I have a license to run Parallels Desktop. I started using the application three years ago because I needed to have instances of several Linux distributions conveniently available while I was working on my 2019 MBP. Later I installed an instance of Windows 10 as a virtual machine in order to support C# development within Visual Studio Community. The version of VS available for macOS at that time was a poor cousin to the same versions running on Windows, and to add insult to injury Microsoft wouldn’t provide a community version for macOS. Thus the least expensive route was to pay for a yearly license of Parallels Desktop and install an instance of Windows 10 Pro provided by Parallels.

That worked well until January of 2023 when my last license expired and my local copy of Parallels stopped working. Late last year I finally decided I needed to purchase a new license, so when Black Friday rolled around Parallels had a less-than-half-price sale on a yearly license ($56) and I sprung for it.

When I powered up all my virtual machines to check them out and update them, that included the Windows 10 VM. Except, Parallels automagically updated my Windows 10 installation to Windows 11. Not much of an issue, except when I decided to uninstall Microsoft Edge. So when I went into Settings and then Apps (applications), and went hunting for Microsoft Edge, the dropdown showed only Modify was active, not Uninstall.

There is no reason why I should be blocked from removing Microsoft software, especially the browser. This gives me flashbacks to the late 1990s when Microsoft was being sued for its placement of Internet Explorer among many other monopolistic behaviors. Right now I work entirely within Vivaldi on Windows 11, but it would be nice to get rid of Edge because it’s my VM on my personal computer, and as the saying goes, my computer, my rules.

By the way, on the Windows 10 Pro installation on my other computers (the computers that can’t upgrade to Windows 11), I have removed all Microsoft browsers and installed Vivaldi everywhere. There is no reason to reverse browser removal policy on Windows 11, except that Microsoft is just an absolutely shit company.

Update

This article from The Verge is interesting. Basically, Microsoft has until March to provide the European Economic Area the ability to uninstall Edge and disable Bing search, among other things. If EU Windows users are allowed to do this, then why the hell not US Windows users?

The EU will finally free Windows users from Bing — https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/16/23963579/microsoft-windows-11-eu-digital-markets-act-feature-changes

Let me note up front that I have my Raspberry Pi 5 plugged into an LG 27GL850-B monitor with a native resolution of 2560×1440 (purchased last Christmas during an incredible sale from Amazon), no overscan or special screen manipulation needed. That gives me a rather wide screen, which in turn allows me to open up an editor such as VSC that allows me to set up a vertical three-panel layout (see above) with plenty of space in all three panels.

After following Microsoft’s directions for installing .NET 8 on Ubuntu I was able to follow their basic tutorials on how to compile and debug C# on Linux. Let me again emphasize that this is Linux on a Raspberry Pi 5, which is AArch64/ARM, not x86-64. And it works. I find all of this amazing considering how I started with the original Raspberry Pi 2 ten years ago and struggled to get Python running.

In my not-so-humble opinion the best distribution to run on the Raspberry Pi 5, bar none, is Ubuntu 23.10 for the Raspberry Pi. Everything works with one notable exception: manipulating the GPIO and through that, physical computing. But I have found an easy solution for that (which I will document later), and it all seems to work without a hitch as well as it would under Raspberry Pi OS for the Raspberry Pi.

As they say, more to come.

Links

• Install the .NET SDK or the .NET Runtime on Ubuntu — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux-ubuntu
• Tutorial: Create a .NET console application using Visual Studio Code — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tutorials/with-visual-studio-code?pivots=dotnet-8-0
• Tutorial: Debug a .NET console application using Visual Studio Code — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tutorials/debugging-with-visual-studio-code?pivots=dotnet-8-0

What drove me off the Insider Program was a constant failure during the last set of pre-releases to perform a download and update. Time after time, over a several month period, updates failed. Microsoft provided no official fixes, and I went looking (i.e. “googling”) for possible solutions. Either the recommended forum solutions didn’t work or on a lot of web sites I ran into popups trying to do all sorts of mean and nasty things. I’ve got a system with all updates and I’ve got a lot of features disabled or uninstalled to harden the system’s security posture. That’s no guarantee that bad things won’t ever happen, but it does help.

To keep you from falling into the same questionable sites here’s what I used to fix the update failure problem and it comes from Microsoft and an official Microsoft web site. Go to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/10164/fix-windows-update-errors and select Windows 10 at the bottom of the page. This will open up a new section at the bottom for Windows Update Troubleshooter. Download it, execute it, and follow its directions. If I’d found this sooner it would have saved me a week of evenings of grief.

Like I wrote above, I’m off the Microsoft Insider Program roller coaster, and I’m glad to be back on solid ground.

