Compiz vs Aero Snap, Round 2, Fight!

Now that we've seen tiling is nothing new to any operating system, let's take a look at how it's implemented.

Windows 7 gives you some good options to manage tiling. The default is the Aero Snap, which let's you manage two windows by dragging them to the screen edges. The limit to this is that it only allows you to manage two Windows at a time. What happens if you want to tile three or more windows?

You can always just snap additonal windows, and leave them stacked on top of each other. It hides the Windows in the background, but it is a simple matter to alt+tab to bring the window you want to the foreground.

Microsoft left in most of the tiling manager from XP. If you right click on the dock (I mean taskbar) you can tile and cascade all open windows. It gives you the option of tiling them vertically (windows are side by side) or horizontally (stacked on top of each other.) Microsoft, for whatever reason, left out the grid option. (With three or more windows this option displays windows in a pre-arranged grid.)

If you want to tile specific windows, you have to resort to manually grabbing them and using Aero snap, or opening the task manager and ctrl+clicking the applications you want to tile.

Here's a video:



Ubuntu with Compiz gives us three different tiling options. The default is the grid plugin.

The grid divides the screen into 8 regions. By default it uses the numeric keypad to manage windows along that grid. You place the foreground window in a corresponsing location by hitting ctl+alt+ numpad key. For instance, if I want a screen to tile horizontally across the top of the screen, I hit ctrl+alt+num8. The window takes up the top half of the screen. If I select another window and hit ctrl+alt+num2 it will tile across the bottom half of the screen. 4 and 6 do the same for left and right. 7, 9, 1, and 3 will reduce the windows to squares and place them in the corresponding corners.

An added feature to grid is that each area has three levels of tiling. Re-entering the hotkey sequence toggles through resizing the window to occupy 1/3, 1/2, and 2/3 of the screen.

Here's an explanation of how to bind it to the mouse:



Here's a video of the main function, the explanation starts at 1:43:



The next option for tiling is the Maximumize plugin. This plugin is a bit more fluid than grid. It allows you to control which direction a window expands or contracts in. By default windows are controlled through hot keys. The primary hotkey is super+m. It will cause the selected window to expand in all directions until it encounters another window or fills the screen. There are options to expand only vertically, only horizontally, only up, only down, only left, and only right. There are corresponding minimizing options as well.

Here's a video:


The final option is the the tiling plugin. It maps traditional tiling to hotkeys, and will tile all open windows simultaneously. It has hotkeys for using the grid, tiling vertically, tiling horizontally, and cascading windows.

Here's a video:

Hi. I'm *nix, and Windows 7 was my idea.

There's an old saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul. In this case, the windowing manager is the window of the OS's soul. After gazing longingly into the eyes of Unix and Linux's window managers, Microsoft has incorporated some fun eye-candy into it's latest operating system.

First up is the Aero Snap effect. This is Microsoft's implementation of tiling for Windows 7. Tiling is nothing new. It's merely resizing windows so that they can be displayed side by side, either vertically or horizontally. It is also possible to cascade windows, so that they are neatly stacked one ontop of another. Old school users will remember that PARC's Star (the GUI copied by Apple, which was copied by Microsoft) was the first tiling window manager. That was in 1980.

What Microsoft does is apply a little flair to the tiling.

Here's Microsoft's commercial:



And here's another demo:



You'll notice that the Windows have a slight 3d effect to them, and there's a nice transparency effect. The interface has been simplified a bit. It has been combined with keyboard shortcuts (windows key + left/right/up), as well as the use of screen edges. (More on screen edges later.) All in all, it's a nice update to an old feature. These features were in beta in 2008.

Now let's take a look at what Linux was doing in 2005 and 2006:



This video is from May of 2006. The user is showing off several Compiz features, including tiling and scaling.





Here's a more specific example. Seems a little familiar? Here, the user is demonstrating tiling in the Beryl compositing window manager. Beryl is a fork (an off-shoot) of the Compiz project started by Novell back in 2004. They released Compiz as an open-source project back in January 2006. Novell's spin on tiling included some transparency, some very nice 3D effects, customizable keyboard shortcuts, you get the picture.

Love your neighbor.

Anne Rice, who ten years ago famously rejoined Christianity, has recently renounced Christianity, in the name of Christ. This was done on her Facebook after a series of postings about things rather notorious "Evangelical Christian" groups have done; most notably Westbrook Baptist Church, famous for protesting soldiers and declaring that God hates people.

