I had been looking at the tablet market for quite some time now. Of course the iPad(2) is still the most known and popular out there, but now that Google has released their tablet-optimized Android version I felt that the time was right to plunge myself into this territory. I know that there had been quite some devices around before the Honeycomb era, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab or the Archos tablets. However, in my opinion, either the overall experience or the moderate hardware specifications of these devices left much to be desired.

This is where the Xoom comes in. This device sports a Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, doing its work on 1 Ghz. It has a 10.1 inch capacitive screen, a 5MP camera on the back and a 2 MP camera on the front. Running Android 3.0, which was partly developed on this tablet, giving you a really nice and polished experience when using it. Unlike Apple’s iOS, Honeycomb has support for Flash, which in my opinion alone is a huge advantage. Let’s face it, Flash isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and it is still the dominant technology for a lot of the interactive content you can find on the Web.

At the time of writing there aren’t that many Honeycomb optimized applications out there yet, but you can slowly see more and more appear in the Android Market. It’s true that some of the more popular apps don’t really scale well to tablet resolutions, which is especially true for games, but that doesn’t necessarily need to be a deal-breaker, since it’s only a matter of time before these apps get updated. Operating System wise I think Google did a great job here. Of course their own applications work like a charm and I’m definitely impressed with their Books application.

It speaks for itself that one of the primary functions of this device is reading. It’s a shame however that available titles on Google Books are a bit on the low side, at least here in Europe, but you do have the option to install both Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s reader apps which work well. Alternatively you can also install one of the many PDF readers. My favorite is EZ PDF reader, which does require a small contribution, but I think it’s worth it. Addionally, checking out your news feeds is really a pleasure with the excellent Pulse news reader app. You might already be using this on your phone, but believe me, experiencing this on a tablet is a world of difference.

Another popular use for tablets, at least if you can believe the latest stats on this, is gaming. While I’m not that much of a gamer myself, it’s true that these type of devices open a whole new market. The way you play games is more akin to playing on a console than on a PC, but I actually believe it will become a subset of its own. Performance wise the Xoom tablet works really well, thanks to the Tegra processing power under the hood. 3D graphics are fluent, look great and there’s no stuttering whatsoever. If you’re into gaming, this definitely is something to consider, especially since I believe that with the plethora of Android & Tegra devices coming out we’ll be able to get some awesome looking games on these devices.

What I also like very much about the Motorola tablet is the fact that it is open. With this I mean that it is relatively simple to unlock and root the device. While many mainstream users don’t have an immediate use for a feature like this, I believe it is something that can be important if you value getting updates in the future. Let’s face it, most hardware vendors aren’t very keen on releasing new iterations of Android for their devices in a timely manner. This is of course not without reason. Porting their respective UI shells to new versions is most likely a challenging, time and resource consuming task. That is why I personally prefer the ‘vanilla’ Android devices. Buying one of these gives you a bit more certainty that updates will roll out faster. And even if the vendor abandons the device, you can always count on the many community developers creating ROMs for your tablet with the latest and greatest goodies. When getting a device which is easily rooted, you only increase your chances of finding community updates later on.

Honeycomb in general is looking good. You can tell that Google has put in a lot of effort getting their mobile OS ready for the tablet era. The general experience is smooth and enjoyable but there still are some quirks to work out. When you put the system to the test by running multiple applications at the same time, it can become a little bit laggy. Nothing to worry about, I’m just talking about a slight delay in response time when switching screens for example. It’s probably one of those things that’s coming from the fact that Android is a true multi-tasking platform and will get better as development progresses. Some applications have crashed on me, but only the ones that aren’t optimized for Honeycomb. The main operating system hasn’t failed me yet and I’m pretty confident it won’t either.

Of course it’s not all perfect. I’m sure there’s always some room for improvement, but my biggest annoyances are basically the fact that the Xoom is a bit on the heavy side, nearing 800 grams and the fact that in some cases you need to install multiple applications that basically perform the same task, but offer different content. Weight wise, this will surely get better over time and most Android tablet builders have some catching up to do with Apple on this front, but keep in mind that this is only the truly first generation of Android tablets to hit the market. On the application front I think the problem is a tad more complicated. I’m mainly referencing to the e-books apps here, but also the fact that you now have multiple application stores. Both suffer from the same issue: different applications and stores may offer both identical and unique content. This makes finding what you’re looking for difficult. Prices often vary (although for most items the difference is negligible) which can become quite confusing, especially when it’s not clear what the immediate advantage over a competitor is. This is a problem that I don’t really see being solved any time soon. These companies are trying to make money after all and if the company believes that they can get a fair market share on their own, I don’t think they’ll see any incentive for consolidation. On the other hand you might argue that it does increase competition which in many cases can be good for consumers. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. As always, time will tell.

