Deep Thinking - Your Views

[hillmiester]

So every now and again I get some deep thinking going on and I usually write them down but now I blog them instead.

Microsoft a little advice - link
Making Vista (Other Windows) a better alternate

Software 4 Students - link
What software companies should see and do

My Prediction - link
The future of computing and the internet

I am intrested to know what your guys opinions on the topics are

[Russ]

What a great way of spamming your blog!

[hillmiester]

Russ D I am not trying to do that sort of thing at all. For you I will post the actually articles here. All I am intrested in is peoples views, I do not gain anything for people visiting my site so theres no gain. but meh some people are quick to judge im guessing

Microsoft a little advice

Here is my view on what Microsoft should do that will make their operating system more appealing.
So I’m going with vista here and what they should add and do to make it a more appealing product to the average computer user and maybe a lot of companies. Linux is getting popular in companies because it’s a cheaper alternate and comes usually with a office productivity suite with is, mainly Open Office . This allows the company no need to shell out big bucks on office productivity software. Now what Microsoft should do is not add the new Office 2007 with vista for free, but they should add Word 2003, Excel 2003 and PowerPoint 2003 to every operating system, this could even replace Word Pad (not notepad as that can be useful). This would make companies go “o” we get some of the software from the worlds number one productivity suite bundled, this would make them think twice about switching to another operating system and give them incentives to upgrade.
Now I know a lot of people will be like boooooo they should convert to Linux and I agree with you but until Linux becomes a full fledge leader then most companies will be sticking with the worlds number one operating system. I myself want to convert all my computers to Linux but I have requirements that make it impossible to do so, I cannot code Visual Basic in Linux and I play Counter-Strike : Source and I cannot play that in Linux.
I think that every future versions of Windows should come with Word, Excel and PowerPoint built into the operating system like Word Pad, Paint etc are. The software should be at least one version behind and in an ideal world the latest version.

Students 4 Free

This article is my view and I do not promote illegal file sharing or illegal use of software. To start with here is the sentence that I will be explaining, I believe that all students should be provided with software for free. The main reason I say this as being a student for many years and having to use software that costs well in excess of available funds to complete projects or to gain extra knowledge.
I’m guessing a lot of illegal use of software is mainly done by students as they can’t afford to pay £100s on software. Students are the future and software companies should be giving them their software for free and not a cut down student version. Once the student completes their course and gets a job they may well have the ability to get the company to purchase multiple software licenses for a product they really liked at college and the software company gains an extra person skilled at their application. Here’s an example, a computer art student uses Adobe Photoshop 7 at college (as the college can’t afford new licenses for the current versions) and they do a lot of work at home for the course and for personal projects, they can’t afford to shell out £700 on Adobe Photoshop CS2 so they have two main choices:

1.Using things like Bit Torrent, NewsGroups, IRC etc to download Adobe Photoshop CS2 and continue to learn the software at home on very regular basis

2.Move to open source / free alternates, for example The Gimp (link) and the add on called Gimp Shop that sets the menu layouts like the ones in Adobe Photoshop so they can sort of continue to learn Photoshop but really its not the same

The above scenarios are very common and its easy to understand why. So the company is condoning the student if they download the software illegally but they are not condoning gaining another experienced user. The companies know that its happening and they go out to try and stop the illegal downloads of the software and in the end if they ever stop it (which I very much doubt) they will suddenly see that their sales maybe effected as the students will move to open source alternates or more financially viable products. These companies make enough money and I am sure they can afford to give these students the software for free.
The thing is it won’t be as easy as going to their website saying you’re a student and downloading a copy, what will happen is that the education institution will have a special contract with Adobe that will allow them to give the students on the course that requires it a special copy that may have a 2 year lifespan (the length of the course). Microsoft are doing good work with their express range of software that enables people to freely download the basic software and use it, but I think that there should not be a cut down version for the student as they will not learn any of the advance or “normal” features.
But I know that these companies are money hungry beasts that want to squeeze every last penny out of you and this will never happen. That’s my opinion that could be a viable situation.

