Microsoft reminds us that Windows is f*cking expensive

Microsoft has finally released the pricing structure for Windows 7. The good news is that the new version of Windows will be a bit cheaper than the equivalent version of Windows Vista. The bad news is that since I am now used to receiving Ubuntu for free this made me realize that a Windows 7 license is in fact f*cking expensive!

The boxed edition of Windows cost as much as a computer.

Here in Europe a full version of Windows home premium would cost €199 (about $280). You can actually purchase a cheap Linux netbook for the same price! Yes, a boxed Edition of Windows can actually cost as much as a full netbook, that's how expensive it is. If you live in the US you will get some relief though, as your license will only cost $199.

The full business version of Windows will retail for €309 (about $400) the price of an entry level desktop. Who in their right mind will purchase Windows 7 at these prices in a recession, even if you can declare it as a business expense? Not many people!

Rebates!

MS seems to have realized that and will be offering a lot of rebates to get Windows 7 started. First there will be a limited time pre-order offer where you can purchase a Windows 7 upgrade for €49 or $49 in the US. This is much less expensive than the full retail price, but unfortunately this offer is only available in the US for now. A few select European countries like France and the UK should benefit from the same offer later this summer, but this will certainly not be available to everyone. Another good point is that European consumers should be able to pick up a full copy of Windows 7 without IE for the price of an upgrade, or about €119 ($150).

Still, this raises a lot of questions for the technology enthusiasts that wants to build his own machine and run Windows 7: should we accept to pay such high prices just for an operating system? Should we accept to pay for an OS before it is even released to be able to purchase it at a reasonable price? Does Windows 7 really delivers 119€ worth of extra value compared to it's predecessor and Linux? I do not think so.

A shifting market for operating systems

The problems is that although Windows 7 is about 10% cheaper than Windows Vista, the average selling price of a PC has fallen much more than that between the release date of Vista and now. This is partially due to the rise of netbooks, nettops and other cheap mini PCs but also because not many users buy expensive high-end PCs anymore. In most families it is more convenient to purchase a netbook for each member of the family and one cheap desktop to handle heavier tasks than to purchase one shared uber-powerful notebook. If a household of four where everyone has a PC or netbook want to upgrade all of the household's computers to Windows 7 that's a bill of $476 in the US, or €476 (around $600) in Europe! In short, the average family needs to purchase more Windows licenses than 5 years ago but expects to pay less per license. The operating system is becoming a commodity where price does matter much more than advanced functionality.

Bad for small PC builders

Microsoft obviously does not want to acknowledge this trend. This puts small independent PC builders in a bad spot too: many of these can not obtain large volume discounts on OEM Windows licenses like the big manufactures do. From the information I could gather large manufactures can usually get Windows XP for $25 on netbooks and Windows Home premium for around $80. Small PC builders and enthusiasts have to pay the full price of a Vista OEM license ($119). As the price of Windows becomes a much greater part of a PC's cost their products will become less and less competitive. Before builders could solve the problem by selling computers without an OS, but if the retail version of Windows is perceived as an expensive part of a new PC this may not look attractive to computer buyers anymore. This could result in a PC market dominated by a handful of big OEMs, a rather bad situation for consumers.

Linux to the rescue

There is a simple solution for PC builders however: Linux. With the shift to online applications most users only need a web browser and a few productivity application on the average PC. Families only need to buy one Windows machine to install games and the legacy applications that require Windows. Netbooks, nettops and cheap PCs that are used for surfing and playing music or video should work perfectly with the free Linux operating system.

Home users can purchase the boxed edition of Ubuntu for less than $20, and this includes phone support to help users get started with Linux. This is 1/10 th of the $199 that the boxed version of Windows home premium will cost stateside. At this price it becomes an interesting alternative to the purchase of a Windows 7 upgrade. Even the OSX upgrade has been announced at $29, or 1/4 th of the price of a Windows upgrade, and Apple is not known for being cheap. The current price structure for Windows 7 upgrades and retail versions clearly put Windows in the "expensive extras" category for me. I do hope that Microsoft will sell OEM licenses of Windows 7 at a more reasonable price, or soon Windows will be perceived as a luxury rather than a necessity.

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What are your top 5 geek TV shows?

To finish the week on light note I propose you the following: give me your top 5 geek TV shows. There are quite a few geek shows that have entered into mainstream culture and have become big successes, but here is what I would consider to be the top 5 geek TV shows of all time:

5th position: Weird Science

Although the series never was as good as the movie, the two computer nerds that created the perfect girl by wearing bras over their heads still deserver a place in the pantheon of TV Geekdom. The film had the courage to have geeks as main characters long before geeks were fashionable.

4th position: Star Trek

Are the Trekkies geeks? I certainly think so! Anybody who walks at conventions with pointy Vulcan ears speaking Klingon does deserve to be called a geek. Star Trek stand for a lot of the geek values: the cult of technology, the drive to explore new possibilities and the acceptance of cultural diversity are good example.

3rd position: Chobits

Geek and anime are two things that go very well together. I couldn't do this list without including at least one anime. I choose Chobits as this is by far one of the geekiest anime available outside of Japan. The story of the geek that found the ultimate robotic woman is too good to pass up. Humor, romance, adventure, computers and sexy robots: Chobits has all the things that a geek could desire.

2nd position: Systm

I know, Systm is not really on TV, it's on the internet and it is currently on hiatus, but it's a TV show anyway. With such classics as the beer keg robot, the home made flametrower, the DIY lightsaber, the liquid nitrogen ice cream, the giant hamster wheel and the gravity boots, Systm deserve a prize for the sheer number of geek projects on the show. This was also the first show of the revision 3 network to meet with some success, so it actually played a part in the development of the professional video podcasts industry. Since it is free head to the revision3 site and download a few episodes.

1st position: The big bang theory

This is by far my favorite geek show. the story of the four geeks and the beautiful girl is a topic that could easily turn into a "let's laugh at the geek" fest, but instead the geeky heroes seems to always come out on top. Actually I think that this is a show that would make people want to be geeks!

That was my top five geek TV shows. Now hit the comments and let me know what are your own favorites!

Linux Netbooks: back to the facts

There has been a lot of talk about the success or failure of the Linux netbooks recently, to the point that it is now a very controversial topic. I think that it is time to go back to the facts and perform an objective analysis of the Linux netbook market. You will see that Linux netbooks have been neither a complete success nor a complete failure.