My conclusion is that tablets are definitely on the rise. It might be a bit soon for Joe Plumber to jump on the wagon, but if you’re an early adopter or just love technology I’m sure you would not regret investing in a tablet. What device you choose in the end depends on your needs and preferences. All I can is say, give Android a chance, I’m pretty sure you won’t be disappointed. I’m not pretending to give an objective opinion here. My personal preference is and will probably always be with Android. I do believe that it has a very good chance on becoming the dominant platform and therefore a relatively safe bet. Concerning the Xoom, I’m sure it’s not for everyone. It does have its weaknesses, but offers plenty of other things to make up for them. It remains a pricey item for sure, but thanks to the openness of Android we’ll soon be seeing less expensive alternatives.

So let’s get started. Earlier this week Google and Samsung unveiled a new phone, the Nexus S, running Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread. But how does this new device compare to the previous one? Let’s take a look…

First of all, here’s an overview of the most important specifications:

Source: Google – see their full comparison page for all the details

As you can probably see, there’s not so many differences between the two phones. Basically it has a tad larger screen, possible faster WiFi, a minor Bluetooth upgrade and a possibly better battery when looking at standby time. The hardware extras such as NFC and the gyroscope are very nice, as well as the contour & anti-fingerprint display, but to me not really deal-breakers. I’m quite disappointed about the fact that there’s not a dual-core mobile processor in there. Granted, the Hummingbird is probably better than the older Snapdragon, but my guess: nobody is really going to notice the difference.

Another weird thing with the Nexus S is the lack of an SD-slot. It’s true that the 16 GB internal memory is enough for most people, but it looses some of it’s portability in terms of migrating to a new phone later on. While the Nexus One comes with a 4 GB SD card, it is however upgradeable to 32 GB, which in my opinion makes it more attractive to our inner geeks. I won’t be going into the Tri vs Quand band discussion, mainly because the spec here has been dumbed down for this post, secondly because this mainly depends on carrier preference which is largely a US-only problem.

The most significant difference to me seems to be the Gingerbread OS. As with all Android upgrades, there’s some pretty cool things inside there such as the new and improved keyboard, a new launcher and of course the native VOIP calling. Of course there’s more improvements under the hood. But again, not really that big I think. The keyboard and launcher are already ported to Froyo, VOIP calling is possible albeit a bit tricky with external applications, and in the end it’s only a matter of time before the N1 gets some Gingerbread love too. The OTA update is most likely coming soon, and for those running custom ROMs, I’m pretty sure their developers will crunch out updates asap as well.

All in all, the Nexus S is a very nice phone, but I personally don’t see many Nexus One users jumping ship, mainly because there’s not much to jump to. As many others before me already said, it seems a nice upgrade to a Galaxy S, and I would advise those users to definitely look into this phone. The fact that you have a vanilla Android experience on Nexus phones might not appeal to everybody but for those who like to tinker with their phones this latest Samsung child surely is a great option.

Of course, being an IT person, these kind of things are like my second nature, and I had experimented with Android before on a hacked phone. At the time I purchased this phone, I actually had my eyes on the N900 from Nokia as well, but the fact that they merged their platform with Intel kind of got me scared for future updates. But I’m wandering off-topic… Back to Android!

In general, I’m pretty amazed how much this platform has matured in such a relative short time. All the basic functionalities work like a charm right out-of-the-box, which wasn’t always the case in the past if I recall correctly. The fact that it is an unlocked phone of course is a tremendous advantage, although here in Belgium, it’s illegal to lock phones like they do in the U.S. anyway. The look & feel of the software is very refreshing and blazing fast. Of course this speed is mainly thanks to the premium hardware used to make this phone (hello Snapdragon!). Most applications work great, and the fact that you’re not tied to the Android Market is a big advantage. Clearly syncing with your Google account is seamless, and even the push mail of my company using Exchange ActiveSync works great.

However, naturally there are still some negative points as well. You’ve probably all heard about the problems with the phones’ touchscreen, especially multi-touch. I’ve been lucky and so far I’ve not run into these issues myself, but when you read some of the forums dedicated to Android and/or the Nexus One, it’s clear a lot of people are having headaches over this one. I have had the phone crash on me a couple of times, but nothing a reboot didn’t fix. Another negative point for me is the lack of proxy support on WiFi connections. At home this isn’t a problem, but for use in a corporate environment, this really is a must have. I was actually pretty surprised to see this not being implemented, but I have good hopes for the upcoming Android 2.2 update that this will finally be included. Last but not least, I’ve been also disappointed in the default platform alarm clock. There is no fade-in, no decent snooze and no choosing an mp3 as wake-up music. I’ve solved this using a third-party alarm, and that has worked fine most of the time (actually, it has sometimes not gone off in the morning, which obviously is a painful experience when you do wake up eventually).

