Month: November 2006

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Microsoft, Novell Reach Accord on Linux

“Microsoft Corp. reached a rapprochement with a major seller of the Linux operating system, a deal that makes a kind of peace between two opposing camps in the software industry. The deal with Novell Inc. is designed to make it easier for customers to use both Linux and Microsoft’s Windows software. […]

The deal effectively makes Microsoft a reseller of Suse Linux, Novell’s version of the operating system, and kicks off a broad technology collaboration between the two companies. At the heart of the deal is a ‘patent covenant’ under which Microsoft agreed not to file patent-infringement charges against users of Suse Linux, and Novell agreed not to sue users of Windows.”

WSJ via /.

Ohjelmistojätti Microsoft ryhtyy tukemaan Windowsin ja Linuxin rinnakkaiskäyttöä. Yhtiö on allekirjoittanut sopimuksen Linuxia jakelevan Novellin kanssa. […] Yhtiöt ryhtyvät myös kehittämään yhdessä käyttöjärjestelmien rinnakkaiskäyttöä helpottavia ohjelmistoratkaisuja. Lisäksi Microsoft ei perää patenttioikeuksiaan sellaisten ohjelmistoratkaisujen osalta, joista tullaan mahdollisesti liittämään Suse Linuxiin.

Yle24 via Juha

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Timed Shutdown (for Windows)

This program can be used to automatically shutdown, restart, log off, disconnect or hibernate your computer. There are four triggers that can be used: at a certain time, after a certain time, when the CPU usage goes down or when you get disconnected from the internet. This means that your computer doesn’t have to be on any longer [than] necessary.

Tinnes.org.uk

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Customizing toolbars in IE7

Via T. Schreiner: In order to bring the menu to the top, you need to adjust or set (if it isn’ there, which, by default, it isn’t) the following registry key to a DWORD value 1 (00000001): [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser].

Via enhanceIE.com (via jsalpha2): To make the search box disappear, you need to adjust or set [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\InfoDelivery\Restrictions] to a DWORD value 1 (00000001). For my SP2 level XP installation, all the keys from Microsoft\ onwards had to be created (i.e. the rest of the path wasn’t there by default).

As for the rest of it… well, apparently there’s just no way of removing or even moving the other buttons for favorites’ manipulation and so on. (Yes, I know that if you unlock the toolbar, you can push it to the side, but you can’t chop it off it’s position and move it to, say, the other side of the tab bar, let alone moving it vertically.)

Wait a minute, you need to tweak the registry in order to customize IE7 toolbars to your liking, and even then you don’t get all that you want?!

You’ve got to be kidding me.

The GUI customization in IE7 is a joke compared to… well, I guess pretty much any other modern browser. Thank goodness there are better alternatives. (I’ll skip the cliché of linking to Firefox or Opera her… d’oh!)

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The Sad State of Art

There’s been some interesting discussion over at ButtUgly (also cont’d at Dragon/kolibri) about copyright owner’s worries of how to make money in a digitalized world.

I’m a strong believer in the subscription model myself, but that doesn’t mean I’d exlude the (somewhat dreaded) advertising solution either. Unless we’ll see some third, perhaps yet completely unthought-of solution arise, I believe the future will be a mixture of the two models, somewhat like the Finnish television currently is in that we’ll have advertiser-paid “channels” providing content, and we’ll have ad-free “channels” providing different content on a paid subscription basis.

Although the tiny libertarian in me finds the current, somewhat wild west like situation very appealing, I feel that I’m a realist in thinking it will not last – not because of the opposition by the organizations vehemently defending their scarcity-based business models, but rather because of the higher level phenomenon they so much fear: that of scarcity disappearing due to digitalization, which is slowly but surely making their traditional business obsolete.

The fact that they’re willing to die defending doing what they’ve always done instead evolving is sad, not for their sakes but for practically everyone else’s; by dragging on and artificially prolonging the life of their soon-to-be entirely obsolete business they’re screwing the consumers, the cultural development, and most of all they’re screwing the people their business is originally built for: the content creators.

Ethically, there probably isn’t a worse time to be at the creative end of the chain than now, if you’re aware of what is happening around you with digitalization. Either you have to stick with the traditional distribution businesses and their channels, which is a sinking ship, or you are virtually on your own, trying to make money in an environment which is used to getting content for free, because the proper channels providing paid-for content haven’t been developed yet due to the bullheadedness of people who should have been busy doing so.