Fact 1: Linux netbooks sell well online but badly in "brick and mortar" shops

The first lesson that I take home from the Linux netbook story is that if the online market is more than ready for Linux machines, the "brick and mortar" shops are not. Dell is reporting nice sales of it's Ubuntu based Inspiron Mini online with about a third of the machines sold featuring Linux, but Linux based machines have not had much success offline. In France Linux based netbooks have left the store shelves but are still widely sold online. The explanation provided was that users shopping online are better educated and actually knew what their were buying. Many shoppers in "Brick and Mortar" shops were actually expecting the Linux machines to work like Windows and to run Windows software, leading to disappointments and returns.

Fact 2: 60% of consumers don't see the difference between a netbook and notebook

A recent study has shown an amazing fact: most consumers can not see the difference between a notebook and a netbook. In my opinion this is because modern Windows netbooks look and behave too much like mini laptops, a fact that I have been pointing out already. This has not been good for the Linux netbook market or even for Microsoft who is losing a lot of money on cheap Windows licenses. Many consumer expected that netbooks could replace full PCs and perform all the tasks of a Windows desktop. This resulted many of those consumers to be disappointed, as the machines are designed as companion devices to a desktop PC, not replacement for it. This has in turn led many PC manufacturers to increase the specifications (and price) of most netbooks in an attempt to satisfy these customers.

Fact 3: Linux fare well on flash based netbooks, badly on HDD based ones

Most of the Linux netbooks models that have met with success feature an SSD instead of an HDD. One of the reasons is that Windows XP does not perform very well on a cheap SSD (Windows 7 will not either) while Linux does. The problem is that SSD based netbooks do not have the preference of the buying public. The main reason is fact 2 here above: most consumers actually buy netbook machines as small laptops and expect them to feature an HDD and a lot of local storage. Again SSD based netbooks have encountered success with educated users that are aware of their advantages in term of power consumption, shock resistance and portability, but not with the general public.

Fact 4: most netbook users want the option of a desktop interface

Another issue caused by fact 2 is that most netbooks users want to be able to switch easily to a full desktop interface. Don't get me wrong, simplified interfaces like Ubuntu netbook remix are great for on-the-go usage, but if the user connects his netbook to a keyboard, mouse and external screen to use it as a fixed machine the easy interface can really get in the way. The most frequently asked question about the Eee PC 's Xandros distribution is probably "How do I switch to advanced mode?" Initial Linux efforts on the netbook failed to recognize that the machines would often be used as normal computer and didn't offer an easy enough way to switch to the traditional desktop interface.

Conclusions

The main lesson to be learned from the current state of the netbook market is that although errors have been made Linux is doing quite well in a netbook-as-companion-device usage scenario, but unfortunately most netbooks are used as notebooks or desktop replacement machines. This was not anticipated by the netbook manufacturers or the developers of Linux netbook distributions and is causing numerous issues. The main problem is linked to customer education: nobody told salesmen and consumers what a netbook actually was and how it was designed to be used, leading to unrealistic expectations. There is still a market for traditional SSD based netbooks in which Linux can shine, but it is much smaller than what is currently considered as "the netbook market", and not many "netbook" manufacturers are releasing new machines for this market segment.

Most PC manufacturers are currently focusing on improving the usability of netbooks as desktop replacement machines by adding larger screens, roomier HDDs and inflated price tags instead of developing true innovative netbooks. Often this involves replacing Linux with Windows XP, as the public expects Windows to be installed for this type of usage scenario. This shift is helped by the fact that Microsoft is practically giving XP away for free. There are however a lot of opportunities in the near future for next generation Linux distributions on the netbooks, smartbooks and mini PCs. I'll cover these in an article next week: 3 paths to a bright future

Read more in the netbooks category

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MS vs EU: Microsoft does not control Windows anymore

I was quite surprised when I learned that some peoples at JCXP wanted to boycott the opera browser because of the EU actions against Microsoft regarding the bundling of IE 8. The problem is that their main argument would be valid in the US, but absolutely not in the EU. Here is the point that I have a problem with:

"Microsoft is entirely within their right to include Internet Explorer as the default browser within their own OS, just like Apple includes their own Safari as the default browser in Mac OS X, and just like Opera Software would be free to include Opera as the default browser in their own OS, should they ever make one."

Well, sorry but no, they don't have the right.

From an European point of view at least they don't. You see the way the EU and the US deal with monopolies is completely different. In the US the state reaction when faced with a monopolistic company is to break it apart, something that almost happened to Microsoft during their first US antitrust investigation.

The EU doesn't break up companies, in fact they are usually quite OK with monopolies. For a long time water, power, cable and telecoms have been monopolies in most European countries and most people were OK with that. Of course there is a catch: in almost all cases the government owned a controlling share of those monopolistic companies and actually imposed some policies on them.

Now that most industries have been liberalized the state operate in a similar but subtly different way: You are entitled to operate a monopoly or quasi-monopoly as a private company, but you are expected to let the state have some control over your company in exchange. In other words from an European point of view if Windows is a quasi-monopoly then the state has the right to impose features and restrictions on Windows, as simple as that.

Of course Microsoft still own Windows and the financial benefits it produces, but they are not the only ones in control anymore. The logic is that if Windows is a monopoly that is practically imposed on citizens (through the "Windows tax") then the citizens 's democratically elected representative should have the right to control what is imposed to them. In Europe the "Windows tax" concept is more perceived as this, if it's mandatory, it's a tax, if it's a tax it's controlled by democratically elected people (i.e. the state).

I understand that my US readers would find this disturbing as it is is contrary to the way that the US corporations do business. As I pointed out in a previous post there is quite a big culture clash between US and the EU on antitrust issues. You should keep in mind that this is about Europe, and that businesswise Europe is not the US.

Read more in the Windows category

Image cc by TechFlash_Todd

Linux Acer Aspire One A150 on Sale

Just a quick heads-up for those of you who want to acquire an HDD based Linux netbook: the Acer Aspire ONE A150 is currently in clearance in the Expansys UK and US shops. the machines feature a 120 GB HDD and 1 GB of memory. The price is £149 in the UK and $229 in the US.

For those of you who would prefer an Ubuntu based solution , You can also obtain refurbished Sylvania Meso for $249 on Amanazon.

Is Security Essentials Microsoft 's answer to Linux 's security record?

