Mike-Tech

Tue, 18 May 2004 02:16:32 GMT

Ok here's the deal. My radio weblog is to be no more. Right now I don't have the $40 to renew the subscription to the service. So basicly I'm moving operations to Blogger as much as I don't want to. So here it is.

Thu, 29 Apr 2004 20:13:19 GMT

This from the SeattlePI. It seems that RealNetworks is trying to liscense the WMA codec so that their Rhapsody music service offerings can be played on portable media players. First they tried to deal with Apple and Jobs said no, so now Microsoft. I think it's funny because Real is in the process of suing Microsoft for using their "monopolistic powers" to unfairly give them an advantage with Windows Media. It seems everyone is willing to come to the dark side these days. First Sun and now Real. Maybe those two should have joined with the Gnome and Mozilla guys to fight against this. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Microsoft's stuff is everywhere and it just works. All of these companies are the same companies who tried to destroy Microsoft a few years back. Where would they be now then? There would be 20 different audio formats that you needed 20 different portable media players to use and no one would buy them. Microsoft may behave badly but they get standardization across one single theme pretty well. I suppose next the DOJ is going to jump in bed with them.

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 19:56:19 GMT

I found this via Channel9.

It seems Gnome and Mozilla have decided to band together in order to defend against Longhorn and the slew of products to be released around it's timeframe. This is probably a good idea for them not just as a defense against MS but as an overall strategy. One of the major roadblocks to Linux on the desktop is that there are too many choices. Yes the capitalist himself says this. It's hard to create a unified look and enviornment when you have so many choices and different versions out. By banding together and leveraging each other's strong points it will definately help push a unified solution that would meet the needs of desires of home users. Things need to just work together. That's what people have come to expect from computers. One of the advantages that Microsoft has over Linux right now is that although there are a lot of horror stories most of their software works seamlessly between applications. If Linux can achieve that kind of enviornmental stability it will be a major force to be reckoned with. At least that's my two cents on it. You have to feel good if you're Microsoft right now though. You couldn't ask for better publicity about an upcoming product than to have your competitors band together to fight it.