I read in a Slashdot post that Microsoft has reintroduced DRM on music that is purchased using its new MSN Mobile Music service. Apparently, the songs you buy are more expensive than songs on places such as Amazon or iTunes and they are locked to the phone you purchase them on, which means if you upgrade your phone, you lose the songs you purchased. All this at a time when everyone else is shedding the dreadful and cumbersome DRM. As usual, Microsoft is ridiculously out of touch with the rest of the world and reality. I don’t expect this attempt at a music store to work any better at all than any of their other attempts. They just can’t get it right because they lack the common sense and the market-reading capabilities that almost every single other company has.

I went to a party on Saturday night and one of the guys who was there brought his computer. It was a brand new MacBook and the first one I’ve seen since Apple came out with their new line of MacBook and MacBook Pros on October 14th. I got to talking with him about it and quickly realized he wasn’t just some guy that follows the trend or buys technology-related items because that’s what the guy next to him bought. He knew what he was talking about in terms of computers.

After talking with him for a while, he mentioned that he just made the switch to Mac and that his MacBook was the first Mac he has ever owned. He also mentioned that he’s worked for Dell for a while, but that he had had enough of the problems attributed to Windows, so he decided to opt for a Mac. Based one what he has experienced so far with his Mac, he said that he will never go back to Windows again after getting used to the Mac.

- Windows not finding the wireless connection my iPod Touch found despite wireless card being on
- Microsoft Word crashed when I clicked the Office Button
- Explorer crashed while shutting down
- Windows crashed while shutting down. Instead of just shutting down, it rebooted to check for solutions.

Since my PowerBook’s hard drive died, I have been forced to use Windows Vista Home Basic on a Dell Inspiron 1521 for the past week. It has been an absolute nightmare! In lieu of this, I’ve started keeping a running log of things that have gone wrong with Windows everyday. I will be making daily posts with lists of problems I encounter. Some of them are more entertaining than others, but most of them are stupid.

Here is the list for October 3, 2008:

- Wouldn’t boot. Had to restart twice.
- Clicked a bookmark and the titlebar of the window moved to the cursor instead of the browser going to the bookmark.
- Scroll down a webpage and it automatically comes back up.
- Explorer crashed and took all open program (iTunes & Pidgin) with it.
- Blue screen of death.
- Windows locked itself up trying to find a solution for the blue screen of death.
- Explorer crashed.
- Computer went to sleep, internet wouldn’t work afterwards. Had to restart.
- Trying to rename a file in Windows Explorer, but instead menus keep opening. (Alt-button is not a problem; closed the window and tried in a new window, same results).

I give up. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I decided to give Linux an honest try and I did. For most everyday needs, it’s fine. All of the software that one would need to perform most tasks on the computer is available for Linux and even better, most of it is free and open source. The problem is the niche software that I use. I have written about this problem before. It’s particularly Reason — the program I use to make most of my music. I have gotten a lot of great music creation software suggestions for Linux, but none of what I have been shown or have found on my own accord does what Reason does. For a while, I was using both Linux and Windows — Linux for most tasks and Windows for running Reason, but that got quite old quite fast and I found myself more and more just using Windows and not even bothering to boot into Linux again.

The other issue I’ve had with Ubuntu was a resolution issue that I can’t seem to find a solution for. I’ve consulted books and forums and neither have had a solution. Basically the problem I’m having is that it will only go to 1280×800 at 60 hertz. I need to run 1024×768 at 75 hertz which is the highest my (old) monitor will support. This means that every time I boot into Linux, everything is very distorted and I’ve noticed my monitor is not doing so well either. I’m able to change the resolution to 1024×768 at 60 hertz, but my monitor won’t display anything in that case.

I have also found myself being drawn more and more back to my PowerBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.11. I guess it wasn’t until I decided to venture out again into the world of Windows and even Linux that I realized how immune I had become to the problems both Windows and Linux are prone to having. While Linux is a much more viable option for stability and security, I have had issues with software and with the resolution. When it comes to Windows, I don’t think much explanation is necessary. It seems that almost everything I do is plagued with stability problems. I have even checked for hardware conflicts by stripping the hardware done to the absolute bare minimum needed to boot the computer, but to no avail. Because of that, it looks like I will be buying a new Mac laptop afterall.

I read an interesting article online that talks about the latest studies finding Firefox to be the safest browser available.

“Firefox users were far and away the most likely to use the latest version, with an overwhelming 83.3 percent running an updated browser on any given day. However, despite Firefox’s single click integrate auto-update functionality, 16.7 percent of Firefox users still continue access the Web with an outdated version of the browser, researchers said.

The study also revealed that the majority of Safari users (65.3) percent were likely to use the latest version of the browser between December 2007 and June 2008, after Safari version 3 became available.

Meanwhile, Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)’s Internet Explorer users ranked last in terms of safe browsing. Between January 2007 and June 2008, less than half of IE users — 47.6 percent — were running the most secure browser version during the same time period.”