One of the areas where Linux really shines is security: you do not really need an antivirus if you are running Linux as an end user. In the Windows world however a good antivirus is almost a requirement as viruses and malwares are commonplace. I have personally seen Windows computers being infected less than an hour after being connected to the internet. Microsoft is now trying to fix these issues with it's new free security offering: Microsoft Security Essentials.

Microsoft security essentials is a new free lightweight antivirus from Microsoft. The problem that Microsoft faces with security is not only technical but also caused by the behaviors of the average Windows end user. It is estimated that despite the abundance of antivirus solution for Windows machines, more than half of home computers are simply not protected!

There are several reasons behind this. Ignorance certainly plays a part, but the main point is that most home users are simply not willing to pay for antivirus updates. A lot of people don't really understand the problem, other are not willing to pay to solve what is in fact Microsoft's problem, other still are willing to take the risk, too bad if this causes the viruses to spread. There are free antivirus solution available for Windows such as Avast or ClamAV, but these are almost never pre-installed on computers because antivirus vendors like Symantec pay computer manufactures to load a demo version of their products in the hope of cashing on the fee updates.

These updates fees can run into a lot of money: a one year subscription to Norton antivirus will cost you $39 per year on the Symantec website (Money saving tip: it is actually cheaper to buy the full product from Amazon than to renew your subscription!). If you consider that the average PC has a lifetime of 5 years that's a $195 bill! This is an hidden cost that a lot of computer users are not ready to pay.

In the case of the home user this can give Linux a huge TCO advantage: an Ubuntu CD costs between $12.99 and $19.99 on Amazon, or the CD image can be downloaded for free. This means that a home user can save a lot of money on the lifetime of his computer by replacing Windows by Linux instead of keeping their antivirus updated. This is of course bad for Microsoft.

There are free antivirus programs available, but most of them leave a lot to be desired. I had a bad experience with Avast on an Eee PC 900: the antivirus detected viruses correctly but was using so many resources that the netbook became sluggish to the point of being almost unusable for surfing! Also you need to contact avast every year to get your free update code, meaning that the product manufacturer can start charging for updates at any time.

Microsoft Security Essentials is an attempt by Microsoft to solve this problem. The product is currently in beta testing and should be available in certain countries as early as next week for Windows XP, Vista and 7. Unlike other free antivirus Microsoft Security Essentials should not consume too many resources, as the requirement are quite low for Windows XP: 256 Mb ram and a 500 Mhz CPU. On Windows 7 or Vista the requirements jump to a 1 Ghz CPU and 1 Gb ram, which means that Microsoft Security Essentials will probably be more of a resource hog on the future Windows 7 based netbooks.

On the issues side there is the fact that Microsoft Security Essentials will not be pre-installed on Windows computers but will require a download from Microsoft's website. Microsoft can not include the software for antitrust reasons which I can understand, but this means that a lot of home users won't bother. Also the download will require the users to pass the Windows Genuine Advantage test, something that will restrict adoption further! Part of Microsoft's problem is that Windows has been insecure for so long that a whole antivirus industry had the time to crop up, meaning that it is not longer possible for Microsoft to impose a free product like Microsoft Security Essentials as a default preload.

All in all this is still a good move from Microsoft to reduce the cost gap between Linux and Windows, even if in my opinion Microsoft does not go far enough. They should heavily promote Microsoft Security Essentials as well as pay PC manufacturers to include it as default. A better solution still would be for Microsoft to include with every Windows license a voucher for 5 years of upgrades with the antivirus vendor of the customer's choice, but somehow I doubt this will ever happen.

Updates on Tech-no-media

Beside the articles published on the main Tech-no-media blog, a few interesting articles have appeared on the specialized blogs:

On "From Windows to Linux for the average Joe"

5 disadvantages of Linux: When someone want to switch from Windows to Linux, he or she has a tendency to only think about the advantages of Linux and not think about the disadvantages. There is a bit of a "the grass is always greener at the other side of the fence" effect at play here. Most people have very good reasons to switch from Windows to Linux, but before actually switching it is important to review the disadvantages of Linux as well as the advantages. So what are the things that Linux does NOT do well?

What is the best Linux distribution for beginners: One of the questions I see the most in forums and sites like Yahoo Answers is : "What is the best Linux distribution for beginners?" or "What is the easiest Linux distribution?" Well, unlike what you may think these questions are not that easy to answer, as the easiest Linux distribution is not necessarily the best for all beginners because other factors like the availability of support and commercial applications availability have to be taken into account.

On "Online Video Producer"

Good light makes a video podcast shine:When shooting a video podcast there is one thing that makes all the difference between a glorified home video and a true studio production: good light. In the video world light is like magic: it makes your host's wrinkles disappear, whitens it's teeth, put the shine in his eyes and give him that aura that true video hosts have. The point is that to shoot a good video podcast you first need to have good light.

Overall this was really a Minty week between my review of Linux Mint, my interview of Clem and "What is the best Linux distribution for beginners" that covers Linux Mint too! I also experimented a bit with the ads on the Blog. Not that it brings me much money currently, but the blog is seeing a nice growth in readership and I want to be ready if it does really take off.

For those that are interested this week was the busiest ever on the blog: almost 2000 visitors on Windows to Linux and an astonishing 5400 visitors on Tech-no-media. when combined that's more than a thousand visitors per day on average. For a blog on which I have started to seriously post only 2 months ago this is not bad!

I have also noticed that the most successful articles are the ones about Linux and open source, so I will try to write more on these subjects. That is a good thing because I am myself a big Linux fan and it is a topic I love to write about! In fact I am already working on a Linux related post for Monday. I have also added a contact form to the blog for those of you who want to contact me directly.

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Hunch: a fun web-based decision engine

I have just tried Hunch, the fun website that helps you decide. Open to the public only since a couple of days I can see this "decision engine" (sorry Microsoft, Bing is a search engine, not a decision engine) becoming a successful novelty for some time at least.

What is Hunch about?

The principle is very simple: when you first get to the site hunch asks you 20 questions. it uses your answers to build a profile on your likes, dislikes and personality. Once that profile is created you can start to use the Hunch decision engine to answer questions. The questions range from "which Blu-ray player should I buy" to "how many pages should be in my resume". To help you answer the question the site will ask you various simpler questions e.g. to know the size your resume should be the decision engine will ask you several multiple choice questions on your career. The original question is then answered by Hunch and you are given the percentage of users that reached the same answer.

