Nokia at CES - N93i, N76, N800 tablet

Today at CES 2007 held in Las Vegas, USA, Nokia announced some new additions to their N-series lineup - the Nokia N93i and the Nokia N76 plus the Nokia 6131 NFC and the Nokia N800 Internet tablet.

The 40th annual Consumer Electronics Show, a major international technologies event, hosted the announcement of several new Nokia devices - the updated version of the Nokia N93, the new Nokia N76, the Nokia 6131 NFC and the internet tablet Nokia N800.

The Nokia N93i is the Nokia's answer to all the criticism that the original N93 received due to its hefty size and weight. The updated camcorder, as we like to call it, due to its unique video capturing capabilities, has obviously been on a strict diet since now it comes a whole 10 mm shorter, 3 mm thinner and weighs 17 g less. Furthermore, the retail package of the Nokia N93i would now include 1GB miniSD card instead of the original 128MB one. The difference in size was in fact achieved by using a smaller capacity battery which is not that good idea since the N93 didn't score well in that department even with the original 1100mAh. The new Nokia N93i battery life would possibly be even worse thanks to the new power-hungry 16 million colors TFT display it would be equipped with. The Nokia N93 would be the first of the Nokia mobiles that would come preconfigured for use with the new direct image & video uploading service Vox. The Nokia N93i is expected to start shipping in the first quarter of 2007 with an estimated sales price of approximately 600EUR.

Nokia N93i

The Nokia N76 is the truly new addition to the N-series. It's a stylish ultra slim clamshell, running on the Symbian 9.1 S60UI. The Nokia N76 would be a music-oriented device which is clearly stated through the presence of dedicated music keys on the handset cover. It would also sport a 2.4" 16M colors TFT display, a 2 megapixel camera, a secondary QVGA camera for video calls, and a FM radio. The connectivity features of the new slim Nokia would include quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support plus UMTS, Bluetooth 2.0 and USB. The new Nokia N76 would come in an elegant design with a thickness of 13.7 mm which would make it a tad slimmer than the once famous Motorola RAZR. The Nokia N76 is expected to start shipping in the first quarter of 2007 with an estimated sales price of approximately 390 EUR.

Nokia N76

The Nokia 6131 NFC is the next example in Nokia's strive for adopting the latest technologies in their product line. The NFC in the model designation stands for Near Field Communications technology which should enable information sharing, service initiation and payment & ticketing capability directly from the portable device itself. As the NFC forum describes it: "The Near Field Communication (NFC) is a new, short-range wireless connectivity technology that evolved from a combination of existing contactless identification and interconnection technologies. Operating at 13.56 MHz and transferring data at up to 424 Kbits/second, NFC provides intuitive, simple, and safe communication between electronic devices. NFC is both a "read" and "write" technology. Communication between two NFC-compatible devices occurs when they are brought within four centimeters of one another: a simple wave or touch can establish an NFC connection which is then compatible with other known wireless technologies such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. NFC can be used with a variety of devices, from mobile phones that enable payment or transfer information to digital cameras that send their photos to a TV set with just a touch." The NFC version of the Nokia 6131 boasts the same characteristics as the original one - quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support, 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, Infrared and FM radio. The Nokia 6131 NFC is expected to be available in select markets in the first quarter of 2007 for approximately 260 EUR.

Nokia 6131 NFC

The N800 Internet Tablet is a portable multimedia device based on the Internet Tablet OS 2007 (the Nokia's desktop Linux based OS code-named Maemo). It would measure 144/75/13 mm and would weigh 206 g. The N800 would be equipped with a 65K wide screen touchscreen TFT display with a resolution of 800x480 pixels and would have 128MB ROM and 256MB flash memory expandable with the two integrated memory slots. The N800 won't have a phone hardware but some attractive features include stereo speakers, VOIP calls with an integrated webcam, fullscreen QWERTY keyboard and various connectivity options. The Nokia N800 is commercially available immediat?lly in the United States and in selected markets in Europe at estimated retail price of 399 EUR/USD.

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet

Nokia Multimedia Converter 2.0

Nokia Multimedia Converter 2.0, including an enhanced user interface and support for 128 kbps video bit stream, is a tool for converting common multimedia files (such as AVI, WAV, MPEG, and MP3) into standard 3GPP/AMR, H.263, wideband-, and narrow-band-AMR-supported formats for use in mobile phone applications such as MMS. Original and converted multimedia and 3GPP/AMR formats can be played on a PC.

See the Release Notes for a list of features and known issues.

Find out about the features for Web browsing on S60 3rd Edition devices in the Web Browser for S60: Taking Desktop Browsing Mobile screencast.

Start a BUSINESS from Accident

Various ways to start a business. One way to start a business is through an event, such as that done by Ruth Handler, Barbie Toys inventor. This is a toy doll children the most successful in the world. Barbie comes from the name of the daughter Ruth Handler, which is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Business dolls started when this day. Handler see the children playing with paper dolls. Then the day. Handler thinks dolls make a more permanent and realistic. Ny. Handler is the wife of one of the founders of Mattel. In modern management, Barbie dolls that can survive long this is strange. According to Ian Ritchie from the Oxford Group consultant who has worked with the toy company Hasbro children, find the key lessons from the business toys children. Leaving children’s toys to market as quickly as possible is very important. The time required from an idea to stockholders in the shelves of shops toys children can be a difference between success and failure. In the world of marketing dolls election time must be really appropriate. To achieve success dolls must follow the trend movies, books, stories, or the latest television series.
Barbie is a product that is universal and is usually standard. There are also a number of costumes are diverse. More than 100 new costumes are added each year. This is because, Barbie is a woman Renaisansi, a successful career woman, a member of rock band Serious players and football world cup for women.
Success is when deciding the next male friends from Barbie, namely Ken. Ken creation is indeed not accidental, but in fact produce the brand’s expansion outside of the normal. Ken introduced in 1961, which hides in the background, the possibility he was pleased to see Barbie achieve success in various aspects of their lives. Introduction Ken has been laying the foundation for all network expansion to maintain the Barbie brand remains the center of attention.
Barbie is a friend Midge, which established 1963, and younger women, Barbie, Skipper, namely in 1964, followed by 1968, Christie, a friend of color. In 1988, Barbie has a confident, and Teresa is a Hispanic friend. People are Regina, as a friend of Asia was launched in 1992. Younger women is the smallest Barbie Kelly and Becky, who sat in a wheelchair, introduced in 1997. Barbie now has 15,000 combined with the change shirts, eyes, color, but not to change his feet.
Similarly Elton John, created the song “Candle In The Wind II” in the event of passing Lady Diana. The success, because in one month sold 32 million pieces. Even in 1997, keeping VCD containing the Candle In The Wid II, as the Best Product of the year 1997