The rubber ducky photo is courtesy of the iPhone 7 Plus, its dual lens camera, and the built-in Apple app. Using the app I selected the the short telephoto, square aspect ratio, HDR, and Instant live photo filter. 

That ducky has been in this house since my oldest adult daughter was two. Out of respect for her I won’t say how long I’ve had it.

I was attempting to write this entire post using the WordPress iOS app on the iPhone and the Microsoft folding portable Bluetooth keyboard. This isn’t the first time I’ve used or written about the keyboard. The problem is I’ve rarely used the keyboard/iPhone combination, far less than I originally intended. I bought that keyboard so that I could write just about any time, anywhere. We can all see how that turned out…

Unfortunately when I sat down tonight to try and use it, the WordPress app was rather uncooperative. It let me select my lovely rubber ducky photo and upload it to my blog, even associating it with the initial start of the entry. But when I attempted to try and write anything, the app seemed to think I wanted to modify the photo. In the end the entry just “went away” from me, and I couldn’t tell using the iOS app on the iPhone if the entry had gone to the draft side of things, or if it had just simply been deleted. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you view this, it had gone off to become a draft. The only way to continue to edit it was to open up my WordPress blog using the web-based view in Chrome on my MBP.

I have several entries using this combination, all successfully entered, so this isn’t something new for me. The only problem is I wrote them back when I had my iPhone 6S Plus, under iOS 9, and earlier releases of the WordPress app. Going forward I really do want to use my iPhone exclusively to create content for my blog. The iPhone is an incredibly powerful overall creative tool, the camera an excellent tool for documenting and providing supporting photography to my writing. The Microsoft keyboard syncs up quickly and flawlessly, and works quite well with other tools that need textual input. It’s just that when I mix everything together to write up an entry that the results are less than what I’ve experienced in the past.

I consider these minor challenges to be overcome. I want to “turn on” the writing so that I’m at least creating at least one post/day. I want to focus on the “web log” aspect of the blog. It’s not here for marketing, it’s here to log the next 365 days of 2017. I have a deep feeling there’s going to be a lot to cover. My rubber ducky seems to feel that as well.

While taking breaks during the day (and later this evening) I pulled the PowerShell source from Github. I got it to build, after a fashion, but the build process wants to run a series of tests, and the tests are failing a bit. Considering this is alpha code, I’m not that concerned, and consider this to be a learning opportunity.

I will clarify this about the build directions on OS X;

1. install a PowerShell pre-built binary as Microsoft recommends and start that up;
2. go down into the PowerShell top Git directory (in my case it was ~/Git/PowerShell);
3. execute ‘Import-Module ./build.psm1’ within PowerShell.

That will define the PowerShell function Start-PSBootstrap that you need to execute in order to set up the PowerShell build environment. That little detail about sourcing build.psm1 is missing in the OS X directions, although it’s there in the Linux directions. Good thing I read around a bit…

I am pleased with the tools I have installed on the MBP. Visual Studio Code seems to be a rather decent editor (and debugger with the right extensions installed). I’m using it so far for Rust, Go and Python, and tonight I got it set up for C# editing. It comes with the ability to navigate a local Git repository copy out-of-the-box. All on a MBP under Mac OS X 10.11.6. I’m also pleased with GitHub Desktop. I can browse the repository metadata and the diff tool is again pretty decent. My only problem is I couldn’t use the Desktop to do the pull; I had to use the command line tool. I’m no git expert, and my understanding of the Desktop is even more limited. But again, it’s an opportunity to learn.

I’m something of a tool packrat, having installed a fair number of editors and IDEs over the years. For example I’ve purchased a license for Sublime Text, I’ve got Komodo Edit 9 installed, and I even have a copy of Atom installed. About the only editor I don’t have on OS X is Notepad++ (unfortunately, only available on Windows), an editor I use on Windows when I need to get serious about text and code editing without the bloat of a full-up IDE.

So, new tools, new code, a new(ish) shell to spark some interest. I’m looking for a full-up replacement for Java, so maybe I need to give C# another look. PowerShell is written in C#, so there’s that. I know that the cool kids look askance at C#, and I know that Java is still considered the #1 language for making a living. But Oracle has made using Java hellish, and I have no desire to use the language any more. C++, C#, Python, Rust, Go, Javascript; there are so many other good alternatives and what I listed doesn’t scratch the surface of computer languages. It’s such a rich development environment these days.

tl;dr – Microsoft open sourced Powershell. Source, installable packages, and instructions for installing it or building the repository are on Github.

