Advance copies of what (one would expect) are the final release copy of Windows 7 have been available to certain parties, such as trade magazines and developers, for some time now. As a result, we’re starting to see the first reviews of the actual product, as opposed to the not-ready-for-prime-time “release candidate” versions that were under test earlier in the year. So far, the new Windows seems like it’s a big step up from Vista…but that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Naturally, we really won’t know how the new release behaves until it actually hits the street. No matter how much testing is done by reviewers and other early adopters prior to the magic release date, bugs will certainly be uncovered. Some people will love it. Others are guaranteed to hate it. The big question, of course, is “should I upgrade?”

According to at least one review, the answer is probably a resounding “no.” If you’re happy with Vista, or with XP, you’re probably better off staying with your existing OS. The upgrade to 7 will cost $120, and it may just not be worthwhile. Now, it’s a different story if you’re buying a new PC. Then you’ll probably want Windows 7 over much-maligned Vista, and it’s generally a good idea to buy the latest OS with a new machine anyway.

Early indications suggest that XP users won’t have fun upgrading their existing OS, since 7’s installer will effectively trash their existing system. Apparently “users will have to reinstall all their programs and find their files in the folder where Windows 7 tucks them away,” both of which are really stupid side-effects that have me scratching my head. Were I an XP user (which I am) intending to migrate to 7 (which I am not), I’d buy a new machine with 7 pre-installed and migrate my files/applications by hand.

Some new features sound pretty good, like the improved task bar and “library” concept that allows users to organize files based on function (e.g. photos or music) rather than by folder. But unless you truly hate Vista and know your machine can handle Windows 7, you’re probably better off where you are now. Windows 7 will be there come the next round of hardware upgrades, so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to take it out for a spin.

I’m not sure when the ad campaign actually started, but Windows 7 is already in the news. Tonight on TV I saw two long (1 minute) ads showing a small child cutting & pasting text from various pre-release reviews of the new OS. Each review snippet was filled with typical, self-congratulatory corporate “best of all time” and “better than ever” jargon.

Somewhat bizarrely, the small child was pasting the snippets into thought balloons leading to cartoon characters and animals in comic settings. The obvious message is that the new OS is so easy a child can use it. But I think there are unintentionally funny aspects to this campaign as well. Years ago, one of my UNIX-mad colleagues referred to Macs and PCs as “toy computers.” Maybe he was more correct than anyone thought at that time (except UNIX aficionados), since these systems have indeed become so user-oriented that they’re usable by anyone above the age of 3.

As veteran tech watcher Robert Cringley has observed, the Microsoft hype machine has (yet again) moved into overdrive. Vista hurt Redmond badly, and they need a comeback release to re-establish Windows’ street cred with users who hated the last few releases. As far as I’m concerned, XP was the last gasp of a real OS. Today, Windows is little more than it was ten years ago…unless you count the number of bells, whistles, and cutesy applications that have been layered atop its basic functionality.

As Cringe observed, Steve Ballmer really means it when he says 7 is the best Windows release ever. “He also really meant it when he said the same things about Vista, XP, NT, Windows 98, Win 95, and every other Windows OS going back to DOS 2.1, with the possible exception of Windows ME.”

So watch those commercials and ads, laugh at the ludicrous idea of “Windows 7 Launch Parties” (one of the most idiotic ideas ever), and wait. Let the OS hit the market. Watch the early adopters, tech boards, and other sources of independent information. Then, if it sounds like a useful upgrade, grab a copy. Until then, your old release probably works just as well. And it’s paid for.

Numbers don’t lie, though of course the people who use them certainly can (and do). For instance, Microsoft has consistently claimed that Vista has been a rousing success despite the word on the street and numerous articles to the contrary. But the percentages just don’t add up. Two years after its release, Vista is installed on less than 30% of all PCs worldwide. And even worse, it seems few people actually bought it. Instead, they got it pre-installed on a new machine.

The numbers say it all: “those that [run Vista] are almost exclusively the Home Premium version, meaning that Vista is employed mainly by home users who likely got Vista preinstalled on a new PC.” Now that’s probably the lowest adoption rate for a Windows release since, oh, maybe Windows ME back in the late 1990s. The boys in Redmond have to be sweating bullets over the impending Windows 7 release. If it also flops, Microsoft is in trouble. At least in terms of OS sales.

Those folks have other worries as well. Despite a relatively good showing (so far) for IE8, the Pulse pages show Firefox gaining ground in the browser wars, with around 50% of all PCs running it. Of course, IE still has a huge lead since it’s present on all Windows PCs by default…but only a few years back, Firefox was to be found on 5-10% of all running systems. 50% is a pretty big jump.