The other day I was in the library at the university here in Germany and I used one of the university computers. I haven’t really used the computers at the university all that much, but when I have, I’ve always used Firefox since they have it installed on all of their computers and I prefer Firefox. Since I use a PowerPC-based Mac, I don’t have access to any version of Internet Explorer except for the woefully outdated version for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9. I therefore thought that while I was at the university, it would be a good time to check compatibility in Internet Explorer for several of my websites. I clicked on the dreadful little blue e in the quick launch bar and to my surprise, Internet Explorer opened and then immediately closed. I was quite confused for a second and decided to try again. I tried again and got the same result. That was certainly strange I thought, so I logged out and tried at a different computer — same result.

I was able to guess that the university had probably blocked the use of Internet Explorer on its computers, but I suppose I couldn’t really believe it. After all, it is a Microsoft product (there is supposed to be a hint of sarcasm there). So, I went and asked the guy working at the tech desk in the library if they had actually blocked it and to my pleasant surprise, he said they indeed had blocked it for safety purposes.

At my university in the United States, I don’t think this would happen — or at least I have never seen it happen. American universities seem to have a fixation for Microsoft products, whether it be Internet Explorer, Office or Outlook. The on-campus computers at my American university do not even have Firefox installed, much less block access to Internet Explorer.

Something else I have noticed about the computers at my German university is that they also use OpenOffice.org as their default office suite. While they do also have Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word is not the default application to open when you open a .doc file; Microsoft Excel is not the first to open when you click on a .xls; and Microsoft PowerPoint is not the first to open when you click on a .ppt file. Instead, they always open in OpenOffice.org by default. I find this to be quite comforting.

Using open source software seems to be an overall trend that is incredibly common here in Europe. In lectures, for example, you see students with their laptops and more often than not, they are browsing the web with Firefox and taking notes with OpenOffice.org. That applies to both Windows and Mac users. I have also noticed a lot more Linux users here than back home in the United States. A lot of the Linux users I have seen and talked to are not even the geeky, computer-whiz type (such as I) that Linux is generally associated with. They are just average users who might not even be able to distinguish the operating system from an application.

The popularity of open source software is a trend I hope will eventually carry over to the United States, although, realistically, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Unlike Europe, everything is far more commercialized in the United States and with that commercialization comes proprietary software that consumers will be willing to buy versus download their free, open source counterparts.

ZDNet UK has created a list of some of the most annoying software and why it’s so annoying. Some of the software on the list includes Microsoft Outlook, Adobe Reader and Real Player.

I would have to say that pretty much everything they say on there is true and is extremely annoying. You can see the full list, reasons and screenshots at ZDNet UK.

I know I’ve talked about this before, but I think I’m going to talk about it again.

As I’ve already explained in my Switching from a Mac post, I’m looking at giving up my Mac and buying a PC. My reasoning is best explained in the other post, however, the primary reason I am going with a PC instead of a Mac is because of the hardware. The hardware Apple ships with Macs is just too expensive for what you get in my opinion. The only plus side to buying a Mac is you get Mac OS X which I will say is definitely a superior operating system when compared to the likes of Windows.

I was considering using Windows and just dealing with it for quite a while. It would be easier considering I would easily be able to get software, it would run all of the software I need and it does all of the basics such as internet, e-mail, etc that I need to do. Then I read this article: “Microsoft confirms Windows adheres to broadcast flag“. Here’s a sample:

“‘Microsoft has put the requirements of broadcasters above what consumers want,’ said the EFF’s Danny O’Brien. ‘They’ve imposed restrictions way beyond what the law requires. Customers need to know who Microsoft is listening to and how that affects their equipment. Right now, the only way customers know what Microsoft has agreed to is when the technology they’ve bought suddenly stops working. Microsoft needs to come clean and tell its customers what deals it has made.’”

I know it’s not a big deal in the entire scheme of things and it’s not really this particular incident that turned me off of Windows so much all of a sudden either. It’s the fact that Microsoft continually screws its customers in favor of censorship or any form of hindrance to the user for large companies such as the broadcasting companies. This is no an isolated incident either. Look at how Microsoft so strongly supports DRM-protected music as just one example.

I have been considering using Linux for my day-to-day needs and only booting up into Windows when I have to use software that won’t run on Windows (such as Reason). I’ve decided I will probably experiment with this for quite some time before I decide on what to keep with. If I really like Linux, which I’m sure I will, I’ll probably stick with it. If not, then I guess I won’t. We’ll see.

Edit: I just read an Ars Technica article about Microsoft and the media companies. It’s an interesting read if you’re interested in it.

[digg=http://digg.com/apple/Switching_from_a_Mac]In technolgy news today it seems that all you hear about are high profile executives and long-time Windows programmers switching to Mac. You never seem to hear the stories about those who go from habitually using a Mac to Windows. The stories are just nowhere to be found. I, however, intend to change that with this post.

As some of you may already know, I have used a Mac for several years now. My first Mac was a 700 MHz iBook with 128 MB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.1. My current Mac is a 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 with 768 MB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.4 which is certainly not anything impressive. As such, I am in the market for a new laptop, however, this time I have opted to buy a PC running Windows (or Linux; see some of my earlier posts regarding Linux) instead of a Mac. Why though?