In case you missed it, Microsoft has open sourced its Powershell “super” shell. Right now it’s an alpha release, with all that that implies. And for those who care about such things, it’s released with the MIT open source license, not GNU. You can either grab the sources via git and built it yourself or you can download pre-built installation binaries. I chose to the pre-built Mac installation package to quickly get something up and running. I don’t have a lot to add to the conversation at this point as I’m certainly no Powershell guru. But from what little I do know about Powershell, it all appears to work on my Mac. In the example shown here I’m running Powershell in iTerm2, a better alternative to Apple’s Terminal. Perhaps future releases will be able to create a shell without this intermediate step; it would be nice.

Since upgrading to Windows 10 it’s a tiny bit ironic that I’ve been spending a lot more time in Powershell than I have in prior versions of Windows. What probably pushed me towards Powershell was my eventual dissatisfaction with the Windows Linux Subsystem and its inclusion of bash. I am not a bash fan, and find little to like with any of the other Unix-like shells (csh, tcsh, ksh, zsh, etc, etc). I’ve used all those other shells because that’s all you’ve got. I haven’t gotten excited about a shell since my days of using 4Dos on MSDOS and OS/2. I personally would like a common powerful shell environment across all my various operating systems, but somehow bash and its ilk are not it for me. Since source and instructions for building the repository are available, I’m toying with the idea of building Powershell on Arch Linux ARM for the Raspberry Pi. More to come on that, perhaps…

Which begs the question of why Nokia sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft in the first place. The two executives responsible for this on-going tragedy, Stephen Elop (formerly of Microsoft, then formerly of Nokia, and then formerly of Microsoft again) and Steve Ballmer are no longer at Microsoft. Both left with considerable golden parachutes, while the tens of thousands of lower-level Nokia employees have been cut over time with far less rewards. An entire business destroyed because of Ballmer’s ego and gross mismanagement of mobile.

It will be interesting to see if Nokia can be truly resurrected. I know I personally will never buy another Nokia device, having long since left it for HTC, then Samsung, and finally (finally!) Apple. That’s not to say I won’t ever leave Apple, but if I did, I’d never go back to Nokia. I’d sooner do without than buy another Nokia mobile phone or other device.

But something interesting happened along the way. While UNIX on the PC faded from view, Linux continued to grow until a then-new company, Redhat, came on the scene with a cleaned up and supported version of Linux. Others distributions came along as well, particularly SuSE (later OpenSUSE) and Ubuntu. By the time I’d finally gotten into the aughts and past the collapse of the Internet bubble of 1999, I’d switched from using Linux as a hobby system to using it as a practical day-to-day driver along side Windows XP.

I came to dislike Windows XP because of its security holes, along with I.E. 5 and 6, most intensely. I came to use Windows only because I had to, specifically because of the Office suite, preferring to use either Solaris at the time or Redhat 7. When Redhat 10 beta 1 bifurcated into Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3 and Fedora, I was ready. I began to use RHEL for my serious business needs everywhere I could, eventually switching to Ubuntu for my primary home and personal business needs. I’ve now reached the point that no matter what other OS I may have on a laptop, I still install VMs of Linux on both my Windows 10 notebook as well as my MBP. And in spite of what I might say, I still secretly pull out the “ancient” Samsung notebook with Ubuntu 16.04 running just fine on it.

All this long-winded lead-in is my way of saying I’m essentially done with Windows as an OS. Why? I have grown increasingly unhappy with how Windows 10 has had updates kicked down to my machine without release notes and very little way to control when, and if, an update will get installed. And because Microsoft has split out the one reason to have a Windows machine. Microsoft now sells a license to run the latest Office on my MBP. With that one real reason to have Windows kicked out of the way, my current Windows 10 notebook is sitting more and more in its bag, being pulled out to use my Lightroom license along with all my photos stretching back to 2009. And I’ve gone back on the hunt for a decent Linux machine, looking at System 76 as well as some of the Dell offerings. It’s notable that both come pre-installed with Ubuntu; that’s fine by me.

As for the need for Office, that may also go the way of all flesh. I can use Apple’s tools, or I can use Google’s tools, or even install and use the latest LibreOffice. Granted there are tremendous features in Office, and granted they don’t all transfer out of Office and into these alternatives, but a lot of core capabilities do. And I can always save to PDF and send those out to my customers.

In spite of my best hopes Microsoft really hasn’t changed since Steve Ballmer retired. It’s changed the paint job, but based on how I’ve been treated and talked to with regards to the updates for Windows 10 after the initial update from Windows 8.1, I’ve come away with a bad taste in my metaphorical mouth with regards to Microsoft. Microsoft had the perfect opportunity to show it had changed for the better with Nadella; it hasn’t. And with that I’m making my plans to move on. I have a rich computing environment to work with, far richer than even a decade ago when Microsoft still reigned supreme over all. It’s time to move on and drop Microsoft and Windows by the dusty side of the road and not look back.

