Whether or not to design a new OS is probably the wrong question to ask at this point. Gruber says that hardware makers should strongly consider going the Apple route and design their OS and hardware combined. I think that the iPhone vs. any other mobile OS battle, and any other standards-battle really, proves that it’s not so much about the OS as it is a about critical mass of apps. At the same time, had the App-less iPhone v1 (lame pun intended) been a badly design hardware+OS, then no one would’ve bought it. But that was threshold 1, which the iPhone got out of and we are in threshold 2 now: features, i.e. Apps.

PC OSs are in the same boat. As much as I like Mac OS X, if it didn’t run the apps that I needed to be productive or unproductive (you know, media & games…), then the chances of me getting a Mac are zero. Any new OS maker is in the same boat, having to think about both their OS and the apps that run on it. A hardware maker designing an OS would have to think about all three dimensions (+ all the other stuff: consumers, partners, etc.).

I think I was fairly down on Android as an OS and fairly up on Chrome OS (COS), long before it either came out. I’m still sort of down on Android and very much up on COS. The reason is for once not hardware or software, it’s the changing world of telecommunication.

I haven’t been silent about my feelings about mobile operators. They’re not good, mostly for people in Europe that travel internationally a lot. And just when some positive movement is happening in terms of mobile and sms roaming charges, we now get Internet roaming, where operators still find plenty of opportunities to gouge consumers. It’s not unusual to pay several Euros/dollars/pounds per MB for instance, which is o.u.t.r.a.g.e.o.u.s.

As such, when I saw the ASUS EEE and all the other Netbook models being offered with subscriptions, I was skeptical. But what I didn’t think much about, because I wasn’t a user at the time, was the opportunities that ubiquitous internet (within roaming reality) offered: by buying a subscription with a laptop you are in fact instantly online, which makes any argument against a NetOS moot. It completely opens up the road for a NetOS maker, like Google, but also like Nokia, RIM, Palm, Apple, Microsoft, etc. to build an OS that entirely operates on a connected backbone. This is the opportunity that I see Chrome OS exploiting and why I think it, as well as the iPhone netbook/tablet if it comes out, will be massively successful.

I still don’t like the idea of hardware enslaving itself to telecom-operators. But I think we really can start thinking about a cable-less world a few years from now, with all the implications (no more offices, augmented shopping, etc.) that it can bring.

Yay mobile net. Yay Net OS.

/ Vincent

(Picture: city in clouds, courtesy of www.crestock.com)

From the Official Google Blog:

Today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

I have nothing to say that I haven’t already said before.

It’s around that time again. First of all, I’d again like to note that I am, for the moment, the producer of 99% of the junk, eh, I mean Gold that appears before your eyes on Tech IT Easy. So, for the moment, these are favourite posts that I wrote.

If you are interested in contributing to Tech IT Easy, either as a blogger or guest writer, please write to us!

This month, I’d like to thank Georgia for writing about guerrilla marketing. Last month, I forgot to thank Jeremy for publishing his interview with social marketeer, Michelle Greer, and Georgia, for writing about Mint.com.

Let’s get to the favourites (in no particular order):

• The “captain’s chair” phenomenon, in which I identify a problem that many one-person-companies-growing-into-SMEs face, the centralisation of leadership around the founder, and the lack of processes that facilitate delegation. Expect more posts about this.
• A short guide for surviving Windows [aimed at Mac-users], in which in a series of a few posts, I start discussing how to survive that “traumatic” move. While I have certainly managed to, I am now happily back on my Mac at work. Even so, I am writing this post on Windows Live Writer, through Parallels (it’s what I call an anchor-app, something that ties you to an environment). Related: Awakening from the OS X vs. Windows War and Battles in the Virtualization Space.
• Media’s Basic Duty to tell the Truth (P.S. Blogs are not Media), in which I, again in a series of posts,  defend Techcrunch’s reputation, in regards to their accusation towards Last.fm. My premise: blogs (like ours) are not media, but some professional blogs, like Techcrunch, have become its equivalent and thus (have to) respect the same principle of reporting the news as accurately and honestly. I don’t want to generalise though, I think that Arrington’s posts in particular, can be much too emotional, provocative, and definitely more blog than pro-media.
• Where do Good Ideas come from?, in which I propose four areas and write about the ease of implementing these ideas. Two supplement posts: On having Heroes in your Craft and The Right Mix between Idea and Execution and One reason not to blog (at least not to blog about your plans) (I sure do blog a lot about idea generation… ).
• What would an Always-On Device look like? Do we even want it?, which comes down to that I would like a device that records everything that I do, in whatever format needed. Some complications: a. do we even want it? How would we process the information? I think that suitable devices already exist, from your camera phone to more specialised and expensive methods.

