internet dismissed it completely, they have now also decided to upgrade their WGA program after many user complaints, problems and cases where Microsoft screwed their paying customers big time! Now it doesn’t act quite as much as a spyware program, sending who knows what information to Microsoft (the biggest case of industrial espionage in our day?) and it is suppose to less prone to error (yeah right!)… Of course this is doesn’t do anything about the activation problems people will soon face with Vista ;)

Well, finally Microsoft got their latest version of Windows out the door… but frankly all those years spent on it is in my opinion largely wasted! I would never install such a personal threat to my and my data on my computer! If Microsoft doesn’t clean up its act and starts to act more soft on its paying customers they will loose me as a customers … for good! (Once I leave I won’t look back!)

Vista Logo

The Console War : Wii attacks Fort Europe!

Posted by DarkJedi – November 30, 2006

After a massive success in North America, followed by one positive review after the other, Nintendo is preparing to launch their Wii console in Europe! This is interesting as Wii will be in Europe more than three months before the PlayStation 3, so the only competition in the market is Microsoft’s XBox360, who is showing off a terrific line of titles this Christmas! Hopefully the game titles for Nintendo will grow and it has the potential, as game development for the Wii is cheap – especially compared to Sony’s PlayStation 3. Unlike Sony Nintendo isn’t bragging about their position, just trying to sell a fun-loaded console! And Nintendo actually holds true to their promises on deliveries, whereas Sony only delivers half of what they promise!

Meanwhile good news is reaching the PC-owners from the Wiili project… Nintendo’s Wii-mote is now working on the PC, on Linux!

Nintendo Nunchuk

Lawsuits : The end or beginning of Madness?

Posted by DarkJedi – November 30, 2006

There is hardly anything left in the world that haven’t been patented, copy-righted, exploited and trade-marked these days – all thanks to the American Legal System and the American Patent Offices! Lawyers today makes a handsome living from trying to make patent applications sound more revolutionary and cover more areas so that companies can earn hard cash from lawsuits in time with their newly received patent! This was never the original idea of patents… One does not innovate to sue! Finally a judge in the supreme court in America has realized this and is now trying to put an end to the obvious (and bogus) patents that are filed and most of the time accepted by the patent office!

However, the battle for money, using lawsuits, is far from over… Today Disney started to rattle their weapons at Google, as they suddenly aren’t satisfied with being able to request Google to remove videos from YouTube, they want money!

Meanwhile on the Internet the news that Universal now wants a pierce of Apple’s earnings are spreading like wildfire, now posted on both Slashdot and Engadget and many more! Everywhere the news is posted readers express their deep concerns for this turn of event, started by Microsoft to ruin Apple’s market, when they could not succeed in it themselves! However, as The Register writes, this is merely more money into the pockets of the managers and distributors of Universal. The artists will see nothing of these money, as always! I have a feeling that this demand from Universal will end up in a big time lawsuit, as the cartel is already mad at Steve Jobs and Apple for being so successful that they have lost the ultimate control! And control is one thing they crave more than anything, not counting money and more money! Control is so important that in their delusions of power RIAA said that they have the power to shut down the Internet! Because only bad things can come from the Internet, as we all know?! Apart from Steve Jobs and Apple earning the music and movie industry tons of money everything else is piracy! Especially those bittorrents, as they can only be used for piracy, like the Music and Movie Industry claimed a few years back! No reason to ever make a deal with such pirates! Right! Once again they are using the powers of a lawsuit to take over competing markets and gain control!

How can it be that they “flawless” DRM doesn’t protect their content, as it always ends on bittorrent sites or other digital means of distribution? That means that DRM is not working, only causing trouble for legal customers, who grow fewer day by day! And still DRM keeps popping up in everything – like the upcoming Vista!… That, and anti-piracy software like the WGA in Vista, and soon also XP, which will make customers around the world why the hell they suddenly lost access to their rightful data, of which Microsoft have no claim? How can Microsoft and the other companies that claim to protect their own content and copy-right by allowed to infringe on our copyrighted data by locking us away from our own data in our legally bought systems?!

This is a steep slope and it is only heading in one direction! Down, fast, full of DRM, full of lawsuits and devoid of legal customers, who has had enough of being criminalized, penalized and screwed over and over!

Statue of Liberty

Wrong Way Vista!