Ann's Facebook Page



While the Westbrook group is extreme, and most Christians would argue that they are off base by declaring that "God hates the world and all it's people," there is a tremendous amount of antipathy and hostility coming from America's pulpits. A lot of it is directed towards the homosexual community, and towards the "liberals". This stems from Evangelical Christianity's focus on "holiness" and "righteousness".



There is an idea among Evangelical Christians that they must obey the moral laws laid down in the Bible, and that failure to do so equates to damnation. This is coupled with the idea that God is actively punishing people and nations for failure to adhere to the moral laws laid out in scripture. I believe that these ideas are off base, and are missing a larger point.



In the books of Romans and Galatians, the apostle Paul spends quite a bit of time re-emphasizing one point in various ways. It is this, no one is able to obey all of God's moral laws because we are all broken in some way, God knows this, and he has provided a means of help. To put a more modern spin on it 1.) everyone has issues, and everyone has done things they shouldn't have. That is human nature. 2.) Actions have consequences, and sometimes the consequences are harsh. At the same time, everyone needs forgiveness, and everyone needs help dealing with life. God gets this and provides mediation and forgiveness through Christ. 3.) No one is perfect, but the goal is to become better. The idea is to be kind, loving, and patient with each other and to each other. God provides an example and help to this end through Christ and through his Spirit.


Anne further goes on to say that:

"It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group."

She continues to say that she refuses to be anti-gay, anti-Democrat, anti-feminist, etc. In a video interview, she says that she has struggled with how much Christianity backs away from the teachings of love and forgiveness for others, and sites several examples. Her over-arching argument is that the teachings of Christ emphasize loving others, and she doesn't see that in Christianity. She makes the argument that, historically, you see quite the opposite in Christianity. Sadly, this is true.

I think that a lot of Christian leadership has gotten caught up in what it thinks are the pressing moral issues of the day, and entirely misses the point. It then becomes a matter of fighting with society over moral issues, or fighting with other Christians over doctrinal positions.

The pressing moral and doctrinal issue of any day is to love people. Christ taught, that of all God's moral laws two were most important. They were these: 1.) Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. 2.) Love your neighbor just as you love yourself.

When Christ taught about the judgment of God, he didn't speak about what rules people broke. He spoke about judging people based on how they treated others.


Matthew 25:31-40

31)"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32.)All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33.) He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.


34.) "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35.) For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36.) I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'


37.) "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38.) When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39.) When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'


40.) "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'


What we can take from this, from the two great commandments, and from the famous Sermon on the Mount is rather simple:

How you treat others is how you treat God.

"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

How you let others treat you is how you let others treat God.

How you treat yourself is how you treat God.

"Love your neighbor as yourself."

It changes things when you consider that God considers everyone you deal with, Christian or not, a representative of himself, and that he judges us based on how we treat him/them. It changes how you treat people in traffic. It changes how you treat your spouse. It changes how you treat your children. It changes how you treat strangers. It requires you to be more thoughtful and deliberate in your dealings with others. It also requires you to be more deliberate in how you live your daily life.

For example, when a Christ follower is dealing with people who don't believe in Christ, God's judgment would be something like: "My immortal soul was in danger, and I needed someone to show me who Christ is and what He's all about, and you did that for me." (or the scary/bad ending) "And you didn't do that for me."

or

"I was dealing with a rough patch in life, and I needed someone to walk with me through that and you did" or "and you didn't do that for me."

or

"I was struggling with issues of sexual orientation and you told me you disagreed with the lifestyle, but remained a compassionate and loyal friend", or "you held protests against me, ostracized me, and told me I was going to hell."

It's really hard to hold the moral high ground when you understand that God doesn't judge you based on how well you obey moral laws; but judges based on whether you accept the forgiveness he offers, and on how well you treat those around you.


Sources:

Galatians 2:11-21

11When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

14When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

15"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

17"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. 19For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"[d]





Matthew 5:44-48


43)"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor[h] and hate your enemy.' 44.)But I tell you: Love your enemies[i] and pray for those who persecute you, 45.) that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46.) If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47.) And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48.) Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.


Matthew 25:31-40

31)"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32.)All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33.) He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34.) "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35.) For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36.) I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37.) "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38.) When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39.) When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40.) "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'


1 John 4:7-21

7) Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8) Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9) This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son[b] into the world that we might live through him. 10)This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[c] our sins. 11) Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12) No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13) We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14) And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15) If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16)And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17) In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18) There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19) We love because he first loved us. 20) If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21) And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.


Romans 7:7-25

Romans 7:7-25 (New International Version)

Struggling With Sin
7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."[a] 8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

11For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[b] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.