That’s it for this month. May’s recap can be found here. Until the next time, on Tech IT Easy.

Vincent

I’ll spell it American… happy, blogosphere? Here’s a few interesting examples of how the battle is being waged in terms of virtualisation of software:

• I can’t run Windows Live Writer—simply the best blogging software on both the Mac and Windows—through Crossover, because it was built in .Net. And .Net apps don’t work in Crossover.
• You can use the free Virtualbox from Sun to run your virtual OSs (a great development environment!), but if you want to launch Windows apps from your Mac, you need to pay for either Parallels, Fusion, Crossover, or any other commercial variants for this purpose. Basically, a software like Parallels allows you to place a shortcut to a Windows app onto the Dock or the Desktop, which will launch Windows + the app, when you click it.
• The best Windows user-experience on the Mac is through Boot Camp. It would be a million times quicker to boot if you were able to hibernate on the Windows side and safe sleep on the Mac side. If you don’t want to risk losing your unsaved data however (why would it be unsaved?), you’re probably better off booting the traditional way (3-5 min. out the window right there). Well actually, it used to be an official feature, now it isn’t.
• Sharing your OS X documents with your Windows ones (in other words, using the same folder for both OSs) is very possible when you use Parallels. When you use boot camp however, it all of a sudden gives you a convenient error.

Georgia, in response to my post about the OS War being over, wrote that she thought that this whole discussion is about standards. I think that the edges are getting very blurry and I eventually see hardware, on the PC-side at least, becoming pretty irrelevant. In the meantime, however, you get these little annoyances, beyond stuff like Office for Mac being inferior to Office for Windows, which make me wonder if they are here by design or because they haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet. I’m betting on the first.

Standards, for now at least, are still causing wars.

Vincent

(Picture is of course of the game Virtua Tennis 3, and has absolutely zero to do with this post)

It’s a strange sensation to be in PowerPC land. To those that don’t know, that was the (IBM) technology which Macs were previously built on, before moving to the much more flexible and powerful Intel platform. My first Mac, bought in 2004, was a G4 iBook. I loved it and remember even writing an ode to it on this weblog. It is currently still alive in the, hopefully, responsible hands of a family-member.

What made the G4 special was that there was no going back to Windows. You could emulate it, v e r y  s l o w l y , but you really had to make due with what Mac OS X offered you and I loved that idea of being stranded on an island and having to make the best of it. As a result, I learned a lot about my Mac and it also spawned plenty of blog posts on better Mac productivity here.

But now that I am on a Macbook and have been logging on to Windows via Bootcamp regularly, my reality has somewhat changed.

H A R D W A R E !!!

Macs vs. PCs… I was always aware of the hardware differences, particularly quality-wise. If you do the simple math, my 2004 iBook, now 5 years old and expected to last at least 2 years longer. I don’t know what it’s like in PC-world (not the mag), but I imagine you won’t get this kind of return on investment (ROI) under EUR 1000 ($1500). And by ROI, I mean, on the road ROI, as my laptop was constantly with me travelling. If you have a dusty EUR 200 ($300) PC server lying around somewhere, I expect that will probably last you half a decade as well.

I’m pretty certain that today, if I were to choose either Windows or OS X, I would still buy Apple, simply because they build their machines so damn well. Dvorak, when the Macbook Pros were just launched, called them the Bentleys of computers, and I whole-heartedly agree.

S O F T W A R E !!!