Other statistics are very interesting. Office 2007 is the biggest Office release at present, and Word is (as might be expected) the most popular of all Office applications in terms of actual use. Poor Visio barely shows on the graph, and even Access isn’t that high on the food chain.

These numbers are also useful if you’re buying a new system or considering an upgrade. For instance, most Windows PCs now have between 2 and 3GB of RAM installed, so you probably don’t want to buy a machine with less than that. 4GB is overkill unless you’re running memory-intensive applications or just want to buy ahead of the curve (a practice I support). And as would be expected, Intel and Dell are the biggest names in CPUs and hardware, respectively.

Now, these numbers are just samplings so they shouldn’t be taken as the last word. Statistics can be difficult to interpret, and there are certainly under-represented configurations (for instance, Linux users and others who prefer not to offer data to the Pulse information-gathering effort). What will the market look like in a year? In five? Come back and see!

In one of the more stunning announcements in some time, Microsoft has announced that it’s actually going to contribute code (a paltry 20,000 lines, but it’s a start) to Linux via a GPL (GNU Public License) scheme. I’m still reeling from this, and I suspect many others in the industry are as well.

This is Microsoft…the same company that once called the GPL “un-American” and conducted massive efforts to label Linux as an unstable, unready OS suitable only for hackers. It’s also the company that paid SCO a large “indemnification” sum during the heyday of SCO’s lawsuit against IBM over allegations of code theft. The latter was widely seen as an attempt to bolster SCO’s claims while providing the cash-poor company with sorely needed funding.

I, for one, remember well how Microsoft attacked Linux early on. There were the “1998 Halloween memos attacking Linux, CEO Steve Ballmer calling the open source operating system a cancer in 2001 and Microsoft’s claim Linux and open source violates 235 of its patents.”

Now, Redmond is supporting Linux. My, how times have changed. Many Linux proponents were stunned by the news, but are also very happy because it provides more traction for Linux to move into current Windows-only environments. “Obviously we are tickled about it,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. “Hell has frozen over, the seas have parted,” he said with a chuckle.

The code being released is kernel-level material that provides support for virtualization under Microsoft’s “Linux Device Driver for Virtualization.” According to the article, “the drivers, once added to the Linux kernel, will provide the hooks for any distribution of Linux to run on Windows Server 2008 and its Hyper-V hypervisor technology.” Virtualization proponents and developers are probably overjoyed.

Are we seeing a newer, more open Microsoft? Possibly. But there’s certainly no egalitarian spirit involved. This is all about business, and Redmond wants to hold onto its piece of the pie.

One of the problems with cloud computing, or outsourcing computational requirements to big providers like IBM and Google, is that it’s a lot harder to guarantee that your data isn’t being mixed with another customer’s, or (even worse) visible to someone who shouldn’t see it. In many cases, a given system is executing multiple jobs at the same time — possibly within virtual machines that reside on the same physical hardware and share the same base OS.

Researchers are looking at this issue and are trying to establish a framework for more secure cloud infrastructures. As their report notes, many corporate entities and executives “trust existing internal systems over cloud-based systems due to fear about security threats and loss of control of data and systems.”

Their worries appear to be based more around people (good idea!) than around the technology itself, and they worry that a “cloud provider’s employees can tamper with or leak a company’s data.” This is a sensible and valid concern, though it may be overblown. Companies regularly entrust data to “analog” data delivery and management companies — like FedEx, UPS, courier companies, and even the USPS — without a single thought. What’s to stop someone from opening that Overnight package containing sensitive corporate data, copying it, putting it in a new envelope, and sending it along as if nothing had happened?

Absolutely nothing, that’s what.

Despite this, potential cloud users worry that someone will snoop their data while it’s being manipulated at the provider’s facility. Since current systems are such that “anyone with privileged access to the host can read or manipulate a customer’s data,” there’s a perception that theft will be commonplace. Yet companies have been outsourcing their data management and other IT functions for years. I don’t see why virtual servers are perceived as somehow less secure than traditional ones — a UNIX user with root access, or a Windows administrator with a privileged account, can go pretty much anywhere while leaving no tracks.

Is cloud computing really less secure? Or is this all just paranoia over a new and largely untested technology? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

For months Microsoft has been building up the hype about the upcoming Windows 7 release. I’ve been hearing it’ll be available in time for the winter holidays, which means Redmond stands to make a pile of cash during that critical period. Various reviews of the beta release have appeared. Some were relatively filled with praise, while others have shrugged their shoulders and said “it’s better than Vista.”

