Blogging Ottinger (tim)

I got the computer that will be my wife’s laptop in a rush because I need VisualStudio.NET for a class next week. Sadly, I find that VisualStudio 2005 and its installer have incompatibility problems with Vista. Great. My whole reason for spending money from savings now instead of after four or five more months of saving up, and it’s going to be a time-consuming ordeal.

The first VS.NET installer work-around is in progress now, where I have to copy the installer disks to my local drive (2nd disk first) and run it from there. In vista, the installer won’t run from the CD drive.

The first major annoyance with windows Vista is that everything confronts you with an EULA acceptance screen, and all the license agreements are monstrous tomes. The idea of all my software uses being hedged in by lawsuits is a little troubling. I’m not sure what I’ve agreed to, and I don’t know how I’ll ensure that all my family uses the software in strict compliance. Does that make your skin crawl?

Second disk copied. Copying the first. I’m grateful for xcopy still being a windows feature. It’s been a long time since I have had to use backslashes for command lines. It works fine, though.

The second annoyance is that the Vista UI is clunky, in that the things you want to do are usually a few cascading menus away. If it weren’t for Win-R/cmd it would have been far worse.

The mouse controls won’t put enough acceleration on my touchpad, so I have to make multiple swipes to get from one corner (say the start button) to the other (say the close X button on a full-screen program). It takes three left-to-right swipes to move a half-screen window from the left side of the screen to the right, regardless of mouse speed. Likewise, it takes two swipes to get from starting a program to the “Cancel or Continue” dialog’s “ok” button. Maybe inconvenience is the new usability. When you have to do a lot of seeking and clicking, this touchpad sensitivity limit is not your best friend. That might be my computer more & driver and not Vista. Is it like that for everyone?

Another windows annoyance is the reboots. Not only do you have to do them often when installing software, but they take forever to complete. I have much faster times from all-the-way off to fully-logged in on my Linux machines including my laptop. I never have to reboot unless I upgrade the kernel. I suspect vista doesn’t really draw a distinction, or perhaps it’s because open files can’t be moved, renamed, or deleted in Vista.

Ah, first disk is copied now. Starting the installer.

People say Vista is pretty, but I can haver nicer compositing and better UI choices and tweaks with Beryl. Or to Mac OS/X. Vista has only one real look-and-feel choice. You can tweak colors and some trivial settings, and that’s about it. I can’t even change the location of window buttons to get the X away from the minimize/maximize buttons. It’s Vista’s computer, I just live here.

The desktop comes pre-cluttered with third party icons. All these trial offer icons need deleted. I also need to get rid of the IE and Outlook buttons. I don’t want to invite all the web’s viruses into my wife’s machines. It’s Firefox and Thunderbird for us.

It troubles me that windows doesn’t respect my browser choice like Linux does. When I set firefox as my default in Ubuntu, everything starts firefox for web browsing. In windows I set firefox as the default, and Microsoft programs still launch the internet exploder. Another reminder that Vista owns this box, not me.

The lack of a package manager is a real problem. Every software title you might want, you must first find online, and then download and run the author’s installer. Chasing down all my software seems a waste of time. Of course, each program you run, including installers, has a permit or deny dialog, and may also have a “Cancel or Continue” dialog later on. I’m going to have to find out when there are updates, and then I’m going to have to repeat this process. Debian APT will fetch upgrades for all your software. It’s a single command, can be done with a GUI, and (in Ubuntu) is done periodically by the “update manager”. Not just your operating system… your compilers and office software and games and database servers… the whole shebang.

Oh, look, only one desktop. How quaint. How do you windows manage with all their running programs cluttered up in one screen? I immediately download VirtuaWin, but I can’t install it because another installer is running. In Debian Linux I can likewise only run one copy of APT at one time, but I don’t notice so much because it can install all my apps at once. Here I can do one at a time, and only one installer at a time. This will take a while.

