Don't want him to look bad once this article becomes official on slashdot.
===============================================
15 Minutes of Fame or the Fall of Communism?
So here we are, kicking off 2005 (eh, its February as of right now),
as I sit in my dorm room, pounding away at these keys. Suddenly I
realize, with all my Google alerts, that are automatically sent to my
Gmail account, which I'm looking at by means of Mozilla Firefox, ran
on my Computer with an AMD Athlon chip, that this is going to be no
ordinary year, it's going to be the year of the underdog.
Having a lot to cover in this blurb, Id like to start off with the
basics of revolution currently hitting the Internet (more like
slamming into and turning around... but whatever). First off, there is
Google, finally going public, and now having to release programs and
other tools that will keep its market share afloat. True, their search
engine is amazing (and trust me, I could get into details here, but I
rather keep my sanity than discussing query algorithms), and it is a
constantly growing entity, but nothing new and amazing will come of it
no matter what web pages are searched. So boom, we get Gmail... or at
least some of us do. Gmail, in its current state, is beta and can only
be distributed by invite, but still destroying any other online mail
service I've ever seen. It combines powerful functionality with a
simplicity that we all crave. With it getting closer and closer to
being a final release by Google making it more and more available to
the public (I just got my 50 invites), this is sure to dominate web
mail as we know it.
Google plans on storming the Internet, and you can see this in the way
that they are slowly but surely recreating every aspect of their
empire. Google Groups (Beta) is more like a gigantic worldwide forum
now, instead of a dull directory listing as it used to be. It has the
same look and feel as Gmail, so there is no need to worry about how it
all works.
Now we all know that news sites have been done over and over again,
but you have to try them all out to really get one that you like. For
me at least, Google News really tops them all. It searches tons ( I
don't know an exact number, but i'm sure it doesn't really matter,
because its probably increasing daily) of news websites in all
different genres by the minute. You can get automated news sent to
your email (or Gmail if you fancy) that is selected by different
keywords that you choose and have options for.
Finally (for the entire web interface... yes, there is more), we have
Froogle, Google's shopping search engine which is really a godsend. It
displays pictures and a blurb about the product (whatever is on the
site that that result came from) as well as a price for the product.
Once again, integrated with one google account, you can have wish
lists and shopping lists which along with Google Groups is all
integrated into one main account just by email address.
Now Google has come out with some non-web interface products, but
unfortunately I'm just getting into those. The first one I decided to
pick up is a photo organizing and optimizing program called Picasa2.
Being an avid photographer (with a not-so-fantastic camera) and trying
to perfect my design skills with Adobe's Photoshop, I have thousands
upon thousands of files that are strewn about my hard drive, and
because of some past hard drive failures, I have numerous copies of
each file... everywhere. I already have the feeling that downloading
Picasa was one of the best decisions I've made all year. Of my 8,000+
photos (all of which Picasa automatically found), I was able to easily
, and quickly clean up over 2,500 duplicates that I had just laying
around confusing me as to which was the one that I had recently worked
with, especially with Photoshop files, which I may add that it found
along with a whole slew of other file types, including video files.
So I bet your wondering, "Okay, it sorts and cleans up photos, big
deal. There are tons of programs that do that." Well, I'd say that it
is just another carbon copy program, except that it's powered by
Google. That means it uses all the same features as Gmail (which at
this point I think its pretty clear that they plan on having it be
their flagship tool) including labels and starring, and needless to
say, its one damn good looking program.
Google really has their act together, and I get giddy about what their
going to come out with next, whether its the public release of Gmail,
another great program like Picasa, or even just revamping a portion of
their site for integration. Anyway you look at it, it's a win-win
situation for all of us.
Next, I move on to Firefox and Mozilla in general. Before the current
"revolution" (you'll have to excuse the terminology, it's a geek's
life), I had heard of Mozilla and didn't really know what the big deal
was, much less it was a browser. Then early December I checked it out
and found out on what I had been missing for so many years. Firefox is
a refined browser that includes tabbed browsing, customization from
top to bottom including built in search engines for a mass amount of
sites, and I can't stress enough its familiar and welcoming look,
which is what really gives it its "switchability" from the old.