The Law to Start a BUSINESS

When I return home, on the day of Eid ul Fitr, I met my friend, that he will aspire to become entrepreneur. A year later I met my friend again, and then I asked “What is so businessmen.” He said “not yet, I have my capital.” Nevertheless, he still aspire to be entrepreneurs. On the day of Eid ul-Fitr next I met my friend again, and he also had not yet become a businessman.
I remember the story Abu Nawas. He said in front of the King Aaron Ar-Rashid that he will be flying. Abu Nawas hear the word of the King Aaron Ar-Rasid said in his heart “So this is my opportunity to defeat Abu Nawas.” Then Aaron King Ar-Rashid said, “O Abu Nawas. What you said before? “. “Sorry, the King, when the stage gave me a high, the servants will be flying from the stage” said Abu Nawas. “Let Abu Nawas, I will make a higher stage, but after the Friday prayer front of you should have been preparing to fly” said the King should be Ar-Rashid. “The King, I am ready” responsibility Abu Nawas. A week later, after the Friday prayer, people have gathered in the plaza to witness Abu Nawas will be flying. Abu Nawas wait to be king of the Ar-Rashid under the stage around the tower 12 meters high. Shortly Aaron King and the Ar-Rashid arrived in the square greeted with a rousing by the people, then approached Abu Nawas. “You are ready Abu?” Ask Aaron King. “I am ready, The King” responsibility Abu Nawas. Then, Abu Nawas climb the stage to the high above and he stood greeted with the hope that aid, “How Abu Nawas flying from the stage without bringing any equipment. If he is the fall surely die “in their words. Abu Nawas lift one foot and swing both arms like a bird will fly. Then replace the one who appointed one foot and tilt-sliding his hands again. The act of Abu Nawas was repeated so that people feel bored Abu Nawas see the whimsy, and they cry “He said you will fly, but only do so”. Abu Nawas replied “I only said I will be flying. During this I see. I will be flying now. ” Aaron see him smiling behavior and answers of Abu Nawas, and the feel lost. Abu Nawas be given prizes. That is, if you will only become a businessman, then forever will be the only businessman and never become a businessman. This is because there are starting business law.
The law to start a business law such as law styles of a string object. It is my style, since my high school class one. My teacher said that the objects that have a quiet style String relatively higher compared with a moving object. Style It occurred when the objects will move. Similarly in the launch business. When will start a business, big obstacle. After running the business, the obstacle is relatively small. Bottlenecks occurred during the first day of opening the business. My neighbor says to me “Mr. Yanto when I open the shop on the first day, a horror house gusty once. But after running my shop, I do not busy on the first day I open the shop. ” That is the law to start a business.

GA-MA78GPM-DS2H Motherboard

GA-MA78GPM-DS2H Motherboard- The Best Just Got Better GIGABYTE is proud to announce its latest GA-MA78GPM-DS2H motherboard, providing enhanced integrated graphics performance for AMD AM2+ platform with DirectX 10 support and featuring 128MB DDR3 1066/ 1333(OC)MHz SidePort memory for an amazing boost up to 2300+ marks in 3DMark06...more

Copper Cooled Quality

Copper Cooled Quality GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 3 series motherboards once again leads the motherboard industry for the highest quality and most innovative motherboard design. Featuring the industry's first consumer desktop motherboard design to introduce 2 ounces of copper for both the Power and Ground layers, delivering a dramatically lower system temperature, improved energy efficiency and enhanced stability for overclocking....

The Next Leap in Evolution

GIGABYTE X58 series motherboards designed from the ground up to unleash the awesome power of Intel's new Core i7 processors. Equipped with a host of new features including the new QPI interface, 3 channel DDR3 support, 3 Way SLI™ and CrossFireX™ support, Ultra Durable 3 technology and the industry’s most extensive range of overclocking features, the GIGABYTE X58 Series is bringing excitement back into the high performance motherboard industry.

gigabyte

- A gigabyte (GB) is a measure of computer data storage capacity and is "roughly" a billion bytes. A gigabyte is two to the 30th power, or 1,073,741,824 in decimal notation. The term is pronounced with two hard Gs. The prefix, "giga" comes from a Greek word meaning "giant."

Also see gigabit, megabyte, terabyte, and exabyte.

Random Access

RAM (random access memory) is the place in a computer where the operating system, application programs, and data in current use are kept so that they can be quickly reached by the computer's processor. RAM is much faster to read from and write to than the other kinds of storage in a computer, the hard disk, floppy disk, and CD-ROM. However, the data in RAM stays there only as long as your computer is running. When you turn the computer off, RAM loses its data. When you turn your computer on again, your operating system and other files are once again loaded into RAM, usually from your hard disk.

RAM can be compared to a person's short-term memory and the hard disk to the long-term memory. The short-term memory focuses on work at hand, but can only keep so many facts in view at one time. If short-term memory fills up, your brain sometimes is able to refresh it from facts stored in long-term memory. A computer also works this way. If RAM fills up, the processor needs to continually go to the hard disk to overlay old data in RAM with new, slowing down the computer's operation. Unlike the hard disk which can become completely full of data so that it won't accept any more, RAM never runs out of memory. It keeps operating, but much more slowly than you may want it to.

How Big is RAM?

RAM is small, both in physical size (it's stored in microchips) and in the amount of data it can hold. It's much smaller than your hard disk. A typical computer may come with 256 million bytes of RAM and a hard disk that can hold 40 billion bytes. RAM comes in the form of "discrete" (meaning separate) microchips and also in the form of modules that plug into holes in the computer's motherboard. These holes connect through a bus or set of electrical paths to the processor. The hard drive, on the other hand, stores data on a magnetized surface that looks like a phonograph record.

Most personal computers are designed to allow you to add additional RAM modules up to a certain limit. Having more RAM in your computer reduces the number of times that the computer processor has to read data in from your hard disk, an operation that takes much longer than reading data from RAM. (RAM access time is in nanoseconds; hard disk access time is in milliseconds.)

Why Random Access?

RAM is called "random access" because any storage location can be accessed directly. Originally, the term distinguished regular core memory from offline memory, usually on magnetic tape in which an item of data could only be accessed by starting from the beginning of the tape and finding an address sequentially. Perhaps it should have been called "nonsequential memory" because RAM access is hardly random. RAM is organized and controlled in a way that enables data to be stored and retrieved directly to specific locations. A term IBM has preferred is direct access storage or memory. Note that other forms of storage such as the hard disk and CD-ROM are also accessed directly (or "randomly") but the term random access is not applied to these forms of storage.

In addition to disk, floppy disk, and CD-ROM storage, another important form of storage is read-only memory (ROM), a more expensive kind of memory that retains data even when the computer is turned off. Every computer comes with a small amount of ROM that holds just enough programming so that the operating system can be loaded into RAM each time the computer is turned on.

Intel® Core™2 Quad Processors

Introducing Intel® Core™2 Quad processor for notebook and desktop PCs, designed to handle massive compute and visualization workloads enabled by powerful multi-core technology. Optimized for the longest possible battery life without compromise to performance, Intel Core 2 Quad processors for notebooks allow you to stay unwired longer while running the most compute-intensive applications.

