Two Slashes

SkipTo has been given a small update; there’s not really much improvement, save for a new feature that enables SkipTo to “assume” you want to add “www.” to a URL you enter using the URL window.  Everything else is exactly the same as before.

If you’re interested, grab the updated installer here or from the SkipTo page.

The one thing people will commonly attach to the phrase “open source” is the notion of freely shared and editable code for software.  The problem is that while the term in general isn’t specifically targeted at developers, they seem to be the only ones gaining any form of attention when the term is used.

What really needs to be done here is a rebirth/redefinition, so to speak, of “open source” in general.  There’s more to it than just functions or methods or subroutines, but it seems that those are the only components that seem to have gotten through to the general public; in realistic terms, open source is simply the free flow of relevant and universally useful information, distributed so that others can gain from it and/or improve upon/with it.

Take a leaf from 2600, Volume 24-4 (which, admittedly, I just picked up).  In the letters section, “theforensicsguy” mentions that unlike most school districts, the one he’s employed for is more open than your typical school IT crew.  This openness is a broad, but relevant, example of what should be happening; when you are open, accepting, and willing to let others pick up tips, tricks, and knowledge in general, they in turn will give you back what you might be seeking (”theforensicsguy” claims that his students report some of the security holes they find to him).

A similar approach could almost certainly be applied in more than just that scenario:  Your favorite (unnamed) software company could open up and actually start accepting tips, tricks, bugfixes, and patches from their users, rather than simply claiming that problems with their product are nothing more than unintended features.  Imagine how much more sound a product could be if that multinational manufacturer took the considerations and rantings of users who found a design flaw in a new product and actually utilized what they gleaned from those considerations.  Even detrimental facts can be of benefit; for example, if a bank gets robbed, they can see what some of their security weakpoints are and improve them to maintain and improve the trust their clients impart in them.

You see, everything works better when everyone works together. By telling others what you know, you can not only improve what you know, but you also improve intelligence overall, and create a more sound and improved society.

People are also drawn to the improvements drawn by progress; for example, why is it that students flock to what would be considered “major” colleges? Is it simply because the school is big, or because of its size, also maintains a hotbed of new and innovative skills and enhancements that can benefit people.  And the best part is that some don’t even realize they’re being, for want of a better term, “improved” themselves.

I’m not one for fame in general, but people also tend to be remembered not for their secrets, but for the openness and knowledge they’ve spread, be it something like a detailed and impacting writing, a significant and upstarting speech, a breakthrough scientific discovery, an impressive new invention, or even plain old music.   Sure, you might make a few people in your hometown proud with that secret sauce recipe of yours…but wouldn’t it be put to better use if you shared it to the world?

So, I end this (short?) tirade by asking this:  What have you shared with the world today?

Before I begin, I just wanted to thank everyone involved in my sudden spike in traffic over the past few days as the result of that “pci32b.exe” article; it’s still up for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but it’s responsible for tripling my 24-hour unique visit numbers.  Go figure.

Thanks to (as usual) my habitual Digg surfing, I came across a rant describing why Asus, the PC manufacturer (also known as ASUSTEK) is the most hated company in all of the PC industry.

Before I even get started with what I really want to say, I just want to play devil’s advocate for a second and point out that the EEE PC did probably just make an impact in the way future devices are going to be developed?  And hey, I’m game for a laptop with no moving parts.

Anyway, I find it interesting that someone could call such an out-of-the-way company the “most hated” corporation in the entire computing industry.  For sure, there are plenty of more worthy candidates (did I hear “Microsoft”?), and at the least more popular and well-known ones.  How can you claim the public hates a company that has very little brand recognition; if I walk up to any typical consumer and ask them to name me all the brands of PC they can think of, I guarantee that among them small brands like Asus and Falcon Northwest are not going to be on that list.  The list they give me might list Apple, HP/Compaq, Dell, and perhaps Gateway or Alienware (you’d be surprised how many know about Alienware but not FN or other “gaming-specialty” companies, but I digress).  In short, you can’t claim a company is hated simply because it changes the way things are developed.

Okay, so Asus got to market with something before several other manufacturers did.  But let’s time travel back to when the iPod was introduced.  The audio player was a new market back then too, no?  And Apple came out, showed off a device with a scroll wheel and the “Apple-intuitive” interface (*cough*Creative*cough*) , and after that every media player to follow had to be based on a menu system.  It’s just another drop in the bucket, and there’s plenty of time to change things.

Sure, iPod may still be around and going strong, but it also has the name recognition behind it to carry it in the first place; Asus, on the other hand, has a strong but belittled following of people, and without the proper advertisement and word-of-mouth, they’re going to stay that way - paving the road for bigger behemoths like Dell and Apple to do as they want with the market.  I’d like to slightly sidestep here for a moment to point out that when the EEE first started shipping from sites like Newegg, it wasn’t CNN broadcasting news about the people who got too many in their shipment; it was aggregated along the usual “geek” channels like Digg and Slashdot from originators like Engadget and Gizmodo - never once did I see a mention of it on “mainstream” news.

In truth, Apple isn’t all that concerned because they’ll do what they do, and the masses will respond. But poor Dell. That company’s flash-based mini-laptop will probably cost five times as much as the ASUS. It will be 10% better and 500% more expensive than the ASUS Eee PC. Good luck with that, Dell!

This excerpt in particular irks me, because it’s inaccurate.  As of late, I’ve thought Dell to be a very affordable solution, at least for the lower-to-mid-range systems.  As long as they can continue in this path, the Dell offering would be very affordable indeed, not to mention the support offerings would far outstrip those of the foreign “invader”(’invader’ is too strong a word here, but it’s close to what I mean).  Sure, you can go to Walmart and pick up one of those extremely cheap offbrand PCs they have, but they’re from a brand that (again) has no consumer recognition and that is going to be picked up by someone with a bit of know-how that realizes parts are parts are parts.

Not to mention, there’s the reverse side of the coin here too:  Yes, Asus was first-to-market.  Yes, Asus is also currently the only person offering such a slim laptop on the market.  Yes, they have a device that has geeks who know about it twitching and itching to get their hands on one.  No, the average consumer doesn’t know about it.  And that’s good, in a way.  Not only can Apple, or Dell, or any of those other companies put something out, but they can spin their advertisements to point out some random flaw in the Asus design…it wouldn’t matter what it was; it could be something as trivial as the location of a USB port.  But by pointing out the mistake, they make themselves look like the better machine…and what do people do in that scenario?  Look at the two, and pick the one that works better, not only in this case because the (potentially) “invisible” problem is missing in the name-brand version, but because it’s name-brand.

So all I’ve done to this point is rebuke the “most hated” part of the article in question.  Asus is indeed not the most hated in the industry.  Some clarification would qualify the headline (i.e. “Most Hated by Computer Industry Corporations”), but it doesn’t work as it’s written.

And this is going to sound like a flipover from everything else I just said, but I do believe that Asus is underestimated.  Their machines (at least, what experience I’ve had with them) are functional, and by slipping into a new market niche ahead of everyone else, they’ve lined themselves up to be the brainchild behind the R&D in this new category of devices.  It doesn’t take a million PCs sold to make a statement about what features people want; in a way, Asus is better-suited to handle this because of their smaller size - they make the development jump adding new features, and the bigger corporations tack it into their later models in a monkey-see, monkey-do approach.  It’s win-win, and it’s competitive marketing.

And by the way, I’ll just admit it…I was rather waiting to get my hands on a Foleo.

I just found and spent the past few hours taking apart a little bugger that seems to turn up a few hits on Google.  Read about “pci32b.exe” here.