My earliest memory of using a computer dates back to my days in elementary school. I used the Commodore 64 to play the game: Sticky Bear in our computer class. It was some kind of spelling game where if you did not do well, the bear would fall into, well, sticky goo. I remember the teacher trying to teach us about the command line for "login" and "log out". I was 8 or 9... and didn't understand a thing.
But times have changed since the 80s.
We have better operating systems (OS), the main ones being Microsoft, Apple, and Ubuntu Linux (Yes, I chose this distribution over say, Red Hat, reason explained later on). And it is these systems that I wanted to blog/rant about today.
Microsoft is by far the dominant player in the software industry. What I respect the most out of them is how they operated as a business and sold their product like crack to businesses and home users. Of course, they stole Apple's graphical interface, but in the words of Steve Jobs, misquoting Picasso,
"Good artists copy; great artists steal."
Yes, their business practice is certainly shady in many ways, but if you are going to be #1 at anything, I wouldn't expect you to be of high moral character. A pre-requisite is almost that you will have to step on people on the way up.
I also love the development tools they have for developers. Honestly, I believe it is in this line of products that they make the best, and rightly so, because it is developers who make software on their platform that ultimately makes them the software giant they are. The tools are expensive, but I've never had to pay for a copy since I get them for free at conventions.
Now, what I don't like about Microsoft is how they continue to push technology ever so far forward that they don't stop to think about if they should. Really, they should concentrate more on making the products they have better and working rather than to keep stuffing new features in that nobody really has even asked for, and this should be done more often! I see no reason how a multi-billion dollar company can't be more innovative with their products and not deliver it every quarter. I just don't.
Apple, a company that I only respect because they succeed where Microsoft fails. They know how to make products that people want and use, and they make it well. Their OS is simple, clean, user-friendly, and of course looks really really nice. The iPod, a small portable music player that hooks up nicely with Apple's very own iTunes that just works.
But that's about as much as I can say about what I like about Apple. They pretty much fail where Microsoft succeeds at. I still find their products pricey, as if they are pieces of artwork. I find Steve Jobs to be an egotistical spokesman past his prime. But it's probably not his fault, it's the Apple fanatics that feed his ego by every time he gets up on a black stage wearing a black shirt and blue jeans. Hopefully I won't have to put up with it for long, I think it's just a generational thing (damn you Generation X!).
Linux, last but certainly not least. What makes this OS so great is that it's what you want it to be. The only thing that doesn't make it great is that it still hasn't hit the home uses yet. This is why I would recommend
Ubuntu distro over
Red Hat's. It looks, feels, and is even marketed for more regular users instead of Information Technology people, and that is important if this open-source movement is going to go mainstream. With the system requirements on computers getting higher and higher when it doesn't seem to be producing anything more or better, it just doesn't make sense to pay more money for the latest and greatest OSes.
Anyway, despite my rantings, I firmly believe there is room for all three systems in the technology field to grow and prosper in, at least for now.
Here are the links I used to get it all done with:
