Tag: Vista

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FSF: Microsoft’s Windows 7 Deadly Sins

No! It is not FFS. It’s FSF. It stands for Free Software Foundation.

It’s “Free” as in Liberty, noat as in free beer.

As much as I believe that there are a lot of Hippies out there involved in the Free Software Foundation, I still wonder why I’m making this very statement.

Let’s get to the main story. As I read an RSS item from Slashdot (lots of Hippies are frequenting this site), one really caught my short attention span. Well because it is on the top of the RSS feed and the only unread items at that moment. I was previously offended by the troll-behavior of Microsoft P.R. team (Paul Thurrott, Ed Bott and  Mary Jo Foley with the addition of Randall C. Kennedy) as described by Tom Reetsman. By the way, Reetsman (via The Small Wave) just posted his take on Thurrott’s rants against anything that is not Microsoft; specifically Apple. Well, at least Thurrott has one loyal supporter (an accomplice *cough*) defending everything Thurrot said and attacking the non-Microsoft company (namely Apple in this article).

Oh where was I? I told you my attention span was short.

Free Software Foundation, Inc. has created a site titled “Windows 7 Sins – The case against Microsoft and proprietary software.”
http://windows7sins.org/

Don’t worry Apple haters, they mentioned “proprietary software.” Apple does make proprietary software, therefore guilty by association. I bet that Thurrott is trying hard to make himself look neutral by attacking other companies that make “proprietary softwares.” We all know that Thurrott lives off Microsoft’s business model.

I prefer to slack than copying and pasting the arguments brought up by FSF. I get the message, but I do not blindly agree to every single point they make. I do take advantage of many things the Open Source Community have to offer in the past and present. I am pretty sure that it will be a similar situation in the future. I do also believe that propriety was born out of necessity. I don’t mind proprietary software as long as we have other alternatives. I’m pretty sure that  Google has some kind of proprietary software. I still use Google as my main search engine; Microsoft can Bing themselves.

OK, I opted not to slack as much by echoing FSF’s argument points:

  1. Poisoning education
  2. Invading privacy
  3. Monopoly behavior
  4. Lock-in
  5. Abusing standards
  6. Enforcing Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)
  7. Threatening user security

If you feel compelled to say that there are other companies also guilty of the sins, then feel free to tell FSF about it.

To loosely quote MacBreak Weekly panel, Apple and Steve Jobs would be worse than Microsoft if they had the monopoly.

Well, I definitely need to get some sleep, no wonder this turns into a rant.

P.S. EFF – I just feel like saying it at this moment.

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Anticipating Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7.

I am currently running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard build 10A432 on my 15-inch MacBook Pro Core Duo. I also have just received Windows 7 RTM a few days ago.

At a glance, both Operating Systems are completely functional and ready for release despite of some of the promised features missing on the current builds. There’s no biggie because those features are not as critical as I thought they would be.

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Now, a lot of people are talking about the possibility of Snow Leopard ship date to be August 28th, 2009. That’s only a few days away from the time-stamp of this post. Apple still says that Snow Leopard will ship sometimes in September 2009. We will all find out if the August 28th date is just a pure speculation. In the meantime, you can still order Snow Leopard direct from Apple and your favorite retailers.

To get Snow Leopard direct from Apple:

To get Snow Leopard from Amazon.com

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Windows 7 is scheduled to be released on October 22nd, 2009. There are plethora of Windows 7 retail packages you can get. For informational purpose Amazon.com links are used to list available retail versions of Windows 7 SKU’s.

I’ll write more about the Windows 7 RTM if time permits.

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Disclaimer:

If you bought anything through Amazon link above, and I get some kickbacks.

“If you buy Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Windows 7, I can buy this Canon Vixia HV40 HDV Camcorder or the Canon Vixia HFS100” to paraphrase the great Robert Schimmel.

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Firefox 3.5.2, Firefox 3.0.13 and GarageBand 5.1.

New updates for Firefox and GarageBand.

Firefox 3.5

FireFox 3.5.2 and Firefox 3.0.13 are released to address some security issues.

For a list of changes and more information, please review the Firefox 3.5.2 Release Notes and the Firefox 3.0.13 Release Notes.

Must update now……

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GarageBand App

Apple releases GarageBand 5.1 update to address several issues:

GarageBand 5.1 | 139.29MB

This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and fixes a number of other minor issues. The issues addressed include:

  • GarageBand track effects and Audio Units can now be added to a guitar track
  • Improved support for Apogee audio interfaces
  • Faster switching to full screen in Magic GarageBand
  • Improved access to audio monitoring settings

This update is recommended for all users of GarageBand ’09

GarageBand ’09 is a part of iLife ’09 suite that requires Mac OS X Leopard.

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Apple Releases SMS Fix Through iPhone Software 3.0.1.

Less than 24 hours after the demonstration of SMS Hack at Black Hat Technical Security Conference, Apple releases iPhone OS 3.0.1 with the promised fix. Apple was notified of the security flaw six weeks before the demonstrations of the flaw. Apple iPhone is not the only platform vulnerable to this exploit. Android and Windows Mobile platforms are also vulnerable.

iPhone OS 3.0.1 carries the build number 7A400.

iPhone_301_sms_fix

iPhone1,1_3.0.1_7A400_Restore.ipsw 240.4 MB
iPhone1,2_3.0.1_7A400_Restore.ipsw 241.3 MB
iPhone2,1_3.0.1_7A400_Restore.ipsw 312.3 MB