My post today is really about the software-war, which is what most Apple (and Windows) fanboys seem to focus on. And I’m here to tell you that there is no more software-war! Apart from a few (somewhat important) design-flaws in Windows (unfortunately I haven’t tested Vista or 7 yet), the migration between both platforms is fairly flawless.

All the major applications exist on both platforms: Office, programming, designing, picture- and video-manipulation. I don’t want to step on anyone’s territory, I know that, for some of those, Macs are better and for others, PCs are. But for the everyday-consumer like me, you can use both platforms as a tool.

Where I was mostly worried, ironically, was not anything that was inherent to the Mac platform, though I did argue partially that it was some time ago. It’s a free software called  Quicksilver, which allows you to launch apps, find and manipulate files more quickly than using shortcuts and the mouse, or even Spotlight. It has taken over my day-to-day so much, that I no longer have files lying around on my desktop, the Dock, and rarely use the Finder either. The reason is that, for launching stuff, using the keyboard together with search, is much much faster than going somewhere “manually.” Imagine doing the same on the internet and browsing to every address individually, instead of having Google and predictive text…

But even that has no longer become a problem on Windows due to a number of alternatives that exist and of which I chose SlickRun as my number 1 replacement.

I will not go into the Design aspects of the Mac OS, which are without a doubt superior to Windows (XP at least). But where software as a tool is concerned, the war is over! I can survive just as well on Windows as I have on OS X.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps marks an end to my pro-Mac posts (though, let’s wait for Snow Leopard to be sure). Who knows, I may eventually even (gasp!) post a review of a Windows software here soon.

Vincent

Let me just start with that I don’t hate Windows, far from it! I like that I can run most applications on it and, let’s face it, it is still a Windows-centric world, so knowing your way around the operating system is a fairly important skill.

As the latest update to Mac OSX Leopard, 10.5.7, has caused some mayhem on my company’s server (something to do with DHCP constantly refreshing my IP, if you can help buzz me), I am now booting into Windows XP via Bootcamp. Additionally, my boss also ordered me a new Dell PC to persuade me to “be like the rest of ‘em” (my own words), but really more to do with security: we work in a Financial Trust, which means that we deal with highly sensitive data that shouldn’t be stored on any laptop, really!

OK, so how do you, as a Mac-user, survive that Windows experience (slash “Trauma”)? Here’s what I did:

• I love Quicksilver (a launch-utility that allows me to circumvent the mouse and explorer interface and launch apps with a few keys), and I am currently using Slickrun as a fairly effective replacement. OK, you won’t exactly be able to program triggers or append text to files, but it works.
• Expose is another “interface aid” I use instead of alt-tab. DExposE2 is a Windows replacement that works fairly similarly.
• Marsedit is my favourite blogging application on the Mac ever (you all know, how frequently I write..) and Windows Live Writer is a surprisingly good replacement for it.
• GDI++ is an interesting font-rendering app for Windows XP users. It took some getting used to, but I find it works well when Cleartype is turned on.
• Textexpander has made writing a slightly more efficient task on the Mac, certainly a less error-prone one. It basically allows you to create abbreviations or add frequently misspelled words and the program then replaces it with the word you intended. On Windows: check out Texter.

As you might have noticed, the “Mac Experience,” to me at least, is not about Application support, it’s about productivity, i.e. doing stuff quicker, which the Mac excels at. Everything else, from Microsoft Office to Mozilla Firefox essentially works the same and, in several cases better, on Windows, so no survival guide needed there.

While I will never enjoy the Windows experience as much as the Mac one, these few things have made my life a little more bearable. If you have some nifty tricks to share that have made your Windows experience better, please share them in the comments!

Vincent

P.S. One thing I would still love to have is a system-wide spell-checker like in OS X.

If you think about how the iPhone was launched so many months ago, or rather at what stage the iPods were at, you know that apps were always on the horizon. The iPod G5 introduced a wider range of games that you could buy through the iTunes store, which already introduced us to the idea of buying apps, well games really, through that venue.