Yes, but what IS the Hunch?

Well, if you do not want to answer the question you can also press the Hunch button. This will make the decision engine take the decision for you based on the profile it build from your previous answers and the answers of the users whose profile match yours. Note that you can also opt to skip one question it you have trouble answering.

I expect Hunch to be successful not only because it can provide a good service but also for the entertainment aspect of the site. This reminds me of the multiple questions "test" that you find in almost all magazines and of the votes channel on the Wii, and no one can deny that these are entertaining and successful. My only worries are about the potential privacy implications: the site claims that the data is confidential, but this would be a gold mine for marketers, so I hope their security is up to scratch.

Well, don't stay there, go try Hunch and leave me a comment with your opinion!

An interview with Clem from Linux Mint

A few days ago I reviewed what is in my opinion the easiest Linux distribution for Windows switchers: Linux Mint 7.0 The small group of talented people that manage this distribution is led by Clem, the "founder" of Linux Mint. Today he was kind enough to grant me an email interview as a follow up to my review.

Erlik: How did you get started on Linux Mint?

Clem: I've been passionate about Linux since the early days. I started using it as my main operating system in 1996. In the following years I did a lot of distro-hopping and I spent a lot of time helping other users. In 2006 I started selling reviews and tutorials to linuxforums.org (my articles are still available here: http://www.linuxforums.org/bio/author/Clement+Lefebvre/) and I eventually decided to publish them myself, and so the name of my website at the time was linuxmint.com. The more distributions I reviewed the more I felt something was missing and I started to develop a very precise idea of what I would personally like to see in a desktop operating system. I'm a developer myself so I wasn't afraid to develop the missing parts and I started taking what was already there in the Open Source world to build upon it. I chose not to develop my own package base and so I opted to base my little project on top of a Debian distribution. Ubuntu was popular, I would have ported most of their innovations anyway and being compatible with them was a huge advantage, so I chose the Ubuntu package base. At first it was probably just an experiment but after the release of version 2.0 "Barbara" people started to gather around it and to show interest. At the time it wasn't much more than Ubuntu with codecs but because this corresponded to something people wanted it created a following, and when the time came for me to really start improving the desktop and to implement a new vision (that started with the release of Linux Mint 2.2 "Bianca"), there was already and audience and a user base eager to see how Mint would develop and interested in the innovations.

Erlik: Linux Mint is very successful (3rd on distrowatch), what do you think is the reason behind such a success?

Clem: Well, as I said, it was probably a bit of luck at the start. The luck to fill a niche market with the codecs on top of a popular Ubuntu base but also the luck to find talented people in the very early days of Linux Mint, who helped the project and formed the core and a wonderful ambiance within the community. After that it was the fast pace and the amount of development done on Linux Mint. We pushed a lot of innovations and offered features no other operating systems had at the time. Some are still unique to Linux Mint and with each new release we try to push harder on the development and to offer new use cases and simplify the most common ones. An other element, at first due to the small size of our community and nowadays due to our light structures and the way we work, is the quality of the feedback we get from our community and the dialogue we have with its members. We try to listen to our users as much as possible and to communicate and justify our decisions and what lead to them. I'm personally easily reachable and I like to stay close to the user base, that's very important I think and although it gets harder as the community gets bigger this is what makes all the difference. So we're constantly trying to improve the communication between the team and the community.

Erlik: I see that a lot of work is done on the 64 bits edition of Linux Mint. Do you thing that 64 bits is ready for the average user?

Clem: Yes. There were a few incompatibilities but it's getting to a stage now where our x64 edition is almost as stable as the main one.

Erlik: One of the disadvantage of Linux Mint versus Ubuntu is the lack of an easy "push button" way to upgrade to the next Mint release, what is the status of the work on that?

It's funny you say that. I commented on your review of Linux Mint 7 and talked about this: http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=900

It's a valid point though. The upgrade is as risky on Mint as it is on Ubuntu, but Ubuntu made it much easier than we did. They need to work on making it safer and so do we. As for the ease of use, I'm adding this to the Linux Mint 8 roadmap, I think we can merge the features of the upgrader within mintUpdate and offer something similar than Ubuntu. That's easily achievable and you should see improvements in the next release. My worry when it comes to upgrading isn't how easy it is though, it's to be able to guarantee a safe result ... and this is where both Ubuntu and Linux Mint need to work really hard.

Erlik: Unlike a lot of other big distributions Mint does not have a big company offering behind it and is more of a community effort. Do you intend to keep it that way or do you want to develop a professional support structure for Linux Mint?

Clem: Ideally I would like Linux Mint to be financed by the community and through advertising so that we, developers, don't have to spend time on anything else than improving it. Most distributions provide a free desktop and rely on professional support to finance their activity. The problem with that model is that some of them get extremely focused on the support activity, that this takes most of their resources and that they're left with very little time to innovate.

Having said that, I would also like Linux Mint to represent a viable alternative for companies and so for this I will try to develop a structure that will allow us to offer adequate support. The main thing of course is not to rely on it too much financially and not to let it become our main point of focus.

Linux is a hobby to many of us and we're driven by passion. We need money of course to be able to work on it full time but it's pushing the development and the innovation that makes it interesting. If tomorrow our activity is solely devoted to maintaining an income then our work won't be very interesting. Professional support needs to become available, we need to work on this and get to the point where we can offer a solution, we will definitely generate an income out of it but it needs to remain something extra, the main thing here being the distribution itself.

So far we got here with 5 or 6 people working a few hours every day. If we get enough support within the community to start making people quit and to hire them full time, just for us, fully focused on improving Linux Mint, guess how far we can go. With the support I got from the sponsors and donors I already managed to free up 3 months of my time this year and I hope I'll be able to demonstrate how much of a difference this can make on the upcoming release.

Erlik: Thank you very much for this interview Clem, and continue the good work.

Blu-ray Mandatory Managed Copy is so borked it's ridiculous!

For years we have been promised by the manufacturer of Blu-ray devices that thanks to Mandatory Managed Copy we would be able to use the content purchased on Blu-ray on other devices, thanks to the possibility to make a full resolution copy of the content. At Blu-ray launch however the feature was missing. It seems that the much needed feature is finally coming, but as the details emerge it turn out that what should have been Blu-ray's major advantage over DVD is completely borked!

