The first article is Ubuntu is a Poor Standard Bearer for Linux but you need to read the follow up article, How Canonical Can Do Ubuntu Right to get a fair understanding of her position.

Cheers,
-pmh

2. a new Nokia N800 Internet Tablet… pocket sized, blazingly fast at connecting to WiFi networks and bluetooth devices, a fine podcatcher and Internet Radio – with a linux terminal interface where I can enter most of the same shell commands I once used to manage big UNIX boxes.

3. a new unlocked Nokia 6300 GSM cell phone… a phone not only capable of going “native” in most countries of the world with local SIM cards, but also the miniature camera I’ve always needed to get those unexpected photos at unexpected times in unexpected places.

The whole, however, is greater than the sum of the parts. Together these devices enhance the capabilities of each other in ways I’m only beginning to appreciate.

I’ll be writing more about how these devices play together in the near future.

Cheers,
-pmh

Golden describes the Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM) which enables us to judge how scalable, manageable, and supportable a particular open source product might be. As might be expected, a lot of this depends on the open source community that manages and contributes to the project. By assessing the project and the product itself, among other things, the level of maturity and what I would call sophistication can be determined. This, in turn, can help determine how suitable the product might be for a given organization. Suitability depends to a large extent on the role of the product as well as the capabilities of the organization.

As the back cover states, this book points the way to…

• assessing open source business models
• managing risk, including licensing issues
• evaluating and selecting open source software
• locating and assessing technical support, training, and documentation resources

SeriouslyOpen.org
Around the time that I was reading this book my open source research took me to SeriouslyOpen.org which is jointly sponsored by Capgemini and Intel, according to the site’s footer – Capgemini, it seems, has a limited partnership with Intel. It appears that Capgemini has extended some of the criteria found in Golden’s book and provided the sort of comprehensive methodology of which such consulting firms are fond.

a partnership with roots… or teeth?
All of this goes some way toward explaining why today’s announcement of Novell and Capgemini’s open source partnership may actually have some roots. Capgemini is the only one of the big consulting firms that I am aware of that has gone so far to provide their clients with a formal framework for the consideration and selection of appropriate open source products. Novell is, obviously, doing its level best to raise open source solutions, primarily its own products, to the point where they might be considered on a par with proprietary solutions.

Personally, I’ve thought for some time that Novell has the goods. Whether they have the skills required to market and deliver them is still up in the air. I see some potential for progress here, but whether Capgemini can help drive big business clients to become Novell customers will depend on how well this partnership is executed.

Come to think of it, given Microsoft’s recent patent pronouncements concerning open source, this partnership might do better with teeth rather than roots.

Cheers,
-pmh

• disclosure: the author of this blog has a financial investment in common stock of Novell Inc.

It seems customers are demanding not to be inflicted with Microsoft Vista’s teething troubles in great enough numbers to force Dell (perhaps others?) to offer new machines preloaded with XP instead.

The Register has the story here and The Inquirer has it here.

I suppose I underestimated non-business users’ desire for the same stability that businesses demand. Good work, folks!

Cheers,
-pmh

…pretend you are a business!

If you visit a web site such as Dell.com that has the option of indentifying yourself as a “Home & Home Office” or “Small Business” choose the business option. In many cases the same machine will be offered with XP installed.

Businesses know the value of a stable operating system.

Cheers,
-pmh

The tech support response was amusing.

It suggested that I backup my data and re-install. In technical circles this is known as the Microsoft Solution for Everything, or MSE.

It was particularly humorous in the light of the fact that the only way to backup and restore the Lightning is with the Lexar software which I never installed because I felt it should have been free with the device. (I have since changed my mind about this).
Ok, so having a technical bent I understand these things and chose to ignore the standard advice and try to re-install the update again. Nothing to lose, right? After all, perhaps someone -unbeknownst to technical support- had fixed the update.

Sure enough, the update ran fine (although it looked different this time) and Power-to-Go powered up at last.

Yes, I have now purchased the Backup utility.

InstallAnything disappears
That’s not all, however!

I had purchased the Lexar InstallAnything utility. When the new PowerToGo utility started up I noticed InstallAnything was gone. In fact, I can no longer find it on the Lexar software site.

In its place is something called Argo. No one bothers to tell the users, but it appears that Argo has replaced InstallAnything.
Before I found that out I sent Technical Support an email asking where InstallAnything went. I’ll be interested to hear their response to that one.

Hi Ho!
-pmh

As a result, I hesitated to make the purchase… and now I’m sorry that I didn’t just consider that cost as part of the cost of the device!

Last week Lexar released an update to the PowerToGo system that enables you to run Windows programs from their Lexar Lightning memory stick. My PowerToGo booted this morning with a request to update the software. Foolishly -and I say ‘foolishly’ because I did not have any backup- I agreed and pressed ‘OK’.

The rest you can guess. The process generates two error messages about the software certificate being different and after installing the Lexar Lightning is effectively dead in the water. Files in My Documents are accessible by those in the secure vault are not and none of the installed apps will run properly.

Lexar Support online chat is unresponsive, no doubt due to the volume of complaints, and you are directed to leave an email.

I’ll let you know what happens when I get a response from Lexar Support.

-The (Foolish) Portable Consultant

What I had heard was that “Vista Premium Ready” means the unit will actually run Vista in all its glory while “Vista Capable” means it will run fine as long as you don’t choose to use the new GUI in all its glory… in other words, a more simple interface will run fine but the prettier Aero Glass GUI probably won’t work or, at the very least, will slow the system down to unacceptable levels.

None of the advertising flyers I’ve seen this season explain this – not even the ones that promote and explain the Express Upgrade to Windows Vista for those buying certain XP systems.

Perhaps the industry is rushing to rid itself of old stock and parts before Vista becomes the default OS on new systems.

Be that as it may, I was astounded to see a chart on Dell’s site that seems to indicate that “Vista Capable” means a Dell PC that is…:

Great for…
Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games

I suppose that’s what Microsoft would refer to as a “core experience.”

Dell wins The Portable Consultant’s 2006 Award for Dubious Truth in High-Tech Advertising.

Cheers,
-pmh

We portable consultants might not find the current MoJoPac product useful, however, for two reasons:

1) We are usually assigned limited access on the Windows machines we’re given at client sites and MoJoPac requires full admin priviledges.

2) Not all our clients are running Windows XP. In fact, most of mine have been running Windows 2000.

MoJoPac requires full admin priviledges on a Windows XP machine.

Still, Steve suggests we should keep an eye on MoJoPac for future versions that offer a more flexible product.

Cheers,
-pmh