To get it onto the airliner, I usually stuff that into the bottom of a roll on overhead bag, which just happens to have a change of undies, my toothbrush, shaver, and other extra paraphernalia that I consider too valuable to put into my checked luggage. And just to make sure I’m ready for anything I keep a single body out with a lens attached, just in case. Never mind that my iPhone 6S+ has an excellent built-in camera of its on.

Since my last trip to Japan in December I’ve been in town, specifically because of my knee replacement. But sometime around June or July I’m probably tasked to head out on the road again. Now’s the time to start thinking about what camera to take, as well as my blogging tools in general. I know that my style of long-form blogging is supposedly obsolete, but I know it and I might as well stick with what I know. And the folks that do follow me seem to like what and how I write, so there’s that.

The lede photo shows what I’ve managed to shrink my kit down to;

• My iPhone 6S+
• My Microsoft foldable Bluetooth keyboard
• My Olympus OM-D E-M10 camera with 14-42mm EZ pancake zoom and Panasonic 14mm pancake prime
• An Apple SDHC/SDXC-to-Lightening adapter

That’s the core. Since I have the Olympus 17mm f/1.7, I could swap the 17mm for the 14mm. It’s a little faster in aperture (f/1.7 vs the 14mm f/2.5) and certainly faster to focus, but the lens is twice as tall as the 14mm. Missing from this collection but no less important is a battery charger for the camera as well as at least two spare batteries. Other missing, but no less important hardware, is the charger for the iPhone. The Bluetooth keyboard is also chargeable, but it can hold a charge for at least 90 days, so it can be charged before a trip and the charger left behind. You shouldn’t try to write blog posts with the built-in software keyboard on the iPhone; that’s just asking for a bag full of hurt.

Some will ask why take the SDHC/SDXC adapter instead of using the E-M10’s built-in WiFi and the Olympus Share app on iOS. As someone who’s used that combination on both an iPhone and my iPad Air 2, I can say with absolute conviction you want to use the hardware adapter. Why?

1. Transfers using wired are much faster than wireless, and
2. It requires you make the iPhone’s WiFi exclusively for the app and camera, thus bumping you off any other local WiFi network you might be using for general connectivity. That’s fine if you’re using your cellular provider for wireless connectivity, but bad news if you’re overseas and using WiFi to avoid cellular roaming charges.

Bottom line is buy and use the adapter. It works with any device that support the Lightening port. And if it breaks or you loose it, then you can use the app as your backup plan to move photos off the E-M10 and onto your iPhone.

One extra I strongly advise you purchase for the E-M10 is the ECG-1 camera grip. It will add an extra, and welcome additional grip to the camera. It comes in two pieces, so that when you need to get to the battery to recharge it or the SDHC /SDXC card to remove photos, there’s a simple spring-loaded clip that allows the outer portion to quickly swing away, exposing the door on the bottom of the camera where both the battery and flash card are located. It will also provide additional protection for the bottom of the camera. At $45-$50 it’s the best accessory I can recommend for the E-M10 outside of a lens.

Which brings us to lenses. I’ve settled on the 14-42 EZ pancake zoom because, when powered off, it collapses into a very compact form. I’ve also purchased the Olympus LC-37C  auto open/close lens cap. It’s around $20 to $30, and worth the price. It replaces the clip-on lens cap and won’t get lost on a trip. It’s closed when the lens and camera are off and stowed, and opens when the camera and lens are on.

The pancake zoom works great in normal light, but for those occasions when you’re in darker areas, the Panasonic 14mm f/2.5 is an excellent alternative. It can be carried in any pocket and easily switched with the pancake zoom. From personal experience the 14mm focuses quickly and silently.

Oh, I forgot. The E-M10 has a built-in flash, which can come in handy when light is really bad. But I seldom use any flash.

As for general processing, I use JPEG straight out of the E-M10. If I need to post-process I use Snapseed, although you can use Apple’s Photos app for just about anything you’d use Snapseed for. I just happen to prefer Snapseed. Even the E-M10 has built-in post processing capabilities and all sorts of crazy art filters.

And if the E-M10 is too much, or the batter on it dies? Then you can fall back on the excellent iPhone camera. If I had a hard choice to make about leaving part of this kit behind, the first thing I’d drop would be the E-M10 and its support gear. The Bluetooth keyboard would be the last thing.

