Windows Tips and Tricks

Although the Mac is picking up market share in the home, it remains a stranger to the business environment. In fact, Apple has basically ignored the corporate market. Since the iPod and the iPhone have gotten a lot of people interested in Apple products, could now be Apple’s chance at this market? The ability of the present Intel based Mac to run Windows as well as Apple’s OS X makes the Mac a much more plausible choice in the corporate world. An article at BusinessWeek takes a look at this possibility.

The publication Consumer Reports has been a valuable reference for consumer information for years. The June issue (available only to subscribers) has a buying guide for computers. It also rates companies for their technical support and Apple comes out on top. (The same result was obtained by PC Magazine when it did its annual survey.) PC World comments on the Consumer Reports findings:

Apple beat all comers in a Consumer Reports survey released Monday that rates the technical support offered by computer makers. Apple topped the rankings for both laptop and desktop support, beating out Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, Sony and HP.

Consumer Reports based its ratings feedback from owners of more than 4,500 laptop computers and almost 5,600 desktop computers who contacted manufacturer tech support between September 2006 and January 2008. Computer owners were asked to rate their experience based on three criteria: Whether the manufacturer solved their problem, how long they waited to talk with someone on the phone, and how knowledgeable the support staff were. Apple received the highest ranking of “Better” in all three areas for both laptops and desktops–the only company to do so.

Although it has many virtues, even Ubuntu Linux has made little progress in being adopted by home PC users. The geeks may sing its praises but the average, non-technical user is still too often baffled by it. Part of the reason is the Linux reliance on the command line. Now, I love the command line as much as anybody- I even have a Web site about it. But the typical home user is all GUI, all the time so the command line is a non-starter. And there are other areas where Linux is still too much for the home user.

To illustrate the obstacles Linux faces in trying for a share of the desktop business, there is an interesting post at The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment. The author used his girl friend to test how user-friendly Ubuntu is. The lady in question is no novice at computers and a university philosophy student so she is a cut or two above many home PC users in computer skills; yet she had problems. As the author concludes:

Linux won’t truly be ready for the desktop until someone computer illiterate can sit down at a the computer and with little effort do what they want to do. Erin’s intelligent, quick to learn and is reasonably well-acquainted with modern technology. If she had as much trouble as she did, what chance to the elderly or at least the middle-aged stand?

Personally, I would reword the last sentence in the quote to ask, “What chance does Linux have with the millions of non-technical home users?” Maybe Ubuntu will keep evolving and become more practical. I certainly hope so, for the need to have alternatives to the Windows monopoly is very clear.

Follow-up: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, who makes frequent posts about Ubuntu, has also noted the experiment discussed above and comments:

I’ve long thought that part of the reason why Linux hasn’t made much progress in terms of picking up novice users is that many distros suffers from a geek overload. Now there’s no doubt that things have improved dramatically over the past couple of years and distros such as Ubuntu are especially user friendly for novices, but I’ve hit plenty of tar pits myself to know that Linux doesn’t equal plain sailing.

Any Linux users out there want to comment?

From Sol Libes:

It took a little time but Microsoft has awakened to the fact that many users of ultra portable laptops (e.g. Asus EeePC and the Everex Cloudbook) have removed the Linux operating systems from their systems and installed Windows XP home. These systems are too small to run Vista, but, XP with the unnecessary applications and utilities runs well. They also have installed Microsoft Office.

Vista’s heavy hand may be providing an opening for Linux, at least at the low end of the computer price scale. An AP article, Time is right for Linux PCs to emerge, says:

The free Linux operating system handles big tasks like running supercomputers and ATMs. Now Linux has a chance to finally crack Microsoft Corp.’s hold on computing’s most visible domain — mainstream PCs — because of the rise of innovative, inexpensive machines.

Windows is not likely to be displaced from the mainstream desktop but a niche for Linux is appearing. The article notes:

Laptops under $400 are real possibilities now, and some of the most buzz-worthy use Linux, such as Asustek Computer Inc.’s EeePC and the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s $200 “XO” computer for schoolchildren. Linux also is available on slim little “netbooks” being pushed by Intel Corp.

Not only is Linux essentially free to the PC vendor, but the operating system also is better suited than Vista for cheap PCs’ spartan hardware designs. (Windows XP is available on scaled-back PCs like Intel’s Classmate, but it’s unclear what will happen after Microsoft soon stops selling XP to the general public.)

Windows Vista has not been a big success with businesses and that has helped Mac sales. The Mac has been largely absent from business use and is primarily a consumer and niche product. Recently, however, corporate interest has picked up. What I find interesting is the level of satisfaction expressed by the actual users of various operating systems as shown in the figure below:

There’s a debate going on over at this ZDNet link about the relative merits of the user interfaces in Windows and Mac computers. The author says that Apple pays more attention to the user interface than Microsoft and that the Mac interface is much more elegant. There are a lot of comments posted and there are many who disagree. Personally, I think the Mac interface is less clumsy but I am so used to the Windows way of doing things that it’s hard to judge if the Mac interface would be easier for a newcomer to computing. A computer is complicated and neither interface is as easy to use as pushing a button or two on a household appliance.

There’s an interesting article at Wired Magazine about Apple and Steve Jobs. Actually, it’s mostly about Jobs, but as the article makes clear, Apple is Steve Jobs. Even confirmed Windows fans might want to read it.

Somewhat to my surprise and definitely to my delight is the progress that Linux-based machines are making in the computer market. Big manufacturers Dell and Lenovo are offering Linux machines and ZDNet reports:

Linux is not just for computer whizzes.
In fact, buying Linux and learning how to use it are easier than ever, thanks to the open-source operating system’s expanding presence in affordable computers and mainstream retail outlets.

In quick succession, the number of mass-market, sub-$200 desktops has tripled–from one to three–in less than three months. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, small form-factor PC maker Shuttle debuted its $199 KPC. The catch? It’s not preloaded with Windows, but an operating system based on Linux. Then last week, Mirus and Linspire collaborated on the Mirus Linux PC, which is now for sale at Sears.com. It’s $299 (although an included $100 rebate brings it to $199), and is preloaded with Freespire 2.0, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution.

But the beginning of the low-cost computer trend actually started last fall. The Everex gPC showed up on the shelves of Wal-Mart for $198, a low price even for a desktop PC. It’s bundled with speakers, a mouse, and a keyboard, and it comes with 24-hour tech support. The operating system is called gOS, a version of Ubuntu 7.10. Sure, that may be almost unpronounceable for most average consumers, but despite that, Wal-Mart is having trouble keeping the gPC in stock.

It is clear that, outside of Redmond flackery and a claque of fanboys, Windows Vista is not generally regarded with much affection. This helps explain all the interest in the upcoming Windows 7. The blogosphere seizes on any morsel of information, no matter how tenuous, that surfaces about the future OS. The place to keep up with the latest, however, is Long Zheng’s blog. Today, he posted:

Hot on the heels of the humble Windows 7 Milestone 1 review at Neowin yesterday, an anonymous commenter appropriately named “MSBob” on this blog who appears as a Microsoft insider has wrote a fairly extensive comment essay confirming the authenticity of that review as well as revealing many other details about the current and future state of Windows 7.

Read Zheng’s post for a rather interesting piece on Windows 7.