All in all, I find the Nexus One, and Android in general, very pleasant. Sure there’s still room for improvement, but I’m sure the 2.2 version and future iterations will only improve the user experience. Unless Google decides to shoot itself in the foot at some point, I think they really have a chance of making this the leading platform for smart-phones and tablet devices.

The best thing about the nexus 1 is that you can dictate what you want to write. Of course this isn’t perfect, since the application still makes quite a lot of mistakes, so you need to make manual corrections here and there. However, it beats the hell out of typing everything.

Anyway, stay tuned for (hopefully) more posts.

1st place:

2nd place (my favorite):

3rd place (also better than the winner imho :p):

Congratulations to these authors!

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Extra (this movie was included in the 5 finalists, but unfortunately didn’t make it):

to download the ogg-versions of these movies, click here!

The CodeWeavers people have already put in great support for DirectX 9 in their latest version for gaming, and it seems they are planning to also include version 10. Other things include support for .Net & GDIPlus. All this should be included in their latest release, version 7.2. For the expected 8.0, they plan on revamping the Linux UI, but also the Mac version is going to get some new goodies. Further on, better support for IE7, Office and much more applications is to be expected.

While I haven’t used any of their products myself lately, I must say I’m quite impressed by their efforts. Since I use Wine myself on an almost daily basis, I can vouch for the fact that the program has definitely reached a mature state. However when using the ‘vanilla Wine’, be prepared for a lot of tweaking. This is where CodeWeavers jumps in. They have been able to provide all this tweaking for you, giving you a working product out-of-the-box.

I’m usually not so enthousiastic about commercial spin-offs of Open Source products, but this one really is worth it’s money. If you’re not willing to spend time on tweaking & troubleshooting Wine issues, or would like professional support when stumbling upon a problem, then consider this product, I’m sure you’ll love it!

According to its developers, Samba 4 is about to change all this. While it is true that there is still a long way to go, some nice things are to be expected. As previous versions required tedious configuration skills and reading through tons of manuals, version 4 should “just work”.  The DNS scheme is now being generated automatically, and the OpenLDAP back-end, if required, is being configured by Samba itself. Scripting has vastly improved, as now Python is being used as the default scripting language, however there are still bindings for other tools as well.

All good news, but there are of course a couple of disadvantages. For example, there is no real administration interface. In the past, Samba used to have a web-interface, but due to lack of support this has been removed. The door has of course been left open for the community to develop this, so I think we will see quite a few of these interfaces pop up soon enough. Another downside is that authentication for Unix clients and the print server, compared to Samba 3,  are not yet implemented. In it’s current state this would mean you’d have to run the two versions side by side.  Luckily, there seem to be plans to re-instate these features as soon as possible.

Of course there is still a lot of work to do. One of the things mentioned are domain trusts not yet implemented. This is still a bit of a set-back. However the fact that the Samba-team is working closely together with Microsoft is proving to be successful. Unfortunately, Samba 4 is not yet released to the public, but an alpha release is due soon. So for all you early-adopters out there, just a little more patience .

Well, this person ordered a laptop with Dell as having such a machine was a requirement to start her education. Apparently the machine she ordered came with Ubuntu pre-installed. Once it arrived, of course she couldn’t find MS Word, couldn’t launch her Windows-only DSL install CD, etc. This lead her to believe that she had to drop out of college as she couldn’t do the work she needed to do on the laptop.

Now how the hell she happend to order a Dell laptop with Ubuntu and not notice all the warnings is beyond me. As a matter of fact, I’m seriously wondering if this person is even capable to attend the classes she wants to take, as she’s signing up for a Technical College. Also the fact that you have to put a quite the effort in searching Dell’s site to even be able to get your laptop ordered with Ubuntu seems a bit strange to me.

As a matter of fact, I think this story is very sad, and shows just how ignorant people are, not even willing to make an effort in researching a bit.  If she would have done that, she would’ve found out that the installed OpenOffice was more than capable of replacing her MS Word, and that calling her ISP helpdesk, or trying to run the CD with Wine would have solved the Windows-only problem.

The general public is too conditioned to Microsoft software. But you can hardly blame them. Schools are taking little to no effort in finding out more about Windows alternatives, but rather stick with it as that’s what people are used to anyway. Of course you don’t hear Microsoft complain, as for them this is the perfect situation to keep their lock-in scenario playing out as much as possible. Educational institutions, and governements in general, should do more effort in promoting Free Software, because let’s face it, that’s the only way Linux is ever going to be widely accepted by the general public.

