Gadget or useful PC?

On Monday I went to PC World in Meadowhall to show a friend the range of end-user laptops or desktops that are out there in main retailers. We ended up purchasing a power supply, which I diagnosed as dead and was the reason why my friend's desktop PC was not working. We also asked PC World staff to swap the power supplies for us, which they did for a good price. In the end, my friend didn't leave with a new PC, but went away happy, after getting his old desktop PC back from the dead for a mere £79.

While the PC was being repaired, I went back to the laptop section to have a look at the Asus eePC, that so many magazines write about.

These are my impressions and comment.

The first thing one notices about the eePC is its size, of course. Its screen size is only 7" diagonal, which makes you instantly think that you will not be able to see anything.


Display

Contrary to the first impression, the display is good. For sure, you cannot work on the eePC at full arm length, but in a standard position, reading what is on the screen is fine. I created a spreadsheet document to enter figures and found the display pleasant. It 'only' has a resolution of 800x600, which may, from what I've read in posts around the web, be a problem with long and windy dialog boxes, although I also read that there are key combinations that allow you to view them anyway. Personally, I liked the display.


Interface

Having extended experience of Ubuntu and having tested gOS for a while, I am used to non-Windows-looking interfaces. The eePC's custom Linux GUI is intuitive and pleasant. When you boot the machine, you are shown a 'desktop' with tabs: Internet, Word, Media, Games (if I remember correctly). Each tab's window has nicely arranged icons representing applications (Eg. Email, documents, spreadsheets, etc.). As in Ubuntu, small icons at the top of the screen will display status of services such as Network/Wifi, Time, etc. All in all, very intuitive and easy to use for first time computer user, Windows-specialists, Mac-enthusiasts, or Linux-experienced.


Keyboard

There's no doubt about it, it's small. For one, it's no way as small as smartphone keyboard. And second, it is surprisingly easy to type with, even for someone with big ad short fingers like me. At first I got the usual wrong characters in, but after a few minutes, I could type quite fast and precisely. Pressing the keys feel fine, a little like the keys on the iMac's older keyboards. All in all, it was like working with a laptop - albeit a small one...


Responsiveness

I thought that the performances were good. I plugged in my 4gb pen drive and went through the file manager to find an Excel and a Word documents, to check the OpenOffice implementation. The file manager saw my pen drive very quickly, and one I clicked on the files, OpenOffice started in seconds. And that's only on a 512mb of RAM machine! I poked around the machine, opened a host of applications (after closing others), and was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the eePC.


Other

• The eePC is light, really light. You can hold it in one hand and move it around. That's a real bonus
• The eePC has a built-in camera. Didn't test it, but it should prove very useful for iChat-type of communication
• I could see 2 USB ports, which is good. I also saw a SD card reader, and an Internet port

Conclusion

Even though I didn't test the eePC at length (lucky journalist who can do that for a living), the time I spent with it was enough to convince me that it is a useful PC, and not a gadget. I just read this morning that HP are entering the market with their own lightweight model, which goes on to show that Asus got it right when they ventured in this direction. I will personally recommend this product to people who don't have a PC and want to go on the net, students who need to research and take notes on the go, and companies who want to offer easy-to-use laptops to their staff. For £299, you cannot go really wrong.

Ironing the Mac kinks

In an earlier post, I mentioned about two issues that were real show stoppers for objectively giving my seal of approval to the Mac platform as a full member of our current Windows 2003 domain.

Although I believe moving from today's setting to a Leopard (or later) Open Directory domain in the future will be of the utmost benefit - at least in license cost and network stability - the fact is that today we are using Windows server technology.

We have two heavy-duty Infotec printers that do not have a postscript interpreter module. The Windows driver allows a user to enter a department code that allows printing and bills the department. I couldn't find such driver for non-windows systems.
Yesterday I installed a ppd file, and some 'utilities' (I wll name it like that for the sake of speed). I modified the ppd file by hand to enter my codes. I did a test print, and was so excited when I picked up the page from the printer. Leopard IS amazing!