Providing all the bandwidth you need for next-generation highly-threaded applications, the latest four-core Intel Core 2 Quad processors are built on 45nm Intel® Core™ microarchitecture enabling faster, cooler, and quieter mobile and desktop PC and workstation experiences.

Plus, with optional Intel® vPro™ technology, you have the ability to remotely isolate, diagnose, and repair infected desktop and mobile workstations wirelessly and outside of the firewall, even if the PC is off, or the OS is unresponsive.

Product information

• Download the processor product brief

  File Type/Size: PDF 647KB

Features and Benefits

With four processing cores, up to 12MB of shared L2 cache,¹ and up to 1066 MHz Front Side Bus for notebooks, and up to 12MB of L2 cache² and up to 1333 MHz Front Side Bus for desktops, the Intel Core 2 Quad processor delivers amazing performance and power efficiency enabled by the all new hafnium-based circuitry of 45nm Intel Core microarchitecture.

Whether you're encoding, rendering, editing, or streaming HD multimedia in the office or on the go, power your most demanding applications with notebooks and desktops based on the Intel Core 2 Quad processor.

Plus, with these processors you get great Intel® technologies built in:

Demo

See how the Intel® Core™2 Quad processor is rewriting the rules on what your PC can do.

Launch the demo ›

Talk with the experts

Gain access, share ideas, and discuss hot industry topics with leaders in the IT community on Intel's Open Port.

• Join the discussion

Compare products

• Desktop processors
• Motherboards and barebones
• Desktop chipsets

Intel® Wide Dynamic Execution, enabling delivery of more instructions per clock cycle to improve execution time and energy efficiency

Intel® Intelligent Power Capability, designed to deliver more energy-efficient performance

Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT), enabling greater security, manageability, and utilization

Dual Intel® Dynamic Acceleration technology, improving four-core performance by utilizing power headroom of idle cores by dynamically boosting frequency of active cores

Intel® Smart Memory Access, improving system performance by optimizing the use of the available data bandwidth

Larger Intel® Advanced Smart Cache optimized for multi-core processors, providing a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem

Intel® Advanced Digital Media Boost, accelerating a broad range of applications along with Intel® HD Boost utilizing new SSE4 instructions for even greater multimedia performance

Future ready, designed to perform in highly threaded programs with powerful Intel® multi-core technology

Maximum everything. Energy-efficient performance. Multimedia power.

	Based on Intel® Core™ microarchitecture, the Intel® Core™2 Duo processor family is designed to provide powerful energy-efficient performance so you can do more at once without slowing down.

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo desktop processors

With Intel Core 2 Duo desktop processor, you'll experience revolutionary performance, unbelievable system responsiveness, and energy-efficiency second to none.

Big, big performance. More energy efficient.¹ Now available in smaller packages. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor-based desktop PC was designed from the ground up for energy efficiency, letting you enjoy higher performing, ultra-quiet, sleek, and low power desktop PC designs.

Multitask with reckless abandon. Do more at the same time, like playing your favorite music, running virus scan in the background, and all while you edit video or pictures. The powerful Intel Core 2 Duo desktop processor provides you with the speed you need to perform any and all tasks imaginable.

Love your PC again. Don’t settle for anything less than the very best. Find your perfect desktop powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo processor and get the best processing technology money can buy. Only from Intel.

• • Up to 6MB L2 cache
• • Up to 1333 MHz front side bus

Google Doc, What is it?

The idea of collaborating documents online with friends and colleagues had started when I joinedhttp://officeliveworkspacecommunity.com Microsoft Office Live Space at

When I saw how Microsoft Office Live Space works, I shifted my attention to what google has to offer in terms of collaboration and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentation through the gmail account.

Believe it or not, I never used Google Doc through all these months. In fact, I did not even click the link to see what it was until I had the reason to use it.

The Google Document link can be accessed by logging in to your google gmail account.

Please look at the upper left hand side when you are logged in to your Gmail account.

Google Document location:

The Documents link as seen below.

Clicking the Documents link opens a page as seen below. You can click the image to see the enlarged image.

This is where I shared my document to a friend. I invited a friend whom I trusted at the same time see how this Google Doc works.

Yes, I could just attach my file, end of story. But I don’t want to end that way. I want to use the Google Doc.

Please review this link: http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/tour1.html

Hope after watching the video, someone will take a second look to my invitation.
Thanks!

Google Browser

Update (September 2008): After two years, Google has released an open source browser. It's called Google Chrome and you can download it from http://www.google.com/chrome. This post has been written for April Fools' Day 2006.

You want a browser that doesn't use all your RAM.
Firefox is a memory hog.

You want a secure browser.
Internet Explorer is not secure.

You want a fast browser.
Opera is fast, but not that fast.

You want a cross-platform browser.
Safari is definitely not cross-platform.

You want a browser that doesn't care about JavaScript.
Netscape cares about JavaScript - they invented JavaScript.

Presenting you Google Browser, a fast, versatile and secure text browser for the Internet. Google Browser is free, already out of beta, and the installer has only 1.68 MB.

Just open it, type g (that's from Google), enter a URL, press enter and visit the web through Google's eyes.

Download Windows version
Download Mac version
Download Linux version
Tutorial

Google mentions that Linux users should compile the downloaded package. Google Browser is the first major Google software released for Linux.

Note: This post was written for the April Fools' Day, so there's no Google Browser. At least not yet.

How to Meet the Health Check Secure VPN Security Requirements

Overview

The Secure VPN Network Connect session establishes an Internet connection from your remote computer to the University computer network as a trusted device. To reduce the chances of an infected computer passing viruses via this connection, a new service has been implemented called Health Check which checks configuration settings on your computer each time it connects to Network Connect. If the requirements are not met, the computer is at a greater risk of being infected and will be denied access to Network Connect. This does not mean that your computer is infected with a virus. It does mean that your computer is vulnerable to being infected with a virus. In order to pass Health Check, your computer must meet the following criteria:

• Operating system is Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista. (Macintosh and Linux systems are not being checked at this time.)

• Microsoft Automatic Software Update turned on so you can receive the latest security patches.

• The latest version of Symantec Anti-Virus with LiveUpdate turned on so you can receive the latest virus definitions.

• A software firewall must be installed and enabled on your computer.

Windows XP with SP2 or Windows Vista

If your computer has a Microsoft operating system that is older than Windows XP (Windows 98 or 2000), you will have to upgrade to Windows XP or Windows Vista to access network connect. Windows XP or Windows Vista is the required Microsoft operating system because it has significant security enhancements over the earlier versions of Windows. As a University affiliate, you can obtain copies of Microsoft Campus Software, which includes Windows XP or Windows Vista and Office 2003, from Software Licensing Services for use at work and home. SLS is able to provide software at significantly reduced costs through the University's agreement with software vendors.