The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Luke 10:25-37

25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

26"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'[c]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[d]"

28"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

30In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

36"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

37The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

I'm OS X, and Windows 7 was my idea.

In this series we are taking a look at the ideas Microsoft copied from other operating systems. This is pretty standard procedure for Microsoft, and with Windows 7 it is safe to say they've mostly gotten it right. Linux and OS X can be proud of their love-child.

We will start by taking a look at some of the new features in the GUI. First up is the Taskbar, aka “Not a Dock.”

There's an old saying: If it looks like a Dock:



(OS X 10.0 Cheetah, released in 2001. Notice the transparent dock with large icons that runs the length of the screen. This was standard until 2007's OS X 10.5 Leopard.)



(OS X 10.5 Leopard 2D dock, released in 2007. Notice the transparent dock with large icons that runs the length of the screen. )



(Windows 7, released in 2009. Notice the transparent “taskbar that is not a dock” with large icons that runs the length of the screen.)

and Acts like a Dock:

(Descriptions from Apple and Microsoft's official websites:)

http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/dock-and-finder.html

• The Dock at the bottom of the screen gives you quick access to your most frequently used applications, files, and folders


• To add a new application or folder, just grab it from the Finder and move it onto the Dock.


• Removing and rearranging items is simple: Click and drag.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/better-stronger-faster-the-windows-7-taskbar

• It’s that familiar horizontal strip at the bottom of your desktop where your open files and programs appear... When you first start using Windows 7, each of your open programs appears as an individual unlabeled button. Looks neat and tidy, doesn’t it?


• ...with Windows 7, you can also pin programs anywhere on the taskbar. By pinning a program to the taskbar, it’s always right there in front of you so you can open it with a single click


• Now you can rearrange them in the order you want by clicking and dragging.

It's probably a dock.

Despite protestations to the contrary, the new Windows 7 taskbar is essentially Microsoft's rendition of the OS X dock. As you can see, Apple has been using a Dock since 2001. It used to look a lot like the W7 taskbar currently does, and it still does if you run it in 2D mode. Apple's current Dock has been in use since 2007. They have removed and added a number of features over the years. It currently serves as an application launcher, allows you to dock various applications you use frequently, hosts the running applications and open windows, and has context sensitive menus for the docked items.

Sound familiar? That is almost exactly how MS describe the W7 Dock, I mean taskbar.

Windows integrates many of its Window management tools directly into the dock, I mean taskbar. It's preview system, called Aero Peek, groups similar applications under one icon, shows thumbnails of those applications above the taskbar, and will provide a magnified view of each thumbnail if you hover over it.



The W7 Peek is supposed to be an advancement of the Aero Peek from Vista. It's a logical next step to let users interact with the preview windows. You can close windows, and you can hover the mouse over an open thumbnail to get a larger preview.

The taskbar also allows the use of context sensitive menus, called jumplists, for many applications. Microsoft demos how well the jump-lists work for their applications, i.e. IE (I had to), Word, Power Point, etc. What they don't show you is that it doesn't work well with many 3rd party apps, such as Firefox. You have to install additional software (called winfox) to get the jump-lists to work properly for FireFox.

Again, this is similar in concept to what OS X has been doing for years. The execution has a different look, and places more emphasis on management from the taskbar.

The Mac's preview system is spread out over two features called Expose' and Quicklooks. Expose will show small versions of all open windows and applications when you move the mouse into a predesignated corner, or hit the Expose' hotkey. Users can click on the previews to open them. It can also hide all windows and provide immediate access to the desktop. Users can also interact with the preview windows. You can copy and paste from them, close them, and rearrange them.



(This is the premiere of Expose for OSX Panther back in 2003. Around 2:16 Jobs describes the Expose feature that lets you view only the open windows for a particular application.)


Expose hasn't changed much. Apple has added a few refinements that allow for more control directly from the dock:



(Look for this feature in Windows 8.)

Quicklooks is a preview system that works in conjunction with Finder. (Windows Explorer is similar to Finder.) It provides large previews of files, allowing users to read files and even navigate through documents in a moderately sized preview window.



And then there's the "new" contextualized menus called "jumplists". Here's OS X's contextualized menu:




Here's Windows 7's jumplists:



I'm OS X, and Windows 7 was my idea.

iMock part 3 iMitation

iMock part 3

The Mac look for cheap.

Now that I have vented my mockery of the Mac I will leave off on the series with iMitation. Despite it's flaws, and ridiculous costs, Macs are very visually appealing. A quick check of youtube will reveal a host of instructions for making Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Ubuntu look like a Mac. Basically you throw up some wall paper and install rocketdock, AWN, or Cairodock. You then move your task bar to the top of the screen and you're set. The effect isn't quite perfect in Windows, but it works well.