When the iPhone arrived, there were NO apps; App-support was basically web-coded widgets with limited functionality. The reason for this was, I believe, that there was no competition to speak of + perhaps the complexity of setting up such a venture. Apps for other phones existed, ok, but it was either in a decentralised fashion (Java for instance), or very centralised and very limited in its offering (e.g. Blackberry & Palm), at least compared to the current iTunes store.

It took pressure from the market [jail-breaking & media] and perhaps already the idea in the back of Apple’s heads to release the app-store a little over a year after the initial device was launched. When it did launch, there was lot’s of hype, lot’s of love, and good news for Apple iPhone numbers both on the device-sales side and that of app-sales.

How the other device makers reacted was two-fold and really quite half-heartedly. Most hardware makers focussed on what they did best: hardware. Touch-screen after touch-screen device entered the market. The most interesting software-based strategy came from Google, which, I guess, realised the potential of mobiles as computing platforms and, more importantly, as search/internet/”revenue for Google” enabled devices in everyone’s pocket.

The current app-store offerings are still lacking with many big parties attempting to launch one for their platforms. The key-factors in terms of adoption seem to be having a critical mass of both users and developers, both of which represent a chicken & egg problem for many, something that the initial iPhone circumvented quite elegantly.

The most promising devices today are Google-/Android-powered phones and the, still somewhat vapoury Palm Pre. The latter seems to be the most competitive, hardware-wise, with much ex-Apple talent having contributed to the Pre’s development. On the App-store front, it’s still very early days, but reports are disappointing.

So, the question is, what can phone-makers and software-makers do to compete with the new “Microsoft” (=Apple) of the mobile space? The choice, to me, appears two-fold:

1. Emulate Apple in whatever way possible: create a great device and create an app-store with a sufficient supply of apps.
2. Or, create a great device and find a way to elegantly get apps onto it, without all this centralising nonsense.

By the wording, it’s obvious that I prefer the second option. As good as the iTunes store is, it isn’t amazing for developers and it isn’t as profitable for Apple as one would think either. The biggest problem for competitors is similar to the music-situation, that Apple has critical mass, which attracts the greatest amounts of customers and is a nearly insurmountable challenge for new entrants.

Where Apple clearly leads is in its developer-support, which isn’t quite as apparent from other software/hardware makers, except perhaps Microsoft (but mainly on the PC-side) and perhaps Google. Palm, as yet, does not offer a comparable service to developers, or to put it in another way, Palm developer conferences are not yet sold out in the way Apple’s WWDC is each year.

Final thoughts:

• I think that developer support is key in any smart phone strategy these days, as mobile devices continue to become computers in your pocket.
• I don’t think that centralised app stores are necessarily the way to go, except (and I suspect this) if the mobile carriers are demanding it.
• The simplest thing would be to create a web-based categorised list of a apps that developers can add to;
• implement mechanisms that vote and demote apps according to their usefulness and other attributes;
• and create / implement mechanisms that prevent abuse (e.g. P2P apps or VOIP apps, though I think the latter can no longer be considered this)
• And continue to innovate on the hardware, because I think there is plenty of innovation left. What makes the iPhone so desirable is the app-support, but the hardware is really nothing to write home about.

Note: I purposefully left the links towards the end, because it allows for a more time-efficient, easier to write (and, maybe, read) article. Links with additional info are included in below list:

• Mossberg on Palm Pre
• Apple App store numbers
• The incredible app store hype (one of many developer complaints)
• Palm developer network

I hate Windows Explorer and I hate Mac OS X Finder, but what I hate even more is when applications try to replace them by moving all the files into a new, more app-friendly structure. Plenty of examples on the Mac-side, I am, not sadly, no longer an expert on Windows software.

The problem with the Finder / Explorer is that, while they are perfectly suitable for storing and organising files, they are painfully lacking in presenting files in a way that a human or group of humans can understand. The problem / opportunity is also that Explorer/Finder is the standard in as far that every organisation uses it to organise their files. Replacing it by a information system that uses its own proprietary structure to organise files, people, and activities just adds to the learning curve, particularly if, as most experience shows, the software ends up not being that great and the company has to switch.