I hope you find these recommendations useful. I’ve used everything mentioned here and find them all quite useful while traveling. Just remember that these recommendations are from my peculiar point of view, and Your Milage May Vary.

Today I decided to put that lazy use to an end. Everything I need for writing and posting on WordPress, including the use of photographs, is in two convenient carry-anywhere packages, the iPhone and the keyboard. By dribs and drabs I’ve grown used to using the various individual pieces, especially the photographic tools (built-in camera and apps) that are a part of the iPhone. Couple that with the realization that my data plan is big enough, cheap enough, and my posts are not streaming video (not yet!) and there is no excuse other than inertia for not using the iPhone far more than I’m currently using it.

One key component of this is the WordPress app itself. It’s needed a few more tweaks and updates to make it easier to use. I can now say with reasonable confidence that using the WordPress app won’t cause horrible issues with blog postings. And if it does, I can always go back in with the heavy-duty MBP and Vivanti and clean things up to my final satisfaction. But for the most part, as long as I have some sort of wireless connectivity I can post from my iPhone.

And I need to start posting more, from the “within the moment” moment…

I have suffered through every release, including Windows 2, 286, 386, 3.0, 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95/98/ME. I was a beta tester for both Windows NT 3.1 and Windows 95. Along with that cardboard box of Windows 1.03 SDK I have a huge crate filled with every Chicago/Windows 95 beta CDROM Microsoft ever shipped to me. And I faithfully installed every one and reported every problem I ran across. When it was finally released I personally drove down to a local FedEX office to pick up my gold copy. And I drove to Comdex Atlanta in 1995 to be at the local launch party.

And not just a Windows user, but a Windows developer, using Borland’s tools (Turbo Basic and C) through the Microsoft tools (VB, C, C++, etc), Java, Eclipse, and on and on. I used it, helped sell it, developed on it, and supported it across many decades.

With NT I have installed an run every single release and service pack since Windows NT 3.1, with the notable exception of Vista. I skipped from Windows XP to Windows 7. When Windows 8 came out I actually bought a full-blow Samsung 17″ notebook with Windows 8 installed. I loved it, far better than any previous release of Windows. And then a funny thing happened.

The majority of Windows users decided they didn’t like Windows 8, especially the start screen. No matter that it was dead simple to set it up to navigate between it and he desktop with mouse and keyboard, in spite of what its detractors said. The dissing of Windows 8 got so bad that Steven Sinofsky left Microsoft (quit or fired, it doesn’t matter). And Windows 8 began to change, to move back to what had come before in earlier releases. Microsoft went from being a leader to being a mere follower of public whim.

But I kept faithfully upgrading my Samsung through all the Windows 8 updates to Windows 8.1, and then when Windows 10 came out I upgraded to that. I even upgraded the 1TB spinning HD on the Samsung to a 1TB SDD, a Samsung 850 Pro. The change to SDD was amazing and breathed new life into the system as a whole.

A funny thing happened during the transition to Windows 10. Maybe it was the forty years of continuous Windows exposure (even more if you consider DOS before that). Maybe it was how Microsoft transitioned from Windows 8 to Windows 10. Or how Windows 10 just feels, well, odd. But within a month of upgrading to Windows 10 I bought my current Macbook Pro, and that’s the system I now turn to for day-to-day work as well as anything of significance. I still have the Samsung because it still has a number of important (“legacy”) applications and data I bring up from time to time. And I still faithfully power it on at least once/month to pick up the latest OS and Microsoft application updates. But all my interesting creative work (with the notable exception of Lightroom and photography) is done on my Mac, and special work with my Raspberry Pi is done with (ironically) an even older Samsung notebook running Ubuntu 15.10.

I’ve read the critics of Mac OS X complain rather noisily about how poorly it currently runs, but based on my experiences with all three (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux), I find I turn to the Mac for nearly everything. It has its quirks to be sure, but every OS does.

I like where the Mac and OS X are at. Far better than where Windows 10 seems to be headed. If there was one word that summed up my overall feelings about the Mac and OS X, it would be quality. Windows 8 had it. Windows 10, not so much. The Mac is my insurance against the strange path Microsoft has plotted and seems to be headed down, a path I’m not comfortable following myself. I’m not accusing Microsoft of some sort of evil and nefarious plot like other noisy critics have cried and seem to continue to cry out. I’m just not all that crazy about it anymore. For me, if I want to do commercial OS development and support I can turn to Linux, and for the more complex work, I can turn to Mac OS X, which is a nice balance between standard Microsoft Office workflow and Unix/Linux tools and philosophy. Odd things are happening at Microsoft and as a consequence to Windows. Mac OS X is my safe harbor against the unknown and unknowable happening in Redmond.