If you want the exact look of the Mac, the best bet is to convert Ubuntu Linux. There's a simple install called Mac4Lin. You download it from sourceforge, run the script, and change the background. Installing a dock involves a simple trip to launchpad for a ppa, or a few easy entries in the terminal.

Here's some videos:

Windows:



Ubuntu:





You get the Mac look for the PC price. Save yourself some money, or buy one PC for yourself, and two more for some friends.

iMock part 2

It's time for iMock 2.0. In iMock 1.0 I mocked the Mac's price. Here, I mock the Mac's problems, and I bust the myth that they don't have any.

According to Apple's ads, you don't get the same problems on a Mac that you do on a PC. They name crashes, viruses, and "a ton of headaches"




Let's start with crashes.

You will recall from a previous blog entry that I explained how hard drives work. (What! You haven't read my previous posts! Blasphemy!) To recap, hard drives are a series of fragile, magnetic platters spinning at high speeds (around 7200 rpm.) Data is written to and read from hard drives by a magnetic read/write head that is not supposed to touch the platters. When you walk around with your laptop or Macbook powered on it creates instability in the platter spin and will eventually result in the platters touching the heads. This is when your computer crashes.

Apple purports that it's line of computers are the indestructible kings of computers. I believe this tends to make Mac users careless, and more likely to walk around using them. This results in hard drive crashes.

Now let's talk about headaches.

Apple, like many PC manufacturers, was using Nvidia cards for their integrated graphics cards back from 2007 through 2009. Every major manufacturer, including Apple, was caught by surprise when Nvidia shipped factory loads of defective cards. Here's some links:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377 Apple gets hit and has to recall a ton of products.

HP has the same problem.

Dell gets hit, but refuses to recall or repair the effected systems.

Sony gets hit too!
Sony Support


Pretty much everyone that used the Nvidia GeForce 8000 series got hosed there. Apple wasn't immune. And if you think having a system that won't boot because the graphics card fried isn't a headache, you never figured out where the on button was on your Macbook.

There are whole websites run by Mac users devoted to complaining about defective Apple products. Here's a few:

appledefects.com

briancometa.com

Here's Apple's official recall page:

Apple exchange/repair


Not to mention that iPods and iPhones can turn into grenades.

The only truth to the ad is that Macs don't get viruses. There may be one recorded virus for the Mac, and it requires user stupidity to work.

On the other hand, Macs are extremely vulnerable to hacking. There is an annual competition for hackers called Pwn2Own, held by CanSecWest. They offer a series of computers as prizes for hackers, as well as a cash reward. Basically the first person or team to hack a device gets to keep it. Apple's computers are always the first to fall, and always get hacked within a matter of minutes.

Hacker commentary:

Why Safari?  Why didn’t you go after IE or Safari?
“It’s really simple. Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit.  The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs don’t do.  Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You don’t have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations you’d find in Windows.
It’s more about the operating system than the (target) program.  Firefox on Mac is pretty easy too.  The underlying OS doesn’t have anti-exploit stuff built into it.” --Charlie Miller, hacker.

Reports of hacks:
Mac falls in 2007

Mac falls in 2008

Mac falls in 2009

Mac falls in 2010.

So there you have it. Mac's crash. Mac's have faulty hardware. Mac's have recalls. Mac's are easy to hack and exploit. And Mac's have sites run by Mac users to complain about Mac's. Let's call this myth busted.

iMock

In the last week at work I've run across five people who have spent a ridiculous amount of money on Macs, when a PC would have worked just as well. Of these five people, only one has a job that requires the use of software and utilities that Macs are famous for (namely video editing, graphic design, and music production.) This person promptly installed the Adobe Suite and enrolled in classes to learn how to use it. One person spent $1400 replacing the mobo after they spilled water in their MacBook Pro. A third of the group bought a Mac, and then bought and installed Windows 7 and MS Office 07 on it. The rest bought Macs because they thought they were cool, and would have less problems than a PC. These people make me facepalm, hard. This leads to my first ever Mac Mock session, also called the iMock.

For starters, it is a well known and publicized fact that Apple is charging a ridiculous amount for the same hardware PC's use. I will illustrate. I checked out Dell's site, and Apples site to customize two notebooks. (Here's some links so you can play along at home. Apple, Dell)

I'm doing a price comparison of a base unit and a customized unit. I customized the units to the same specs. I did not include any additional software.