Microsoft Automatic Software Updates

Your computer must be configured to automatically check for and install Microsoft Automatic Software Updates. The updates are released by Microsoft on the second Tuesday of every month, and address security vulnerabilities and bug fixes for Microsoft products. The following steps will configure your computer to receive automatic updates.

1. From the Start menu, select Control Panel.
   

2. Double click on the Security Center icon.
   

3. Under Manage security settings for, select Automatic Updates.
   

4. Any of the automatic options are acceptable, but it is recommended that users select Automatic with installation on a daily schedule. The default time for installation is 3:00 am, but it can be set to any time that is convenient for you.
   

CSSD also offers an automatic update service from updates.pitt.edu. Information on the service, software download, and configuration are available at the web site.

Symantec AntiVirus and LiveUpdate

The latest version of Symantec AntiVirus must be installed on your computer, and it must be configured to run LiveUpdate automatically. Symantec AntiVirus is the recommended and supported software of the University for anti-virus protection. It is available to all faculty, staff and students of the University for free and can be used in the office and at home use. Symantec AntiVirus can be found on the Toolkit CD, available in campus computing lab, or downloaded from software.pitt.edu.

LiveUpdate is a critical component of Symantec AntiVirus. This feature is activated by default during installation and checks for the latest anti-virus and anti-spyware definitions available from Symantec. When new definitions are available, LiveUpdated downloads and installs them on your computer.

Directions on downloading and installing Symantec AntiVirus are available on technology.pitt.edu in the Help section under Help Sheets and General Information.

Personal Firewalls

A personal firewall is a software application used to protect your computer against intruders when the computer is connected to the network. The firewall can be configured to control network connections to and from your computer, filtering traffic that comes into or leaves your computer, and alerting you to attempted intrusions. Health Check verifies if any of the following firewalls are installed and activated on your computer. This list will be updated as new personal firewalls are made available.

• AOL Firewall (1.x)

• AOL Privacy Wall (2.x)

• BlackICE (7.x)

• eTrust EZ Firewall (5.x)

• eTrust Personal Firewall (5.x)

• Integrity Agent (6.x)

• Integrity Client (4.x)

• Integrity Desktop (5.x)

• McAfee Desktop Firewall 8.0

• McAfee Personal Firewall Plus (7.x)

• Microsoft Windows Firewall (XP SP2)

• Microsoft Windows Internet Connection Firewall (XP SP1)

• Norton Internet Security 2006 (Symantec Corporation) (9.x)

• Norton Personal Firewall 2006 (Symantec Corporation) (8.x)

• Proventia Desktop (8.x)

• Sereniti Firewall (1.x)

• Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall (4.x)

• Sygate Personal Firewall Pro (5.x)

• Symantec Client Security (10.x)

• The River Home Network Security Suite (1.x)

• Tiny Desktop Firewall 2005 (6.x)

• Tiny Firewall Pro (6.x)

• Trend Micro OfficeScan Client (7.x)

• Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 (12.x)

• Windows Live OneCare (1.x)

• Zone Labs: ZoneAlarm Pro and Zone Labs Integrity

• ZoneAlarm (6.x)

• ZoneAlarm Anti-virus (6.x)

• ZoneAlarm Pro (6.x)

• ZoneAlarm Security Suite (5.x)

• ZoneAlarm with Antivirus (5.x)

If you do not have a personal firewall on your computer, you can use the Windows Firewall that is built into Windows XP SP2. To enable Windows Firewall:

1. From the Start menu, select Control Panel.
   

2. Double click on the Security Center icon.
   

3. Under Manage security settings for, select Windows Firewall.
   

4. Select On to enable the firewall and click on OK.
   

Open Source’ Integrated Library System Software

“Open Source’ Integrated Library System Software "

A number of public libraries have been investigating “open source” integrated library system software. Their motivations appear to be both financial and a desire to tailor a system to more closely meet their requirements than the proprietary products allow.

The term “open source” refers to software that is free and that includes the original source code used to create it so that users can modify it to make it work better for them. It also includes the right of redistribution; therefore, there may be open source and proprietary products that are based on open source products. While the software may be free, a developer or distributor may charge for services, including special programming, installation, training, technical support, and hosting services for libraries that do not want to implement and maintain an in-house system. Some distributors of open source software are for-profit organizations and may charge prices for their services comparable to those charged by proprietary software vendors.

It is difficult to determine how many libraries are using open source integrated library systems because many of the libraries that have downloaded the software decided not to use it. The number of libraries and consortia that have support contracts for open source software is estimated to be 300 worldwide.

The perceived advantages of open source software are:

• Ability to tailor to fit local needs

The availability of the source code means that a user can modify and enhance the software to more closely fit its own needs. Unlike with proprietary products, the development priorities are set by the user, not a vendor. The user is also able to set its own priorities for bug fixes.

• No restriction on use

Unlike proprietary software, there are no contractual restrictions on how the software is used. While some developers use the GNU General Public License that assures users that they have the right to distribution and those to whom they distribute also have the right to modify and distribute, other developers merely declare that their software is in the public domain. A subsequent user may, therefore, decide to protect the enhancements that it makes by copyrighting them. The GNU General Public License is, therefore, preferable.

• Low cost

There is no charge for the software itself, therefore, the capital outlay required by proprietary software is avoided. The major costs are ongoing development and maintenance. If the number of users is large, and they share their efforts, each user’s cost is reduced. However, if the number is small or a user does a lot of tailoring to fit unique local needs that are not shared by other users, the cost can escalate.

The potential disadvantages of open source software are:

• Unanticipated cost

Open source software tends to be less complete than proprietary software. Acquisitions, serials control, and interlibrary loan modules are often missing or incomplete. A library may find that it needs to do a great deal more work than anticipated to adapt the software to local needs. For example, one mid-size public library had to budget $100,000 to modify the acquisitions module software to meet its needs.

A small academic library that was investigating hosted services utilizing open source software found that the start-up costs for configuration, data migration, and training were slightly higher for the open source solution than two of the proprietary software solutions it investigated, and annual support costs for the open source solution were substantially higher. It is, therefore, essential to compare costs for multiple options, rather than assuming that the open source solution will be less costly.

• Lack of coordination

The decentralized development of open source software means that progress can be chaotic and there may be delays in addressing bugs and in completing planned enhancements. This may increase the burden on a library that decides to proceed on its own.

• Inadequate training technical support

No training comes with open source products unless a commercial vendor is retained. Documentation tends to be limited and aimed at developers. There usually is limited technical support, especially for users of the software. However, a few open source products do have training and technical support available commercially for a fee.

• Lack of participation

Too few participants can cause the development effort to become too expensive for one or a handful of committed parties. Of 34 open source efforts the author has tracked since 2002, only twelve were active in early 2008.

• Lack of guarantees and remedies

Unlike turnkey systems using proprietary software, there are no guarantees of quality or performance for open source software. A library may, therefore, find that open source software is not as described or the documentation is deficient. Vendors that provide support services for open source products do offer some guarantees, but no remedies similar to those offered by vendors of proprietary products. Only purchasers of proprietary products can expect financial and other contractual remedies for poor response times and loss of functionality.