Having had the keyboard for several hours, this is certainly no in-depth review. But based on what little experience I’ve had so far (writing this entry), it looks to be a solid keeper. It took less than 30 seconds to pair the keyboard with the phone. I like the fact that the keyboard folds up in the middle as you can see by the vertical indentation on the keyboard as well as the illustration on the box. Once folded it slips into my jean’s front pocket along with my iPhone.

Using the keyboard motivates me to stick to using the phone’s camera as much as possible. I took the photo of the keyboard, post-processed it with Snapseed on the phone, then used the WordPress app to upload the final image from my camera roll into the post. The keyboard allows me to quickly write out the post within the app. It takes more time to try and explain the actions than it does to actually perform them.

The only other item I really need to carry with the phone and keyboard are chargers for the phone and keyboard. The con about the keyboard is it requires a micro USB connector to charge. The mitigating pro is that it lasts for three months between charges. Still it would be nice if the power connector matched the iPhone’s lightening connector. As it is I’ll carry the Apple wall-wart and two cables to plug into it, one for the iPhone and the other for the keyboard.

I’ve more experimenting to do with this combination, such as building a post with photos interspersed with text. So far, with this style of WordPress post layout, the universal foldable keyboard is the bee’s knees.

Update Today

I’m not quite so enamored with the WordPress app. Several problems have reared their ugly little heads:

1. I couldn’t push out a link to this post on either Google+ or Twitter. The controls on the app are there to do this, but when I tried to send out the link I was presented with a login screen for both that wouldn’t allow me to log in. I find this annoying as I’m already logged into both services through their respective apps, as well as being logged into WordPress via the WordPress app.
2. When it uploaded the lead photo of the keyboard it left it in an odd state. Normally I keep everything at a 500 px width and center aligned, going back in with the web browser editor to adjust both later as needed. When I tried to do that just now I couldn’t set a custom width. I eventually deleted the photo and re-inserted it from my media storage again. Then I was able to adjust it’s width.

I may need to look for an alternative to the WordPress app. More to come…

Update Today #2

It didn’t take long, like ten minutes, for me to discover there are no other real alternatives to the WordPress app on iOS. Maybe if I ask the WordPress folks nicely I can get a copy of the app’s code and make the fixes myself.

The underlying Borg cube itself was created by a very talented graphic artist who was either a student or working (or both) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (computer graphics, computer art?). He’d been creating a series of Star Trek models, and then setting them up in a series of beautiful visualizations which he’d posted on the Web. That Borg cube is one of his works. Unfortunately, having grabbed this back around 2005, I no longer have any idea who he is or where he’s currently at. I would very much like to know, if for no other reason than to provide proper attribution.

I found the Microsoft logo on the Microsoft site as one of their official logos in SVG format. It was available for download, so I downloaded that. Using Photoshop and layers, I put the Borg cube in the lowest layer, then put the logo on the next layer. I then adjusted the logo in size and location, adding transparency to the logo, so that it appeared to blend into the side. Export to JPEG, and post. Somewhere in all my stuff I think I still have that Photoshop file, but I can’t find it. It has, after all, been a good 10 years, and once I created this conglomeration I quickly moved on to other things.

I also created this at a time when I was filled with considerably more righteous indignation against all concerned parties. It has tapered off considerable over the last decade. Microsoft has long since ceased being the fearsome monolithic force the Gnu-ists would like to continue to think it is. As history now notes, two years later Apple introduced the first iPhone on 29 June 2007, during which we were entertained by Steve Ballmer’s clueless dismissal of the iPhone. Fast forward to today and Microsoft is little more than an historical footnote in mobile and is boxed into the dwindling PC market, everybody has Android or iOS smartphones, and people are now writing about how Microsoft “is the company to watch in 2016.” How far the once mighty have fallen.

Which is to say that the graphic is irrelevant. It no longer has the visceral punch it might have once had due to both Microsoft’s and the Star Trek franchise’s slide into historical irrelevancy. While Microsoft might have a chance of coming back, I don’t ever see that happening with Star Trek. But that’s another story…

A tremendous amount has changed over the last ten years, both industry-wide and personally. When I wrote this in the past decade the digital world was on the cusp of real change. I was full of swagger and vinegar, trying to write my observations of that world with pithy sarcasm that would somehow read better than anything else. About the only thing I achieved at the time was coming off like a bit of a jerk. But we’ll get to that…

Bill Gate’s 1976 Dr. Dobbs letter is an historical artifact, a key point in time that set in motion events and feelings that would drive an almost impassible wedge between what would become Microsoft and what would become the free software movement. Those feeling linger to this day. Microsoft over the coming decades would do whatever it could to build and maintain control over its markets, driving many to painfully re-invent computing as we came to know it, in the process pushing Microsoft into a corner and near-irrelevance. Today they’re almost pitied, but back in 2006 they were feared and condemned.

