I Am Thinking of Converting Into a New Ideology...

Linux Ubuntu vs Mac OS X vs Windows Vista

Every several years a new Operating System (OS) is released. Both Mac OS X and Windows Vista were released in February this year, while Linux Ubuntu was released last April. To tell the truth I have yet try any of these OS, just sight seeing. At first I am dying to try Vista, but then I saw OS X. I don't have to be a computer scientist to tell there are some similarities between the two, in terms of appearance.


Pricing

The price of both OS is also in a very close range, while Ubuntu is an open source, so it is free to be downloaded from several mirror sites. Ubuntu wins the first battle.


Interoperability

What software and application can be operated from these OS? Windows owns the largest market, Mac lacks the multimedia software support while Linux is still expanding its share and earning some third party software. Windows wins.


User Friendly

When you buy Windows or Mac, you are buying the license to install the OS on a single machine, while Ubuntu is an open source application that encourages us to install and use it anyway we want, including change.


Security

Security is a very important factor for me. Windows has many users and consequently "gain" a tag as "victim of its own popularity". So many viruses and worms are written to attack Windows. I haven't heard that many viruses for OS X and rarely heard of Linux viruses.

Windows Vista

Mac OS X - Leopard


Linux Ubuntu

In the end, all these parameters should be carefully considered. If I am to use OS X or Ubuntu, I will have to take the risk of complicating my life, considering 99.9% of my workmates use Windows. But if I am to use Windows, I should prepare myself for constant updates from Microsoft, which I think will compromise my security settings. Laugh all you want, but I do believe Microsoft is using the constant update patch as an excuse to spy on us. Linux also have patches, but since it's an open source I am not complaining. OS X on the other side provide a full package, so no need to burden yourself with patch 1 - 1000. It seems that OS X is built by someone who knows what we want.

So.. what do I choose? I have decided that I am going to stick with my Windows XP for a moment until I'm ready to convert myself to a new Ideology. Not that 'm in love with Xp or anything. Most of the times I truly can't stand it, but I think I should be fair. My XP has been with me for nearly 7 years and share the ups and downs with me.

For the time being I will prepare myself for a new ideology. I think it's about time I seek what's best for me, without having to follow the crowd. O... I do believe I will convert into a new ideology. Yes.. I do believe OS is like ideology. Once you convert you will submit yourself and your data to it.

Charter Will Monitor Customers’ Web Surfing to Target Ads

By Saul Hansell

Charter Communications, the fourth-largest cable system in the United States, has started telling its high-speed Internet customers that it is going to keep track of every site they visit on the Web.

The cable company will sell the data to a firm called NebuAd, which in turn will use it to show ads to Web-surfing Charter customers that are meant to be related to their interests. (Visit a knitting site yesterday and see yarn ads today.)

Charter started sending letters out to several hundred thousand customers in four markets: Fort Worth, Tex.; San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Oxford, Mass.; and Newtown, Conn. (The letters were first reported by DSLreports.com.)

Charter said it will start testing the system within 30 days and will make a decision whether to introduce it to its 2.8 million Internet customers a few months after that.

Using data from Internet service providers for what the advertising people call behavioral targeting raises all kinds of questions about privacy, disclosure and who owns the information about where Internet users surf.

“All we are doing is, in an anonymous format, providing additional context to serve those ads. To the extent those ads are more meaningful to me as Ted Schremp, I will have a better Internet experience than the generic ads that are part of Yahoo and everything online.”

For those customers who disagree, Mr. Schremp said that Charter was offering the ability for them to choose not to be part of the system. I suggested that most privacy experts prefer opt-in systems where information isn’t collected until the user explicitly grants permission. He said that opt-out has become the norm for all targeting on the Internet.

How much money is NebuAd paying Charter for access to information about its customers’ surfing behavior? Mr. Schremp wouldn’t say. (Robert Dykes, NebuAd’s chief executive, said last month that the company was willing to pay Internet providers several dollars per subscriber a month.)

Mr. Schremp did acknowledge that raising revenue was a main goal for Charter in this: “We want to leverage technology in a way that makes sense for our economic model.”

Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Blogging Tips

The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging ... And When To Use Each One

From: rohitbhargava, 1 year ago

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A compilation of 25 basic styles of blogging including tips on how often to use each and potential to create buzz and blog traffic by using each.


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Death by PowerPoint

From: thecroaker, 9 months ago

Uploaded from Slideshare.net (one of my personal favorite place for site seeing)
I find this slides very useful and entertaining. Hope you will too.

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Fighting death by PowerPoint...
How to make a presentation and not to bore your audience to death.


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Inside Steve's Brain

This has been a number one on my wishlist since I heard that it's out in shelves on April 17. I hunted down all the local and online bookstores. It is obvious why the local booksellers have yet display the book. Distance. Kinokuniya, one of my favorite bookstore, stated that they have to wait a minimum of 3 months to wait for their books to arrive.

The online stores, however refuse to accept my request. I haven't even key in my credit card number yet. The word "Indonesia" seem to have quite the effect as an online shopping repeller. There will be another blog posting due to this situation. Sigh.

Anyway, I'm dying to find out the book ever since I read the excerpt written by the author (who is also a major contributor of wired.com). The reviews make me even more persistent. Originally I'm about to post a review from macworld, but I know it wouldn't be fair. Even though I think most of the Mac users (and those who dream of converting from Windows to Mac) will agree that this man is in a league of his own. He is the only executive to make a comeback from a major sack in 1986. And no doubt the comeback is HUGE. No wonder he accidentally create a cult-like community of Apple and Mac users out there and that most people call him "the digital messiah".