• Scalability and speed

Open source software may not offer the scalability and speed of proprietary software because the easy-to-use and general-purpose programming languages used are not very scalable and are slower than other languages. For example, the Perl programming language that is widely used in the development of open source software is not very scalable because every script that is run launches separate programs on the server. This means that if one has 100 simultaneous users accessing documents, one could be running 100 to 1,000 extra programs on the server. Furthermore, time is needed to start the Perl program on every script request. Perl is also slow, running as much as 98 percent slower than various versions of C.

Proprietary software usually is written in multiple languages using the FFI (foreign function interface) to combine the speed of the various versions of C for the minority of applications that need it and Java for efficiency for the rest. However, C and Perl can also be a suitable combination.

The following criteria are suggested for evaluating open source integrated library system software:

1. There is current development activity

2. At least the cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules are currently available; and acquisitions and serials control are in development.

3. MARC is supported

4. Current source code and documentation are available for downloading.

under the GNU General Public License

5. The product is currently in use in libraries

6. Scalability is not an issue—There is no risk of database size or activity levels exceeding the capacity of the software.

In 2005, twelve open source integrated library system products were identified in this TechNote. Development activity apparently ceased for one and one new product emerged by early 2007. Those that appeared to have at least some current development activity underway as of early 2008 were Avanti, Emilda, Evergreen, GNUTeca, Koha, Learning Access ILS, NewGenLib, OpenBiblio, phpMyLibrary, PMB, PYTHEAS, and WEBLIS. Of these, Evergreen and Koha were the most active, and the most widely used.

The following brief descriptions are offered to help a library reduce the number of

options it wishes to consider:

Avanti MicroLCS was begun in 1998 as an integrated library system for small

libraries of all types, but there was little development activity until 2004. Peter Schlumpf, its developer, appeared to be working on it alone. As of early 2008, cataloging and patron access catalog modules were in general release. A circulation module had been in development for at least two years, but no release date had been set. MARC is supported. The database is limited to 128,000 titles and 256,000 items. The software is written in Java and will run on Windows and Linux. It includes its own database manager. The source code and documentation are not available online because the developer is not seeking the participation of others. Both open source and commercial (i.e., supported) versions were available as of early 2008. There is a fee for the commercial version. There was an online demo available at that time. No library is known to be using it. While Java would normally make the product moderately scalable, the database management system limits the product to use by small libraries. More information is available at www.avantilibrarysystems.com/

Emilda is being developed by CompanyCube (formerly Realnode Ltd), a Finish software company that obtained grant funds to create an open source integrated library system in 2000. The initial system was designed with the assistance of several school libraries. It did not conform to standards and used PHP as the programming language.

The current product, which does conform to standards, including MARC and Z39.50, was begun in 2003. It is XML-based and can be run under any operating system. The circulation and patron access catalog modules were introduced in general release on June 29, 2005. No other modules appeared to be in development in early 2008. It uses the Zebra Server from Indexdata as a backend server. The source code and documentation are available online in English. There is also an online demo. The product is available under the GNU General Public License. It was in use at 14 Finish school libraries in early 2008. The product is highly scalable because XML can be ported to virtually any other language. More information is available at www.emilda.org/

Evergreen is an integrated library system for public libraries developed by the Georgia Public Library Service for use by the Georgia Library PINES Program, a consortium of 252 public libraries in that state. The languages are C++ and Perl. The operating system is Linux and the DBMS is PostgreSQL. The server technology is Apache. Work was begun in 2004 and as of early 2007 several public libraries in Georgia were using the system for cataloging, circulation (including offline circulation), and patron access catalog applications. The development of an acquisitions module was begun in 2007 in a collaborative effort between the Georgia Public Library Service and the University of Windsor in Canada. There were also plans to begin development of a serials control module in 2007. As of early 2008, neither of these modules was yet in general release, but the number of development partners had increased significantly so that general release of these modules was projected for Release 2.0. Releases 1.22 and 1.4 were scheduled to appear in the first half of 2008. The source code and documentation are available online to anyone under the GNU General Public License. The combination of C++ and Perl makes Evergreen highly scalable and. therefore, suitable for large libraries and consortia. Evergreen has been selected by a number of libraries and consortia, including the University of Windsor, Laurentian University, McMaster University, Kent County (MD) Public Library, Grand Rapids Public Library, Michigan Library Consortium, Mayfield Memorial (IN) Public Library, Indiana Open Source ILS Initiative, and British Columbia Pines. Information is available at www.open.ils.org/ Equinox (http://eslibrary.com/, a for-profit company, actively markets and supports Evergreen, including a hosting service.

GNUTeca is an integrated library system developed in Brazil for academic and special libraries. Cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules were in general release as of early 2008. The programming languages are Perl and PHP. The operating systems include all versions of Microsoft Windows and Linux. MARC is supported. Source code and documentation are available online in Portuguese, Spanish, and English under the GNU General Public License. Several Brazilian school libraries were using the product as of early 2008. The product is not very scalable because of the use of Perl and PHP, therefore, users who must support more than 50 concurrent users should proceed with caution. More information is available at www.gnuteca.org.br/

Koha (http://koha.org) was developed in New Zealand beginning in 2000 by Katipo Communications Ltd. under contract with the Horowhenua Library Trust. LibLime (http://liblime.com), a U.S. company that has been providing support for Koha since early 2005, purchased the Koha Division of Katipo Communications in February of 2007. In addition to the development and maintenance work by LibLime, there are volunteers in several other countries contributing to the open source software, and several other companies providing support services. The acquisitions, cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules were in general release as of early 2008. However, acquisitions and serials control were less complete than the other modules. MARC is supported. The programming language is Perl. Linux is the preferred operating system and the DBMS is MySQL. The source code and documentation are available online under the GNU General Public License. There is also an online demo. More than 200 libraries around the world were believed to be using it as of early 2008, approximately one-third of them in North America, many of them supported by LibLime. The vast majority are small school, special, or public libraries.

Koha is available for free download from the Koha Web site or from one of the companies that supports the open source software. These companies, including LibLime in North America, do not charge for the software, but do charge for consulting, programming, training, technical support, and the hosting services they provide.

The use of Perl as the sole programming language limits Koha’s scalability. For that reason, a variant known as Koha ZOOM was developed by LibLime as a commercial version for mid-size and large libraries. It utilizes Index Data’s Zebra, an indexing and searching tool. In addition to overcoming the scalability problems in Koha, Zebra includes support for true Boolean search expressions and relevance-ranked free-text queries. The first user was the Nelsonville Public Library in 2006, a library with a collection of 350,000 items in its seven branches and an annual circulation of 600,000. It had previously used Koha, but needed the more robust Koha Zoom.

