On my Gibson ES-335. Earl Hooker probably improvised this. It took me several months to not-quite-actually-not-even-close-master.
Englightenment in Dixons
I once read that Bill Gates considered his greatest achievement to be the separation of hardware and software. He must have said it pre-2002 or so, as Google evidently has no record of it, so you’ll have to take my word for it (or ask him yourself). Then a couple of weeks ago, in the run up to Google’s the-end-of-the-Internet announcement, Eric Schmidt snapped at reporters who suggested that the success of Android made the ChromeOS strategy questionable. Mr Schmidt offered that ChromeOS is for a different category of devices.
This is why I was impressed by Android and baffled by ChromeOS. Android seems to me to be a huge step forwards for a sector that was fraught with fragmentation. ChromeOS, meanwhile, appears to be a backwards step – sure, it will be cheap (at least unless hardware OEMs succumb to patent claims on some of the underlying technology, which makes the Oracle-Google spat over Java all the more interesting), but still, as far as I can tell, a netbook running ChromeOS is a netbook that does less than the same device with Ubuntu, or, let’s say it – good old Windows XP.
And then, I saw this sign in Dixons in Birmingham Airport. They had a rack of the-computer-formerly-known-as-netbooks, only now, they’re apparently, “Web Browsers”.
Woah. This is probably about the first thing that makes me think Google’s efforts to blur the OS / browser distinction might bear fruit. If the whole category of device is classified as a web browser, users might not feel that an OS that is only a web browser isn’t such a lemon after all.
Worth noting that this was Dixons: DSG International, one of the biggest players in retail electronics in Europe (El Giganten, PC World, Dixons, Currys). Wonder if this name will catch on? And if so…what will us browser makes call our software?
Filed under Mozilla
Zonker on OpenSolaris, again
“It seems to me that it’d be a better world for software freedom and free *nix in general if the Solaris die-hards sucked it up and helped work on Linux”
-and with words like that, who wouldn’t want to join the Linux community? Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier is still bashing the OpenSolaris project. I truly believe that some competition between open source operating systems is a good thing, and I am amazed that this is a controversial opinion with some.
Filed under Software
Big Blue standardises (in all senses) on Firefox
Saying it out loud: IBM is moving to Firefox as its default browser | Blog | Bob Sutor
“While other browsers have come and gone, Firefox is now the gold standard for what an open, secure, and standards-compliant browser should be. We’ll continue to see this or that browser be faster or introduce new features, but then another will come along and be better still, including Firefox.”
Filed under Uncategorized
Greatest headline of the year?
Apple reels as Steve Jobs Flashturbates • The Register
Great headline, interesting article on what the author sees as Apple’s damaging (to them, to the web) hubris.
Filed under Software
Flash – defender of the web?
Interesting interview. “When Steve says Flash is stuck in the PC era he must mean that the Flash business model of free players, open content and affordable technology has been eclipsed by the closed, highly-profitable mobile platform of censored applications that Apple is building with the iPhone.”
Filed under Software
40 shades of FUD
Users explore alternatives to Internet Explorer – The Irish Times – Fri, Apr 30, 2010
“Mr Dockery also suggests that Firefox’s open source nature may end up being a double-edged sword, as malicious code could disguise itself as an add-on and be installed by an unwitting user.”
Utter nonsense. IE allows addons, no? Hard to see the relationsip, and I suspect Mr Ronnie Dockery of Microsoft Irelands knows it.
Filed under Mozilla