The base specs are:

Intel Core i5 430M 2.26GHZ
4GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM
Stock harddrive drive
15" display

The Macbook Pro's 15" specs for the Intel Core i5 2.26GHz processor are as follows:

Intel Core i5 430M 2.2GHZ
4GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM
OSX
500GB SATA drive
#1 year hardware warranty, 90 day phone support

They're starting price: $2,199.00

When I customize it, I added some Ram and increased the warranty (which is all you really need here.)

The specs are as follows:

Intel Core i5 430M 2.2GHZ
8GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM
OSX
500GB SATA drive
3 year Accidental Damage Protection

Price: $2948.00


Now for the Dell.

Starting Specs:

Intel Core i5 430M 2.26GHZ
4GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM
Windows 7 64-bit
320GB SATA drive
2 year basic warranty (includes hardware and phone support(probably from India))

Starting price: $729.00

When I customize it, I add 4GB or RAM, increase the HDD to 500GB, and add a 3 year Advanced warranty.

Specs:

Intel Core i5 430M 2.26GHZ
8GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM
Windows 7 64-bit
500GB SATA drive
3 year ADP with Lojack & in home service

price:
$1318.00


That's right. The base unit of the MacBook Pro costs $1470.00 more than the base unit of the Dell Studio 15. You get 180GB more on the harddrive, and a year less on the warranty. You could buy three, that's right THREE, Dell Studio 15 notebooks for the price of One MacBook Pro. Keep in mind, these systems are running the same basic hardware. The main difference is going to be the case and the OS.

When the units are customized the price gap closes a bit. The customized MacBook Pro costs $1630 more than the customized Dell. However, you could only buy 2 Dell Studio 15's for the price of the 8GB MacBook Pro.

The customized MacBook includes Apple's AppleCare Protection Plan. This provides 3 years of basic hardware warranty and phone support. It does not cover drops, spills, power surges, or things generally considered "Accidental Damage."

The customized Dell Studio 15 includes a 3 year Advanced Warranty, which includes hardware, phone support, and accidental damage protection. That means if you spill water in it, you won't have to spend $600.00 to $1,400.00 to replace the motherboard.

All in all, Mac's are way too expensive for what you get. Yes, they are pretty. Yes, there are some great innovations (many of which MS copied in Windows 7, like the dock and Expose.) But in the end, you can get the same results with a stock PC. I hate to admit it, but the Windows commercials were right.

Microsoft wants to check your computer to see if you're a Pirate!

Now that the "Obligatory Inflammatory Title" is out of the way, let's get down to business.

Microsoft is launching an upgrade to its Windows Activation Technology (WAT) as a part of Windows Updates. For those who don't know; WAT is basically a re-branding of Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) made fun and famous in Windows XP and Vista for locking users out of their systems.

The WGA works by recording your hardware driver configuration at activation, pairing that with your activation key, and then reporting that to Microsoft. The software periodically checks your drivers against the saved configuration to make sure your OS hasn't somehow been installed on someone else's computer. If you update your drivers from the manufacturer's sources, you run the risk of the WGA being fooled into thinking that you are using a different computer with your OS. The problem is compounded if you flash your BIOS.

WAT functions in much the same way, with the added feature of scanning the system for 70 or so known Activation Hacks. The new upgrade will have Windows 7 check in with servers at Microsoft every 90 days to run validation rather than just doing it locally.

Unfortunately for many users, the manufacturer will push out automatic driver updates as a means of improving hardware functionality. These updates will often conflict with the MS driver updates that also get pushed out automatically. The net result is that there are a lot of users whom Microsoft has locked out of their computers (and essentially accused of being software pirates) just because they are installing driver updates from the manufacturer. Installing a new processor, video card, and sound card can very easily trigger WGA lockout. It remains to be seen if it will trigger WAT pestering.
Driver Issue

In Vista, users would get stuck in Reduced Functionality Mode. They would essentially be able to use the Internet for half an hour. The first page your browser would open to is the “buy a license key from Microsoft” page. After half an hour, bye-bye Internet.