The Koha Zoom software will run under either Linux or Windows. It supports not only MARC, but also XML and Z39.50. It also features federated searching. Koha ZOOM Basic consists of installation and documentation media, training materials, and 30 days installation and configuration support. Optional services include data migration, training, software updates, tech and support. Koha ZOOM Appliance comes as a tower or rack-mounted server with pre-installed Linux and applications software, documentation and training materials, and the same optional services as Koha ZOOM Basic. Koha ZOOM Hosted is a fully hosted ASP solution. It includes nightly back-up.

Koha Zoom has attracted a number of mid-size libraries, including the Howard County (MD) Library and the Santa Cruz (CA) Public Library. Consortia that have selected Koha Zoom include ICAN, WALDO, and the MassCat Consortium,

The original Koha is now called Koha Classic to differentiate it from Koha Zoom.

Additional information about the open source Koha product and instructions for downloading the software is available at http://koha.org/; additional information about LibLime’s support for Koha and its commercial offering Koha ZOOM is available at http://liblime.com/

Learning Access ILS is offered by the Learning Access Institute, a non-profit

organization in Seattle, to small public libraries. The product, which was originally developed by the Technology Resource Foundation, was previously known as OpenBook. It is loosely based on the original work done in New Zealand by Katipo Communications Ltd. Cataloging, serials cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules were available in general release as of early 2008. Planning for an acquisitions module was announced in 2007, but none was available as of early 2008. MARC is supported. as are Z39.50 and Unicode. The programming languages are Perl and PHP. SQL is the database management system. The preferred operating system is Linux, but the software can be ported to Windows. There is also a turnkey version for Apple MAC Mini known as aVista. There is an online demo, but the product is not available for download. Two small public libraries were using the product as of early 2007. There was no response to an inquiry about additional users in early 2008. The reliance on Perl does not make the product highly scalable. Users who must support more than 50 concurrent users should proceed with caution. The Institute offers project implementation assistance and on-site training. More information is available at www.learningaccess.org/

NewGenLib was developed by Verus Solutions Pvt Ltd and the Kesavian Institute of Information and Knowledge Management in India beginning in 2005. It became an open source product under the GNU GPL License in January of 2008. The modules include acquisitions, serials management, cataloging, circulation, and a patron access catalog. It uses Java and a back-end database based on open source PostgreSQL. It conforms to MARC 21 and Unicode. It can be installed on Windows or Linux. As of early 2008, more than 120 libraries in Asia had downloaded the software, but there was no information about how many of the libraries were actually using the software. Information is available at http://www.verussolutions.biz/

OpenBiblio, which is being developed by a small number of people, has been an off and on again project. Development activity peaked in 2006-2007 with release 0.6.0. There has been no release since then. The product includes cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules. The programming languages are PHP and LAMP, and the operating system is Linux. UNIMARC is supported. There is an online demo and software can be downloaded. There is no reliable scalability information for LAMP. More information is available at http://obiblio.sourceforge.net/

PhpMyLibrary began in the Philippines in 2001 as the hobby of a single developer. The target is small academic and special libraries. While the software may be downloaded, the development is highly centralized like Avanti, with the ultimate control of the source code in the hands of the project’s founder. Documentation is minimal. There is an online demo. The cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules were in general release as of early 2008. A serials control module was nearing completion. SUSMARC is supported. The operating system is Linux or Windows, and any SQL database system may be used. The programming language is PHP. The software is available under the GNU. Free Documentation License. Scalability is limited. More information is available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mylibrary/

PMB (PhpMyBibli) is an open source ILS based on a product originally developed by a public library in France in 2002. It is now maintained by PMB Services, a French company. The modules available as of early 2008 were acquisitions, cataloging, circulation, patron access catalog, and selective dissemination of information service. The most recent release as of early 2008 appears to be 3.0, released in the first quarter of 2007. It supports UNIMARC and Z39.50. The product is available in English as well as French, but not all of the documentation has been translated. It was initially available under the GNU General Public License, but it is currently licensed under CECILL, a French equivalent. It is written using the PHP programming language. Scalability is limited. It can be installed on Windows or Linux. A hosted solution is available. Information is available at www.sigb.net/

PYTHEAS was originally developed in 1999 by a librarian at the University of Arizona. After he abandoned the project, a systems librarian at the University of Windsor continued the programming. Only the circulation and patron access catalog modules were available in early 2007. The programming languages are Java and XML.

The source code is available for downloading and there is a demo. The product is in the public domain. Documentation is limited. The product is highly scalable. More information is available at

[Note: The Windsor University Library has been working with the Georgia Public Library Service on the development of an open source acquisitions module since early 2007].

WEBLIS is a Web-based integrated library system developed by the Institute for Computer and Information Engineering of Poland with support from UNESCO. It is based on the earlier CDS/ISIS product funded by UNESCO. The cataloging, circulation, and patron access catalog modules were in general release as of early 2008. The programming languages are not identified, but the DBMS is WWW-ISIS. The source code and documentation are available online in English. They are in the public domain. An online demo can be viewed before downloading the software from http://www.unesco.org/isis/files/weblis.zip/. The product was in use by a number of special libraries as of early 2008.

Windows Vista Gripes

Gripes and More Gripes

Another reason to dislike Vista July 26th, 2007. Adrian W Kingsley-Hughes (a.k.a. The PC Doctor). Quoting: "The more I roll Vista out at the PC Doc HQ, the more I'm feeling like Microsoft is getting in the way of me doing the work I want. This blog posting was a follow up to Problems arise with Vista’s activation system by Ed Bott. July 26, 2007

Vista draining laptop batteries, patience by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com May 4, 2007. Quoting: "Vista, while touted as having improved power management capabilities that would make it easier for users to extend battery life, isn't to some living up to that promise ... The main culprit appears to be the Aero Glass interface..." Both HP and Lenovo had to come up with their own power management settings and avoided using those in Vista.

Vista Suffers a Lot Of Criticism, but Not All of It Is Undeserved. April 25, 2007. by Lee Gomes in the Wall Street Journal. Subscription required. Quoting: " My complaint ... the apparent inability of Windows to handle very large folders, like those containing thousands of subfolders with tens of thousands of files and hundreds of gigabytes of information. ... in working with files and folders, one of a computer's most basic tasks, the Mac could do in 30 seconds what took Vista at least six minutes for, and which XP couldn't do at all."

Vista experience turns into consumer nightmare April 16, 2007. By Robert L. Mitchell in ComputerWorld. About a consumer interested only in getting work done. Didn't care about the OS at all. Quoting: "And at the end of the day, with her new Vista machine, she couldn't do that. For consumers like Kary, it's really too soon to run Vista.

Start Me Up (While We Are Still Young) April 12, 2007 by Ed Scannell in Redmondmag.com. Regarding comments on a message board, the author says there is "a growing dissatisfaction among users with Vista's slow startup and shutdown times, compared with those of Windows XP. And they aren't jumping for joy over the load times for applications, either. Many are saying it takes 10, even 15 minutes for the system to fully boot ... It's looking like ... if you want to play Vista, come with a 2GB system and a fast (if not dual-core) processor."

