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| Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Hate App Stores Posted: 13 Jan 2011 03:30 AM PST Apple recently launched their App Store, and there are people left and right saying that it’s horrible. It’s not that it doesn’t work, or has lack of choice, or is difficult to use. People are complaining about it because it’s a strong indicator the software market is moving away from traditional retail boxed. My opinion on it is this: I’m actually in favor of no-box software purchases and have been for a long time. The thing to note here is that Apple is absolutely not the first to go this route, but rather the gaming industry. Back when Valve Software introduced Steam for online purchases of games, everybody – and I mean everybody – said it would never work. But Steam proved everyone wrong and it’s a great way to buy games. Why Steam works so well is very easy to understand. All your games are attached to an account. This means if you buy a new computer, all you have to do is install the Steam client, and guess what? All your games bought through Steam are ready to download that you bought before. No digging through boxes upon boxes of software to find that one poorly-printed sheet that states your license key number is required. You install, wait for the games to be delivered, and that’s that. Done deal. Microsoft has also been doing the same thing with Xbox Live for a while now. App Stores are proven technology. They work, and do not keep your software locked to any single computer. Here’s another perk of having software attached to an account in an app store: Longevity. Apps that are in the app store are continually updated to make sure they work on current and future versions of popular operating systems. Steam again is a great example of this because they have not only brand new titles but old stuff from the MS-DOS days ported to work in modern Windows. What makes Apple’s App Store different is that they decided to take a risk and put in some high-priced software, like Aperture 3, which is $80. My reaction to this is, "So? Why shouldn’t Apple put in higher-priced items in there? It’s not like the store doesn’t have low-priced stuff in it." I mean, seriously, if people are willing to spend $80 in a single sitting for two 40-dollar Steam games, is spending $80 in Apple’s App Store really all that different? My suggestion to anyone that pays for software is that you should be using app stores. You may not appreciate it now, but when the time comes that you have to get a new computer, believe me, you’ll appreciate it then. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.       |
| Xubuntu 10.10 And The State Of Linux On The Desktop Posted: 13 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST My Dell mini 10v netbook runs Windows XP Home Edition. The XP OS is really old but it works. However I’ve decided to try to give Linux a go again, this time with Xubuntu 10.10. On a laptop in today’s computing world, XP sucks for basically one reason: Power management is abysmal. Today’s modern OSes will literally give you 30 minutes to an hour of extra battery life due to much better software control. This is true in Windows 7 and all Linux distros. In basic terms, modern power profiles allow you to much better selectively choose the enabling and disabling of certain hardware under battery power, and in some instances even enable/disable specific to when certain apps are running. XP simply doesn’t have those features baked into the OS, and the third-party OEM utilities to accommodate for what XP doesn’t have are all awful. I paid $300 for my netbook and wasn’t about to spend $100 on a Win7 license, because spending a third of the cost of the unit just for a modern OS seemed (and is) ridiculous. What I decided to do is Wubi-install Xubuntu 10.10 “on top” of XP. The way this is done is easy. Burn a disc (or mount an ISO) of Xubuntu 10.10. When the disc is inserted, an autorun app launches and asks if you’d like to install Linux side-by-side with Windows – but do it in a way that if you don’t like Linux and want to uninstall it, all it takes is an Add/Remove-uninstall from XP’s Control Panel. This was the most amicable solution because I didn’t want to format my hard drive and didn’t want to dual-boot the ‘traditional’ way. Here’s what I’ve discovered from my use of Xubuntu 10.10 on the netbook, both good and bad, starting with the bad: Wireless setup still wonkyThis is the only true bad part of getting Linux to work on a laptop. In order to set up a laptop or netbook with Xubuntu (or any Ubuntu derivative), you must install the OS on a wired network first. This will allow the OS to install all updates it needs from the internet – including the hardware drivers necessary for your specific laptop. Unfortunately it is still required that you must enable ‘restricted’ stuff just to get the wi-fi card to work. Fortunately however at least it’s now easy to get to in Xubuntu: “Additional Drivers” is the option to click. While you’re on a wired connection, click that and then you can choose your wi-fi card which Xubuntu most likely already ‘knows’ what it is. Drivers are downloaded and then you can connect wirelessly. It’s very important to note that this is the most difficult part. If you can get your wi-fi to work, everything is fairly easy from here on out. Since it’s all about the browser these days, all you need is Firefox or ChromeXubuntu comes with the latest Firefox 3.6.13 at the time of this writing, however Chrome is also super-easy (for Linux anyway) to install. When you go to download Chrome, you pick your .deb (that’s a Debian installer package): Download, double-click the .deb to install the package and install: Once installed, Chrome will be in Network from the Applications menu: Launch Chrome, browse happy: Stuff you can actually use installs easy on Linux nowThe best example of this is Dropbox; it installs with little fuss. Download the .deb: Install the .deb, click the little info bulb in the panel (you know it as a taskbar), which brings up this: Start Dropbox, which will download the proprietary software, configure your account. When done, it’s happy-syncing time: Linux now qualifies much better as an XP replacementTwo years ago I couldn’t say Linux was good for too much on the desktop, but today I can say that it is. Today’s computing world revolves very heavily on the browser and cloud more than anything else. Given the fact you can run Firefox or Chrome and use Dropbox and that the Ubuntu Software Center is way better than it used to be, Xubuntu in particular is a very good XP replacement if you don’t want to spend the cash on Windows 7. A few final notes for problems Linux still has that haven’t been resolved (yet)
Believe it or not, that’s it. I really can’t think of anything else Linux is truly bad at doing/doesn’t support. You’ll notice this list now in 2011 is a lot shorter compared to how Linux complaints used to stack up. While it’s true no OS will ever reach the zero-complaint dept., the fact Linux’s is so short these days is good progress. Xubuntu might be just the thing you were looking for as a good free XP replacement. Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.     |
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