The Payola Didn’t Arrive on Time
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over at PC Magazine. It must be that, because the top of the page has tips for switching to Mac on one side, and a story from John Dvorak about the time coming to download Ubuntu.
Now I have seen Dvorak, in print, long enough to know he has never been in on the hit-you-in-the-face Microsoft slant of the rest of the magazine, but when his article appears with one about a Mac switch concurrently, something is definitely changing. Note I didn’t say wrong, because it should have been this way for quite some time.
Perhaps the people are tired of the e-mail they keep getting about the bias. Perhaps the changes are due to inner discord, because I’ve heard things are not happy-happy-joy-joy at Ziff-Davis and its various entities. Whatever it is, I’m glad to see it, because the time is over that Microsoft puts out something and the masses accept it blindly, as though it had been delivered on stone tablets.
Ed Bott is doing his best over at ZDNet to spread the Microsoft religion, with the wonders of Windows 7 extolled nearly each day in a new and different way. The minions at Extreme Tech, which should be renamed Extreme Nausea, or possibly Extreme Boredom, serve up the same blather about the wonders of Microsoft code, as though it had been transformed completely, with no remnants from the last 20 years of work from the Redmond halls.
How many times is it necessary to show that you’re earning your pay(ola) from Redmond?
I hope that Windows 7 is released soon, so that the greater public, which is very good at separating fact from fiction, can rip Microsoft a new orifice for this garbage that it thinks is a good effort. Only then will the change come. Hopefully, for Ziff’s employees, it will come soon enough to allow them to save some face, otherwise it is going to be amazing looking at the before and after comparison texts.
I’ll probably be getting a Dell or Asus mini, and putting OS X on it, because it will be different, and at the same time better. Perhaps someone should deliver one of these to Mr. Ballmer – no, he wouldn’t get it anyway.
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Ask the leadership coach » The Payola Didn’t Arrive on Time ~ Revelations From An Unwashed Brain
March 10th, 2009
at 12:47pm
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The Payola Didn?t Arrive on Time - Ubuntu Blog
March 11th, 2009
at 9:25am
[...] This article is featured on the custom Ubuntu Blog at Auto-Blogs.us. [...]
Bob Lenarduzzi
March 12th, 2009
at 9:42am
Why would you want to buy a netbook and be caught in the same proprietary trap but with nicer bars?
My Dell Mini was my first Linux computer and since then I have upgraded from their cripple Delbuntu 8.04 to a full 8.10. I later tried out a KDE distro called Mandriva 2009 which was more suited to my Windows centric background.
Every one of my computers will from now on come with a dual boot Linux/Windows especially the kids P3’s and P4’s.
Yes, even the Macbook Pro I got from work will feature a Linux distro.
its now gotten to the point that anyone can use the various Linux desktops with no prior experience. I have a few relatives who have the Acer One w/ Linpus Linux and one who uses an EEE and two more who have Dell Mini’s and most wouldnt know software from hardware.
Oh yeah, I discovered Virtualbox on my Mandriva Linux which allows me to install XP as a guest OS so that my son can still play Chessmaster, dualbooting will soon be a thing of the future.
I live/work in a multi-OS environment and while I appreciate thenm all for what they bring to the table, free/free is the way to go.
The free software ideology (which refers to freedom and not cost, you can charge from ‘free software’ as long as you follow the license) and collaborational benefits of the GPL license seem to be producing stronger technologies with the benefit being that it is not released drop by drop to maximize sales. This free software mentality is close to what you will find in scientific communities where many benefit down the line from the works of their predecessors.
But free as in beer, as in gratis-you-dont-pay-a-cent, is even better.
Software that doesnt cost you a penny, that doesnt lock you in closed formats, that can prolong the usefulness of your old hardware and still be cutting edge with regular free updates cant be beat.
I dont need to tell you that the economy is not doing well and this is only the start. People are looking to cut their expenses everywhere and if you can do the same thing for free. Whenever I take the kdis to sports and the parents see the Mini 9 w/ eye candy and I tell them that its Linux, theyre surprised and somewhat curious. When I tell them they can have the same thing on their computers at home for free, their ears pick up the free part right away.
You should hear how quickly the kids parents in my sons grade 1 are using Open Office after I told a single mother of two that she doesnt have to buy Microsoft office for the kids and the one I have on my computer here called OpenOffice is free.
That money she saved will go to something else.
Mommies talk after school when they pick up the kids and this one mentioned that she saved a couple of hundred bucks (I told her about OO, FF3 and its extensions, VLC, AVGfree and a few others) to some other ones and a few asked me a few weeks later what the named of that ‘free Office’ i suggested was again.
Gaming is now a console thing and Im going to really have to find reasons to upgrade the desktop in a few years. And the Dell XPS and Macbook have seen the use drop by more than 50-60% since the Mini 9 and EEE1000 have arrived at our house with Linux in tow.
Boycott Novell » IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: March 12th, 2009 - Part 1
March 13th, 2009
at 3:59am
[...] http://www.lockergnome.com/theoracle/2…; “Ed Bott is doing his best over at ZDNet to spread the Microsoft religion, with the wonders of Windows 7 extolled nearly each day in a new and different way.” [...]
Topics about Religion » The Payola Didn’t Arrive on Time
April 4th, 2009
at 9:54am
[...] The Oracle added an interesting post on The Payola Didnââ [...]