The other problem I had was with Excel spreadsheets that are important to us, as they contains complex formulas to do some of our finance control. Each department enters its data, and the calculations need to be precise.

Each time I opened one the spreadsheet in OpenOffice or NeoOffice, I get an error on some of the formulas. For a long time, I thought it was a bug. That was until I read the details of the latest release of OO and found that it now completely read Excel macros (prior to Office 2003?). So I decided to investigate. It took me a long time to realize that Excel accepted a sun over 2 colums in an erroneous array in its SUMIF function, where OO correctly singled out the error (although the message was a cryptic ERR:504). As soon as I changed the formula to perform its sum over 1 column only, all the resulting formulas calculated as they should. Magic!

So here we are. The only last hurdle is the ability to run Sage in Wine/Darwine. Has anybody made it work?

Google and ADrive

Yesterday I did some clean up.

I had documents on the server, on my local account, and in different places. Although they are all quite neatly arranged in folders (work, personal, to read, etc.), I wanted a single repository I could access from anywhere. Sure, we have controlled access to our resources internally and externally through our 'portal' - a PC running SSL-Explorer, which is a very useful piece of software. But, I was not satisfied because, unless you implement a solution which costs more than I was prepared to pay, there are many points of failure along the way: your router, the SSL-Explorer PC, your server, etc.

So, once I had shrunk my document system to a single copy on the server, I copied everything on Google Docs and ADrive.

Now, I didn't know about ADrive until I wanted to upload my PDF documents to Google Docs, which, of course is not possible. I was very surprised to read a help response from a Google technician who recommended ADrive. How professional and helpful! So I went to the ADrive web site and was amazed to see that you can store up to 50GB of documents for free.

Google Docs

In typical Google fashion, Google Docs look neat, tidy, and unobtrusive. You can, of course, search documents, and have access to all the other Google applications. I instantly took a liking to it.

Uploading a document in Google Docs is very easy and you can do it in batch mode by sending an email to a personal address with your documents attached. Google Docs swallowed all my Word, Excel, Powerpoint, text, and RTF files. I then created folders to reflect my previous filing system and then 'moved' the files to the folder. I don't think the files are actually moved anywhere but tagged, very much like you tag an email in GMail, but the end result is the same, as when you go to the tag/folder you only see the relevant documents.

Click on a document it will be displayed in a new window/tab with all the options for an update.

If you choose to check the box placed before the document name instead, you have a choice of options: Share, Move, Publish, Hide, Delete, Rename, and... More Actions.

More Actions is very neat. It gives the possibility of saving a document in different format. The new format is PDF, and this alone is a great feature, as it is a fast and cheap way to convert a document to PDF if you don't have a Mac.

ADrive

Registering to ADrive is very easy: just fill in a few details, wait for an email registration detail, and when clicking on it, you're good to go straight away.

ADrive's interface is more cluttered than Google's, with more adverts and a smaller main window (as in many 'modern' web sites), but it is functional.

Uploading documents is performed via the browser only, but it is so easy to use that it's not a downside. In fact, if you select a folder instead of a file, the folder is uploaded with all the documents inside it. Extremely neat and fast! Although you can upload more than one folder/document at a time, which is a great time saver. It looks as if folders are real folders, and that documents are actually moved between folders, instead of the tag paradigm, but it may be that it is more an interface thing, I can't tell.

Click on a document, and the browser will download it to be used with a local application (Preview/PDF-Reader, Word, Excel, OpenOffice, etc.). You can choose instead to click on the EDIT button situated in line with the document name, and the document - if editable (PDFs are not) - will be opened in the same Window using a Zoho app.

For actions on an individual document, you click on a button situated in line with its name: Download, Edit, Share, Rename, Move, Delete. If you want to apply an action to a group of documents, you click on the Select button, which took me a little while to grasp, as I am so used to check-marks... For multiple documents, your options are to Clear (your selection), Delete, Move, and Share.