Everything is downloaded to the desktop by default. I guess that’s almost convenient, but the desktop (as I mentioned) is cluttered to begin with. I’ll have to delete all the installers once I get the software loaded.

The two advantages so far are 1) that we were able to reformat my wifes iPod to use vfat, so we can load songs and podcasts from our Linux machines, and 2) that (after web searches and incompatibility work-arounds) I was able to finally install my copy of Visual Studio 2005.

So far the only thing I like about vista is that I can use programs whose authors decided to support *only* windows. Linux people get used to proprietary developers ignoring them, and tend to work-around problems (or wait for some other open-source group to work around it for them), that’s the only thing I *don’t* like about Linux.

Ah. Now I need to download patches to try to solve the incompatibility problem for VisualStudio.NET 2005. I download the patch for vista first, and it dies saying that the program it’s looking for is not installed. I later download it again and it works (for about 1/2 an hour it keeps working and working… followed by a reboot). Oh, but then it didn’t really work. After the reboot, I’m told to get and run the patch again.

I’ve spent the whole morning trying to install visual studio on vista. I installed Mono and MonoDevelop and some additional tools in Ubuntu Linux, and it maybe took me 4 minutes. And I never had to reboot. Three or four hours with Vista and I’m not even installing Resharper yet. Sigh. I was really hoping to work through some of the examples my colleague will be leading Monday using the Visual Studio environment. I guess I better not plan on sleeping much tonight.

BTW: after I got done giving permissions for it to run, reshaper installed very quickly.

Another service pack. “A program needs your permission to continue.” Sigh. I’m twenty minutes into the service pack and still waiting for it to finish.

Okay, it looks like I can run my applications. It’s now 2:00 in the afternoon, and I started before 9:00. I took a break for a sandwich and 1/2 hour to go get my rental car, but otherwise its been all sitting here on the laptop, swapping disks, searching the web for work-arounds, blogging, and waiting for things to finish.

Enough angst for one day. But basically if you want to know what it’s like for a Linux or Mac guy to run vista, it’s easy: tape two fingers of your left hand together, put a sock over your right, randomly remove or disable 1/2 your programs, ad then try to do some work. It’s a lot like that.

According to an Ars Technica report and a similar report at ZDNetit is now legal under the EULA to run windows in a virtual machine. You can now stop hiding your parallels-equipped MacBookPro and your many VirtualBox Linux machines.

Come into the open and breathe freely again. They’re no longer gunning for you. They’ve decided that they will let you own you machine if you’ll just continue to be a customer.

My friends doing OS work tell me that virtual machines like VirtualBox are the best thing that’s happened to computing in a long time.

Part 2 of the Linux Foundation’s interview with Linus Torvalds has some nice sound bites about patents.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is trying to stop a particularly nasty move in the senate. The Patent Reform Act of 2007 includes among its odious bits some legislation that prevents third parties from examining and busting invalid patents. Like the one on clicking a link, or the one on writing loops in code, or any of the millions that have prior art and are obvious. If mad patents cannot be attacked by third-parties, then we as programmers will become increasingly afraid to code as all obvious mechanisms become covered by patents and we will have to pay for defense from mad lawsuits.

As with all legislation, this act has good parts and bad parts. I’m not totally against all that it does, but the harmful bits are ugly.

We need to get some money into the EFF right now.

We are unapologetically a Linux-only household. That is generally a very good thing. I don’t have a lot of the troubles that Windows households have, and I get a lot of powerful software for no cost whatsoever. I would happily accept a new Mac into the fold, but have intentionally stayed away from Windows for about seven years. My kids have grown up with free software. This only causes problems when people don’t realize that there are non-windows households. Sometimes people expect us to have the latest version of Word and Excel (we never will, we use OpenOffice.org . Someone might try to give us windows software, or winPrinters, or winScanners, or winModems or similar nonsense. We can at least give them away and make other people happy though.