Posted by DarkJedi – November 29, 2006

While the corporate businesses are trying to test out Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, it is getting hammered all over the press! Microsoft is trying hard to push the hype buttons on their newest creation, but most cannot see the compelling reason to upgrade any time soon! Everybody knows that there will be a support hell to begin with while Microsoft sort out the worst bugs, which is why most people do not adapt until after the first Service Pack has been released! Already at this time many issues on driver problems and the likes have surfaced – like for example when gamers (who are among those who adapt new operating systems early!) found out that Vista doesn’t support EAX sound! A fix is underway from Creative, but ONLY for their latest soundcards – so once again: Buy a new soundcard to get the EAX you paid for five years ago! Meanwhile internet users around the world have commented the license behind Vista on TheRegister… and to say it frankly: Microsoft is not winning any prices on public popularity for screwing their upcoming customers this way!

The corporate users are definitely not pleased with the changes in the EULA and most people are starting to realize that perhaps this one-vendor path is not the right one – and certainly not the cheapest one! For this reason the French Parliament decided that it wasn’t enough to have Linux on their servers in the ministries, but now also on their desktop computers for the members of parliament! This is a big step, but one that must be taken at this hour – before more money is posted into the next big Windows upgrade, which in this case would be the DRM-crippled Vista! I am, for once, impressed by the French! (I cannot comprehend that I have just wrote that!)…

Let’s just hope that more governments and public sector areas adapt Linux or Open Source alternatives to the horrid Vista, and then perhaps Open Standards will flourish, which is something the industry badly needs!

Vista Logo

The Console War : Strategy of Developers

Posted by DarkJedi – November 29, 2006

There is no secret in that a console war, like the one raging at this moment, will be largely decided upon the game titles which is published for the console… Therefore both Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony knows that it is vital to get developers and publishers on their side! Microsoft has done a lot to make development easy on the XBox360, also allowing easy porting, which means that most titles are actually developed on the XBox360 and then ported to for example PlayStation 3… This is tremendous advantage for Microsoft! Meanwhile the developers are not jumping on the PlayStation 3 wagon yet… Development on this platform is different from what they are used to and development costs these days are enormous! Sony has never been known to put out good development tools, but this time at least they are focused on the problem and therefore offering a good deal of support… Wherter that will be enough to counter Microsoft’s popularity in this area is a good question! Microsoft certainly has the advantage and knowledge in supporting development teams, developing developer tools and are generally more experienced at software development themselves – compared to Sony, who is still 80% hardware, 12% software and 8% lawsuits :)

Nintendo, on the other hand, is betting on something else entirely. Development costs are extremely high these days as high-def content needs to be created, animated, recorded and programmed, which is where Nintendo intends to act… Their Wii does not crave high-def content (it does not even support it) – instead developers can focus on making gameplay, which is what people want anyway… So what developers get is a chance to focus on what they should do best, Gameplay, while at the same time having low development costs. As stated by gamedeveloper THQ Inc. Chief Executive, Brian Farrell: “Investment in a next-generation video game can run roughly $12 million to $20 million, while a title for the Wii could be in the $5 million to $8 million range.”

If games are that cheap to develop on the Wii will they be capable of competing with the highly expensive titles on the PlayStation 3? Apparently very much so! Nintendo’s Wii is outgunning Sony’s PlayStation 3 in almost every review – and they are available!

Currently there is a lot of writing on this subject and generally they all agree: Microsoft seems to be winning the war and Nintendo is clearly the most fun to play, which will perhaps even outsell Sony… and Sony will end up the loser, even though many of its fans will probably still buy the thing out of expectations! Meanwhile Sony is getting beat heavily on their PSP by Nintendo’s DS in Europe!

The war is happening right now, but the most important stuff is happening behind the scenes, where developers are working hard at producing the titles for the games that will decide the outcome of this war of the consoles! In the meantime, learn to become a game developer… Start by making some demos with nice effects – and for this you can take a look at this wonderful open source effects site – and then move up to real games! Perhaps you can be the one that tip the scales in the war in the end? :-D

PS3

Greedy Business ™

Posted by DarkJedi – November 29, 2006

It is no secret that the most greedy business with the least innovation at all on the face of this planet (and probably all planets) is that of the music and movie industry. The tactics they have chosen to use on their own customers in order to make up for their lack of brain-capacity is staggering and shocking! Had it been any other industry the media would have blown them out of the sky in a second and they would have been back on track with reality, but for some reason only internet news sites are capable of relaying this horrid actions taken by the cartels against common man…

In its latest attempt to scare customers away from ever buying their products (which is where normal businesses make their money *hint* – NOT on lawsuits!) RIAA decided to contact the employer of a person that had dragged to court – before any decision in court had been made! This is a direct attack on the persons personal life and can only be categorized as harassment – or put in more simple terms: Extortion !