Overall comment

Rather than focusing on ADrive's shortcomings, compared to Google Docs, Zoho, or Xcellery, I am very comfortable with the product, because it is, to me, the perfect respository for documents of all sorts. It is an amazingly cheap backup facility, and more. It may be functional and no-frills, but it works, ad works well. I like it.

Some could complain that the Google Docs applications may not be as sleek and powerful as Xcellery's or Zoho's, but I don't mind. First, because it is part of Google apps: GMail, Google Calendar, and others are easily reachable from the links at the top of the page. Second, I love the Save As capability and how easy it is to use it. And finally, I find the apps enough for my needs, I like the simple interface. This is why Google Docs has now become my number one 'live' document system, coupled with ADrive which I use as a repository of all tings documents and and for archiving.

Notes

ADrive has a useful time-out facility, in case I forget to close my browser. Google Calendar flawlessly imported my ICal file and is now becoming my default calendar - even for work items, as I can finegrain my publishing options.

I welcome all comments

Microsoft's OOXML seems to be ratified as an ISO standard

Like many people who fight for being able to use any desktop platform I take this piece of news as a setback. I read many blogs and posts on the web and there is a lot of acrimony out there between the defenders of choice and innovation and...well, everyone else. I feel so strongly about this issue that I want to rant a little.

Innovation, what innovation?

First, just the utterance of this word gets me going; innovation, the buzz word from marketing, the generic term of IT sales. But when you look at it with a hint of reality, what innovation are people talking about?

When one looks at the history of the MsOffice application, not a lot has really changed since the days of Office 97. The file format has not changed too much either. The truth is that competitors haven't either (until the introduction of Apple's iWork). I can be bold enough to say that in fact Excel or Word have not functionally changed much since its first introduction of Windows 3, although Microsoft has changed menus many times for no apparent reason. The proprietary doc, xls, and ppt, formats have slowly evolved but not to the point of qualifying them 'innovative'.

When a choice of standards is bad

Secondly, I read a lot of comments from advocates of 'choice of standards', and each time I was greatly unconvinced. To start with, multiple standards is an oxymoron. A standard is a standard is a standard.
For those traveling abroad, we know what the advocacy of 'multiple standards' mean: travel-kit for phone socket, travel-kit for electrical socket, transformer, multi-band mobile phone, etc. Each country or region talks about the benefits of its 'choice' of standard.

T-Base-x is a standard, so is 802.11, yet they did 'innovate' - build-on.

Is ODF bad?

OOXML does NOT build on anything. It comes as a competitor to ODF. It does NOT enhance it, it is not compatible with it. I find that the worst part of this subject, is the hypocrisy of everyone claiming that it's about fair competition.

Microsoft REFUSED to implement, and HAS NOT implemented, proper native ODF format (although a standard) in their MsOffice suite.

Their excuse is the worst example of cynical lying: "ODF is not rich enough". ODF is already as rich or richer than the doc or xls format.
ODF is open, so NOTHING can prevent Microsoft from implementing it.

Some people chose to forget the above to pinpoint some 'shortcomings' of ODF. Sorry but that doesn't add-up. ODF is not perfect, but standards evolve (as 802.11 did and still does). Many web frameworks and applications have ODF compatibility - whether natively or via plug-in, and more are coming every day.

Microsoft strategy

I think it is pretty clear to guess Microsoft's strategy: make OOXML the de-facto standard for office document.

1. All new MsOffice application will open/save documents in OOXML format by default; CIO's and lazy IT Managers will feel justified to upgrade/update as-is because of the 'standard' label
2. Businesses and government agencies having adopted the standard for office open common format (ODF), will now have the headache of having to cope with demands from those claiming to use the choice standard (OOXML), and will find it hard to justify staying with ODF
   
3. Microsoft will change the specifications of OOXML on each release of their applications, and post (perhaps) their changes to the ISO for the competitors to play catch up (or post them much later, only when competitors complain of compatibility issues).

Why would Microsoft act like this

Whether Microsoft's OOXML is a good set of specifications is not the point at this time.