The latest reminder of this difference is that my music-loving son was given an iTunes gift card. It’s pretty thoughtful, because he’s always carrying around his CDs, and an MP3-capable CD player. We typically will rip a CD and burn an MP3-CD with the music so that he doesn’t have to carry around dozens of CDs to have dozens of hours of music. He has an iPod, but likes his CD player better (going against the cultural flow is apparently a family value). He loves a lot of styles of music, and would keep the soundtrack going 24/7 if he could.

However, the card is not useful to us because we don’t have a Mac, nor a Windows PC. We can try to get the windows iTunes working under Wine, but he’s not going to be able to burn the music to a CD in wine or transcode it to mp3 or ogg. Nor will we spend a few hundred dollars to buy Windows so he can use a free gift card . If we installed itunes with wine, the music would have to live on the shared family desktop machine, where it can be played when there’s nothing else going on. It’s not portable, and it’s not convenient.

Also, my son and I both signed a petition saying that we would not intentionally buy DRM “enriched” music. We’ve stayed true to that, so he isn’t interested in breaking his word even with the gift of iTunes music.

My thought is that he should probably thank the giver, then sell the gift card to a buddy and spend the money it brings on whatever he wants. Even if he sells it under face value, it is still a gift and he has money he did not have before. Ah, if only it were eMusic or Magnatune, maybe an online vender like CdConnection or Borders or Amazon, it would be fine. Likewise, it would be fine if it were to a brick-n-mortar store like Target (where we do a lot of business) or Starbucks or a even a more cash-like gift card rom MasterCard, Visa, etc. The problem is that iTunes is iTunes, and you need windows and mac.

It was kind to give a gift of music to a music lover, and a good idea to let the very eclectic gift-receiver make his own choices. The real issue is that the iTunes store is dealing in DRM-polluted music, and only certain platforms and devices can play it. If it were free of DRM (like emusic and magnatune) we would have the freedom to download, play, and even convert audio formats. The gift-giver just didn’t realize that the whole world is not populated by Windows and Mac users. It was simply a matter of not understanding our computing setup, which reflects the philosophy we live in a practical way.

PS: He agreed that the correct thing to do is to sell the card to someone who feels differently about DRM and has Windows or Mac at home.

When is copying piracy and when is it fair use? See the Recut/Reframe/Recycle article and the attached report for information on Fair Use.

I saw something Kent said in a mailing list, and wanted to put it here for reference (and because my friends would appreciate it).

When secrets are easy to keep, keeping secrets is a power position. When
secrets are hard to keep (as they increasingly are), keeping secrets becomes
a position of weakness–you never know when someone is going to reveal what
you have been hiding. When secrets have a short half-life, transparency
becomes the power position […]

This is something that has a strong resonance with things I have learned. I have nothing to add to this.

This came to me in response to a different posting, but I thought I’d put it here.:

So, although I’ve read many of your articles I do have to wonder: what is your stance on Christianity and commercialism?

I believe (though I believe many other interpretations are possible) that the Bible does not - in any way - forbid charging for product. (I know, I know, that the Bible describes our Lord chastising the temple hawkers, but this does NOT mean that capitalism is BAD.)

So I’m genuinely interested in your stance: what’s so bad about paying for Windows?

There is so much to this. Some of it is my Christian stance, some of it is practical or pragmatic, some of it is purely emotional. There is more “me” in this than maybe you will like.

On commercialism:

• There is nothing wrong with a Christian also being a businessperson. He should be a certain kind of business person, but can be successful in a commercial setting. The trick is that he should do business ethically at every turn, and should choose his partners carefully. I would disrespect a “Christian business” that had partners in organized crime, pornography, or other questionable areas. Realize that the success of the business is not an indicator of God’s approval, nor is the failure of the business a sign of wrath. Businesses succeed and fail for lots of silly reasons.
• If you use Windows, you should pay for it. I’m not into “robin hood” advocacy, or the “they deserved it” defense. I am not against paying the price of the things you use, but I do have concerns. Those will follow.
• I have definite feelings about commercialism in the church. Simony is an offense that bothers me a lot, and so is the act of trading on your church membership to make more money. Likewise I despise the whole “revival in a box” thinking that includes the “certified Purpose-Driven” thing. The Church is not a marketplace (hence the moneychangers).
• It bothers me when the church is run as a commercial business, measuring their success not by spiritual but commercial indicators such as attendance, buildings, cash, and pastoral salaries. These are not how Christ did things, and while they are not wrong neither are they the indication of God’s favor. A large church that loves and serves the Kingdom is the same as a small church the loves and serves the Kingdom. Selfishness is the problem, not the answer. We aren’t selling something, aren’t trying to beat out the competition, and aren’t trying to be successful in order to win the world’s praise. We have a different mission.

Now as to the whole windows in the church thing, I have a few problems with it.

• Opportunity cost/Stewardship: is it the best use of tithes and offering to buy windows and windows software (including Office and even software development tools) ? Would OpenOffice and Linux or BSD suffice, saving the money for more important needs? Remember that churches exist on whatever money the congregation deems to give, and they always want to see it put to use in helping others and spreading the good news. Microsoft products require more and more hardware and provide less and less performance. The “upgrade treadmill” makes them very successful, but what makes them successful is not what makes us successful. I’m not sure that the yearly cost for for hardware and software upgrades is our best choice.
• Reputation: Is Microsoft the kind of business you want as a partner? Do they have the ethical background? In my view, they do not have the kind of history that we should support. Bill is getting better all the time, but Microsoft seems to me to be a scofflaw and a poor citizen in many ways. I’d feel better if we used something else. Note that in the list of “fruits of the spirit”, we don’t see “commercial success”. While MS success is awesome, it is not in itself a virtue nor does it make the means of success virtuous.
• High Maintenance Agreements: Microsoft licensing has difficult rules and requirements. If a church is to use Microsoft software, then they should abide by all the terms of the agreement (just as they should abide by all the terms of any other contract they enter into). Have you read the agreement? If you run Windows, you really need to be sure all your uses are carefully policed. Other operating systems have very simple terms requiring very little monitoring and freely granting the right to copy and modify the software. You should look at a comparison of the MS EULA and the GPL. You should also be vigilant and read what various astute detractors have said about the little surprises lurking in the EULA.
• Practical issues: Windows doesn’t work very well. It’s well-known that a typical windows PC will slow down to a crawl in 6-9 months after purchase. There are tricks one can use to keep it running well (mostly involving buying more and more software, increasing the cost-per-cpu), but it just “runs down” over time. Some windows experts even recommend wiping out and re-imaging your system every 1-to-2 years. My best windows boxes worked because I eliminated (as much as possible) all IE and Outlook and used only third party (open source) browser and email apps. I messed with the virtual memory settings to get a fixed-size page file. I added commercial anti-virus, firewall, and adware management. I got a third-party disk defrag. I downloaded memory defraggers, uninstallers, registry defraggers and cleaners, and other performance-managing software. I limited the software that could be loaded. If we only ran the browser, email, and some accounting, and we kept up on all the upgrades, and ran the performance tools often enough, and had constant watch on vulnerabilities, we didn’t see much degradation in performance in the course of two years (after which I converted the box to Debian rather than stay on the upgrade treadmill). If you have to shore it up with so much additional software, is it really a good operating system?
• Ease and freedom of installation: Microsoft doesn’t provide anything like the Debian apt repository, where you can pull in tens of thousands of software titles with a simple gui (or command line) front-end, complete with dependency management and automated upgrades for the whole box.
• Freedom to copy: If I copy Windows onto a second computer (even on my kids’ computers or in the childrens ministry area), I am a criminal. If I copy linux or BSD, then I’m legally and ethically entitled to do so. I don’t have to police the EULA, I don’t have to send money to anyone (though I can if I like).