In other news Universal has, as I predicted more than a week ago, already staked claims and started negotiations with Apple on also getting a cut of their IPod sales… This raving madness was started by Microsoft and their “great success“, Zune – in their attempt to ruin the market for Apple, using the lowest means possible! (As they always do at Microsoft these days!). How can it happen that every music player has to pay money to a single company in order to “make up for the possibility of piracy”? Why not also compensate photographers for pirated pictures? Software producers for copied software? Writers for copied text? … Why does it end? When music players end up costing more than 75.000$ a pierce and there is no market left?! The best part of it all is that according to TheRegister musicians see nothing of all these money … everything goes into the distribution channel, which in other terms just mean the companies, not the creative artists!

It is a crying shame that the media does nothing to unveil what is happening… Their focus could change the mindset of the customers all together, and finally we could get the changes so badly needed in the industry of the music cartels!

ipod.jpg

The Console War: Selling by the pound!

Posted by DarkJedi – November 28, 2006

Since Sony’s unspectacular launch of the PlayStation 3 they have only succeeded on selling around 300.000 units, while Nintendo is way ahead of Sony with more than 600.000 units sold! Demands are still high for both consoles so the battle is far from over! They are both sold completely out, which can prove to be quite the advance for Microsoft and their XBox360 this Christmas, when parents go hunting for a next-gen console for their poor, spoiled child! Of course the chances of getting a Wii is still very much a possibility as their production capabilities is so much better than that of Sony, but still no way near that of Microsoft’s! While Sony has caused much hype about their console that they have failed to deliver – Microsoft delivers! Of course they also know how to milk a success story beyond all hope! Halo will come in its third installment soon, followed by a strategy game based on Halo (Halo Wars) as well as a movie based on Halo, instructed by Peter Jackson… Now they are confirming that they planning much more than just a small trilogy with the Gears of War universe! Let’s just see how it takes before everything goes into Disney-mode at Microsoft ;)

There is already a great battle of the titles among the three consoles, with Nintendo’s number one title being the newest Zelda game, which are sold with 3 out of 4 Wii’s! The console from Nintendo have already prospered much from the lack of availability of the PlayStation 3, while Microsoft is stays utterly focused on reducing the costs of its XBox360 to be able for a real price war of the consoles after the Christmas sales! (Which spells bad news for Sony, who has trouble enough as it is with keeping their current price on the PlayStation 3). How a price war will fare on Nintendo who is already earning money on their Wii is difficult to say, but they are certainly in focus right now as they are by most seen as the alternative to the never-available PlayStation 3… Gamers simple prefers fun to not playing at all :)

PS3

The Console War: Massive bad press for Sony!

Posted by DarkJedi – November 27, 2006

It isn’t easy being Sony these days… Apart from being ridiculously late on their important PlayStation 3 they have had uncountable problems with their battery production lines, which seemed to produce fire-hazard prone batteries to laptop producers around the world! Now it has becomes clear that batteries and Blu-Ray laser diodes aren’t the only thing Sony has trouble producing in proper quality. This morning it was announced by Sony that at least 4.000 Cyber-Shot digital cameras was to be pulled back because of a fatal flaw that allowed condensation in the camera – essentially rendering it useless in a short amount of time! I wonder how much fiddling Sony is going to need to make their balance sheet look barely acceptable to investors these days!

Even worse for Sony they today choose to give up and leaves their customers in the dark on the issue of the upscaling problems for the PlayStation 3. They apparently do not want to fix this obvious problem, which they have already admitted is a problem. The big question is then: why won’t they fix it? Can’t they fix it? Has they already maxed out the performance capability of their precious PlayStation 3 – or just made the software so lousy that it cannot be upgraded in any way in that part of the code!

Sony promised shipping numbers of the PlayStation 3 isn’t going to hold after all, but hey, how can that be a surprise in all their hype problems ;)

One of the biggest disappointments for Sony this last year has been their PSP sales, which has been completely blown out of the water by the Nintendo DS, and already its format, the UMD, has been declared a dead format (not good for at company, that is trying to push its format as the next-gen DVD format of choice with the Blu-Ray!)… Sony is now trying to add more content availability for its PSP in a desperate attempt to claim some of the lost market back by signing a deal with EMI as content-provider!