Lets look a the long list of problems:

1: Mandatory managed copy won't work with current hardware: Yes, you read it right, no firmware upgrade for this. Since Mandatory Managed Copy will require an internet connection you will need to replace your $400 player to be able to use it! The only possible exception is the Playstation 3 as it has a network connection. Also there is no guarantee that the hardware you purchase later will include the feature, as this is completely optional for manufacturers. Compatible stand-alone players will be available in 2010 at the earliest, meaning that purchasing a Blu-ray player this year is now out of the question for many people.

2: Mandatory managed copy won't work with current discs: Yes, all the discs you purchased up to now were supposed to be compatible, but in the end they are not. If you want to benefit from Mandatory Managed Copy you will need to re-purchase them. Currently no exchange plans has been announced by any studio. Given Blu-ray huge duplication costs I have little hope that they will do the right thing and replace all Blu-ray discs released so far.

3: Only one copy is mandatory: The studios are only forced to grant you one copy, this means that if you want to transfer your movie to a media player, you won't be able to make another copy if you replace that device. In a world of iPods that last 4 years at best this is ridiculous. Five mandatory copies would be the minimum any sane consumer would be ready to accept.

4: Copies are not free: The studios can charge you per copy or transfer that you make. That means that you would actually have to pay to transfer a movie that you own on Blu-ray to your multimedia jukebox. In my opinion this is totally unacceptable, moving your media between your devices should always be free.

5: Few devices are supported: The only three target formats supported by Mandatory Managed Copy will be AACS protected Blu-ray, CSS protect DVD or DRM protected Windows media. This means that very few devices beside Windows PCs will actually be able to use the features to transfer HD content: iPods, Macs, Linux netbooks are left out, as are most video jukeboxes and multimedia hard disks! The only way for these devices to access a copy will be to request a DVD copy and then rip the DVD. This is absolutely ridiculous: If the copies need to be protected by DRM at the minimum the DRM scheme must be available for all devices, and preferably free of licensing fees!

In the end what we have here is technology that is 4 years late, is incompatible with most current hardware and all current discs, is incompatible with most devices and is ripping off the consumer. Personally I thought that this feature could save Blu-ray when it would finally come to be implemented, but now I realize that AACS-LA has made a joke of this, I am disgusted, this is a complete failure for Blu-ray. One thing that is sure is that I won't be buying a stand alone Blu-ray player this year since current models will be obsolete next year! If you still wish to purchase a player this year I would suggest that at least you choose the Playstation 3, as this is your best bet if you hope for a firmware update (and that is a risky bet).

You know what, I am starting to hate HD content. It seems that because the image quality is a bit better the media industries feel that they can impose their own set of rules on the consumers and rip them off in the most unacceptable way! A few extra pixels do not give them the right to treat their customers like shit. I say stop: I'll purchase Blu-ray content when the format is finally stabilized and event then only if the price is right and if I really own the content that I purchased. This would mean that I can transfer and play it on any device I own without having to pay ridiculous transcoding fees. Until then I"ll stay with DVD, or I'll watch free HD podcasts in Miro or iTunes, thank you!

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Taking Gloria out for a spin: A review of Linux Mint 7.0

There is a soft spot in my heart for Linux Mint: Mint 3.0 was the first Linux distribution that I really used rather than experimented with. Since then I have moved on to Ubuntu (on which Mint is based), but the release of the new Linux Mint 7.0 codenamed Gloria made me want to install and review Linux Mint again. I brought my old Dell latitude D400, a 5 year old subnotebook, out of storage and started the Mint live CD.

The Live CD experience

Running from the CD is never a really pleasant experience, but Linux Mint seems to have made the process as painless as possible: at start up I am greeted by the Mint logo, soon replaced by the usual boot "text mode". after about a minute I am in front of a very nicely designed login prompt with a 10 second countdown to login. Maybe they should have made the CD autologin faster, as the wait could worry newbies. Once logged in I am presented with a very polished desktop complete with some Compiz eye candy. No network connection however. I have a look in the start menu for help: the menu is very Windows like and the control center easily accessible. The hardware driver applet tells me that I will need to download a legacy driver for my Broadcom wireless adapter.I am not too surprised as I know from my old Mint 3.0 installation that this adapter is badly supported on Linux. Beside this everything seems to work perfectly, so I'll continue the review with the installation

The Installation of Linux Mint

I click on install and a 7 steps wizard starts. The first question is language selection, which I'll keep to English, second step is location, third step is keyboard, nothing really difficult up to now. At step 4 a very nice graphical partitioner starts. The Mint partitioner detects that I have an old Ubuntu 7.10 installation on the disk offers to resize a partition and to dual boot by default. Its a good decision to avoid new users wiping an OS they did not intend to erase, but in this case I'll use the entire disk. The next screen ask me for a name, a password, a computer name and gives me the option to autologin. Although it could be considered insecure autologin is really practical for home desktops and cut down the time between the moment you start your computer and the moment you start to surf, so I turn it on. The last step is only a recap. I push install and wait about 15 minutes for the install to complete. During that time I go fetch a network cable to plug the laptop into my ADSL router.

Booting Gloria for the First Time

This time I come prepared: I boot the computer for the first time while connected to the router with a cable. The boot process is almost entirely graphical and is faster than with Ubuntu 8.04. As I requested the system did log me in automatically. There is welcome screen waiting for me: I am offered the option to see the new features of Linux Mint 7.0, download a pdf manual or visit the Linux Mint forums. These are very good starting points for users new to Linux. There is also a message appearing on the screen to tell me that a new restricted driver is available.The driver applet is also present in the system tray, just where a Windows user would expect to find it. I click on this driver applet and the missing wireless driver is flagged for my attention. I click activate, enter my password and the missing driver is installed automatically. I enter my wireless access point name, disable and enable networking and then I am connected through Wifi: all my hardware works! I tried to suspend and wake up the machine and this worked flawlessly too. This review is on to a good start!

Presentation: Gloria is beautiful


The first thing that strikes you when starting Linux Mint 7.0 is how the design is polished. Not only is the theme and wallpaper superb, but everything seems to be just where someone straight out of the Windows world would expect it to be. Although this is no Windows copycat, it is much easier to get used to immediately than Ubuntu. One thing that is very different from Ubuntu is the start menu: it looks like an improved version of Windows start menu. On the left pane you have shortcuts to important places like your home folder, the software installation applet, control center, command line (terminal) and quit button. On the right pane you have either your favorite applications or a start menu. This is a good design decision, as it allows users that just want to surf, email and play music to do that without having to search for the proper application, but at the same time all the other applications are only a button away.

