It wasn’t that long ago we had alternative systems from Motorola, TI, and other processor makers that ran operating systems that have either disappeared, been converted to work with the x86 set, or have been beaten into obscurity (see recent articles regarding the 25th anniversary of the Amiga). Since I think that the current set of operating systems is probably providing as much flexibility as the market will bear in the arena (I lived through the years of Babel and it wasn’t pretty) then maybe this isn’t all bad. There is enough consistent competition among, Microsoft, Apple, and Linux to keep everyone honest and enough consistency of applications to keep us from rebuilding that Tower of Babel. Unfortunately it does make some things somewhat homogenized and despite claims to the contrary – there isn’t a huge amount of difference between the various graphical interfaces for these products. Part of this is due to the fact that there is just so much variation that the more global market will bear. They may be open to other formats on other devices – I give you iPhone/iPad, Android and Windows Mobile 7, but when we sit down to our desktops and notebooks, we expect things to be familiar. This may or may not change as we introduce devices that are now pretty much upscale toys into the serious business of workaday computing but it will take something new with all of the right features to upset the current apple cart.

The last big jump we did was when we went from the text based screens with a few graphical applications to the graphical interfaces on Windows and Mac OS. Unix had X-Windows and other offerings from graphical workstation companies like Sun, DEC, IBM, and others and later came out with Gnome and others on Linux. Keeping in mind that the total personal computer market right now exceeds 1 billion units, some of the current wannabes like iOS and Android (which is really a modified Linux) have a tough road to hoe to grab a significant market share of those users.

For those of you who would like to see the current numbers for operating system usage on PCs – here is the article I referred to:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/windows-7-up-mac-os-x-down/9157?tag=nl.e550

Doing a system software upgrade – create a new virtual system – get it checked out – migrate programs and data onto the new virtual system – turn off the old one and away you go. Something isn’t running right and you are critical – bring back the old system until you can troubleshoot the new one. Desktop and server hardware is now at the point where we can afford to loose a couple of CPU cycles and not overly suffer for it.

Virtual systems are not new although we are just now using them more on the desktop. IBM had virtual machines running commercially back in the early 70s (see VM/MVS). But that was big iron then, not something you could tuck under your arm or even put in the back of a pickup for that matter – portability was not part of the feature set of the 370/390 series but virtualization was. So we are looking at 40 years of working with Virtual Machines and it is becoming clearer that we can do some very interesting things with this technology. We can cut the number of systems in a server room – though we still need to consider failovers for hardware failure – if a system running 6 virtual machines has hardware problems that takes it down – you had better have someplace else to bring up those 6 machines. But in the meantime you have saved on energy, cooling, and overall complexity of the server site.

On the desktop we are using virtualization to run multiple operating environments in one system – you need to have multiple versions of Windows or want to run Windows and Linux at the same time you can pretty much do it. Macs virtualize Windows to run apps that were only written for Windows.

Unfortunately this particular system did not have a backup of the registry handy otherwise it would have been possible to copy the registry over with the saved copy and perhaps have made the system bootable. I will try this with a non-critical machine at some point and post how well it worked out.

In the second instance we had a new Lenovo laptop that was running out of space quite prematurely. Standard Windows utilities were showing that there was only 20GB free on a 250GB disk but only 135GB were being used. Tried several programs including TreeSize and WinDirStat and they didn’t show where the space had gone either. So I again pulled out the flash drive and booted up under Linux and was able to quickly find a folder called rrbackup that contained a large amount of data and was set to be hidden in every way possible under Windows. Was  able to make some corrections and got the space back, but the ability to examine the drive using Linux made finding the problem significantly easier.

As to the latter – not really sure why Lenovo felt they had to hide this folder and make it so difficult to find, especially when it was eating up a major portion of the drive. BTW – this seems to be a popular problem on the web and has been so for a while, so if you have a Lenovo and are missing space check out this folder – haven’t tried it yet since I had other options that worked but some of the tech blogs indicated that hitting F8 and going into safe mode made the folder findable.

They do have a way to go to meet all of my requirements as they are not handling sub-sites very efficiently, but they have assured me that the fix for that is imminent. One other area that they are working on is the editing function for Office Documents – right now they are working with vendors of Office Mobile tools to provide that function and expect it this summer.

The nice part about this app is for a limited time it is free – go to moprise.com for more information.

Here is an example of the interface.

I will be publishing more on this as they add function.

This document was 35 pages long on my iPhone in relatively small type. Not only that, but the section regarding the changes was not formatted to be read on the iPhone – appears that we are passe – should have my iPad with a bigger screen to read this.

I managed to scan and slog through and believe that they haven’t really made any major changes to the original agreement for iTunes which was egregious enough, so I will agree to it and hope that the next app that I download doesn’t require a lawyer consult. Let’s see  $.99 for the app – $500 for the lawyer. Cheap at twice the price.

The limiatations that I am willing to live with on the iPhone such as no memory expansion, no interchangeable battery, limited mechanical connectivity are something that I would not live with on a computing platform such as a tablet or netbook. The keyboard issue is something that can argued pro and con, but the lack of a USB port, web cam, memory expansion, Adobe Flash, etc. are issues that really need to be addressed in a more universal platform.

The Flash issue is even one that I am starting to be upset about in the iPhone. Flash has become somewhat ubiqitous on the web – like it or not – and to not have support for it does limit your ability to get to things non-Apple. Artificial limitations such as this will be the factor of people moving to another platform or in the case of the iPad – not going there in the first place.

That said, lets look at the iPad as an expensive e-reader - I have said from the beginning that e-readers will have their place but will not take over the world until two things happen – the first is that there has to be a universal e-book format with enough flexibility in the licensing of the e-book to use it like a regular book – I am a voracious reader and can go through a reasonable sized book in a couple of days – and then if is interesting enough it is read by family and friends and finally donated to a library or charity for others to share (I think this is a subject that I will deal more with in the future). This  is not addressed by the iPad – if nothing it is now more complicated because Apple has introduced thier own format for thier bookstore in iTunes.

The second is the lack of color – there is a huge amount of print media that require color to deliver its message – sorry but monochrome e-ink doesn’t provide that impact and will never be a good platform for much of the news and magazine and even the textbook world where color photos and illustrations convey a great deal of the information.

There are many arguments over viewability of the backlit screen vs the e-ink page and the longer battery life that the e-ink provides. May be true but I like the backlit screen personally because I wake up in the middle of the night and do not have to disturb anyone with turning on a light. I also have found this useful on planes on a night flight. I don’t find the backlit screen that bothersome to my vision and have been known to read off on for several hours – btw – how many of us look at our computer screens for many hours of the day - and don’t seem to be overwhelmingly suffering from eyesthrain (except for those sitess that use really small type ). So here the iPad has an advantage over the Kindle in that it can provide that color and multi-media experience within the publications that it provides – well – except for the Flash thing!

So I have – tht of rambled here, but the bottom line is that while introducing an interesting concept, I believe the iPad’s failings may outnumber its sucesses and its fate will decreed by the market. There are millions of iPhone users who will love having a bigger screen to run the apps that are now relegated to the pocket but will they be ready to give up the flexibility of a more functional computing platform for the limited functionality of the iPad just for that compatibility – we shall see!

Waiting to see what Google and Microsoft (or the PC makers) will provide in this arena!

The other man’s opinion!

John McHugh