Before I write about the reasons why, let’s get to the meat of my blog post back in 2006.

It’s that time of the year when the infamous Bill Gates letter is pulled out and dusted off. So let’s read this letter and take a moment’s pause to think about the man and his company, Microsoft.

February 3, 1976

An Open Letter to Hobbyists

To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market? [1,2]

Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and delivered Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000. [3]

The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however. 1) Most of these “users” never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.

Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

Is this fair? One thing you don’t do by stealing software is getting back at MITS for some problem you may have had. [4] MITS doesn’t make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all the bugs, documenting his product and distribute it for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money into hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.

What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren’t they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.

I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.

Bill Gates
General Partner, Micro-Soft

Observations

1. From Wikipedia:
   “In December 1975, Dick Whipple and John Arnold created an interpreter for the language that required only 3K of RAM. Bob and Dennis decided to publish this version and corrections to the original design documents in a newsletter dedicated to Tiny BASIC, which they called “Dr. Dobb’s Journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics and Orthodontia”. The newsletter’s title was changed to Dr. Dobb’s Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia for the second issue. In the 1976 issues several versions of Tiny BASIC, including design descriptions and full source code, were published.
2. From Wikipedia:
   “Forth is a procedural, stack-oriented, reflective programming language and programming environment. It was initially developed by Chuck Moore at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the early 1970s, formalized as a programming language in 1977, and standardized by ANSI in 1994. It features both interactive execution of commands (making it suitable as a shell for systems that lack a more formal operating system), as well as the ability to compile sequences of commands for later execution. Some Forth versions (especially early ones) compile threaded code, but many implementations today generate optimized machine code like other language compilers.Forth is so named because Moore considered it appropriate for fourth-generation computers (i.e. microcomputers), and the system on which he developed it was limited to five-letter filenames.”
3. From “Gates”, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, 1994 edition:
   page 92: “And wasn’t the $40,000 of computer time Gates mentioned a gross exaggeration? In fact, noted the editor of the Micro-8 Newsletter, ‘rumors have been circulating thru the hobby computer community that imply that developement [sic] of the BASIC referred to in Bill Gates’s letter was done on a Harvard University computer provided at least in part by government funds and that there was some question as to the propriety if not the legality of selling the results.'”
4. From “Gates”, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, 1994 edition:
   page 92: “Nobody, of course, wanted to condone piracy, but counterarguments suddenly seemed to be flying around like evils from Pandora’s box. Wasn’t the MITS official policy of requiring you to sign some sort of legal document just to get a copy of BASIC – something the hobbyists were unaware was a contractual demand from Gates and Allen – needlessly draconian? And how dare anyone connected with MITS complain about unethical practices, given the company’s track record of what Micro-8 Computer User Group Newsletter termed ‘misleading advertising and failure to deliver mail order products as advertised in a reasonable time.'”

Personal Background

I was 22 in 1976. Four years out of high school, two years out of Ga. Tech and two years into becoming An Artist. It was one year before the release of the original “Star Wars” movie. I remember seeing the Altair in Popular Electronics and thinking that 1) it was too expensive for a struggling artist like me to afford, and 2) it was junk (the Intel 8080 was brain-dead), because I knew what Real Computers looked like through my exposure to an IBM 360 at Fernback Science Center in Atlanta and a Univac 1108 at Ga. Tech. Through those machines I learned to use two Real Computer Languages: APL and FORTRAN.

Final Thoughts

First, let’s get some perspective. Microsoft is now the worlds largest software producer. For the quarter ending December 2005, their revenue was US$11.8 billion, while their net income is US$3.6 billion. Microsoft’s current market cap as of Friday, February 3rd, 2005 is US$293.15 billion. What software company comes even close? To begin to give you a comparison, Redhat’s current market cap from the same date is US$5.06 billion. Redhat’s market capitalization is two orders of magnitude less than Microsoft. And Redhat is the most profitable of the true open source companies by far (and I’m deliberately ignoring IBM because IBM is still heavily proprietary).

Bill Gates and Co. have won. They sealed their victory 11 years ago with the release of Windows 95. It might be fun or therapeutic to point to Bill Gates’s 1976 letter and rant about his behavior then, but face it: Bill Gates built a business from scratch and followed his instincts until both his business and he himself are the richest entities in the US, if not the world. I’ve had a ring-side seat to this circus from 1976 on, and I’m aware of all the players and what they did and didn’t do.

