via a post from Leslie M. Orchard, I discovered the following, which to me is a pure, simple, and obvious sign that the end soon cometh:

Welcome to ajaxOS!

ajaxOS at the Desktop Linux Summit

This week we had the pleasure of unveiling a sneak preview of ajaxOS to the attendees of the 2006 Desktop Linux Summit. To see Michael Robertson’s presentation on his vision for the future of computing and to see a demo of ajaxOS, click here.

What’s killing me about this is not just the use of the term “ajax”, but the following list of “features” at the top of this page:

ajaxOS is a Linspire-based operating system with some revolutionary new features to support the adoption of web-based software. Some of the cool new things you can expect to see on ajaxOS include:

Automatic launch of AJAX software when clicking on a supported filetype.

Ability to save files to virtual storage.

Ability to navigate through a file browser to the files uploaded to virtual storage as well those on your local computer.

“To see Michael Robertson’s presentation on his vision for the future of computing and to see a demo of ajaxOS, click > here <“???

Don’t you mean here?

Microsoft has made two big product name announcements in the last couple of days:

• Monad (formerly the Microsoft Shell or Management Shell) has been renamed to Windows PowerShell. I, personally, am disappointed; Monad is a great name (grade-school sound substitutions aside) and had a decently geeky pedigree to interest folks who aren’t normally willing to look at innovations coming out of Redmond. I’ve personally been able to get at least two of my friends to look more closely at it (and ultimately pronounce it a “Cool Idea!”) just because they couldn’t believe that a Microsoft product would be named for something that esoteric. At the same time, it was sufficiently unique that it could be easily turned into a visible and valuable brand by a group with as much marketing muscle as Microsoft. Ah, well.
• Perhaps less surprising given the recent Office 2007 announcement, Exchange 12 is now officially http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2006/04/25/426300.aspx. Personally, I was hoping for something a bit snazzier, like Windows PowerMessaging Server 2007, built on Windows PowerShell technology.

A little late on this one (released about 36 hours ago), but none-the-less, I haven’t seen any announcements from any of the other O’Reilly bloggers, so I guess I’m not all that late to the game….

IEBlog : Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 (and more) Available

This evening we released IE7 Beta 2 at http://www.microsoft.com/ie. This release is not the preview or the update to the preview, but the real Beta 2 of IE7 for Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows XP 64-bit Edition. Simply: please try it.

We acted on a lot of the feedback and bug reports from the previous public releases. In particular, I feel good about changes we made based on reports from web developers around some CSS behaviors, application compatibility feedback, reliability data (yes, we do analyze the information that comes when you click “Send Error Report”), and user experience feedback. People on the team will post additional details about changes over the next few days.

Once installed, I will run the Acid2 test and provide screen shots as an update to this post.

Update: In respect to the fact that the IE7&RSS teams at MS are working their tail-ends off trying to keep dozens of groups of folks, all with EXTREMELY diverse desires/needs for the upcoming final release of IE7, satisfied with the result I’m going to break the knee caps of my Acid2 test reports for each new beta and beta-preview release between now and the time the final version ships.

Why?

The March Nielsen//NetRatings are out, and the numbers for MSN Search are so dismal, Microsoft should consider giving it up. Google’s share of the search market grew from 47 to 49 percent, while MSN Search dived from 14 to 11 percent. Yahoo finished at 22 percent, up about a point.

McNealy steps down at Sun | CNET News.com

McNealy, who will remain as chairman, was one of four co-founders of Sun 24 years ago and has been CEO for the last 22 of those. Since then, he has been a strong and often contrarian voice for change in the computing industry, but in recent years his vision hasn’t translated into financial success.

Haven’t even read the article any further than this… When I have, and if it seems appropriate, I may add a few more words. But I can say this… There comes a point in the history of many historical companies, (historical in the sense that they no longer exist in todays marketplace) when the leader of a company had to make a decision to either let go of control, or ultimately, let go of the company he once lead, but is now — historically speaking — in the history books.

Good for you Big Boss.

Those are words I had once promised myself I would never use. The reasons for this are no longer valid and therefore nothing to expound upon. Ever. It takes a Big Man to make Big Boss-like decisions in which are unselfish, focused on what he knows is the best thing that he (or she in cases where this is appropriate) can do to ensure the next generation of his company can push forward into new territories, continuing to build upon the dreams and the passion and the blood, sweat, and tears of its founders, carrying this forward into a new company with the same name, the same passion, yet this time using their own blood, their own sweat and a whole lot of grateful tears to the man who was big enough to step aside and allow a new Sparc to ignite the fire, and fan the flames of a brand new Sun that is now glowing brighter than ever, yet at the core, will always be the same as it has from the very beginning of its existence.

