Apple: What's the deal?!

Few months ago I saw this video from that journalist in New York Times, and I just ignore it because it was unprofessional and very idiotic.

But when I see that Apple used the exact same points in that video in a public conference, this was really a surprise for me on how Apple is doing marketing as if they don’t have any real thing to do marketing for!!! (Especially after they was about to die before)

To summarize what they are talking about, they mentioned these points:

1. New Vista Search: in Mac OS it’s on the top and in Vista in the lower menu.
2. The Vista Calendar: that Mac OS has the same calendar.
3. The photo organizer.
4. The Chess game


Although as you see that the point mentioned above are far away from being “The OS Main Features Which proves that Vista is a copy of Mac OS” let’s answer them all:


1- New Vista Search:

Search was there in the start menu since the first windows version, it was a menu item and now it's a textbox!!!
And it was there in old windows with the same look like now if you installed Windows Desktop search (or even Google Desktop search) and have Windows Desktop Search bar on explorer, so it's not new at all!!!

2- The Calendar:
It was there since years, and it was there in office (i.e. Outlook) as well since years with the exact same interface!!


3- The photos Organizer:The interface was like this in Windows XP, the only addition is the shape which is ok now after the DX addition, and one more thing, does Mac OS X support the same feature in Vista Photos organizer exactly (I just saw the interface in the video), also Mac OS doesn’t have features like building DVDs on the fly.


4- The chess game: Since when built-in games are an OS feature which is used to identify an OS?!!!!!!
And for the chess game, did Mac invent the chess game?!!!!!!!!
It's just adding all popular games in the free games section, and you know what? Open the about section of the game: "Chess Titans developed for Microsoft Corporation by Oberon Games", mmm interesting, may be because Mac can’t have any more games so Chess will be a Mac OS feature!!

There's even a normal customer who said nearly the same as I said:



And about Mac OS, it’s not even a complete generic OS, it still doesn’t support some protocols, which makes it impossible for Mac machines from talking with some other machines over the network, also I am sure that APIs and framework are hard like hell, or how does it happen that there’s not much software products out there for Mac like Windows and Linux?!!


Now let’s jump into some Vista features, may be they are also copied from Mac and I don’t know!!

(original post in hany's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/hanybarakat/archive/2007/05/04/windows-vista-must-know-features.aspx)

#1. SuperFetch:
SuperFetch is basically a feature where the OS collects information about how you use your computer, how do you open applications and what loads after what... etc. The OS uses these information to preloads your applications into your system memory so it'll be ready when you need them. Needless to say this saves a lot of time and increases the system response time and performance.

#2. ReadyBoost:
Windows Vista introduces Windows ReadyBoost, a new concept in adding memory to a system. You can use non-volatile flash memory, such as that on a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive, to improve performance without having to add additional memory. It's easy to use Windows ReadyBoost. When a removable memory device such as a USB flash drive or a secure digital (SD) memory card is first inserted into a port, Windows Vista checks to see if its performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, you are asked if you want to use this device to speed up system performance. You can choose to allocate part of a USB drive's memory to speed up performance and use the remainder to store files.

#3. BitLocker Drive Encryption:
It's a data security feature introduced in Vista. BitLocker enhances data protection by bringing together two major sub-functions: drive encryption and the integrity checking of early boot components. By default it uses the AES encryption algorithm in CBC mode with a 128 bit key, combined with the Elephant diffuser for additional security.

#4. Built-in Diagnostics:
Windows Vista contains built-in diagnostics—collections of instrumentation, troubleshooting, and resolution logic—to resolve external problems that affect the way Windows Vista behaves. It provides a number of diagnostic scenarios—including Network Diagnostics and troubleshooting—to address some of the most common and costly problems facing PC users.

#5. Windows photo gallery:
Is now easier with features like fix (color, brightness, red-eye... etc.). The more amazing about the photo gallery is that you always have a saved original backup of the image no matter how many times you edit it. Windows Photo Gallery lets users organize their digital photo collection in its Gallery view, by adding titles, rating, captions, and custom metadata tags to photos.

