Articles by ElGuru

Get a Mac: Bad Vista reviews Misleading

The latest Get A Mac ad, Bad Vista reviews is a very misleading. The ad calls the banners ads about Vista which appear at the top “reviews”. Sadly, this is entirely untrue: The “review” from PC Magazine: ‘It’s Time for a Vista Do-Over’ is actually the tile of the article. The article doesn’t really say that there is anything wrong with Vista, more that Microsoft needs to more work into their next operating system. The”review” from C|Net: ‘Vista…one of the biggest blunders in technology’, was from an op-ed on why Microsoft should dump the OS completely. News Source: CyberNet News

Read More

Safari For Windows an Illegal Operation

Usually, it is the application performing the Illegal Operation. However if you were to install Safari on your windows PC, you would be performing the Illegal Operation. According the Safari License Agreement (below) you are allowed to, “…install one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer…” I know many consumers never bother to read the End User License Agreement (EULA) when they install software, but apparently Apple hasn’t bothered to read their own EULA for Safari. Looks like they are recycling the old EULA from when Safari was Mac only application when they pushed it out to…

Read More

Firefox 3 to be Released In June?

Back on December 8th, 2006, Firefox 3 Alpha 1 was released. Over the next nearly year and half, Places have been added, removed, then added, then removed and finally put back into the builds. Now comes word that the final release could come as early as June 2008. Percy from Mozilla Links writes: Mozilla VP of Engineering, Mike Schroepfer, has confirmed that the final release of Firefox 3, currently in Beta 4 stage, is expected for June, a full quarter later than the latest estimate and some nine months past the original. Looking back at the Mozilla Ships Alpha Release…

Read More

Fx 3.0b5 Test Day

I had kind of thought Mozilla was being overly optimistic with their targeted Match 27th release date for Firefox 3 Beta 5. I realize the Beta 5 release was suppose to fix a few remaining blockers that couldn’t be fixed in time for the Beta 4 release. However, the aggressive Beta 5 schedule would have had the release a little over two weeks after the Beta 4 release. That just seemed too soon and uncharacteristic of typical Firefox release pattern (with the exception of the Firefox 2.0.0.11 release at the end of November 2007). I suspected Mozilla was not going…

Read More

Microsoft Mum on Alleged Patents Violated

Back in May 2007, Microsoft publicly claimed Free Software Violates Patents! Todd Bishop had a lengthy article on this topic. Now, nearly a year later Microsoft won’t publicly disclose what patents are being infringed by Linux and other open-source programs. Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith was appearing earlier today at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco. Todd Bishop had a chance to speak to Smith on the phone about Microsoft’s reason for not listing what patents are being infringed upon: Will we publish, on the Web, a broader list? That is not something that any other company in…

Read More

Firefox 2.0.0.13 Released

While Mozilla has yet to make a grand announcement, I just checked getfirefox.com and Firefox 2.0.0.13 is listed as the most current version. However, it appear it has yet to be pushed out to the update channels. I fired up a ‘release’ (Firefox 2.0.0.12) build of Firefox 2.0 and just tried a ‘check for updates’ only to be told no updates were found. Yet, this is actually normal as Mozilla can delay the release to the update channels for up to 48 hours. The releases notes have been published, but are partially incomplete (sort of). If you click on the…

Read More

Week Update 2008-03-24

Here’s an overview of this week’s Update Meeting: Fx 2.0.0.13 Updated Release Schedule: Code freeze (semi-slushy): March 7 Builds start: March 10 QA starts: March 11 Release to beta channel: March 18 Final Release: March 25 Fx 2.0.0.14 Schedule in development Firefox 3 Beta 4 Beta 4 Shipped on March 10th Firefox 3 Beta 5 Code freeze: March 18 Builds start: QA starts: Release to beta channel: Final Release: March 27 Status: code complete for b5, except for branding changes (landed only for tagging step of build process) 93 blockers left for final, generally spread around well throughout the team…

Read More

New Fx Releases This Week

Happy Easter Checking on the in-progress releases page this morning, it appear the Fx 2.0.0.13 security update is still on schedule for release early this week. Should have confirmation with Monday’s Weekly Update meeting. Also still on track for the end of this week Firefox 3.0b5 aka ‘may be this will be the final beta’. A quick reminder while TBird update are normally released at the same time, TBird 2.0.0.13 update has been pushed backed to April 15th. Getting back to Fx 3.0b5, if this is indeed the final Beta release then it will be a major milestone. Recall Fx…

Read More

QuickTime Quirkiness

A couple of my pet peeves with software are applications that once installed, are very difficult if not impossible to completely remove from your system without nuking you hard drive. The other type of software is the kind that makes a mess on your system when it is installed. Case in point for this post, is QuickTime. Since I use iTunes, I have to have QuickTime on my system. I never use the QuickTime player as I use GOM Player (QuickTime videos via the QuickTime Alternative codec) for all my video player needs. So I launched iTunes which I hadn’t…

Read More