Vista Report from Computing At Chaos Manor April 10, 2007 by Jerry Pournelle. Quoting: "...unless you have some urgent and special reason to do so, do not upgrade your Windows XP system to Vista. The gains in general won't outweigh the hassles." Followed by this:

"I'm astonished and disappointed: Microsoft had five years to develop Vista, and when it was over they gave us an OS containing a potential exploit that has remained undetected since Windows 3, and their notion of enhanced security is the obnoxious User Account Control. Years ago I pointed out ... that it is time and past time to develop operating systems with compilers that do strong typing and range checking, and no operating system should be released if it has been compiled with C or other compilers that will compile nonsense. ... primitive assembly language compilers such as C will allow all kinds of exploits. Real computer development languages do strong type and range checking. Five years, and we have buffer overflow exploits and an unusable User Account Control that can't possibly have actually been used by the people who developed the OS. Someone ought to be ashamed."

Vista: Thy name is FUD April 9, 2007 at infoworld.com Robert X. Cringely. A stinging article about Vista, the main point being that Microsoft sells Vista based on Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

Vista: Slow and Dangerous by Stephen H. Wildstrom in Business Week March 15, 2007. The security program in Microsoft's new version of Windows is so annoying you're likely to turn it off. And that's risky. Quoting: "Microsoft (MSFT) claims it will run with 512 megabytes of memory. I had recommended a minimum of a gigabyte, but 2 GB is more like it if you want snappy performance. This is especially true if you're also running resource-hungry Microsoft Office 2007."

Dim Vista by Stephen Manes in Forbes magazine March 12, 2007. Some quotes from the article:

• Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Washington and rip somebody's liver out.
• Vista is a fading theme park with a few new rides, lots of patched-up old ones and bored kids in desperate need of adult supervision running things.
• If I can find plenty of problems in a matter of hours, why can't Microsoft? Most likely answer: It did--and it doesn't care.
• Vista's irritating and repeated warnings about possible security breaches don't always mean what they say and are usually irrelevant.
• ...utterly unimaginative, internally discordant and woefully out of tune.

Windows Vista: I’m Breaking up with You by Chris Pirillo. February 27, 2007. His reasons: OS bugs, external hardware not working, essential software not working, slow performance and video driver problems. Follow up article: Where Windows Pundits Went Wrong.

Windows expert to Redmond: Buh-bye by Scot Finnie in ComputerWorld February 7, 2007. Long time Windows XP and Vista user tries living on a Mac for three months. Afterwords, he decides to use a Mac as his everyday machine. Quoting: "After living with the Mac for three months and comparing it with my Vista experiences, the choice is crystal clear ... the value and advantage of the Mac and OS X are difficult to miss ... I am now recommending the Macintosh for business and home users.

The Most Annoying Things About Windows Vista by Edward Albro and Eric Dahl. PC World magazine. February 20, 2007. From screens that mysteriously black out to search that's limited by default, here are the things that really bug us about Microsoft's new operating system.

New Vista firewall fails on outbound security Preston Gralla in ComputerWorld February 7, 2007. It's impossible to practically configure outbound filtering. Quoting: "...the Windows Firewall offers little outbound protection, and it's not clear how outbound protection can be configured to protect against spyware, Trojan horses and bots."

The Trouble with Vista by Scot Finnie in ComputerWorld. February 1, 2007. It isn't the features you can see in Vista, or the lack thereof -- it's the priority shift at Microsoft's core.

The 5 sins of Vista by Steve Wiseman January 20, 2007. This one hit home. Great screen shot illustrations of the points raised.

10 reasons not to get Vista January 21, 2007 by Ashton Mills at APC magazine.

10 reasons you should get Vista January 22, 2007 by Dan Warne at APC magazine. Reason number 10: You have no choice.

To upgrade Windows XP to the bottom-of-the-line Home Basic version is $100. Upgrading to the Home Premium version is $160. The full version is $400.

This person really hates Vista. January 13, 2007.

Things that don’t quite work right in Windows Vista January 12, 2007. by Ken Johnson. Techie oriented.

Lots of bad news from PC World magazine

• Vista Upgrade: The Not-So-Rosy Picture by Steve Bass December 28, 2006
• No Rush to Adopt Vista Software compatibility issues, bug worries keep businesses from moving to Microsoft's new OS. by Robert McMillan and Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service. December 28, 2006
• Vista Could Sap Notebook PC Battery Life by Ben Ames, IDG News Service. December 18, 2006. Flashy new OS features could drain laptop batteries faster than XP, hardware vendors and analysts say.

Flaws Are Detected in Microsoft’s Vista by John Markoff in The New York Times. December 25, 2006. Quoting: "Microsoft is facing an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system as computer security researchers and hackers have begun to find potentially serious flaws in the system that was released to corporate customers late last month."

A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection by Peter Gutmann Last updated December 23, 2006. Executive executive summary: "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history."

Vista crippled by content protection by Chris Mellor, Techworld December 27, 2006. Comments on the above article.

Vista Wins on Looks. As for Lacks ... by David Pogue December 14, 2006. New York Times.

• "Links for common tasks sometimes appear at the left side of a window, sometimes the right and sometimes across the top."
• "In wizards ... the Back button is sometimes at the lower-left corner of the dialog box, sometimes at the upper-left."
• "Microsoft has hidden the traditional menu bar in some programs (you can summon it by tapping the Alt key), but not in others."
• In the backup program: "you can specify only which categories of things to back up (pictures, e-mail, and so on), not which specific files or folders."
• Regarding the Sidebar: "If you close one of the gadgets, you lose its contents forever: your notes in the Post-it Notes gadget, your stock portfolio in the Stocks gadget, and so on. You couldn’t save them if you wanted to. How could Microsoft have missed that one."
• NetMeeting has been removed. I have used it often with my consulting clients. After all, it's free and pre-installed, if a bit dated. The replacement program, Meeting Space, is Vista only and not as full featured.
• WordPad can no longer open Word documents. Quoting: "... a ham-handed attempt to force you into buying Microsoft Office. (Let’s hope the masses realize that they have a free alternative at docs.google.com.)"
• The disk image backup feature, called Complete PC, is not available in the two Home editions

Hidden Costs of Vista Upgrade Coupon October 24, 2006 by Rex Farrance. A PC World blog.

Sticking with Windows XP in a Windows Vista World by Paul Thurrott. October 3, 2006. Quoting: "...by skipping Windows Vista, at least for the time being, you'd be left with a PC that was faster, more compatible with the software and hardware you own, and just about as capable as an otherwise identical PC running Windows Vista?"

Businesses in no hurry to buy Vista by Dina Bass Bloomberg News August 1, 2006. 'Let somebody else work out the bugs' in Windows update.