Now it seems as though the buzz is becoming more negative. One reviewer even went so far as to say Windows 7 is nothing more than “painting a lemon and calling it innovation.” That’s pretty harsh.

But it appears justified, if recent tests by other reviewers are any indication. According to one, “Bottom line: So far, Windows 7 looks, behaves, and performs almost exactly like Windows Vista. And it breaks all sorts of things that used to work just fine under Vista. In other words, Microsoft’s follow-up to its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues.”

What’s going on here? Is the new release really that bad? I certainly hope not, because if it is Microsoft can kiss its market dominance goodbye. A major software vendor can get away with a bad release now and then. Two failures in a row, especially in a product as big and widely used as Windows, is market suicide.

Judging by some of the buzz apparently coming from IT shops, Windows 7 may be as badly received as Vista. More large shops are looking at ‘alternative’ operating systems, and only two options are open: Linux or MacOS. “Of the firms surveyed, fully 50 percent say they are evaluating non-Windows options, not a good sign for Microsoft and certainly a fly in the ointment of the hard-core Windows 7 bandwagon crowd.” That’s not a good sign for Microsoft.

The media bandwagon and marketing hype notwithstanding, it looks like Windows 7 will be another dead-before-it’s-born release. Linux just keeps looking better and better.

One of the more interesting aspects of security involves what are known as “penetration tests.” In real-life situations like commercial buildings and military installations, this involves actual people who try to sneak into secure areas in order to expose vulnerabilities in security practices. In the computing world, it means hacking through OS vulnerabilities, exploiting code weaknesses, and other techniques designed to allow the hacker/tester to gain privileged access to some resource.

The cool thing about doing this in computing is that you can get paid for it while strutting your technical stuff in front of other researchers. Numerous contests are staged, along with presentations at security conferences, in order to help vendors find holes in their products before the “real” hackers discover them. It’s all legal, above board, and helpful to the computing community at large.

One such contest, called “Pwn2Own,” was staged recently. Several researchers revealed they’d found ways to hack through not only Apple’s Safari browser, but also the latest version of Internet Explorer (the soon-to-be-released IE8). And these contests aren’t just about finding bugs. Prizes are awarded as well. “The Pwn2Own contest — the brainchild of CanSecWest founder Dragos Ruiu — aims to reward researchers who show off their ability to exploit popular applications and devices.” The winner of one contest got $5,000 and a new Sony Vaio. Another got $10,000 and a Mac.

The only bad part is that some researchers actually sit on flaws they’ve already found so they have something to show off at these contests. This means some vulnerabilities are probably lurking out there, already having been discovered by these folks, but remain unpatched so they can be used to win contests. That means someone else might find them as well.

These contests are not just about standard desktop/laptop OSes, either — mobile phones are also included, since they’re also vulnerable to attack. According to the report, “the smart phones included an iPhone, a Nokia phone running Google’s Android platform, and a RIM Blackberry. Anyone who successfully attacks the devices would get a $10,000 bounty.”

Anyone up for some potentially profitable, not to mention legal, hacking?

Imagine this: you turn on your PC, and are greeted almost instantly with a loaded browser, email client, and word processor that are booted up and ready to run. And no, I don’t mean turning on your monitor – I mean hitting the power switch on the CPU. Sound too good to be true?

It’s not. In fact, it’s so obvious I’m surprised no one has done it before. Basically, some companies like Phoenix Technologies are developing mini Linux distributions on a chip that can be integrated directly into a motherboard. One of the newly developed mini kernels, known as HyperSpace, “is a compact Linux that loads almost instantly and gives the user a browser, word processor and a few other useful goodies.” The implication is clear.

Just think of your own usage habits. How often do you actually use any application other than Internet Explorer or Firefox? I suspect a large percentage of home users do nothing but work on the web…and that means they don’t need all the “features” of Windows. For that matter, they really don’t need full-blown Linux or MacOS either. And by eliminating all the cruft surrounding such full-featured OS architectures, you’d eliminate a whole host of support annoyances.

Upgrades? They can be distributed as a flash BIOS update. Rootkits? Almost impossible, since the OS is resident on a chip and can’t be written to by normal processes. Sure, you could still have virus or other malware issues since the PC still contains a disk, but putting the OS on a non-writable piece of solid state hardware makes serious infection a whole lot harder. It also removes disk fragmentation, startup and shutdown delays, and a host of other problems.

As the article author points out, the other thing that will make Redmond twitch is that HyperSpace comes with a built-in word processor called Haansoft Wite, which “makes a clone of Microsoft Office.” This product is “an out-and-out, menu-item-for-menu-item copy of Microsoft Word 2003. It even uses the red squiggly line for spell checking.” So why is it that we’re paying $300 or more for a copy of Office basic, which hasn’t had a new feature worth buying in about five years?

This type of stripped-down system isn’t for everyone. But it reminds me of the early days of radio; early radio units required lots of tweaking and tuning. They also took a long time to warm up. Then, instant-on solid state units appeared and took over the market. I suspect we’ll see the same progression in terms of PCs.

The OS wars between Windows, Linux, and (distantly, but always viable) the MacOS have been going on for years now. Each has its vocal proponents and detractors, while most other people just want something that works, is easy to use, and doesn’t cost too much. And that’s the point, isn’t it?

When all the hype and hyperbole are taken out of the equation, it comes down to this: Microsoft got to its position not because its OS was “better,” but because PCs were more widely adopted than Macs. Back during those critical early-adoption phase, Macs were more expensive and were seen as esoteric. Apple also insisted on a closed architecture, while PC hardware was the Wild West.

In OS terms, Linux was by no means ready for the masses a decade ago. UNIX (which you could run on a PC in the mid 1990s) just wasn’t ready for anyone but a developer. Then again, it really wasn’t intended to be.

All that has changed. Linux has been under furious development since it emerged in the late 1990s, and its proponents have been pushing for a user-friendly, no-techie-needed desktop capable of challenging Windows. Now, it seems, that day may have finally arrived.

Personally, I hope that’s true. It’s not because I hate Microsoft. Yes, I’ve disliked some of their more idiotic business decisions and practices. The irrational attacks against Open Source, close integration of stuff like browsers and email clients into the OS, insistence on forcing PC vendors to bundle only their products, and bloatware practices were just plain stupid. But overall they’ve brought computing to the people, and have done a fairly good job of it. If you don’t think that’s the case, feel free to build a bulletproof OS that will easily install and run on thousands of possible hardware configurations. Remember that your user base consists of everyone from a tech-paranoid 90 year old to a high end twenty-something developer who thinks in hex for fun.

Ready. Set. Go. We’ll see you in a decade or two.

No, the reason I’m hoping Linux is ready for home users is that it’ll give Microsoft some sorely needed competition. Redmond got lazy in the early years of the decade because they owned well over 90% of the desktops in the world. No competition spells laziness and a sense of “we’ll do what we want, because you have no choice in the matter.” A competitive Linux challenger (or any other, for that matter) gives Redmond incentive to do better.

Vista was a wake-up call for Microsoft. It told them they no longer had the luxury of dictating every user action, shipping bad code, or charging exorbitant fees for their products. Desktop-ready Linux will really put them to the test. And that’s good for everyone–including Microsoft.

As I’ve pointed out on a few occasions, PCs are becoming appliances like refrigerators and microwave ovens. I’ve seen a few (somewhat useless) cases where a manufacturer has tried embedding a thin LCD system in, for instance. the door of a large refrigerator. These units have never caught on, but a new follow-on “Eee” machine from ASUS might just catch more attention.

The system is built into a unit that looks a lot like a 16″ LCD, and includes a mouse and keyboard. However, initial reviews suggest these two input devices may not be needed very much. Most functions can be performed using the touch screen, which makes using the system easy to use while (for instance) cooking dinner. According to tests, the touch functions work even after the screen is smudged. This helps the system clear a major hurdle in terms of usability.

Now, ASUS isn’t billing this as a “kitchen computer” but that’s one obvious application for such a system. At $600, it can go into rooms where you wouldn’t really want to use a full laptop or desktop system due to the number of cables, size, or space requirements they impose. Other seemingly obvious uses for the new Eee machine include workshops, outdoors on a patio, or even (dare I say it?) even a bathroom.

This isn’t a machine that’ll replace your full sized system, but one that’s useful for occasional browsing and miscellaneous tasks. I suspect we’ll see more such machines, possibly built into walls or mounted under cabinets, in other household locations over time. Eventually homes will probably have a central system (maybe a server, maybe not) as well as numerous satellite systems to control heating/lighting/security while providing quick access to mail and the web.

For now, this is a handy and inexpensive system that you can place in unusual locations without feeling too guilty. Just don’t try using this, or any other system, while sitting in the bathtub. Electronics and water just don’t mix that well.