Friday, February 29, 2008

Apple cheating ? I don't think they need to...

This post is different from all the other posts. It my first post trying to comment something I read on the web.

This morning Google Reader showed me what looked like an interesting post to me " Mac OS X Secretly Cripples Non-Apple Software ".
Would really Apple be willing to use such techniques ?
I am a Mac user, but I am mainly a Unix guy who switched to Mac because he decided to begin using his computer, rather than configuring it 7/24.
After my switch to Apple I began meeting and facing Apple users. At the beginning they were mainly with my history (linux -> mac os x), but at some point Apple zealot users overwhelmed coming-from-linux ones.
At that point I started to understand what does it mean to be "an Apple customer" and why long time Apple ones are so loyal to Apple.
Apple, with Mac OS X, really makes a computer usable.
Windows is too cold. You click just because you know you have to click, not because you really know what are you doing.
Linux is still too geeky. It was made by geeks for geeks and only lately someone thought it would be mandatory for it being made by geeks for users.
Mac OS X was and is designed for the casual user.
A cellphone is designed to be used by the casual user (and many geeks usually complain about that as they wanted to unlock their phone potential).
Apple's Mac OS X is what Linux should have been and will never be (as for now that's what I think).
But Mac OS X has always been chosen and used by a minority of people, every Apple user knew it and they were fine with it. But not Steve. Apple needed to make money.
And the switch to a real OS (let me use this expression, please) was mandatory.
Now Mac OS X has grown a lot, it's mature enough to compete in the OS battle.
It has kept the initial design of being usable, but coupled it with the old robustness of Unix.
You (linux user) will never understand what that means until you own a Mac. Believe me.
Now... would this company be willing to cripple third party software by hiding "turbo APIs" ?
They want to sell Macs. They want to appeal new Linux users (usually switchers from Windows) to their platform.
Would it be wise to play these tricky games while being under the fire of the Penguins and the snipers behind the Windows ?
I don't think so.
They are clear: we are a company, we need to make money. We play fair. We give what we can give (without risking to loose money, while keeping ours shareholders happy), but we keep what we think can help us make more money (by selling hardware, i.e. having unique, easy to use [actually FUN to use] software).
Thus I went on reading the original post (an interesting one) and figured out what the author itself better explained later in the post itself. And the answer is "no, Apple does not need to use those cheats".

To sum this up, I think that Linux users should switch to Apple is they are not geeks and people should stop playing the war of the OSes.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Farewell dear...

Today I was thinking...that I also should write something about what happened yesterday. So here it is.

You were my first and only Mac, dear.
You served me well for 6 years, dear.
You never missed a day, you never had a fault, dear.
You were always on and always available, dear.
You were the last, before you a DOS machine, a Win machine, a Windows machine, several Linux machines, dear.
You were the best of all, dear.
You were small and portable, dear.
You were light and strong, dear.
You followed me everywhere, on the plane, on the train, on the car, on foot, in the lab, in the office, on the sofa, in the bed, dear.
You were all of this and more, but one day.. it arrived.
But yet it was not the one.
It was willing to follow me everywhere, even in places were you could not, during those nights with my friends, in the kitchen with my girlfriend, in my pocket, at the vending machines...
It was lighter than you, but not stronger, but it became stronger later.
It was smaller than you and more portable.
It was not the best as it couldn't replace you in everything, but still could do almost everything you could have done.
It was the last, after you.
It was always on, like you, but even more available than you.
It is going to never miss a day, it will never have a fault.
It will serve me for the years to come.
It is my last Internet Tablet.
It can now even bring me where I need to go.
It is the Nokia N810 that replaced you my dear Apple Powerbook 12".
But I will never forget.

Farewell, dear.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Xournal port and the usual story

Today I was thinking...that damn!
Weeks have passed away and I still need to repackage Xournal to properly make use of existing libraries.
I gave it a shot last week and I can say I am half way to finishing the re-packaging.
Unfortunately (and that's the "usual story" part) I have things to get done before the end of this week.
If I am lucky with the current code (at work), I will finish and have spare time towards the end of the week.
If not.. most probably we will see the finished Xournal port (not anymore labeled "beta") by the end of the next week.

I plan to get integrated some usefult suggestions that I have got from the ITT forum.
Moreover I will try to upload the port onto the Maemo extras repository.

Thanks for your patience!