There WAS an existing standard that Microsoft NEVER implemented because it would put them on a playing field with everyone else, and they know they can't win on features (90% of users only use a maximum of 20% of Office features, which other applications have anyway) or justify the high cost of their suite.

I don't buy into the conspiracy theory that says that Microsoft is besieged by hordes of competition-or-innovation-haters. It's actually the opposite and Microsoft has been found guilty of improper business conduct over and over again - and not just by Europe. Many people have grown distrustful of the company that claims to innovate or champion choice, yet stifle the innovating competitors by spiteful or illegal means.

All Microsoft need to do is walk the walk and talk the talk for a while, but unfortunately, as in the case of OOXML, it has chosen not to do so.

MacMini and Leopard server

So much happened since I last posted on the blog!

We purchased a Macmini to test Leopard Server and its new groupware features, and compare it to Windows 2003 server with Exchange and Sharepoint.

The Macmini is an amazing PC. For just £360, it is an incredible value. Up until now, we have set aside a budget of £450 per PC that we purchase (including monitor). We are talking branded PC from HP or Lenovo. Nothing fancy but good runner, with adequate specifications.
The MacMini is at least just as good, only smaller and incredibly quieter. Coupled with a a USB keyboard and mouse (or with an adaptor), and a standard monitor, it does the business, and more.

What's not to like about Leopard server? I have installed and manager Windows server for many years, from NT 3.5 to W2003 and I have installed Exchange from its humble beginnings to Entreprise 2003. I liked SBS 2003 most and thought it was a nice and easy product. That was until I started dealing with Leopard Server. As an experienced techie, I found it easy to understand and manage; very intuitive. The most amazing is that, for the first time, I could have a truly integrated platform, with Mac and Windows XP clients feeding from Open Directory as if - in the case of XP - they were on a Windows domain.

The thing that blew my mind, as an IT Manager, is the possibility of having any mainstream client platform happily working. Linux and Evolution, Windows and Thunderbird/Lightning, and of course Macs and Mail/iCal. And that is not all. A user can have multiple calendars on the server and have them all displayed at the same time, which is not easy or intuitive with Exchange/Outlook. The cherry on the cake was the ability to subsribe to a group calendar, and view all the calendars at once in a clear way.

As an Administrator I was so taken aback by the ease of setting up anti-virus/anti-spam software for all emails. I was showing all the tech guys how I could perform all admin tasks with only 2 applications (Server Manager and Workgroup Manager), as opposed to Active Directory, Exchange, IIS, DHCP, DNS, etc. (I know they can all be found together in a custom Management console, but it's extra work, and it's not as nicely laid-out)

I would describe my Leopard server configuration 'cheeky'. I made it part of the AD domain, could access all the users and groups through Workgroup Manager, and set them up with all the resources they needed from Leopard - from email and calendar to file share. By playing with DNS and DHCP I was able to create a completely new 'domain' that the original Windows 2003 servers knew nothing about, yet clients were moving back and forth between servers without the faintest idea that they were actually talking to a Mac server not running Exchange or Sharepoint.

Having proven my point, the Macmini is back to being a client PC, running Leopard and NeoOffice. As I don't need my calendars on the server, I use Apple Mail because of its useful utilities, and iCal because it's neat. I tested Darwine to run Office 2003, which I thought was OK (I prefer NeoOffice).

There are hurdles, still. The first one is the fact that Sage won't run under Darwine - even when it seems it installed correctly. If anyone knows how to make it work, I would be eternelly grateful, to hear from you. The second issue I have is an issue with Excel; NeoOffice does a great job, but some of the finance spreadsheet are quite complex and some links are not automatically updated and cells will give an error (ERR:504 on a SUMIF function with arrays); this is a real show stopper. Finally, we have Infotec printer (2525 and 2838) that are PCL/PXL only and use a user code for printing; the ppd file does not seem to work properly enough to allow printing.

However, overall, the combination of Macmini and Leopard makes for a more productive day and more enjoyable computing experience. That is invaluable.