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This is the ASUS Eee 701 PC. Acting on the suggestion of a colleague, just before Christmas I slipped into a Toys ‘R Us store, handed over £219 (£186.38 ex VAT) and came home with a smartest little machine I’ve seen in ages. It’s a Linux box configured for the school-kid market (hence the retailer — Research Machines are also selling it to educational institutions), and it’s been a revelation. First of all, it’s really small and portable (0.89kg and not much bigger than a paperback book), but has a usable keyboard, good on-board applications and built-in wireless networking. It’s also an object lesson...
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Peter Sayer, of IDG News Service reports on BECTA’s considered opinion of Microsoft Vista: British schools should not upgrade to Microsoft’s Vista operating system and Office 2007 productivity suite, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) said in a report on the software. It also supported use of the international standard ODF (Open Document Format) for storing files.
InfoWorld Podcast Schools might consider using Vista if rolling out all-new infrastructure, but should not introduce it piecemeal alongside other versions of Windows, or upgrade older machines, said the agency, which is responsible for advising British schools and colleges on their IT use. “We have not had sight of any evidence to support the argument that the costs of...
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There have been lots of interesting complaints recently from users of Microsoft and Apple operating systems about the latest releases of these systems. The nicest take on the Vista problem is this satirical review which treats Windows XP as an ‘upgrade’ to Vista. “I have finally decided to take the plunge”, it begins. “Last night I upgraded my Vista desktop machine to Windows XP, and this afternoon I will be doing the same to my laptop.” The results, needless to say, are positive. On ’system performance’, for example, Well, here there appears to be no contest. Windows XP is both faster and far more responsive. I no longer have the obligatory 1-minute system lock...
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Techcrunch covers the latest beta release of Office Live, called Workspace, which is Microsoft’s attempt at an online collaborative environment. Think Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Anyway, they weren’t impressed: The big surprise is that Office Live Workspace includes a decent online word processor called Web Notes that is comparable in most ways to other Web-based alternatives. It is fast, supports a handful of different fonts, font sizes, and formatting. Nothing too fancy, but enough to write a memo, take notes, or even write a draft of an article. There is no spellcheck, though. Andâits Achillesâ Heelâyou cannot export a document from Web Notes to your desktop. Anything you write in Web Notes is trapped inside...
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BBC NEWS report… The first official order for the so-called “$100 laptop” has been placed by the government of Uruguay. The South American country has bought 100,000 of the machines for schoolchildren aged six to 12. A further 300,000 may be purchased to provide a machine for every child in the country by 2009. The order will be a boost for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organisation behind the project which has admitted difficulties getting concrete orders. “I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written,” Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the organisation, recently told the New York Times.
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This is interesting: The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices. The government agency has complained to the Office of Fair Trading. It says talks with Microsoft have not resolved “fundamental concerns” about academic licensing and about Office 2007 and the Vista operating system… It’s no so long ago since many of us in the Open Source community regarded BECTA as a captive of Microsoft.  I hope this isn’t just a temporary aberration.
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Nicholas Carr, a well known commentator on IT and business, has written an interesting blog post. The future, he argues, can be expressed in a simple equation: Google plus Apple. The future of personal computing was divulged by Mr. Eric Schmidt, the chief executive officer of Google, on March 23 of this year during an interview with Wired’s Fred Vogelstein. Vogelstein asked Schmidt why he had recently joined Apple’s board of directors, and Schmidt responded: “Google’s architectural model around broadband and services and so forth plays very well to the powerful devices and services Apple is doing. We’re a perfect back end to the problems that they’re trying to solve. And they have very good judgment on user interface...
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Telegraph report: Since the ruling [by the European Court of First Instance], Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer has been in almost daily contact with Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for competition policy. Following these intensive discussions, Microsoft has agreed to change the way it provides rivals with information that allows them to write programmes that mesh with Windows. Microsoft will now make information available to open source developers, with licensing terms that allow every recipient of the resulting software to copy, modify and redistribute it in accordance with the open source business model. In a statement today Ms Kroes said: “The Commission’s 2004 decision set a clear precedent against which Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour could be judged. “Now that Microsoft...
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We’re sorry that LWM disappeared from the Net for a few days. It would be nice to be able to blame technical difficulties, but the real explanation is administrative incompetence on the part of the management! Sincere apologies for downtime.
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Dell sells PCs pre-loaded with Ubuntu, but you have to dig deep into its website to find them. The Register adds this observation: Dell, it seems, is reluctant to big up its Linux offerings. At every opportunity it reminds potential customers that open source is NOT Microsoft. About Ubuntu it says: “The main thing to note is that when you choose open source you don’t get a Windows operating system.” It also goes on about the benefits and disadvantages of open source. According to Dell, it’s good for the community spirit created among all those friendly chaps out there holding hands and sharing code, but bad because it’s not compatible with lots of other software. You might...
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