Welcome Jonathan. You have the shoes of what I now believe to be a very Big Boss to fill.

Fill them well, would you?

Thanks. :)

Techworld.com - Linux experts query uber-desktop

Linux vendors are set to back a new desktop standard, but observers question whether it can really end the problems caused by the diversity of Gnome and KDE.

More than a dozen technology companies, including IBM, Red Hat and Novell will support a desktop Linux standard, included in the newest version of the long standing server specification, Linux Standard Base, and intended to help developers write applications for both the main Linux desktops.

This could make things interesting, although much like the Mac, winning over users to an official GNU/Linux desktop has a lot more to do with support for desktop applications than it does anything else. Still, this is REALLY cool to this effort taking place… It’s needed and I don’t necessarily believe that the GNU/Linux communities as a whole are all that concerned with winning over the hearts of Windows users, and instead with providing a choice.

Good for them! By definition we need choices to be enabled to choose… keeps the “competition” competing, and results in better products because of it.

Something to keep an eye on for sure!

Widgets, BitTorrent, content blocking: Introducing Opera 9 Beta

Widgets, BitTorrent, content blocking: Introducing Opera 9 Beta
Oslo, Norway - April 20, 2006

Opera Software today announced the first public Beta of Opera 9. This version includes Widgets, small Web programs running in their own windows that are fun, easy-to-use and live on users’ desktops. The Opera 9 Beta also features support for BitTorrent, a popular file downloading technology, in addition to an easy-to-use content blocker and thumbnail previews of tabbed sites.

I didn’t used to be, but I’m now a BIG FAN of Opera. Similar to Fx (my other favorite browser ;) Opera run’s across
ALL major platforms and does so REALLY well. The widget engine flat out rocks, there’s a vast community of skin developers and as such available skins to choose from (which doesn’t require a restart of the browser to take hold… very nice for sampling new skins on the fly without the need for Yet Another Sequence of Menu Clicks to go back to your previous skin if it turns out you dislike the chosen skin), there’s support for XML processing via XSLT and XPath (1.0), a kick-butt built-in communication engine (similar to Mozilla’s SeaMonkey, but better), etc… etc… etc..

If you haven’t already, this is VERY worth your time to check out….

Update: MonkeyT (love the nickname! :) has showcased both class and style, while at the same time bringing an EXTREMELY well thought through counter-viewpoint/argument (not the bad, angry kind of argument, but the good “this person knows where they’re talking about” kind) to this matter. While I continue to stand behind the notion that theres more to these numbers than meets the eye, I officially retract from my comment’s that these numbers have nothing interesting to do with Safari.

After reading MonkeyT’s follow-up I now realize I was completely off track, as there’s DEFINITELY some interesting way’s to look at this from a positive Safari-based perspective.

Thanks MonkeyT! :)
—

[orig. post]
AppleInsider | Apple’s Safari showing major growth amongst browsers

The popularity of Apple Computer’s Safari Web browser continues to grow at a noticeable pace this year, with recent market share figures pointing to an over 75 percent increase in usage over the past twelve months.

If I’m Mozilla, I’m excited, as “over 75 percent increase” on a solid 10% market share would mean something significant.

Bad news for Microsoft: A Forrester Research survey found that Microsoft came in almost dead last when it comes to what technology brands people trust, while Apple, Bose, and Dell led the pack. What is it about Microsoft that consumers don’t like?

The world is abuzz about Bootcamp, which lets you run XP on a Mac. Now there’s word that Bootcamp will let you run Vista as well.

and I’m not talking about the “Size 11″ kind of boot, although in a way I guess it would be getting this from me as well…

Dare I say this aloud? Boot Camp is a gimmick | Perspectives | CNET News.com

But dare I say this aloud? Boot Camp is a gimmick. A smart gimmick but a gimmick nonetheless.

Boot Camp functions as a security blanket for PC users who would wet their beds without their favorite Windows application. With one download, Apple removed any lingering barriers holding back the potential universe of switchers.

These folks are still running Windows, but for how much longer? With all due respect to Messrs. Gates, Ballmer and Allchin, Windows makes very few hearts (outside the environs of Redmond, Wash.) go pitter-pat. Folks are not clamoring for Windows; they’re clamoring to run Windows applications. Do you think that once they get their hands on a Mac, people won’t be the least bit curious to experiment with the Macintosh operating system to see what all the fuss is about?

