Hebware

Microsoft windows still dominates the OS home user market, though most pre Windows 7 users generally have something to complain about. When it comes to education however, there are so many advantages to moving from Windows to a Linux distribution like Ubuntu, that educational authorities should really start to take notice. From my experience in education, Windows dominates, with almost no real work (where I am) in Linux desktop alternatives. This is a real shame, because as a user of both Windows OS’s and Ubuntu Linux, and a promoter of Ubuntu to home users, many people are really missing out. I’ve already written about Ubuntu and why home users would benefit from it, so I wont go into that here.

All SQA materials I’ve had to work with are Windows, or Microsoft based. Understandable given the products are probably in more use, however, promoting free GNU (General Public License) software gives people the opportunity to be aware there are alternatives out there that cost only a download. Open Office is a prime example. Its a free and comprehensive office package. Perfect for students and home users. Part of any Office Suite education should be the introduction to alternative applications, even if not in depth. I admit that Microsoft Office is in my opinion a better package than Open Office, but not by much. Office 2007 is still new to me so i find it a bit of a hassle to find things still, however, those who are familiar with it (those I’ve talked to about it at any rate) have sung its praises.

What I’m getting at is this. Business users going back into training should have the choice to use the software they use at work (generally MS applications). Home users who may not be happy or able to shell out on expensive software would benefit from training into freely available alternatives. Any tutor who can search the web and understands Office can adapt and instruct with very little difficulty, on similar alternative packages; the concepts are the same.

Can anyone comment on training centers who have also adopted, or fully converted to Linux, or have adopted and promote free software on Windows platforms?

Microsoft would seem to have redeemed itself with Windows 7, but its really too early to say. One thing is for certain, a new OS will always run smoother. Reinstalling XP from scratch after a couple of years gives your PC a new lease of life, so how will Windows 7 fair with the test of time? How many issues has it inherited from Vista? Are training centers going to upgrade to Windows 7 and splash out more valuable cash, or will they think of looking at free alternatives? If the education centers promoted freely available software then, obviously, more people would be using it. Education is about guiding and being guided, not pushing, and not being pushed. Lets stop pushing Microsoft down peoples throats and provide some options. Let your students choose and learn about the alternatives off the tutors, and off each other.

Anyone with comments, please share them.

Have a good Christmas,

Allan.

What is it? Well, it’s an operating system, like Microsoft Windows. Its based on something called Linux, and built for human beings apparently. Its very good; and its free!

How many things annoy you about your windows system? Read more…

One of the biggest annoyances in the modern electronic age has got to be spam.
I’m not talking about the stuff you get in tins, but unsolicited junk mail and junk web posts.
If you sign up for something without reading through it first, you’ve agreed to getting junk mail. Spam is the stuff you get without having signed up for it.

For most people who use the internet, at some point you may use a blog, a forum, or have a website which allows for comments and posts.
For those who don’t know, spam bots and programs which scour the internet looking for email addresses and web forms they can access, and bombard them with adverts and links that most of us do not want.
I haven’t sat down and worked out how much spam I get, but it’s a serious amount; far greater numbers than the legitimate emails I get.

For the record, spammers, I don’t want your pills or potions. I’m happy with myself. I’m not overweight, and not interested in purchasing wives from foreign lands, or anything else.

Green thinkers talk about how much energy is wasted in day to day life. How much energy is needlessly wasted delivering billions of worthless spam messages to people who don’t want them.

Is there anything out there in place to hunt down and prosecute the people who do this?
This is supposed to be the job of the Information Commissioner’s Office (in the UK), however, as far as I’m aware, no prosecutions have been made.
The ICO seem more publicised for there focus on trying to collect information about us with a national ID card and database, rather then protecting us from unsolicited communications or illegal activity. Like the government dosnt have enough information about us already. Hang on, isnt that what viral advertisers do? collect information about you and your internet activities? Anyway, I think this was abandoned. Focus on protecting your public, not monitoring them!

Lets draw a line in the sand.
We need our beloved internet policed, without the same organisation impinging on our human rights. Just because someone tries to target us with scams and unsolicited mail via the post office, this does not mean the police tap our phones and read our mail, or record our movements.

The same applies to the internet.

If we have an open and known public service available which we can forward our unsolicited mail and dodgy messages to, the government body responsible for prosecuting internet misuse can then double check its unsolicited, look up the IP address, find the owner, and locate the site using that IP at the time the message was sent. From there they can investigate a single location and prosecute if necessary, or proceed until they find the culprit. There is no need to monitor all internet activity in order to do this.

If all spam was to stop right now, how much faster could the internet be?
How much happier would we be as internet users?
How much energy, electrical, physical, and otherwise, would we save?

I’m betting a heck of a lot for all three.

All the best,

Allan.

Isn’t the internet cool!
Over a fairly short period of time, we now have a vast information resource available in our homes.
Developers have been constantly pushing the boundaries of what HTML was designed to do in order to give us a feature rich experience. And in all honesty, it’s a horrible mess. Let’s face it, HTML was never meant to deal with such complex content. Before I continue, this article contains my opinions, and some folks may disagree with some or all of them.

Many developers have to write web content that strives to provide the usability and responsiveness of an application running on an operating system like Windows or any of the many cool Linux distributions, but I really don’t think its going to happen.
Some have built plugins which operate embedded in the html in order to enhance the experience, some use clever little tricks like AJAX; but for me, it’s just not enough.

We are in the digital broadband age, and network speeds are only going to get faster. Isn’t it time we had a new protocol for our browsers to take sensible advantage of this?

HTTP is what it says, HyperTEXT (Text with hyperlinks in it) transfer protocol.
FTP gives us File Transfer Protocol.
There are oodles of protocols out there, but so far, nothing that really delivers applications from the web in a way that’s easy to develop and easy to deploy, without http or any hanger-on plugins or embedded doo-dahs.

Let’s call our new toy ATP, Application Transfer Protocol.
We want to deliver applications to our users over the web, but we want them to be as good as an OS application. We want our work to be secure and compiled.
How cool would it be to write an application, compile it, and upload it; then open a browser to atp://www.my_web_app.com (whose default app would be myapp.exe or myapp.iap or whatever the extension would be).

We don’t want to download the whole thing remember, so the protocol would interact with the application on the server side, and deliver the application in an ‘on demand’ bases.
Use the OS libraries available for standard OS applications, to build and manage the program GUI with event handlers, and all the nice things that benefit a locally running application.

Now were delivering REAL cloud applications straight from our servers without the need for local installs. The applications can have a local folder on the users computer to store settings etc, and write user files to the users folders just like a regular app.

Let’s stop talking about it. Somebody built it. Heck, maybe I’ll find the time over the next few years to build it myself. This would be the real internet revolution.

Happy browsing,
Allan Mackinnon

Hello people. It’s been a while but my website is finally up and running again. To cut a long story short, my ISP stopped providing web hosting services, and I missed the notice emails. I’ve been busy busy busy over the past while lecturing, coding like a fiend, fixing laptops, sorting peoples broadband for them, etc etc etc etc…

Anyway, it was time my site was reinvented to go with the times and trends. What better way to make a new web presence than in the form of my very own WordPress blog. Go me!

I’ll have a bit more time on my hands over the summer holidays now the college has closed. Maybe I can make some progress with one of my own projects (anything’s possible).

I’ve been lazy and used a ready made theme for the site. As time goes on I’ll have this site hebware-ised and it will be web business as usual (hopefully a little less quite).

all the best,

Allan.