Vista testers to Microsoft: Even the bugs aren't stable yet August 1, 2006 Vista still needs a lot of work. Robert Scoble, until recently Microsoft's voice in the blogosphere. "If this ships [to the factory] in October, I will recommend not installing it and waiting for the first service pack. There’s no way the quality will be high enough to trust it if it ships early. I hope Microsoft takes the time to do this right."

20 Things You Won't Like About Vista June 1, 2006. Computerworld. by Scot Finnie. With a visual tour to prove it. Mr. Finnie says that Microsoft has favored security over end-user productivity, making the user feel like a rat caught in a maze with all the protect-you-from-yourself password-entry and 'Continue' boxes required by the User Account Controls feature." From the article: "In its supreme state of being, Microsoft knows precisely what's best for you. It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to 'turn off' your computer, whether you realize it or not. It wants to teach you about what's best. It wants to make it harder for you to make a mistake."

Where Vista Fails Paul Thurrott SuperSite for Windows: April 19, 2006

Promises were made. Excitement was generated. None of it, as it turns out, was worth a damn. From a technical standpoint, the version of Windows Vista we will receive is a sad shell of its former self, a shadow. One might still call it a major Windows release. I will, for various reasons. The kernel was rewritten. The graphics subsystem is substantially improved, if a little obviously modeled after that in Mac OS X. Heck, half of the features of Windows Vista seem to have been lifted from Apple's marketing materials.

Shame on you, Microsoft. Shame on you, but not just for not doing better. We expect you to copy Apple, just as Apple (and Linux) in its turn copies you. But we do not and should not expect to be promised the world, only to be given a warmed over copy of Mac OS X Tiger in return. Windows Vista is a disappointment. There is no way to sugarcoat that very real truth.

Vista is said to need 7200RPM disks to have acceptable performance.

In Explorer, the places where files use to live has been changed.

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Six versions of Vista is too many.

• Windows Vista Versions Unveiled PC World's Techlog by Harry McCracken February 27, 2006.
• Microsoft Confirms Vista Editions IDG News Service February 27, 2006. Next version of Windows will be available in six editions, four aimed at consumers and two for business.
  

Where has all my stuff gone? by Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research. March 7, 2006. He doesn't like the new user interface. Quoting: "It seems like several decades of UI guidelines were tossed out the window. Worse, it seems I'm required to have even finer degrees of mouse dexterity in order to hit all the tiny little targets on the screen .. it feels like there's a lot of change for the sake of change."

Why Windows Vista Won't Suck By Jason Cross at ExtremeTech February 28, 2006. This article could have been written by Microsoft's Public Relations company. It loves every new feature.

Why Windows Vista Will Suck By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at ExtremeTech March 2, 2006. Alternate Link. A rebuttal to the above article. Vista requires a lot more hardware horsepower - the author says if you didn't buy your computer in 2006, don't even try to install Vista on it. Vista can put part of a running application on a thumb drive. Remove it and, well, oops. There is nothing in Vista that will make it significantly better than Linux or the Mac OS X.

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Windows Vista Feedback by Chris Pirillo May 24, 2006. Feedback? No. Gripes? Yes, indeed.

65 More Windows Vista Mistakes by Chris Pirillo May 28, 2006. More gripes.

Seven Vista Flavors? NO NO NO NO NO NO NO from the WServerNews newsletter from Sunbelt Software March 6, 2006.

• Quoting: "When Vista hits shelves you'll have a bunch of Windows 2000 Server flavors, Server 2003 flavors, W2K Pro, XP Home and Pro, couple of Media Center 200x's and SEVEN?! flavors of Vista. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!."
• The articles refers to this as the "unixification" of Windows (meant as an insult). And perhaps this is what techies can expect when dealing with questions from Vista users (quoting again):
• "Oh sorry, you bought Vista home, no you can't do remote desktop."; "No, you needed to buy Media Center edition to use that swanky new remote control you bought off the shelf"; "How the heck do you turn off Simple File Sharing--oh you can only do that with Vista Pro, darn".

My Beta Experience

July 2006. Celeron 1.2GHz, 640MB ram. Dell PowerEdge server running Windows 2000. Video card is ATI Rage XL PCI with 4MB video ram.

Vista needs a graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable. Is mine? How are normal people to find this out? Microsoft has a utility (Upgrade Advisor) that you can download and run to analyze how well it meets the requirements to run Vista. Gripe 1: you have to install the .NET runtime to run this utility. It only runs on Windows XP, not Windows 2000.

Twelve seconds after putting the Vista DVD in my computer, I had a gripe. I ordered the Vista beta on DVD from Microsoft. The root directory of the DVD has a file called readme.html. It says to get up to date instructions on what you should know before installing Vista to see file xxxx. The file doesn't exist.

Vista failed to install.

I tried a second time.

Again, the C disk is Windows 2000 with just over 5GB of free space. The V disk is set aside for Vista, its 30GB, NTFS and empty. This time, Windows 2000 has a permanently assigned network share, the G drive a DVD-ROM drive of another computer on the LAN. Also, this time I took all the installation defaults and opted to connect to the Internet to get Vista updates (which it did).

Basically, this installed failed in the same way as the previous one.

There is no disk in the drive. Please insert disk into Drive A.
CANCEL CONTINUE TRY AGAIN

Drive A? You must be kidding me. A Google search on this error message turned up two hits, neither having anything to do with Vista.

Continuing led to the fatal error on the Installing Windows screen. Windows Setup wasn't happy:

An error occurred while preparing the install drive

This was after I pointed the installer to the empty 30GB V disk.

What to do next? It doesn't say.

Eventually Vista tries to rollback its mess, but instead:

Windows Setup Rollback encountered a problem. Please see setup's logs for more details

What logs? It doesn't say.

FYI

May 21, 2007. You can test drive a virtual copy of Vista for free using Microsoft's Virtual PC Microsoft Windows Vista 30-Day Eval VHD

Vista includes disk imaging based backups. The output is in the same format as used by Virtual PC.

Microsoft has some general guidelines that outline good, better and best hardware to use with a future Vista system at www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx.

Tell us what you think about this pre-release version of Microsoft Windows from Microsoft. This requires entering the build number. Of course, if Vista never installs, you can't tell the build number.

Vista Boot Pro is an easy way to edit boot data

How to uninstall vista from Windows XP News September 5, 2006. Pretty darn difficult.

1. Put your Windows XP installation CD in the CD-ROM drive and reboot the computer (be sure the BIOS is set to boot from CD).
2. Start the Recovery Console from the CD (
3. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press F10 or R for Repair.
4. On a dual boot system, you're prompted to enter the number of the Windows installation that you want to log onto.
5. Enter the administrator password when prompted.
6. Run Fixboot from the Recovery Console.
7. Run Fixmbr to reset the master boot record.
8. Exit the Recovery Console and reboot the computer.
9. Edit the boot.ini file to remove the Vista entry.
10. Format the partition on which Vista was installed