Face it. Bill Gates Won. Now get over it.

1. I get the “reserve your update” notice like the rest of the world sometime in July. I tended to ignore the invite for weeks, until a week before the official release on 29 August, I go ahead and make my reservation. And then I wait.
2. I wait for one, then two weeks after the official release. When I click on the little Windows icon on the task bar I’m told that Windows 10 isn’t quite ready for my computer but not to worry because Microsoft is working very hard to get Windows 10 ready for my PC. So I continue to wait.
3. In the mean time I’m reading various upgrade tales of woe. I sift through them to see what the core issues are. They appear evenly divided between general stupidity and older, off-brand or oddball on-brand models. But Microsoft has made the promise that if it’s running Windows 7 or Windows 8, then it’ll run Windows 10.

4. In the mean time I check the Samsung upgrade website to see if my notebook is officially supported by Samsung for Windows 10. Here’s what I see (and still see to this day). See my computer model on that list? Neither do I. My Samsung 17″ notebook, with Windows 8 pre-installed, which cost about $1,500 brand-spanking new from Best Buy back in May 2013, which I’ve updated and upgraded almost religiously since the first day I powered it on, isn’t supported by Samsung for Windows 10. I’m used to this insular lack of software upgrade support from Samsung over on the smartphone side. I also own a Galaxy S4. So far Samsung, through AT&T, has managed to upgrade my S4 to Android 5.0.1, even though Android 5 is up to 5.1.1, and everyone is all a-quiver waiting for Android 6/M to land on their devices.
5. Then one day, late in September, I get a notice from Microsoft that I can update my notebook to Windows 10. Microsoft might be excited, but I’m beginning to feel a bit of nameless dread. So I push off the upgrade, instead ordering a 1TB Samsung 850 Pro SSD from Amazon (which comes highly recommended). Once it arrives I spend eight hours transferring the image off the older rotating media the notebook came with onto the new SSD, swap the HDD for the SDD, then power on the notebook. The notebook with the SDD is remarkably snappier. Applications appear to start almost instantly, such as Google’s Chrome or any of the Microsoft Office applications. I now have my older Windows 8.1 Update 1 original hard drive stored in a safe place, and I decide, what the hell, now is the time to update to Windows 10.
6. On 30 September I finally update to Windows 10. Total time from start to finish is about two hours, about half of that due to downloading. What an incredible difference an SSD makes.

The only quirk I ran into was the HP printer driver upgrade failure I wrote about in the last post, and it was eventually, simply, and cleanly taken care of. After a week-and-a-half of serious work I can report absolutely no other failures thus far. If anything goes awry I have the original 1TB drive to fall back to.

I feel it is important to bring up the update failure, because it appears it was interfering with other updates in the queue. Perhaps it was just pure coincidence, but when I fixed the HP driver update problem, a number of other updates finally showed up and were installed. If I’d not solved that HP update issue, would those other updates have installed? I don’t know.

As far as brand trustworthiness goes, this experience has left me with a lot more trust in Microsoft than Samsung. My satisfaction with Samsung consumer electronics has fallen steadily over the last year, driven by my growing lack of satisfaction with the Galaxy S4 and how its Android is upgraded. This isn’t to say I’m all that much happier with how Google does it; I have a pair of 2013 Nexus 7’s that took forever to upgrade OTA. No, the best upgrade experience so far has been with my Apple iPad Air 2 and iOS. Over less than a year I’ve gone through three OTA updates with iOS 8, one to iOS9, and right now I’m on iOS 9.1 beta 4 (four updates). That’s eight in 11 months. Every time Apple announces an update it shows up almost immediately after. Oh, that also includes my Mac Mini’s updates to Yosemite and its point releases and El Capitan.

Unless something goes catastrophically wrong, I see at least another year’s solid use out of this notebook, with its new SSD and Windows 10. When it comes time to upgrade I’m going to see how Microsoft is treating Windows. I’ve read some frankly disturbing comments with regards to how Microsoft sees Windows in the future. I’m still of the opinion that my next notebook should be running Linux, probably Ubuntu (my fallback distribution is RHEL Workstation). The hardware platform I’d like to run it on is along the lines of the Dell XPS 15, with 16GB DRAM and 1TB SSD. All of this is just pure speculation right now, and a good year away from now.

In the mean time I’m enjoying this particular evolved computer. And I have to give credit where credit is due for this state of enjoyment. Thank you Microsoft for making it this easy and this enjoyable. And thank you for making something really worth liking again.