My Prediction

So with internet connection speeds ever increasing and VPN technology improving vastly I can clearly predict how I think the future of computing will go.
My future in involves every house in the [insert your country here] having a thin client computer. This will have a 19” TFT display and keyboard and mouse. When you turn the computer on it will connect to a provider for example Google, Microsoft and Yahoo and then it will log in with your account details. This will then bring up an interface that will allow you to browse the internet and will have all the office apps and everything already placed on your virtual system at the providers servers.
You will pay a monthly or a yearly subscription for this service and it will be around £50 a year for a basic account or £4.50 a month that will give you access to their operating system, their office suite and online storage of 50GB. The top of the range account will have something like 1TB online storage space and will come with more applications and services for around £200 a year and £20 a month.
The cost for the subscription may seem a lot but the computer you will be using will be free of charge for a mid – high subscription plan or it will cost £200 for a low – mid subscription plan. It is sort of like the mobile phone market; the more you pay for your monthly charge the cheaper the phone are.
Now I can hear you say well this will not happen because how will I be able to play games and add software? There are two answers to this:
1 - The service provider you are with could have partner deals with say adobe and EA that will add there services to your account for free or for a heavily subsidised fee
2 - You will go to for example Adobe’s or EA’s network portals and purchase a subscription to play a game or use Photoshop.
The internet speed will be so fast that heavy bandwidth and resource hungry applications will be able to be streamed to your computer.
Too farfetched?
Look at this screenshot of a current beta online FPS, the graphics are good at the moment and my prediction is for 20 – 30 years time and things will advance tenfold

Website: Online FPS
So this would be the end of Linux and Apple?
The answer to that is yes and no let me explain:
People will still be able to connect to the internet with an older operating system such as a Windows, Linux or Mac OS. The cost of the net connection will be placed higher than it will be to use a thin client, this will be to get people over to the new technology. Apple will be able to provide a media service where you can get podcast, vidcasts, music, movies and TV shows that you will be paying a subscription for, this means that there iPod will still be around as a media player and that Apple will survive. Linux will not be on the desktop like people are wanting today, by this time it would have been made for the desktop and it competed with Microsoft Windows and failed. This is not the end of Linux, it will be a OS that may well be on the service providers servers.
Most of the world will have been blanketed with free wireless internet that will allow your thin top (thin client – laptop hybrid), PDA, Mobile Phones, Tablet device to connect to your service subscriber and access your online system. All these devices will be able to display your system
Yes there will be a type of removable media such as a DVD type disc (more advance of course) or a flash memory based system. If it’s a DVD type media then there will be a burner placed inside the thin client and you will be able to on the fly download the files you want and burn them to DVD type disk at the same time. There may well also be a slot on the thin client that will allow you to insert your flash memory based system and store your files.
So what about a media centre type machine?
That will also be a thin client you have under your TV or maybe inside your TV that will connect to your media service subscriber (could be Apple). No TV is broadcast as such anymore. You pick the genre and / or shows you like and your media provider will have them streamed to your media subscriber unit (MSU). You can also tailor the option to say when you will be at home and to set events to happen them for example when you come home from work the news is one for the headlines then your favourite show may come on after it, you will be able to pause the TV and have multiple profiles for the MSU (mum, dad, wife, husband, daughter, son etc)
There will be NO piracy at all with my prediction of the future. Every one has learnt from era that no films, music or TV shows were being made because piracy got that far out of hand. Artists and Companies will have become less greedy and now everyone has access to their materials at a low cost.
Because most of the world has been blanketed with wireless internet access all telephones will be a VOIP type system. This will allow everyone to have their own number they take everywhere; this number will be linked with your media service and computer services you are subscribed to. This means your IM contact list will automatically viewed on your mobile phone and if you add a number on your mobile phone it will be added to your online address book.
This is the era where everyone and everything is connected; some people may fear this future. I see it as a necessary evolution in the world of computing.

[Druchii]

Loving the online game. And some of your views start to sound very one sided at times, howver they seem to redeem themselves.

[Paddy1]

Originally Posted by hillmiester

but they should add Word 2003, Excel 2003 and PowerPoint 2003 to every operating system

This would be anticompetitive and illegal.

[bopdude]

I can see this thread going one way, without thinking so deep, on the other hand, and keeping this thread OT, I DON'T, it gives me a headache, and whats the point, what will be wil be

Originally Posted by Russ D

What a great way of spamming your blog!

Dont get me on the subjects off blogs...

[bopdude]

Originally Posted by Slyder

Dont get me on the subjects off blogs...

Just had a gander at yours ......................... interesting

[Mal]

Originally Posted by bopdude

Just had a gander at yours ......................... interesting

That's not his blog It's Maddox

Originally Posted by Mal

That's not his blog It's Maddox

Its true... its not my Blog.. I just agree with Maddox's views....