Telling you all this, you may think that Firefox is only for advanced
users, but that's not the case. For one, it's secure, so you won't get
the insane amounts of spyware that you would from Microsoft's Internet
Explorer, which is a beneficial feature to any user.
Just today I read on SpreadFirefox.com that the Firefox download count
is now over 23 million since November 9 and the admin of the site that
wrote in the article that he found a statistic that states that AOL
users are at 22.2 million. If you think about how long AOL has been
around compared to the short life of Firefox, that is just amazing.
The browser that lets you "take back the web" just passed America
Online, and did exactly that.
To advance on to Mozilla in general, I really have no complaints. I
have tried out some of their other software, including Thunderbird,
their local email client, as well as Sunbird (which is currently in a
very beta stage) their calender project.
First off, Thunderbird is a good program, it has some of the nicer
features of Firefox such as extensions and themes, but nothing to
extravagant. Its very versatile and secure, which, once again, is
something we could all use. Sunbird, a calendar/scheduling program, is
quite good for being so low in the beta stages (version .2 as of right
now). Its kind of buggy, and could use some more features, but those
are to be expected with a final release, I hope it goes as well as
Firefox.
So all in all, Mozilla seems to be getting quite the share of users
whether its Firefox, Thunderbird or Sunbird. The one question I have
to ask now is "Could this be the end of Internet Explorer and
Microsoft's death grip on mainstream software?" Let's hope so.
Finally, I move on to hardware; processors to be specific, but I'll
touch on others. The entire processor market is at a turning point
right now. As we all know, its always been Intel in the foreground,
AMD in the back. No surprise there. Well, the way I see it, that's all
about to change real fast. Intel's have been in the primary CPU in
store bought computers for the past few years (there are a few
exceptions to that, but generally speaking...). They had the catchy
commercials with the same recognisable Pentium name. They were sold on
straight clock speed ( and still are for the most part), thinking
faster is better, and unfortunately, that's how consumers learned
reacted, with no look at any other aspects of the CPU. Then the
Centrino chipset hits the shelves and even though months before AMD
broke into the 64-bit market (granted they are not the same thing)...
what do you hear more about? Exactly, Centrino, because it only
solidified Intel's hold on the laptop market. To many, it was
considered the best, bu that is only because there was not
alternative.
Next, AMD moves up from the 754 pin stepping stone to a 939 pin socket
for the Athlon 64s. Not really a good move for AMD, because the users
that bought 754s are upset that they invested all that money into a
new technology and its already becoming obsolete, but the truth of the
matter is that 754 pins just wasn't giving them the headroom they
needed to to really be able to harness the power of their newfound
product. AMD still stays the preferred processor of overclock
enthusiasts.
Then all at once, things become very different, things are about to
change. Out of nowhere, AMD puts its fist down and releases the
Sempron, a 32-bit socket A chip to replace the Duron. Good move. The
Duron is old, out-dated, and in my a opinion, a steaming pile.
Alright, we got the low end users covered, now what about us users
on-the-go?
The second part of the hit has yet to reach the consumers, but its
sounding pretty promising. AMD has recently announced the development
of the Turion, a new mobile 64-bit processor that is supposed to give
the Centrino technology a run for its money.
The third and final bang is for the power users (basically server
technology... you'll see), and is composed of Opteron (socket 940) up
with nVidia's nForce4 Professional via a new technology called
HyperTransport. Now, I haven't done a ton of research on this, and
what I have done, I don't completely understand, so heres a quick spin
of what I do know: You can link up the two models that nVidia released
(the 2200 and the 2050) and get four Opterons running, four Gigabit
ethernet controllers, and 16 native SATA300 devices. That is so
awesome, its almost disgusting. I know this is mostly nVidia's doing,
but I give it to AMD because they are the ones that first hit the
shelves with 64-bit, and without that, none of this would be possible.
So there we have it, three companies. All of which are about to (or
already have) destroyed their competition. It seems that nothing
stands in their way except time.