Apple hopes so. The company won’t put it so bluntly, but it has zero interest in getting people to use Windows on a Mac. (No accident that Apple’s not going to support Windows on the Mac.) They want the voyeurs to take a peek at Mac OS and be seduced by all its charms.

… instead, I’m refering to the simple fact that Boot Camp does nothing more than present to the x86 Windows user a boot choice between Windows, or Mac… but not both. Well, not at the same time anyway.

Microsoft Team RSS Blog : Windows RSS Platform Download Engine

Delta Encoding

In addition to standard conditional GETs the RSS Platform download engine supports Delta Encoding (for details, see Bob Wyman’s post “Using RFC 3229 with Feeds”) which allows the server to respond with only the feed items that are new or have been updated, thereby possibly reducing the response significantly.

It seems to me that there’s a tendency for folks to believe that as our overall internet bandwidth capacity increases, our usage patterns of this bandwidth can justifiably increase as well. I’m glad to see that with the next version of Internet Explorer, Microsoft has taken the “less is better” approach. It’s the right approach to take for sure.

There are several other key items worth noting… take a visit to the above post made earlier today by Walter from the RSS Team @ Microsoft.

Between Amazon’s decision to provide support for BitTorrent in S3, and now Microsoft showcasing that they too understand that minimizing the overall bandwidth footprint is the responsible approach to take, it makes me proud to be able to call Seattle, WA, USA my home town (technically Kirkland, and even more technically I’m still in Salt Lake at the moment… none-the-less, Seattle/Kirkland is home. :)]. Given the overall attitude to reduce, reuse, recycle in the Puget Sound area, its not surprising to me to see this same attitude has found its way into the products built by folks who call the Puget Sound area home.

Nice!

You may build the slickest application in the world, but what’s the point if you can’t easily deploy it? There’s an easy solution — get ClickOnce to Deploy Windows Applications, a new PDF from O’Reilly. Use it, and you’ll never go back to the old way of deploying apps.

Port25 : A Look Inside Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab (Part 1)

A Look Inside Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab (Part 1)
In the Spotlight
Friday, March 31, 2006 6:00 AM by admin

Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab is an ambitious research project. Located on the company’s main campus, the lab houses more than 300 servers, which collectively run more than 15 versions of UNIX and 50 Linux distributions. It boasts a team of senior-level programmers and system administrators, some of whom were architects of popular Linux distributions or authors of well-regarded books. In short, the lab is one of a few such facilities in the world dedicated to open source research.

I couldn’t make this stuff up. Even with two weeks worth of creative energy stored up to the point of, quite literally, bursting from the tips of my fingers at 135 WPM, I still couldnt find a way to create something that to me would leave me feeling like I just sold my soul to the Devil for 50 bucks, a foot massage, and box full of saltine crackers.

I don’t think words beyond those starting at…

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple makes Macs run Windows XP

Apple has released software that lets users run Microsoft’s operating system on its computers that use Intel chips.

Called Boot Camp the program lets Mac owners run both Apple’s OSX and Microsoft’s Windows XP.

A trial version of the software is now available so users can install it. Future versions of Apple’s OSX software will include the program.

The release follows efforts by hackers to get Windows XP booting up on Macs that use Intel chips.

Sweet! Of course this had to take place just a few months after I finally gave in and purchased a Mac for testing purposes, after holding out for a solid 16 years.

Guess its time to visit my local neighborhood Apple store again.

Things could be worse, I guess :)

Microsoft has been making much of its newfound focus on security, but a top Microsoft official now says spyware has become so insidious that businesses need to invest in a new solution — tools to automatically reformat hard disks and reinstall Windows.

Q&A: Bringing the Benefits of Virtualization Technology to the Mainstream: Microsoft delivers Linux support and makes Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 available to customers at no charge as part of its ongoing effort to radically simplify IT management.

Microsoft delivers Linux support and makes Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 available to customers at no charge as part of its ongoing effort to radically simplify IT management.

REDMOND, Wash., April 3, 2006 — Today at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, Microsoft announced several new developments in the area of virtualization, a nascent technology that can help customers dramatically reduce their information technology (IT) infrastructure costs. Virtualization technology enables organizations to shave their IT costs through server consolidation, disaster recovery, re-hosting of legacy applications, and software test and development.

Other than mentioning the current state of my jaw (dropped!) I’ll let this one stand as is.

Enjoy!