Geek Drivel

Surprise, surprise.

Microsoft finally woke up and realized that people aren’t going to pay their usual rate for OEM copies of Windows when the PC itself is under $200, so they’ve decided to allow those computers to run Windows XP — the previous (and in many peoples’ opinion, better) version of Windows — instead of ceding the market to Linux. I don’t think it’s going to help them though.

Rumor has it that they’re frantically pushing to get the post-Vista version of Windows (presently simply called “Windows 7″) out as quickly as they can. That might help them stave off obsolescence, if they drop the user-hostile DRM code and produce something at least as good as Windows XP SP2… but I wouldn’t take bets on it.

Bill Gates’ Microsoft, long hated by the technorati for its aggressive pushing of inferior technologies, its arrogant attitude toward the standards used by the rest of the industry, the secrecy that it cloaks its own proprietary ways of doing things in (so that no one can interoperate with its products), and its paranoid and monopolistic way of murdering anything that it deems as potential competition, has an apprentice now: Steve Jobs’ Apple.

Ever since the iPod took the MP3-player world by storm, I’ve noticed that Apple has borrowed more and more heavily from Microsoft’s playbook. With that in mind, its latest move, pushing its Safari browser on anyone using iTunes or QuickTime, seems perfectly in character.

Until recently, Apple was seen by many as the computer world’s savior from Microsoft… but maybe we need to be saved from Apple too. Thank goodness that Linux is finally maturing into a decent desktop OS.

Windows Vista, how do I dislike thee? The New York Times counts the ways — using Microsoft’s internal e-mails from their own staff and board members to do it.

Why am I not surprised?

The first public beta of IE8 is now available, and the big news is that MS has finally decided to fully support web standards (and it’s about time!). Why the sudden change of heart? They aren’t talking, but OSnews may have tagged it… it’s amazing what a little self-interest will do.

This quote pretty much covers it:

In what can only be described as an act of utter desperation to overcome Vista’s mostly negative public perception issues, Microsoft Australia has put together an online “Fact or Fiction” quiz all about Windows Vista.

Un-frickin’-believable. Squared.

Last night, just after midnight, my RSS reader picked up a notice that the new 5.0 version of TrueCrypt (my favorite cross-platform drive encryption program) is now available. It has several very neat-sounding new features, including the ability to encrypt the system drive (under Windows), a standard GUI under Linux (it only had command-line support under Linux before), a MacOS version, and lots of new features!

I plan to explore the new features further at some point, but the Linux GUI (the only one I’ve tried so far) is pretty neat.

The New York Times compares the two remaining Democratic contenders to Apple’s famous Mac vs. PC commercials. Quite amusing.

Great. If it reverses some of the truly bone-headed decisions that Vista was graced with — such as the Hollywood-friendly but user-hostile DRM stuff that’s built in — then it can’t come soon enough. And apparently even Microsoft secretly agrees…

Pulling such a major release forward would be out of character for Microsoft. Could this be MS execs having Vista panic attacks behind closed doors? It’s hard to know for certain, but it’s fair to say that customers aren’t exactly rising from their feet to applaud the firm’s current OS.

I’ll drink to that.