This year is going to be one hell of a ride.
===============================================
15 Minutes of Fame or the Fall of Communism?
So here we are, kicking off 2005 (eh, its February as of right now),
as I sit in my dorm room, pounding away at these keys. Suddenly I
realize, with all my Google alerts, that are automatically sent to my
Gmail account, which I'm looking at by means of Mozilla Firefox, ran
on my Computer with an AMD Athlon chip, that this is going to be no
ordinary year, it's going to be the year of the underdog.
Having a lot to cover in this blurb, Id like to start off with the
basics of revolution currently hitting the Internet (more like
slamming into and turning around... but whatever). First off, there is
Google, finally going public, and now having to release programs and
other tools that will keep its market share afloat. True, their search
engine is amazing (and trust me, I could get into details here, but I
rather keep my sanity than discussing query algorithms), and it is a
constantly growing entity, but nothing new and amazing will come of it
no matter what web pages are searched. So boom, we get Gmail... or at
least some of us do. Gmail, in its current state, is beta and can only
be distributed by invite, but still destroying any other online mail
service I've ever seen. It combines powerful functionality with a
simplicity that we all crave. With it getting closer and closer to
being a final release by Google making it more and more available to
the public (I just got my 50 invites), this is sure to dominate web
mail as we know it.
Google plans on storming the Internet, and you can see this in the way
that they are slowly but surely recreating every aspect of their
empire. Google Groups (Beta) is more like a gigantic worldwide forum
now, instead of a dull directory listing as it used to be. It has the
same look and feel as Gmail, so there is no need to worry about how it
all works.
Now we all know that news sites have been done over and over again,
but you have to try them all out to really get one that you like. For
me at least, Google News really tops them all. It searches tons ( I
don't know an exact number, but i'm sure it doesn't really matter,
because its probably increasing daily) of news websites in all
different genres by the minute. You can get automated news sent to
your email (or Gmail if you fancy) that is selected by different
keywords that you choose and have options for.
Finally (for the entire web interface... yes, there is more), we have
Froogle, Google's shopping search engine which is really a godsend. It
displays pictures and a blurb about the product (whatever is on the
site that that result came from) as well as a price for the product.
Once again, integrated with one google account, you can have wish
lists and shopping lists which along with Google Groups is all
integrated into one main account just by email address.
Now Google has come out with some non-web interface products, but
unfortunately I'm just getting into those. The first one I decided to
pick up is a photo organizing and optimizing program called Picasa2.
Being an avid photographer (with a not-so-fantastic camera) and trying
to perfect my design skills with Adobe's Photoshop, I have thousands
upon thousands of files that are strewn about my hard drive, and
because of some past hard drive failures, I have numerous copies of
each file... everywhere. I already have the feeling that downloading
Picasa was one of the best decisions I've made all year. Of my 8,000+
photos (all of which Picasa automatically found), I was able to easily
, and quickly clean up over 2,500 duplicates that I had just laying
around confusing me as to which was the one that I had recently worked
with, especially with Photoshop files, which I may add that it found
along with a whole slew of other file types, including video files.
So I bet your wondering, "Okay, it sorts and cleans up photos, big
deal. There are tons of programs that do that." Well, I'd say that it
is just another carbon copy program, except that it's powered by
Google. That means it uses all the same features as Gmail (which at
this point I think its pretty clear that they plan on having it be
their flagship tool) including labels and starring, and needless to
say, its one damn good looking program.
Google really has their act together, and I get giddy about what their
going to come out with next, whether its the public release of Gmail,
another great program like Picasa, or even just revamping a portion of
their site for integration. Anyway you look at it, it's a win-win
situation for all of us.
Next, I move on to Firefox and Mozilla in general. Before the current
"revolution" (you'll have to excuse the terminology, it's a geek's
life), I had heard of Mozilla and didn't really know what the big deal
was, much less it was a browser. Then early December I checked it out
and found out on what I had been missing for so many years. Firefox is
a refined browser that includes tabbed browsing, customization from
top to bottom including built in search engines for a mass amount of
sites, and I can't stress enough its familiar and welcoming look,
which is what really gives it its "switchability" from the old.