In Windows 7, Microsoft reports that WAT will not reduce functionality, but it will pester users. It changes the background to a plain background, and will produce dialogue boxes that notify the user that they are using a non-genuine copy of Windows 7. This is a significant improvement over the Reduced Functionality Mode from Vista, but it's still irritating.
Windows Team Blog


Granted this didn't happen to everyone who updated their drivers, but Microsoft reports that between 2005 and 2007 roughly 22, 800,000 people were victims of WGA false-positives. (MS reported that 144 million systems failed the WGA test. MS estimates that 20% , or 22.8 million, of those failed due to issues other than piracy, such as the driver update problem described above.
Microsoft's Piracy Stats

That's more than the population of Australia. (21.8 million people in 2008.) It's also more than the populations of the Netherlands (16.4 million), Cambodia (14.7 million), Greece (11.2 million), Portugal (10.6 million), Sweden (9.2 million), Austria (8.3 million), Switzerland (7.6 million), Israel (7.3 million), Denmark (5.5 million), Norway (4.7 million), and Ireland (4.4 million).
Population Data

It can be argued that Microsoft is a victim of their own success. Microsoft has an install base of 500 million or more users. That's more than the combined populations of the US (304,060.000) and Japan (127,704,000) ; total (431,764,000). Every decision this company makes has global ramifications.
USA and Japan

More Pop. Data

Even More

In this case, their decision is that your computer must prove to them that you haven't pirated their software. While Microsoft does have the right and, the obligation to it's stockholders, to protect their product from theft, I do not believe they have the right to enter anyone's home without their consent and rifle through their things. People would be up in arms if a private company sent a person to their homes and rifled through their stuff every three months with the express purpose of checking the legitimacy of their material belongings. Why is it any different with their software?

Imagine if car companies did this. Your local dealer would send a repo man every three months and check your VIN numbers against the make and model of your car, and verify that against the customer information they have on file. If you make custom modifications to your car (the same way people upgrade their computer hardware), the repo man insists that you've attached the VIN to a different vehicle, and insists that you now pay to re-license the VIN with the new car. You have to argue with them, and prove to them that you are the legitimate owner and that this is the original vehicle to avoid paying anything.

Let's say that this car has a failure of some sort, and you need to install a replacement part. You know how to fix it, or you have a friend who can fix it for much less than the dealership. He doesn't use branded dealership parts, but uses a functional part from a junk yard for much less. (This is similar to the way computer techs will have to repair some users' computers, because nobody makes their frickin' recovery disks, or keeps track of them over the lifetime of their computer.) The dealership's repo man visits and checks the installed parts against the records and discovers a non-licensed part has been installed. They then take your vehicle away, or insist that you make payments on a second vehicle, or pay a small fee to re-license the VIN with the new parts. Again, you have to argue with them, and prove to them that you are the legitimate owner and that this is the original vehicle to avoid paying anything.

That would never fly. We would pull out the 4th Amendment, local trespassing laws, local breaking and entering laws (and in Texas, guns) and run the bastards off. We would say, “You need a warrant to search my stuff, and to get a warrant you have to have some proof that I'm a thief. You can't assume I'm a thief and check to see if I'm not.”

US Constitution, Bill of Rights, 4th Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Law.com
trespass

n. entering another person's property without permission of the owner or his/her agent and without lawful authority (like that given to a health inspector) and causing any damage, no matter how slight. Any interference with the owner's (or a legal tenant's) use of the property is a sufficient showing of damage and is a civil wrong (tort) sufficient to form the basis for a lawsuit against the trespasser by the owner or a tenant using the property. Trespass includes erecting a fence on another's property or a roof which overhangs a neighbor's property, swinging the boom of a crane with loads of building materials over another's property, or dumping debris on another's real estate. In addition to damages, a court may grant an injunction prohibiting any further continuing, repeated or permanent trespass. Trespass for an illegal purpose is a crime.

breaking and entering

n. 1) the criminal act of entering a residence or other enclosed property through the slightest amount of force (even pushing open a door), without authorization. If there is intent to commit a crime, this is burglary. If there is no such intent, the breaking and entering alone is probably at least illegal trespass, which is a misdemeanor crime. 2) the criminal charge for the above.

This is why Microsoft is making a big deal about announcing the change in advance, and making sure that it is voluntary. (Installing the update means you agree to invite them in to check out your computer.) Otherwise there could be grounds for charges of electronic breaking and entering or, at the very least, trespassing.
Trespass
more
Breaking and Entering
More

The Underlying Problem

So why do we allow companies do to this with software? I think it's for two primary reasons:

1.)Most people have no idea what is happening with their computers. They have no idea what Digital Rights Management is, nor do they have any idea what Product Activation entails. Many people have no idea what right-clicking is (it's the other button, no the one you haven't pressed, there's only two buttons!!!), let alone how to examine the registry. Their ignorance means knowledgeable people and companies can easily manipulate them.

2.)Companies have found a way to be unobtrusive with their intrusion. People have no real clue that someone is watching what they do with what they bought until something goes wrong and they can't use it anymore. They have no idea that, for all intents and purpose, companies are spying on them in their own homes. We would never let car dealerships get away with it, because we have a basic understanding of cars. We let software companies do it because Americans don't understand computers.