Included Software

The software selection is very good, with classics like Openoffice, GIMP, Rythmbox, Gnome Mplayer, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, etc... This is complemented by a large library of open source and proprietary applications that can be installed. What is more interesting is that the Adobe flash plugin is pre-installed: YouTube videos play straight away in Firefox. Moonlight is also present, and even if I don't support the Silverligth technology I must admit that this will be helpful to users unsure of how to install a plugin. The same principle is true for audio and video codecs: videos played straight away in the default video player, but the colors were a bit strange. Playing the same video in the included Gnome mplayer produced a perfect image however, so this is not a big issue.

Installing More Software

there are 2 options to install more software: software manager and package manager. I start with software manager and I am presented with a very neat application where I can find new software ordered by categories or by the "score" that was attributed to them. Not only is all the important open source software available, but also some proprietary offerings like Opera, Sun Java, the Nvidia proprietary Driver, Skype, Picasa and Google Earth. All applications are illustrated by a screenshot. This is an excellent idea as it immediately helps the user to see what the application is about. The package manager is synaptic and allows those who are used to managing packages themselves to continue doing so.
The update manager mintUpdate is very well done also: all updates come with a risk factor number: the higher the number, the more chances you have to break something with the update. By default only the safe updates (risk level 3 or lower) are visible so that newbie users don't risk breaking something, but this setting is easily changed!

What Linux Mint is Missing

Given how good Linux Mint is why would you install anything else? Well, there are a few caveat. First Linux Mint does not have a big support corporation behind it like Ubuntu. This means that it is more difficult to purchase paid support and that there is no software shop where you can purchase commercial applications like PowerDVD for Linux. The second point is that there is no "one click upgrade" option right now, although I think that the Mint developers are working on a solution for that. The Final point is that the inclusion of multimedia codecs in the main edition could bring some users into legal a gray area in some countries, however a version of Mint without the codecs, the universal edition, is also available for those users.

Conclusion

The main point of the review is that I personally consider Linux Mint as the easiest distribution for new Linux users. Everything has been thought out to make the transition easy for those users without sacrificing what makes Linux unique. Nice touches like the screenshots in the software manager show a level of polish and user friendliness rarely seen in a Linux distribution. Linux Mint is also interesting for more advanced users that want a distribution that install quickly and include all the multimedia components without the need of adding codecs and flash from the repositories. If Linux Mint continues to provide such high quality releases I may well switch back from Ubuntu by the time of the next Long Term Support release.

UPDATE: Clem (from Linux Mint) responded to my review on the Linux Mint Blog. You can also check out my interview of Clem.

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MS to ship Windows 7 without IE, The EU is unimpressed

Microsoft has announced Thursday that they intend to sell version of Windows 7 without the bundled Internet Explorer browser. The Idea is that PC manufacturers would then be free to bundle whatever browser they like with Windows.

The European Unions however is absolutely not impressed by Microsoft's move. It is clear that what the EU wanted was to force Microsoft to include alternative browsers with Windows 7 rather than removing Internet Explorer, and with good reasons. The EU competition commission has certainly not forgotten the Windows N debacle, when they managed to force Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without a media player only to see all OEMs ship the versions with the media player included.

The big problem is that from an economic point of view, a monopoly is good for sellers and bad for buyers, and here the OEMs are sellers. There are some advantage for the computer manufacturers to limit the versions of Windows they ship: less support cost, easier inventory management, better relations with microsoft etc... so to offset these costs a competitor to Microsoft would actually have to pay the computer manufacture to include an alternative browser or media player, something unlikely to happen unless Google really decides to push Chrome. Another reason that could push OEM to include alternative browsers would be consumer demand, but that is very unlikely to happen as most of the consumer looking for alternatives are moving to systems with Linux or OSX.

What this means is that selling a version of Windows 7 without Internet Explorer do not level the playing field at all: it would still be more difficult for alternative browsers and media players to be preinstalled on computers. If other browsers are included by default then the advantage of Microsoft is negated as this would give other browsers the exact same advantage: it would not be easier for computer manufacturers to sell a computer loaded with IE. That is why the better option is to force Microsoft to include other browsers in Windows 7 rather than removing Internet Explorer.

At least it looks like the EU is not ready to let itself be pushed around by Microsoft. Let's hope for the best.

Photo CC by Robert Scoble

PR disaster alert: Asus attacks on Linux

So ASUS decided to part way with Linux, the operating system that made the brand famous, to join forces with Microsoft. And they decided to make it in a very public way by stating a nice 'better with Windows campaign'. Well, sorry to disappoint you ASUS, but this is turning into a Public relation disaster!

As the articles here and here as well as the discussion here point out, leaving Linux is not only a bad move from a technical point of view but the way it was done also angered and insulted members of the Linux community, many of which are your customers. Guess what? They are not you consumers anymore. Worse, these are usually people responsible for purchasing the computing equipment for their families or their companies, so the loss goes much deeper than just a few Linux users. Let's look at a few chosen comments from the articles above:

Sorry Asus, but while I was open to buying an EeePC, you're now in the lower echelons of my list of vendors. And, just so you know, I have a reasonable list of mothers buying PCs for the kids to take to school who are looking to me for guidance. A word from me and Asus is off the shopping list, even if the alternative has Windows.

My current laptop is from ASUS. My next purchase will not be from them.

Over many years as a custom computer builder, I had used and recommended ASUS MB's and other parts. However, as a linux lover and open source advocate for years, I can no longer recommend or buy their products.

I have nothing but contempt for Asus now , Helping in purchasing decisions of a company that pays well over 80,000 on parts annually , Those parts will not have an Asus brand on them , I swear to that. Nor will I suggest to customers to buy anything from Asus again , Period.

The problem for ASUS is not so much losing the potential sale of a Linux computer, it is destroying a reputation that took ASUS years to build in just a few days. Now ASUS lost Linux customers, Windows customers, enterprise customers and motherboard customers. Oh, and don't expect many of these people to buy an ASUS graphic card any time soon either.