So, what I’m looking for is the following. An application that:

• works on Macs and PCs (The first is not an absolute prerequisite, it’s only because I work on a Mac)
• Better: is either web- or LAN-based (solves the cross-platform problem)
• acts as a front-end for the explorer, without actually changing the locations of files (except if a user wants it)
• allows users to:
  • sort files into “playlists,” again without changing the location of the files;
  • give long descriptions to files, not just available in a hidden “info” section;
  • assign files and tasks to groups and group-members;
  • assign due dates / sync with calendars;
  • etc. etc., you get the idea.
• Can certainly cost money, must be licensable on a company-basis, and must have a trial period of at least 3 months (it takes at least that long to deploy, adopt, and adapt it on an organisational level).

It’s such an obvious thing that such a software probably already exists. If you know of a good one, please let me know in the comments or per mail.

Vincent

If you want to hear some interesting perspectives on the hardware and software business and/or starting businesses in general, check out the Stanford entrepreneurial thought leader lectures held by Jeff Hawking, co-founder of Palm, and Steve Balmer, employee no. 30 & current CEO at Microsoft.

Jeff Hawking is also the author of “On Intelligence,” and describes his development-path of creating neuro-scientific solutions towards interfacing with technologies (which is, I think, the right perspective towards interface-design). He’s doing some pretty interesting things in the field, also through his foundation called Numenta, but I expect also through future hardware coming out (I’m not sure if he’s involved in the Palm Pre, but he was in the Foleo). He describes some crisis-moments in Palm’s past, including how to compete with Microsoft (the irony!). Very worth checking out and I love the title: “Inside the mind of a reluctant entrepreneur.”

Steve Balmer, what a character! I found him to be thoughtful and concise, whilst never forgetting to pimp the universe that is Microsoft and how that is important for startups… He shares a bunch of stories, like why he decided to drop out of Stanford and join Microsoft as employee no. 30, the current economy and its opportunities, the future of computing, and even makes a few jokes about (not mentioning) Vista.

I thoroughly enjoyed both lectures and think you will too.
Vincent

I want to keep this short and leave the floor to you mostly, as I’m not a software developer or smart enough for this topic, I’m just a consumer and user of the product. On the train to my parents for this Easter weekend, two young guys were eying me and my Macbook and, seeing that I was wearing earphones perhaps, discussing the mac. One guy said to the other: “those Macs look like they’re taking over the world. Did you see the new one, it looks slick, but it costs € 1500.” And the other guy responded: “How dare they?” Whereas the other guy said: “Well, they look pretty cool, but interface-wise, I could never get used to them.” And the conversation died after that.

So what makes Macs so cool. Rather than discuss the superficial, the hardware, I just want to briefly write about why I like the Mac OS “interface,” and then leave the floor to you, answering the question: “What makes OS X so damn great?”

My impression: I don’t know how to explain it exactly, maybe it’s because OS X is Unix based. But what I really dig about OS X (Tiger & Leopard) is that every menu-function, every possible action you’d want to undertake, can somehow be translated into a script or service, and thus entered in Quicksilver or another “launcher.” That means that my hands rarely have to leave the keyboard, which I think saves me a few seconds vs. going for the mouse/trackpad, point & clicking. It also means that my Dock [Apple's application launcher] and desktop are clean most of the time, as I don’t need a “visible” shortcut to get to the destination I want.

I could never get that same workflow going on Windows, and perhaps it’s because of the architecture, that it just isn’t written to be that open. Sure, things like SizeUp and Fresh, both of which I discussed last week, are not part of the Leopard interface, but the fact that they exist, the fact that Quicksilver exists, is actually what makes OS X 10 times as effective an OS to me. Once again, I don’t know why exactly this is the case, I attribute it to the open architecture of Unix.

So, now it’s your turn: why makes OS X so damn great (or not, if that’s where you want to take it)?

Have a nice Easter weekend!
Vincent

About 6 months ago, or longer, Jason Calacanis wrote an essay about what he viewed as the optimal setup, furniture-wise, for the productivity centre that is a startup. Jeremy wrote a response here, as well. I’m sure, things have changed, with the recession and all, but my mantra about that is… don’t dispair, just work harder. In other words, I’m ignoring the recession… just working harder. The setup of an office shouldn’t change, that’s an investment in your productivity.