#6. Parental Controls:
These controls help parents determine which games their children can play, which programs they can use, and which websites they can visit—and when. You can review easy-to-read activity reports that show how your children have been using the computer. Monitoring your children's computer behavior not only makes it easy for you to keep track of what they are seeing, hearing, and doing, but it also enables you to refine and modify parental controls based on actual feedback.

#7. Windows Defender:
Superior scanning and removal technologies use up-to-date spyware definitions created by Microsoft, with help from Windows Defender users who submit reports of potential new spyware.

#8. Backup and Restore Center:
The Backup and Restore Center gives you one place to manage all backup-related features. Windows Vista include a useful innovation to help you protect your data: Shadow Copy. This feature automatically creates point-in-time copies of files as you work, so you can quickly and easily retrieve versions of a document you may have accidentally deleted.

#9. Windows SideShow:
Wouldn't it be great if you could read an e-mail message, confirm a meeting location, or check a flight reservation without turning on your computer? Windows SideShow is a new technology in Windows Vista that supports a secondary screen on your mobile PC. With this additional display you can view important information whether your laptop is on, off, or in sleep mode.

91 more new features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/100reasons.mspx

Microsoft Photosynth Rocks!

Photosynth is an amazing new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that will change forever the way you think about digital photos.

Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.
With Photosynth you can:

• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
• Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
• Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
• Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.

Microsoft OFone

By the way, this is a Spoof:

Macworld Boston 1997-The Microsoft Deal

It's really weird how years can change people really much, in 1997 Microsoft Saved Apple's ass by buying $150 millions worth of shares (non-voting shares and MS agreed not to sell them for at least 3 years) in Apple to save its ass and save Steve from bankruptcy, and at that time Steve Jobs was very kind, and he said Microsoft is our friends, our partners, bla bla bla.

And after 10 years and when he came back by the help of Microsoft, he doesn't leave any moment without making fun of Microsoft and Windows!!

Really people are so bad, I am just putting this video as a quick reminder:

Free Software, How?!

It has been long time since I posted anything which has a lot of debate in the background, any way today I'll talk about the concept of Free Software (I am not talking about Open Source, the title is really obvious, it's about FREE SOFTWARE).

So now here you are what I am thinking, every single profession in the whole world is for money, Doctors earn money from sick people, mechanical engineers earn money from people who owns any mechanical equipments, plumbers earn money from people who need plumping, even Hookers gain money from people seeking pleasure, so as you see every freaken profession on the planet earn money from servicing people who need this profession's services, so why the hell software must be different?!!!

What's the different between someone who spends 8 hours a day writing code and someone else who spends 8 hours a day making sex for money?!!

What?! A hooker makes more efforts?!

How do people measure it here?! How do they think?!! In my opinion, if there's a service which need to be free, it will me medical services because this is something that no one can live without it, but in software it's different, software is luxury, it's either for business or entertainment, so it doesn't make any freaken sense for someone to spend 6 months working day and night for free for someone else to use his efforts to gain money, or for someone to use this software when he gets bored (i.e. computer game), so why a service which is a primary need for any human costs money and a luxury service like software needs to be for free?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


So now this is my $1,000,000 question for people who believes that software should be free:

How should software developers earn money?!!


I think I've some answers:

1- They should work on this in their spare time->whoever says this is an idiot because if this is the case, we'd return again into Stone Age.
2- They shouldn't seek money, they are doing this for mankind->Whoever say this is even more idiot that saying #1, I could accept this when I get medical services for free (in any time I should go to any doctor and do whatever I want for free), plumping services for free (in any time I should get a plumper to do whatever I want for free), hookers services for free (in any time I should get a hooker to do whatever I want for free), when all these services become free then we can accept that developers should work for mankind only!

You're more than welcome to give me any other reasons because I can't really understand the concept behind this strange wave!!!!

Why they chose Windows over Linux 3?

Third episode:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/facts/videos/areva.wvx