Imagine if tomorrow Toyota announced that in their opinion hybrid vehicle sucked and that they would revert to traditional combustion engines, don't you think they would lose face and customers? The Prius is the symbol of Toyota innovation as the Linux eeePC was the symbol of ASUS innovation, a symbol they have now lost. Without that symbol they are just another Asian computer manufacturer, nothing special anymore.

Nowadays being friendly to the Linux community is a Public Relations matter more than anything else! Don't forget that a lot of the Linux geeks out there have day jobs supporting, assembling and purchasing Windows computers. If you insult Linux you insult them. Yes, to you the choice of OS is just a business matter, but for them it is a very personal thing, and when they shop for new equipment or recommend it to someone else they do it with their feelings as much as their heads. This is something that Dell, HP and Acer have understood, but that ASUS still has to learn apparently...

Will the way ASUS insulted the Linux community change your purchasing decisions? Let me know by posting a comment below!

Image cc by jaaron

iPhone 3GS: evolutionary, not revolutionary

So the keynote of WWDC 2009 is over and the results are in. What was the dominant feeling of the announcement: evolution, not revolution. Most of the Mac notebooks were upgraded to the new improved battery that had been announced earlier in the year, and the price of some high end models dropped. Entry level Apple notebooks however are still way too expensive to compete with $299 Linux notebooks. The only good news for the price conscious Mac user (admitting that such a person even exists) is that the upgrade to Snow Leopard, the next version of OSX, will only cost $29. This is a lot cheaper than what Microsoft usually asks for Windows upgrades, so at least the users that invested in expensive Macs will get the benefit of a cheap OS upgrade.

The star of the show was of course the next iteration of the iPhone: the 3GS. Gizmondo has a nice feature guide that will get you up to speed on the improvements in this new version of Apple star smartphone. Improvement is the main idea behind the new iPhones: there are no revolutionary features, but Apple solved a lot of the issues of the current model. Copy and paste will now work thanks to the inclusion of iPhoneOS 3.0, and the crappy camera of current models has been replaced by a nice 3 Megapixels one with autofocus, auto exposure and the possibility to capture video. Tethering will finally return to the iPhone, but unfortunately not for AT&T users.

Of course some will say that this is only fixing omissions and flaws that shouldn't have been in the initial product, and they are not entirely wrong, but at least Apple is fixing it's mistakes. As far as improvements go we have a faster processor, faster 3D graphics, more ram and more storage. 3G speed now reach 7.2 Mbps thanks to HSDPA, and the price is down to $99 for the entry level model. In other words: more of the same for less money. Even the design will be exactly the same as the previous version. As really new features there will be voice commands, but personally I am not a big fan of these as they tend to be unreliable in noisy environments.

To conclude I would say that a lot of what Apple announced leaves an aftertaste of "more of the same". Most of the progress has been in fixing flaws an evolving the existing products, and that is a good thing, but nothing really new was announced.

Image cc by katielips

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Content producers dig Linux too!

Content creation used to be the stronghold of Apple and it's OSX operating system, but recently there have been signs that content producers are more and more attracted to Linux. What made me realize that creative software on Linux had made it with the content creation crowd is this poll on the DAZ Studio forums: more than 150 Daz Studio users would like to see a Linux version. What made it important is that DAZ Studio is not Blender: it is a program that is designed for "artistic" content creation rather than for "technical" content producers, but still a lot of these non technical users run Linux and want a Linux version of the application. It is not top of the line professional contents producers like Pixar that are switching to Linux, these are average users.

When looking back, I can't help but realize that creative software for Linux has made a lot of progress in very little time. I remember when the main graphic creation tool on Linux was The GIMP. Now we also have Inkscape for vector graphics and Blender for 3D graphics. Both Blender and the GIMP are very polished creative software that can easily rival commercial offering such as Photoshop, even for advanced use, furthermore these are still actively developed and new versions are being released at a sustained rate. Inkscape is lagging behind Illustrator but is still very usable for all but the most demanding graphic designers. In the field of desktop publishing Scribus has also been a success. It is used to publish "Full Circle" the monthly magazine on Ubuntu and the results look very professional.

For Audio content creation Linux has what must be the audio editor the most widely used in podcasting: Audacity. The application combine powerful features with an easy to use interface that complete beginners can easily master. For music creation there is the excellent LMMS (Linux Multi Media Studio), a worthy alternative to Fruity Loops, as well as more advanced software like Ardour, which could be used in replacement of a DAW application like Cubase. With Ubuntu Studio these applications are pre-installed, a no brainer for the audio content producer that wants to try Linux.

As far as video editing goes Linux is still lagging behind OSX and Windows unfortunately. Cinelera is a very powerful video editor, but it's complex interface reserve it for the expert video content producer looking for advanced features. Kino is a much simpler program, but it's focus on DV prevent it from being the jack of all trade editor Linux needs. KDEnlives seems to be a good application that could be a substitute to PowerDirector but I could never make it works on Gnome. Lives is stable on Gnome, but the interface is too weird to appeal to the average user in the content creation field.

The lesson to remember: watch the user interface when designing creative software. Unlike what some may believe content producers do not always have much technical knowledge outside of their fields (some do, some don't) As a result they want creative software that is very easy and intuitive to use, but can also provide advanced content creation features when required. Something that is very successful in the creative software world but could be better implemented in open source software is the concept of plug-ins and extensions. Instead of releasing one big application that will be too complex for the beginner content producer, create a simple application but allow extra functionality to be added later as the user becomes more experienced with the program. Some open source applications that have implemented this with success include Firefox, Audacity and Blender. Unsurprisingly these are also amongst the most successful open source projects.

To conclude I would say that content producers like the idea of Linux: its stable, comes with a lot of free creative software and do not require much administration after the machine is installed. It is also much cheaper to purchase a Linux desktop that an Apple Mac, but what currently let these users down is the lack of intuitive, easy to use and expendable creative software in some fields.

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Recently on the Tech-no-media network

As you probably now the Tech-no-media network is not only the main blog but also includes "From Windows to Linux for the average Joe", a blog about Linux for the absolute beginner, and "Online Video Producer", a blog focused on creating and publishing videos and podcasts for the web. Occasionally (like now) I publish a summary of the articles published there on the main blog.

On From Windows to Linux for the average Joe:

9 reasons to switch from Windows to Linux: this is a article reviewing some of the possible reasons for switching to Linux from the point of view of a non technical user or beginner. You don't want to spend the time and effort learning about Linux just to realize that changing your operating system to Linux does not solve the problem you have or does not deliver the benefits you expected.