This last week, I spent in Luxembourg, evaluating whether or not to take on a position in an accountancy. I may write more about this in the future, I may not, but it also confronted me with the topic of productivity in a group-environment. Writing my thesis, I think, has turned me into a “Getting Things Done” freak, reading that book hasn’t helped either, of course.

Right now, I’m working on a dated PC, with a dual screen setup, on Windows 2000, running software that keeps track of the many official documents that form the core of “being accountable,” writing on a French keyboard with crazy letter-placements… sigh. This post is, luckily, written on an international keyboard, on my trusted Mac, which would be my machine of choice as well. Oh, and we have one of the best coffee machines on the market (I will edit this post with the name tomorrow, when I’m back in the office. Edit: the magic word is SAECO), and the chairs are, afaik, of great quality.

Do Macs increase productivity?

So Jason and I agree on this at least, Macs increase productivity. That said, life is not quite that simple. Working in a group-environment, in a legal environment, puts a certain responsibility on you, that you have to produce in an environment that is compatible with everyone else. My Mac would help me, but would only work if, either, everyone had Macs, and if the software, I worked with, is cross-compatible between Windows & Macs, which this one isn’t, afaik.

What I don’t like about Windows… I could write an essay about this, but mainly that it doesn’t feel like it’s designed for most machines I work on. My Mac is a dinosaur, but I run the latest OS on it no problem. Office 2008, on the other hand, that’s a different story.

Verdict: depending on software, hardware, and co-workers / business-partners, both Windows and Macs can increase productivity. Definitely not a black & white issue.

What about dual screen setups?

Having worked with Leopard spaces, ever since I first reviewed it, I’m quite used to have different screens for different activities. However, the way it works on a Mac, when I go to a screen, I only get to see that screen. In a physical multi-screen setup, you see both screens, the advantage being, that you can keep your permanently-used apps (e.g. Word) on one screen and your once-in-while apps (e.g. Outlook) in the other. It’s also somewhat useful for copying text from one app to the other (not copy-paste, but typing out text… on a French keyboarrrrrrd, grrrr).

What I don’t like, however, is that the app-placement is not straightforward—this seems like it can be set up in the ATI-software, but I have no idea where exactly to do this. The Mac-spaces setup can also be frustrating, but is at least understandable and part of the OS. With two physical screens, it also feels like the mouse has to travel much farther, something that isn’t a problem when using multiple virtual desktops, which you can switch to at a finger-click.

My verdict: if you’re constantly switching between multiple apps, then a multi-screen setup can be useful, but I don’t see it as better than Leopard’s spaces.

Should you have a great coffee-machine?

Coming from a guy that’s been drinking green tea for several weeks now, and switched to coffee as soon as he arrived here, my answer is a big fat yes. I remember Jason writing something about saving you the trip to Starbucks. That isn’t actually a problem in Luxembourg, there’s good coffee everywhere (much like in the rest of Europe), and isn’t why I say this.

Good coffee is good for two reasons: it boosts productivity and it boosts morale. The reason coffee is so popular because we live under the reality / illusion (depending where you come from) that it wakes us up. Good coffee boosts coffee consumption and should hence boost energy.

Coffee is also popular because people love it, and people love good coffee more than bad coffee. Hence, good coffee = happier people. As a manager you can now say: look, I know I scream at you guys sometimes. But here’s some good coffee, now please get back to work. Done.

Answer: yes.

What about furniture?

I think that IKEA makes perfectly affordable furniture that works great as well (big fan), so I see this as a basic expense that every business needs to make. And you need to have furniture that allows people to be comfortable for longer periods of time. Not only the 0 to 24 hours a day, you spend in the office, but the many months to years that you will work in that same office as well.

Answer: yes, but it doesn’t have to be expensive.

Other factors?

I’m too tired to think of them now. Furnishing your office feels like spicing your food. Food will often taste fine without spices, but add the right spice and it creates taste-explosions in your mouth.

Well, that’s my sentiment. Who’s next?

Vincent