It seems that this writer does not really have that much in-depth knowledge about what is going on in the FOSS world, and how this community works. This is also being reflected in the comments on the article. It looks like this person has fired up one or a couple of popular distributions for a limited amount of time, but didn’t really like what he saw, writing this twisted article as a consequence.

However it is true that Linux, or any Unix for that matter, still has quite the long way to go. While some in the Unix-family surely are more mature than others, especially when you take a look at proprietary Unices, I hardly agree with what was written.

A lot of the article, in multiple of it’s points, is in essence about the fact that things are so de-centralized. Well what do you want? We are talking about Open-Source here. Most of the work is done by volunteer-programmers that devote their free time to all these projects. There is no central leadership and while some of the bigger projects have showed that they do posses quite good management, most of them are just people having fun.

The first point discussed is the different types of package management. True there is not really a standard, although the RPM-format is already widely accepted, as is the DEB one. In fact, these two alone are probably the most used in Linux-land, and there do exist tools to convert one to the other without much hassle.

Second up is the de-centralisation and text-based configuration files. With the first part I totally disagree. Apart from some exotic software here and there, all of the config-files are stored in the /etc folder. The fact that it’s using text-based files actually poses an advantage to me. It’s easier to backup, and you don’t have to spend endless amounts of time browsing through one big configuration database. I know other OS-es do it differently, but if you like that method, then use that OS!

Point three is up. The author is discussing the problems with the kernel Application Binary Interfaces. Big words, and although I’m no expert on this one myself, I don’t really see the problem here. While it’s true that ABI’s are in charge of interfacing between the kernel and applications, these days most applications use higher-level libraries. So unless you are using a lot of proprietary drivers or so, this really is not such a big deal…

Up next is Native File Versioning. Basically, this is functionality that allows you to restore a certain file or folder to a previous version. The author seems to be used to this from his Windows experience, but being a Microsoft connaisseur myself, this really doesn’t work that well anyway. Admitted in some cases it can be handy, but I haven’t used or needed this even once in the many years I’ve been using computers. If you’re smart and you’re going to edit critical files, for god’s sake, make a backup of the file before you start…

On the next two points in the article the writer discusses the Graphical User Interface and X11 integration of applications. I’m going to vent my comment on these two together, as in my opinion they are quite linked together. One of the things I’d like to say about this is that the proposed features by the author really don’t seem to add any value to me. Integrating the GUI more with the kernel only provides semi-lock-in scenarios which should be avoided as much as possible. The GUI’s are already having a lot of standards, more than enough it seems to me. Secondly the article discusses the problematic behaviour that when your X crashes, all applications running under X crash as well. When reading this I was kinda speechless. I mean, isn’t that kind of logic. Is restarting X so difficult? No! Even the author admits that… Actually, the times current X sessions crash isn’t that often anymore anyway, so why even bother on this one? I’m sure over time more and more stability will become available.

Last but not least is the ‘lack of’ commercial backup utilities. Again I totally disagree on this one. All the big players on the backup market already provide full support for almost any Unix/Linux flavor. In fact, most of these things actually work better in Linux, at least in my experience. For end-users the options might be a bit more limited, but if you look around a bit harder, you would find plenty of options, and if you insist on using something ‘Windows-only’, you can always try to run it in Wine, emulating the Windows environment.

Conclusion, this article really dropped the ball on this one. I really am not the type to start writing huge comments on other people’s articles normally, but this one made me feel I should make an exception, and so I did.

This is very good news indeed, as it will enable Linux users to run Silverlight websites natively. Since the development is sponsored by Novell, and they have a partnership with Microsoft, they were even able to throw in the official Microsoft codecs, meaning even more compatibility.

While I’m personally a bit sceptic about this Novell/M$ marriage, in this case it’s clearly proving to be a good step. Who would have thought not so long ago that Linux users would ever get free software with official Microsoft licensed codecs in it? Right, nobody .

I think a lot of Linux people are eargerly waiting for this one. Microsoft themselves promised some time ago a plugin for Silverlight on Linux, but so far I haven’t seen one bit of that promise. And since they are able to provide one for Mac OS X, I find it quite strange that they leave the Linux community out in the cold. Maybe I’m wrong on this one as I haven’t really followed up on it so well, so please, if you know more then me, don’t be shy and leave a comment .

I can’t wait to check this thing out. Probably it won’t be working 100%, but hey it’s still a beta after all, and at least some compatibility is already appreciated. Big thanks to Novell & Microsoft for this one .