Companies such as Microsoft make a lot of noise about software pirates, but they seem to be very blasé about corporations trampling on citizens' right to privacy. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 gave sweeping powers to corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights, while at the same time stripping US citizens of broad privacy rights and seriously hampering the development of the sciences of cryptography and cryptanalysis.

The DMCA makes it illegal to develop/distribute technology that by-passes digital rights management technology. Most DRM relies upon some form of cryptography. It essentially makes it illegal to write software that hacks or by-passes encryption. That gets really interesting when it comes to military applications, since a lot of cyber-defense involves breaking enemy encryption. It's essentially illegal to develop the technology we need to defend our country in the digital age.

This flies in the face of the constitutionally stated purpose of copyright and patent laws:

US Constitution Article 1 Section 8 line 1&8:

“The Congress shall have power to... promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries”
Constitution

In 2001, a Russian doctoral student was arrested for presenting his findings on security flaws in Adobe's eReader. Dmitry

In 2008, MIT students were sued by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for presenting their findings on security flaws in the MBTA security network that would have allowed hackers to ride the subway system for free.
MIT Students

No one stopped to think that these students could have kept the information quiet, or published it anonymously and let the MBTA loose a lot of money. Instead, they presented their findings in a public forum, essentially airing a grievance with a computer security risk that effected tax-payers. If there had been a physical hole that people were using to slip onto subway trains, they would have been lauded as heroes for protecting citizens' safety and saving the city money. Since it was an electronic hole, their thanks was a lawsuit.

The American people have gone along with corporate revisions of copyright law and circumventing citizen's right to privacy because corporations are very good at selling ideas to people. They describe wanting to protect cherished American icons like Mickey Mouse and Superman from people who would use them to make strange Disney porn. (Disney did this themselves anyway. Disney They vilify college kids wanting to listen to cheap music, and nerds who want to practice their art. America is not listening to the nerds warning them about this because nerds are horrible at talking to regular people. Throw a hot girl into a room of nerds and they can't get out a coherent equation, let alone a sentence.

Hacking is viewed as a form of warfare. The US military has formed the US Cyber Command to defend it's network infrastructure from hostile foreign hackers (I did not mention China's alleged attempt to hack the US power grid.) Militaries around the world are following suit.
US Cyber Command

The weapons for this type of combat are not guns or martial arts, but computers, routers, operating systems, packet sniffers, cryptography, cryptanalysis, and a broad array of technical skills. Taking away the average citizen's right to learn how to hack through the guise of copyright protection, is like taking away the right to carry firearms or learn martial arts in order to help the government protect the military from us.

Companies are ultimately, and perhaps unintentionally, making it illegal for people to know how to defend themselves, and to develop the technology needed to defend themselves. The problem with this is the same problem you run into to taking away guns from law-abiding citizens. The bad guys wind up with all the guns, and the good guys get victimized. Black hat hackers, and aggressive nations will always find ways to circumvent DRM, and the DCMA won't give them a second's pause. These laws stop university students from developing skills and technology that our military and our industries will need. They punish legitimate owners of various software products, while software pirates go about their merry way. They invade American homes, and strip away our privacy for the sake of profits.

Remember, your personal information is a valuable commodity. There are companies that make their entire living from selling your information to third parties. These third parties then spam you with advertisements in the hopes that you will buy their products, or they sell it to other parties. It's not surprising, then, that you hear the CEOs of major technology companies pronouncing things like:

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google to CNBC reporter.

“You have zero privacy anyway, get over it.” -Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems

Eric Schmidt, hypocritically enough, has a problem with the shoe being on the other foot. He refused to allow anyone at Google to talk to Cnet.com reporters for a year, after they ran an article showing how much of his personal information they could get from a Google search.
slashdot
Cnet Ban
Cnet Ban

And all of this is happening in the legal realm. God only knows what malicious scammers and identity thieves are doing with your personal information. Privacy laws exist to protect the average citizen from malicious individuals. They also exist as a check against our Democracy slipping into Fascism.

Columnist Bruce Schneier wrote a brilliant article about the value of privacy in response to recent corporate statements.
The Eternal Value of Privacy

Another element of Fascism is a combination of corporate and government rule. Select corporations are given broad freedoms and de facto monopolies, while private citizens and other companies are prevented from competing. This ultimately leads to corporations running the government.

The Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998 extended copyright to 95 years, or life of the author plus 70 years. This is renewable as well. The DMCA criminalized some copyright infringement. The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 criminalized even more instances of copyright infringement, and specifies prison sentences for something that was a civil matter for over 200 years of American history.
copyright
FMCA
copyright law

And let's not forget the indoctrination of children. The RIAA, the music industries legal help, has put together an “educational program” to teach America's school children that violating intellectual property rights is wrong. Schools are given badly needed funds in exchange for teaching the material to children. The packet includes a pledge form for children to sign and send in.
RIAA Curriculum

Solutions

As I've said before, companies do have the right and the obligation to protect their investments, but not at the expense of American civil liberties and constitutional rights. Many of these companies are operating on antiquated business models, and are trying to control consumer behavior rather than adapting to the new economic climate. An entire generation has grown up on-line, where freedom of information, sharing, and sampling are the cultural norms. These sentiments combine with a good-old American idea of ownership. If we pay for a product, we feel we should own it and be able to do whatever we want to with it (including share it with out friends.) We don't mind paying for what we use; we just don't want to be told what we can and can't do with it once we buy it.

Some companies are adapting. Apple Inc, for instance, removed all DRM from music sold through it's iTunes store. Wal-Mart followed suit shortly thereafter. Some big record labels followed suit as well. Still, theres a long way to go. A Google search of “Apple drm” will show that while they are open with music, they are quick to sue to maintain control in other arenas.

Microsoft details how DRM is built into their Media Player, how it is used, how end-users can use it, and why it's there. They are in the midst of a four year old hack war with an anonymous person or group known as Viodentia. Viodentia is producing and updating a utility to by-pass Windows Media DRM.
WMDRM

This goes to show, you can't stop hackers and pirates. They will find ways around the walls. Fighting them by stripping away civil liberties and rights just hurts innocent by-standers. It makes products difficult to use, and it makes corporations look like greedy monsters. This will invariably put Americans on the side of the underdog pirate who's fighting the corporate giant. “Sticking it to the Man,” is a part of the American cultural identity. If you want happy and loyal customers, don't be “the Man.”

So where do companies go from here? According to Microsoft's research, 20% of computers running Windows fail it's anti-piracy check. How do they protect their investment from profit-loss due to piracy?

It starts with a shift in thinking. Hacking and file-sharing can't be stopped without depriving future generations of the freedom to learn, and depriving our country of necessary technical resources and personnel.

One option is to stop pursuing the hackers as enemies, and embrace them as security testers. Offer rewards for teams that can hack the company's encryption and then offer workable solutions to improve it. This will bring around many of the hobbyist hackers. It also pits them against each other, rather than uniting them against “The Man.”

Provide cheap options that allow people do to what they want with what they buy. We teach kids that sharing is a virtuous thing. It is only natural that kids want to share music and movies with their friends, and it makes no sense for a multi-billion dollar conglomerate to send it's lawyers with a bill for $15,000 per mp3 after 12 year-olds. See here, and here here. Again, DRM free music has proven to be a viable business model. Apple is making a killing, having sold over $8.4 billion songs for about $1.00 each. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails made $75,000 in three days offering DRM free music in various packages and at various price points, ranging from free to $300. Reznor

Provide additional features for validated copies of software, rather than locking customers out if they can't validate. Some DRM schemes completely lock customers out of playing games if they can't validate against the DRM server. That means you can't play a standalone, one player game, if you don't connect to the Internet. That's ludicrous. If you reward people for being honest, they like you better. Additionally, you can sell add-ons to your product and get a better return on investment since it costs less to produce additional content with the tools you've already developed. Ubisoft Snafu

Do better market research, and aim your products at customers who will pay. Two, little known, but high selling games of 2008 sold to specific markets, and offered games that were DRM free. The company, Stardock, worked on a small development budget ($1 million) and sold to a specific audience. Their two offerings for 2008 shipped nearly half a million units, and made eight figures. (Half a million units at $15 a piece is $75million. If you can't make it on $75million for a year's work, you're doing something wrong.) Ignore Pirates

Microsoft could easily adopt a combination of these proposed solutions. 80% of their user base are verified by them as legitimate users. That means most of the world's computer users are paying them. By their own reports they are making between $4 billion and $6 billion each year from operating systems sales alone. They make an additional $7billion to $9 billion from MS Office sales. This is in addition to servers, licenses, tech support, ad revenue, and a host of other services, which combined bring in about $51 billion a year. They don't really need to focus on chasing down pirates, and they are in the best position to offer incentives to hackers to help fix security problems in their software.
MSFT
Chart of the Day