It is not a good time to be Sony in… Even Microsoft is commenting on Sony’s problems, saying that Sony is stretched too thin and are therefore vulnerable! Meanwhile Microsoft continues to outsell both Sony and Nintendo, as they are currently they only console-maker that can meet the customers demands! However, both companies have drawn a lot of attention on the press lately… mostly on bad news of course ;)

Meanwhile Microsoft keeps on throwing out good news, like that fact that Gears of War for XBox360 has now passed the 1 million sold copies mark, good reviews for the XBox360 as this years Christmas buy and also thrown in a good bundle offer for Gears of War together with 1600 point for the XBox… The PC version of Gears of War is still not confirmed, but Microsoft let it slip that it was the first of a trilogy (well, why not try to milk such a great success!) … and Wii keeps getting positive reviews, now for making the geeks and passive family members physically active again ;)

The summary: Sony really needs to get its act together! The train is almost gone, and they haven’t even reached the outskirts of the train station yet!…

PS3

Linux: An alternative to Windows Vista?

Posted by DarkJedi – November 27, 2006

When I bought the parts for my newest computer it was with the intend of installing Vista on it, when it arrived and setting it up as a HTPC, controlling my digital home and multimedia hub of my house… After seeing the few improvements Vista has to offer, which can be summed up to be a bit of eye-candy, a bit of security that makes daily operations far more complicated and a few new bits here and there, and then hearing of the problems it brought in terms of activation I started looking for an alternative!

I have been using Linux for a long time on my laptop, since the day of Red Hat 5.1 up till now Kubuntu 6.10, but is it a viable alternative, when Windows XP can no longer deliver what I need in my primary operating system?

One of the main problems with Linux has always been hardware-support and software-support! Let’s have a look at that!

Hardware support have moved a long way on Linux, as this article on PC World also states! There is no way around this… However, to run Linux it is always a good idea to check out the Internet for what support one can expect on Linux for the hardware that resides in your computer! Some Linux distributions even aim at persons coming from Windows!
Performance-wise Linux is pretty on par with Windows. The Linux Kernel is in most ways faster than the Windows Kernel, but better driver support, yielding faster drivers for Windows, evens up the fight.

Eye-candy wise Vista was suppose to be the Mac OS X of Windows. However, that’s not saying a lot as Linux has for a long time had a stunning visual desktop environment with KDE (or alternatively Enlightenment), coupled with Beryl for Visual Desktop Enhancement Vista is already years behind!

Ease of use is always discussed, and it is a terrible subjective issue… However, the latest version of Kubuntu (The KDE version of Ubuntu) is in my opinion as easy to use as Windows – making things in security issues far easier than Vista!

The main problem with Linux is still software support! It doesn’t matter you have a free, working, adorable, open sourced operating system with a gorgeous, effective, smart desktop environment if you can’t use or find suitable alternatives to the programs you need in your daily work! There are many great applications for Linux, some of these free alternatives are far better than their proprietary on Windows, but some things are still missing greatly! A real implementation of DirectX on Linux, the real alternative to PhotoShop (NO, Gimp is not an alternative), Real Gaming support, A more mature OpenOffice.org and not least all the legacy programs one still use on Windows, which one has paid many good money for back in its day! DirectX10 will be the big problem, as it will only be available on Vista, and it is perhaps the greatest feature of Vista!

I find it troubling that in the Open Source world are so many projects trying to develop the same thing! Why do people not coordinate better and instead reach a far better quality in their products? Linux really needs the software support – WINE isn’t always the way to go!

If Microsoft doesn’t clean up its act in terms of a proper license for Windows Vista (instead of removing all user rights), a more fair price and a realistic piracy-plan instead of this madness activation the choice for me is clear! It is Hasta-La-Vista for Microsoft’s newest attempt at an operating system and that means that I will stay on Windows XP, while keeping my sights on Linux as the alternative – switching when XP no longer delivers!

Linux

Microsoft: Vista and Zune…

Posted by DarkJedi – November 27, 2006

Apparently Microsoft’s XBox360 is the only area in which the company can attain positive press these days. All the articles written on Vista these days seem to focus on the highly debated activation-plan, which may prove to be what keeps customers and especially companies from adapting this new operating system. Once the news is out from a company with activation problems, which will happen soon, Microsoft will be in a load of trouble and extremely bad press… No company can see enough advantages of Vista to allow a production stop for several days because of Microsoft’s activation program!

Microsoft’s attempt at an “Ipod-killer” (I can’t even write that without laughing!) is looking more and more like the biggest failure from the company of all times! As stated in the review from Chicago Sun-Times: “Yes, Microsoft’s new Zune digital music player is just plain dreadful. I’ve spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face. … Microsoft’s colossal blunder was to knock the user out of that question and put the music industry in its place.”

Perhaps Microsoft just need to focus on making better product and focusing on their customers rather than their enormous earnings… Getting a good public image is difficult, getting a bleak one takes no time!

Microsoft