So my basic premise is that if you can in any way choose not to use microsoft, then it makes sense not to use Microsoft for your church. If you do use windows, you should certainly buy or download all the software it takes to control it and you must be sure that you understand your EULA and live in compliance with it, and you simply must ensure that you are legally entitled to all the use you make of it. Use microsoft products most scrupulously and with my blessing, but don’t get sloppy about it and risk a loss in a BSA audit, and don’t leave yourself open to bot nets and the like. Be very, very careful.

Oh, and beware. Recent licenses include a clause that you will not work around any shortcoming in the product. If it doesn’t work, you will simply deal with it. That seems a little crazy to me, but you can make your own decision.

<sarcasm>It’s a good thing these guys were stopped before a passer-by heard it, liked it, and decided to buy the album!</sarcasm>

This is nuts. Radio is broadcast, and anyone with a receiver can listen. If you let someone else listen when you are playing your radio, it’s an offense?

Wait. Does that mean the RIAA can shut down all those cars that pull up next to you and play their radio on 10 with a kicker? Does it count if it’s a CD or MP3? I guess that’s the upside.

OTOH, what if someone evesdrops on my radio listening? Does it make me a criminal? I was right, this is nuts.

Fist Fula Yen has this great quote from Ian Rogers of Yahoo!Music, on the subject of DRM getting in the way:

Inconvenient experiences don’t have Web-scale potential, and platforms which monetize the gigantic scale of the Web is the only way to compete with the control you’ve lost, the only way to reclaim value in the music industry. If your consultants are telling you anything else, they are wrong.

And later:

Want radio? No problem. Click play, get radio. Want video? Awesome. Click play, get video. Want a track on-demand? Oh have we got a deal for you! If you’re on Windows XP or Vista, and you’re in North America, just download this 20MB application, go through these seven install screens, reboot your computer, go through these five setup screens, these six credit card screens, give us $160 dollars and POW! Now you can hear that song you wanted to hear…if you’re still with us. Yahoo! didn’t want to go through all these steps. The licensing dictated it.

There you have it.

The online tracking for FedEx should really have reduced the number of calls they receive from eager consumers. On the other hand, it really does make their system a lot more transparent. I know know how much latency there was between when my order info was received from them, and when the order was picked up. I also know how long it was from the time it was picked up until it left the local FedEx warehouse. I can see when it left the “origin” and how long it’s been somewhere on the road. It almost makes me more antsy. I know it’s coming, I can see it’s a few steps on the journey. I know it’s an express package, and I’m eager to see it. I wish it were faster. I want to push somehow. OTOH, I know that there’s more to logistics than just driving one package from NH to IL.

I think about Agile software development and feel the same way. We have so much more visibility. The customer sees how long it takes to make the software, and they see it in progress. Thankfully, they can have their hands on it once per iteration, and can have corrections immediately. It’s brave to expose so much information (way to go FedEx) and it increases expectations. It has that coercive immediacy that makes you want to do what you can to push things along.

I wonder how many other businesses will open up their business to scrutiny, maybe putting more process information on the web. What if we could see the local grocery or department store’s inventory levels? What if we could watch our banks working? What if our plumber or yard tech updated their schedule automagically through the wireless internet? Would be be more patient or less? How much scrutiny would be reasonable? How much would improve our relationships with customers, how much would ruin them?

It looks like the RIAA wants to shutdown all the advertisement that they can. They’ve tried to fix it so people don’t do mixtapes, are prevented from “unauthorized loaning”, are being prevented from playing music from friends, but apparently sales haven’t decreased enough yet.

Now they want radio stations to stop playing their music. This latest move will give radio stations reasons to move off-label for their content. Radio stations make hits, and that’s a well known factoid. People buy the songs they hear on the radio, or at least buy music from artists they hear on the radio. This is why the whole payola thing started. I guess instead of the stations paying the DJs, they want it the other way round.

It sounds like cannibalism to me, like they’re cutting off every form of sales-generating advertising possible. I guess it really is more about control than money.