As quoted from Wikipedia:

"Jobs works at Apple for an annual salary of US$1, and this earned him a listing in Guinness World Records as the "Lowest Paid Chief Executive Officer." His current salary at Apple officially remains US$1 per year, although he has traditionally been the recipient of a number of lucrative "executive gifts" from the board, including a US$46 million jet in 1999 and just under 30 million shares of restricted stock in 2000–2002. As such, Jobs is well compensated for his efforts at Apple despite the nominal one-dollar salary.

This approach reduces his personal tax liability because, under current U.S. tax law, salary income is taxed at a significantly higher rate (currently up to 35%) than the capital gains tax (currently a maximum of 15%) applied to profits arising from the sale of stock grants. Obtaining remuneration through stock instead of salary is a common extrinsic rewarding technique which ties management performance to financial benefits. Furthermore, it acts as a tax minimization strategy."

Here's a review of the book from pcworld.com.

We all know the story. Steve Jobs created the Mac, and preached it more as a romantic lifestyle, a noble way of being, than as simple new technology. He transformed the computer from a boring business tool to a sleek and sexy consumer appliance. He saved Apple when things looked their bleakest. He conceived the iPod, a device that some argue single-handedly pushed the music industry into the modern world. He made the iPhone, perhaps the first cell phone that is truly smart.

What we don't know is how this one man could do so much. In his new book, Inside Steve's Brain (Portfolio, 2008), however, Leander Kahney attempts to go beyond the obvious by offering a detailed, concept-oriented, blow-by-blow look at Apple CEO and what makes him tick--his history, his ideas, his ideals, his reasoning, his behavior, his relationships, even his footwear choices.

Kahney's the right person for the job, too: He has an extensive history covering Apple and Steve Jobs since the early 1990's, has written two previous books on the company, and has been running Wired's Cult of Mac blog for ages.

And Kahney doesn't hide the fact that he's the author. He often speaks from firsthand knowledge or insight, and writes about Jobs's actions and thoughts as if Jobs himself told him what to write--which, of course, brings some skepticism about Kahney's credibility. But the more you read, the more things seem to make sense, the more trusting you become of Kahney, and the easier it is to start embracing the words on the page instead of worrying about the author's validity.

Kahney's method of analyzing Jobs is pretty effective: He mentions tons of tiny, often-overlooked events in Jobs's life, as well as relatively miniscule quirky behaviors and actions that demonstrate Jobs's unique character. How Jobs went on an all-apple diet when he was young to see if he could avoid having to shower, for example, or how he spent two weeks debating with his family about which washing machine they were going to buy.

The book also reveals some interesting nuggets about the origins and elements of Apple products--to figure out how to make the personal computer a packaged, consumer device, for example, Kahney describes how Jobs went to a department store to gain inspiration from other household appliances (like the Cuisinart). Then there's the original Mac's mouse, which Jobs designed to reflect the dimensions of the Mac itself--a detail many never noticed.

Inside Steve's Brain goes beyond Steve, too. The book dives into the creative mind of Jonathan Ive, Apple's brilliant chief industrial designer, and examines the corporate cultures of Apple and Pixar, and how both are able to output innovation and creativity in a near-unprecedented manner.

That's not to say every word in the book is a revelation. It's insightful, sure, but some sections are loosely packed, periodically regurgitating observations and conclusions mentioned in previous paragraphs and chapters. There's a lot of exploration in the abstract, and a lot of unnecessary quote-elaboration.

Yet the overall content--the stories and interviews and quotes--and Kahney's insight in general make Inside Steve's Brain a worthwhile and informative read for most anybody looking to learn more about Jobs. It's a quick and easy read, too: Kahney writes in simple prose, and his explanations are clear and concise.

Quoted from: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,144326-pg,1/article.html

Are We Tragically Single?

Two weeks ago I wish I wasn’t single. Last week I was also glad I am single. But most of the time I actually appreciate that I was (and am) single. Confused? Welcome to my world.

It all started with a simple thing. A friend's wedding. What is worse than attending someone's wedding by yourself? I was trying my butt out finding a perfect date for myself. As desperate as I may sound, I did find myself a date. Period.Not that I am self conscious and uncomfortable of going alone. Been there, done that. Once, and went quite well actually as I met some of my old lady friends, who were also single.

I made a pact with myself several years ago that I would not get into another “real” relationship until I had a clearer view of what I wanted in both love and in life. I’m pretty sure I lit a candle or something. See, I realized very quickly that trying to figure out someone else when you don’t even have yourself figured out is an impossible task.

People often make such a big deal out of being single. What's the problem with it? I honestly wouldn’t trade places with women engaged or married straight out of college. They never get the opportunity to experience how bitchy life can be in their early and late 20’s, the way I have… Alone. Now, I’m not claiming to live some terribly hard life… I have my job, I have my health, I have my friends and family, and most days, I have my sanity.


On the contrary, I’m claiming to live the typical life of a career-driven, risk taking 30-something. And being forced to deal with all of the kidney punches life decides to throw, on my own, has enabled me to get to know a pretty awesome person - Myself.

So ladies....when someone told you, “why aren't you married?”, never forget to (smile) and say “care to join me?”, because the BEST IS YET TO COME! God is still writing our love stories.