choices...   part 1

too little... or too much?

    This is an issue that affects creative people everywhere, and in the first part of this series, I want to talk about having too few - in particular the scarcity of choice we all have in computer operating systems.

something smells fishy in Redmond...

    Let me state this right up front - I have never owned a Mac. I use pc's that I build myself, and I do not consider myself a Microsoft basher. Having said that, I feel that for the first time, Microsoft has stepped over the line. And it's alarming that they have done it in the wake of their "victory" over the U.S. government. What am I talking about? When you buy Windows xp, which by all accounts is their most stable version of Windows yet, you are entitled to install it ONE time, on ONE machine, and then only when the boys in Redmond give you permission. You truly are only buying a license to run the OS, and Microsoft can revoke your license at any time, so that, perhaps, you will buy another "license". All of this is in the name of "copy protection", the bane of honest computer users everywhere.
    May I give a brief, real-world example? Music software today is extremely sophisticated, and very finicky about the the environment it runs in. The programs I use, Cubase and Wavelab, will run flawlessly on the Windows OS - so long as nothing else is installed on the same machine. After all, the developers didn't say that their software would run with everyone else's software. They only said it would run on this particular OS. Fair enough. The solution to this problem is fairly simple. You use a program like Partition Magic, that will allow you to run multiple OS's on the same machine. So in my case, I have one Windows installation for the internet and business, and I have another one for music. I have two versions of Windows on one machine, and everyone is happy.
    The only problem is, I won't be able to do this on Windows xp. Not unless I want to buy another license. I don't know about you, but to me this doesn't seem fair. What happened to "fair usage"? When the RIAA took cassette manufacturers to court in the early '70's, trying to stop consumers from making copies of their records, congress passed what has become known as the "fair usage" law. Essentially this says that you can make copies of music you purchase, so long as it is only for yourself. I mean, I'm not trying to steal their product, I just need to install it twice on the same machine.

god bless Steve Jobs...

    Ok, so I don't like what Mr. Gates is trying to force me to do. So what are my choices? Well, thanks to Steve Jobs, at least I have one choice. But do you see what is going on here? If Apple went belly up, there would be NO choice, and let me tell you, that would be an ugly picture.
    Steve Jobs and his company, Apple, by their very existance, are providing a service to computer users all over the world. Because they give us at least one other choice. But Mr. Jobs & co. have done much more than that. They have consistently innovated (something Mr. Gates only gives lip service to), thus raising people's expectations and pushing the industry ahead.
    Choices - too little is obviously no good. But when it gets down to one, and that one choice is going to dictate the way millions of people use their computers (and possibly the future of computing itself), what you begin to see is something very, very wrong. Let's hope that nothing happens to Steve Jobs...

- David Thomas Peacock