Telling you all this, you may think that Firefox is only for advanced
users, but that's not the case. For one, it's secure, so you won't get
the insane amounts of spyware that you would from Microsoft's Internet
Explorer, which is a beneficial feature to any user.
Just today I read on SpreadFirefox.com that the Firefox download count
is now over 23 million since November 9 and the admin of the site that
wrote in the article that he found a statistic that states that AOL
users are at 22.2 million. If you think about how long AOL has been
around compared to the short life of Firefox, that is just amazing.
The browser that lets you "take back the web" just passed America
Online, and did exactly that.
To advance on to Mozilla in general, I really have no complaints. I
have tried out some of their other software, including Thunderbird,
their local email client, as well as Sunbird (which is currently in a
very beta stage) their calender project.
First off, Thunderbird is a good program, it has some of the nicer
features of Firefox such as extensions and themes, but nothing to
extravagant. Its very versatile and secure, which, once again, is
something we could all use. Sunbird, a calendar/scheduling program, is
quite good for being so low in the beta stages (version .2 as of right
now). Its kind of buggy, and could use some more features, but those
are to be expected with a final release, I hope it goes as well as
Firefox.
So all in all, Mozilla seems to be getting quite the share of users
whether its Firefox, Thunderbird or Sunbird. The one question I have
to ask now is "Could this be the end of Internet Explorer and
Microsoft's death grip on mainstream software?" Let's hope so.
Finally, I move on to hardware; processors to be specific, but I'll
touch on others. The entire processor market is at a turning point
right now. As we all know, its always been Intel in the foreground,
AMD in the back. No surprise there. Well, the way I see it, that's all
about to change real fast. Intel's have been in the primary CPU in
store bought computers for the past few years (there are a few
exceptions to that, but generally speaking...). They had the catchy
commercials with the same recognisable Pentium name. They were sold on
straight clock speed ( and still are for the most part), thinking
faster is better, and unfortunately, that's how consumers learned
reacted, with no look at any other aspects of the CPU. Then the
Centrino chipset hits the shelves and even though months before AMD
broke into the 64-bit market (granted they are not the same thing)...
what do you hear more about? Exactly, Centrino, because it only
solidified Intel's hold on the laptop market. To many, it was
considered the best, bu that is only because there was not
alternative.
Next, AMD moves up from the 754 pin stepping stone to a 939 pin socket
for the Athlon 64s. Not really a good move for AMD, because the users
that bought 754s are upset that they invested all that money into a
new technology and its already becoming obsolete, but the truth of the
matter is that 754 pins just wasn't giving them the headroom they
needed to to really be able to harness the power of their newfound
product. AMD still stays the preferred processor of overclock
enthusiasts.
Then all at once, things become very different, things are about to
change. Out of nowhere, AMD puts its fist down and releases the
Sempron, a 32-bit socket A chip to replace the Duron. Good move. The
Duron is old, out-dated, and in my a opinion, a steaming pile.
Alright, we got the low end users covered, now what about us users
on-the-go?
The second part of the hit has yet to reach the consumers, but its
sounding pretty promising. AMD has recently announced the development
of the Turion, a new mobile 64-bit processor that is supposed to give
the Centrino technology a run for its money.
The third and final bang is for the power users (basically server
technology... you'll see), and is composed of Opteron (socket 940) up
with nVidia's nForce4 Professional via a new technology called
HyperTransport. Now, I haven't done a ton of research on this, and
what I have done, I don't completely understand, so heres a quick spin
of what I do know: You can link up the two models that nVidia released
(the 2200 and the 2050) and get four Opterons running, four Gigabit
ethernet controllers, and 16 native SATA300 devices. That is so
awesome, its almost disgusting. I know this is mostly nVidia's doing,
but I give it to AMD because they are the ones that first hit the
shelves with 64-bit, and without that, none of this would be possible.
So there we have it, three companies. All of which are about to (or
already have) destroyed their competition. It seems that nothing
stands in their way except time.
This year is going to be one hell of a ride.