The first argument I would like to get out of the way is Windows itself. I do not need Windows or any particular application that will run on it and not the Mac. Everything I do and have been doing for work or personal reasons I have been able to do on the Mac without any problems. My primary reason for looking for a PC isn’t the software, but rather the hardware.

The fact of the matter is that Apple’s hardware selection is severely limited and quite expensive. While it does look great and runs fine, I just can’t find any more justification for buying a Mac on hardware dictated by Apple that is more expensive. When looking at laptops or even their all-in-ones, Apple severely limits what kind of video card I can have, the size of hard drive available, etc.

For now, I’m going to just talk about the laptops as that is what I am looking to purchase. As an example, Apple’s MacBook line of laptops only comes with a video card with 144 MB shared memory. The video card is important to me and while Apple does offer a couple of different customization options, the video card is not one of them. There is no other option unless you look at their MacBook Pro line which also comes with a serious price jump.

As a comparison, I have chosen to place Dell’s XPS laptop against Apple’s MacBook. Both are in the price range I am looking to spend on a new laptop ($1000-$1500) and both have similar offers. Below I have listed the specifications for the configuration of each laptop you can get for $1499. The specifications are taken from Apple’s and Dell’s websites.

Apple’s MacBook – $1499.00

• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• 2 GB memory
• 144 MB shared video memory
• 250 GB hard drive
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• Apple’s iSight webcam
• 13.3″ screen (max resolution of 1280 x 800)

Dell’s XPS laptop – $1499

• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• 4 GB memory
• 256 MB of dedicated video memory (NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT)
• 320 GB hard drive
• DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
• 2 MP webcam
• 15.4″ screen (max resolution of 1440 x 900)
• Finger print reader

For the same price, the Dell laptop has a much better value. Some of the key differences are that the Dell has almost double the video memory (and it’s dedicated too!), it has a much larger screen with a much higher maximum resolution, it has double the regular system memory, it has a much larger hard drive and it comes standard with a finger print reader. It seems to me that there is a large difference between the two.

Now I know what any Mac enthusiast might argue as I probably would have made the same arguments not too long ago myself. You don’t need a finger print reader. You don’t need all of that memory when you’re running a superior operating system such as Mac OS X that doesn’t consume as much memory as Windows. You don’t need the extra video memory. You don’t need a larger screen on a laptop because it makes it less mobile. You don’t need a bigger hard drive when a superior operating system like Mac OS X doesn’t take up a large portion of it. The quality of the iSight is better than any webcam Dell could put in their computers. And then of course, I can’t forget my favorite one which always serves as a “catch-all” for people Mac enthusiasts: Mac OS X is worth the extra expense!

I read back over the arguments and can’t believe I would have made them at any point in my life. First of all, from my own experience, I can say that Mac OS X DOES take up an enormous amount of memory a lot of the time. As my computer has gotten older and applications start to use more and more memory, I have taken on the habit of meticulously managing my memory usage. There are several occasions where I load up the Activity Monitor in Mac OS X and a Mac OS X process (or more than one) is consuming most or practically all of my memory.

Now we come to the video memory. That one is just a dumb argument to begin with as games and any graphics-heavy application require a certain amount of memory no matter what kind of operating system or hardware you are running. Logically, the more video memory you have the better these applications will run.

A larger screen is of course a matter of personal preference. My last two laptops, an Apple iBook and an Apple PowerBook, both had 12″ screens. To be quite honest, I am sick of having a tiny screen and want something much larger. The argument that a larger screen hampers the mobility of the laptop is true, however, mobility is not nearly as important to me at this point as a bigger screen is. One might argue I should just get a desktop then, but the problem with that is that mobility is still important to me; just not as important as a large screen.

We all know that Windows Vista is a hard drive hog so to speak. At a whopping 15 GB, it is an enormous operating system. Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) needs 9 GB of hard drive space. But even with a 15 GB operating system, that still doesn’t counter the gain in free hard drive space I would gain by going with the Dell instead of the MacBook.

Then of course we have the webcam and the finger print reader. The iSight might be better quality than that of Dell’s XPS webcam, I don’t know as I have no experience with webcams. And as I don’t intend to really use it, it doesn’t matter to me. Then we have the finger print reader which is just plain cool!

Now for my favorite argument: Mac OS X is worth the expense! No, it is not! While the operating system might not be plagued with viruses, malware and other forms of annoyances like Windows is, it is not worth the extra expense nor the nuisance of not being able to go down to the local computer shop or even Walmart to buy software.

While I still believe Apple does offer a quality product in both hardware and software forms, I don’t think that this “Apple tax” is something I care to continue paying for a computer of lesser ability. Mac OS X’s market share continues to grow, but I believe Apple’s practice of imposing their “Apple tax” on their hardware is either going to have to change or they will have to distribute a version of Mac OS X with an OEM license to other hardware makers such as Dell or HP. Otherwise their market share is going to hit a roof that they won’t be able to get around.