What is a Linux distribution: The first thing that puzzles someone new to Linux is the concept of Linux distribution. To help you understand what is a Linux distribution I will take the Windows world as an example. Again the article is targeted at absolute Linux beginners and non technical users.

As a note, I would like to clarify that the Linux articles targeting a technical audience will be posted on the main Tech-no-media site and not on "From Windows to Linux for the average Joe", as that site is really for beginners. I had quite a lot of feedback from seasoned Linux users about making a lot of oversimplifications on the tutorial site: this is on purpose!

On Online Video Producer:

7 YouTube alternatives to upload video: a long article presenting the pros and cons of several good alternatives to Youtube. This is from the point of view of the video uploader and not of the video consumer.

Comments on your YouTube videos can bite!: A post on the recent outbreak of malicious links on Youtube video comments, as well as a discussion of the importance of Youtube comments to connect with your audience.

Is Free Software Daily dead? UPDATE: they are back!

I am a regular user of the social news site Free Software Daily, and unfortunately the site seems to be off the net for more than a day now. For those who don't know it, Free Software Daily is the equivalent of Digg, but only for topics related to open source.

The site seems to have disappeared Wednesday, and as of today Free Software Daily was not back up. I first hoped that it was just a local connection problem but downforeveryoneorjustme.com squashed that hope: Free Software Daily is off the net. Now this could very well be a minor technical issue, however following my experience in IT I can tell you this: if you can't bring your system back after one day, then it smells very bad! I don't know what happened but it is very rare to see an active site just vanish of the web. Usually hosting providers have redundant infrastructures, so I would be more inclined to believe in some sort of database corruption. I just hope that they have a backup of the site and that they will be able to be back online soon.

In any case I do hope that this is not the end of Free Software Daily. It is not that the site sent a lot of traffic my way (although any targeted traffic is good no matter how small) but rater that the site was rather slick, and aesthetically pleasing. The community was obviously much smaller than on sites like slashdot or lxer, but the more limited amount of information was easily digestible for newcomers to open source. The site also featured a beginner section that was a precious addition to the Linux blogosphere. It was an ideal place to promote articles of my beginner blog "from Windows to Linux for the average Joe".

If someone notices that the site is back online or knows what actually happened please post a comment so that we can all know what is Free Software Daily 's fate.

UPDATE: Yay, this friday Free Software daily is back up! Here is the explanation for the shutdown: The cause of our absence was to do with our previous hosting company, 3FN , being shut down by the FTC.

You can get more details Here

Why Android smartbooks will eventually be free

We have seen a lot of action at Computex around the Snapdragon based android eeepc and all the shenanigans around it. I think however that this is an operation by netbook manufacturers to make Microsoft realize what we already know: that they should give Windows 7 starter away for free. Given the number of manufacturers preparing Android and Snapdragon Based devices Asus can't afford to miss the boat. I also think that the new Android smartbooks will not only be cheap, but that eventually they will be free and I'll explain why below.

Even if the first snapdragon powered Android smartbooks will be sold directly to consumers, I bet this won't be the way that most of the machines will be acquired by consumers. I am pretty sure that eventually the large majority of the smartbooks will be sold as 3G browsing devices and they will be heavily subsidized by mobile network operators. That is also why unlike netbooks they will stay cheap, be ARM based and probably run Android or Google ChromeOS.

Why? Let me explain.

Mobile operators have invested large amounts of money in 3G licenses and 3G networks, but until the arrival of the iPhone these networks were severely underutilized: there are not enough private customers. This meant that it was not possible for the networks to reduce their prices and to pay for the networks roll-out. Come the iPhone and now it is almost as if there is not enough mobile bandwidth, an almost ideal situation for the network operators. The iPhone however has lot of issues too: it is too expensive and the screen is too cramped for long surfing session. This means that the iPhone market is still too limited to fulfill the network operator's objective: everyone with a 3G plan.

Then enters the netbookwith it's fairly large screen and it's comfortable keyboard. This is a form factor that almost everyone is familiar with and that could be the perfect interface to a 3G networks except for a few things: the battery life is too short, there are security risks linked to the usage of Windows, they require a 3G modem add-on and finally they are too expensive to be given away for free with a contract. This did not stop AT&T from trying the model and selling subsidized netbooks, but the consumer still has to pay $200 for the machine, this is too much for the average user. (Update: Virgin Media will soon offer free netbooks with some plans)

The solution: smartbooks

The Android smartbooks based on Qualcomm ARM based snapdragon processors and the Android OS are the network operator's dream come true: the perfect 3G access device: the machine has a comfortable netbook form factor combined with a virus free operating system and day long battery life to ensure that the consumer actually uses those 3G bytes. Most important, these machines are cheaper than the current crop of netbooks: some underpowered mips based netbooks are already available for as low as $150. This means that it will eventually be possible for networks to give smartbooks away with 3G contracts.

Of course these don't run Windows, but is that a major problem for network operators? No, they have been selling smartphonesbased on Android for some time. Actually not running Windows is an advantage for the network operators: they are very afraid of viruses running on their networks and Windows has a spotty security record.

Is The lack of Windows on smartbooks a problem for the consumer? Maybe! Part of the success of netbooks is due to the fact that since they ran Windows some consumers have purchased them as replacement for a full size laptop. The smartbooks would probably fail to fill in that role, so it is very important that they are perceived as companion devices, enlarged PDAs or improved smartphones but NOT as a computer. As long as the consumers won't expect the devices to perform like laptops they will do fine. That is probably why Qualcomm is very insistent on the smartbook name: it's not a netbook, it's not at smartphone, it is a smartphone in a netbook form factor.

Could Microsoft derail the smartbooks plan?

I don't think so! The problem is that Microsoft does not have leverage on mobile network operators like it has leverage on computer manufacturers. The operators on the other hand have huge leverage on the device manufacturers: They are in reality their customers since they purchase the machines that will be sold or given away away to the final consumer. They can decide what they want to buy or not, and if they decide that they do not want to pay for Windows, they won't. Since no manufacturer would refuse an order of half a million devices from AT&T or Verizon the manufacturers will do what they are told.

To conclude I would say that in my opinion the smartbooks will be very successful, initially as ultra portable devices sold to enthusiast, but more importantly as a way for network operators to open their 3G networks to many more consumers than the iPhone or the netbooks could.

image cc by nDevilTV

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