Can Windows Come Around?

Windows 10 - Say what?

It's been about a week or so that the next installment of Windows was announced. Microsoft tried to do something new here with the version number and the name indeed came as a surprise to most of us. Why name it Windows 10? Is it because the last two versions didn't do as well as Microsoft would like 'em to... so they ditched the whole thing altogether? Or is it because that Microsoft thought that we all expected it to be called Windows 9 and tried something different? It still remains a mystery.

Windows 10 Doesn't Inspire

Screenshot of Window 10's desktop with the start menu open

Windows 10

It is still very early to comment, but the Technical Preview of Windows 10, as Microsoft calls it, is not so different from the previous versions. It seems to be a 'Windows 7' version of Windows 8.1. They revived exactly what they planned to ditch. Moreover what they introduced to be *new* features, were somethings that both OS X and GNU/Linux users have been enjoying for years. Where's the glory? You waste 4 years building something that nobody likes, then you take 1 more year to revert back and add features that were already in market? Where's the innovation? Aren't they just wasting human resource and money?

While Microsoft was busy playing catch up, the market has shifted towards free upgrades. Windows can regain the market only if it is distributed for free (free as in free beer). Does Microsoft really think people will pay $300 - $400 to upgrade their systems in a world where we are all used to getting free upgrades on our mobile phones and Macs? The first question a user would ask themselves would be something like "Why the hell would I pay that amount of money to upgrade when my system works perfectly?" Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 were disastrous. If Microsoft wants to get back in the game, they should make it a free upgrade for Windows XP and up. Not only will it help Windows get back, but it will also eliminate the fragmentation and security issues now that the support for Windows XP has ended.

Via: The Next Web - The Future of Microsoft Depends on Windows Being Free

Comments

Why I Started Blogging

It's been almost 5 years since I started blogging. This is the 30th post being published. That means over the course of 5 years, I've written 6 posts per year. Although 30 is much less than I would have liked, this is one of those pet projects I have continued even after the honeymoon phase. Today I want take some time and discuss why I started this blog in the first place. I was in my 3rd year of engineering studies when I started out. I had already developed a keen interest towards programming and tech in general by then. Having a blog seemed liked a cool idea. There were couple of more reasons to go ahead with this idea. That's what we are here to discuss today. Setting up a blog seemed like a technically challenging task. I wanted to know how to setup a blog with comments, advertisements and with a custom domain. It sounded like a great way to acquire new skills and learn new things along the way. Back then I didn't know anyone who shared my enthusiasm for tech

Dear edX!

Dear edX, I was in my 2nd year of college when you came to life. And I was ecstatic! No, not to be in college (LOL) but to have finally found my calling. Computer programming. I was browsing through all the resources I could find. Codecademy courses mainly. And right at that moment, you arrived. Your parents hail from the Harvard University and from the MIT. So of course you received my attention. Also, you had an unique selling point: free certificates. This was huge! No one else was doing it. It seemed you were actually trying to help students learn new skills and show off to the world. I was stoked to enroll into the course developed world's top professors. The free certificates were a big motivator to complete the courses. The first course I enrolled into was developed by The Linux Foundation. I have taken several courses since then. Some were on computer programming, some were about a country's history and some provided advice on career growth and personal finance. 2

It's Time India Gets Cashless Payment

India just had a mobile network revolution yesterday; thanks to Reliance Jio. It's time India gets another long-due technology i.e. mobile payment. There are many advantages of using mobile payment over cash or ATM cards. You are less likely to lose your phone - assuming you fiddle with your phone as much as I do. Even if you lose your phone, you can at least try to track it down using GPS. Your phone doesn't physically deteriorate over time. No need for mints. No wastage of paper. It's environment friendly. No maintenance needed unlike ATMs. More secure than ATM PIN codes. Mobile payment uses your fingerprints for verification. Mobile payment is much more convenient. Your employer transfers your salary to the bank and you can directly pay from your bank account. No need to withdraw the cash and hand it over to the merchant, who eventually does the reverse process after they received the money. Such waste of time. Instead just bring your phone or watch close to the

Why Do We Still Pay for Voice Calls?

It's 2015. We have self-driving cars, mobile devices that rival laptops built 3 years ago, gigabit Internet connections and still, service providers make us pay for voice calling and SMS. That seems to be the dumbest thing to me. Let me explain... There are generally three things that you do on your phone, that needs to communicate with the network. First, there is voice calling, then there is SMS and lastly, there is web browsing and other stuff that requires an Internet connection. Now, put simply, Internet is all about sending data up and down, and if you think, SMS is also data. If we had a system, SMS can also be sent using the Internet. No I'm not talking about free SMS services here. Some of you might argue if we really need to have the SMS feature, but that's a different story. And then there is voice. VoIP anybody? That's been out there for ages! Why not route all the voice calls through the Internet? That's a question I'd like to ask the service

My Experience with GNU/Linux

The Beginning My Dell Inspiron N4010 came preinstalled with Windows 7 Home Basic. After one year or so, I decided to try out GNU/Linux. Why you say? Well, my interest grew when I came to who about the concept of Open Source Software. I started exploring Wikipedia to know more about Open Source Software. Read lots of articles there, and came across the licensing term GPL numerous number of times. While investigating what GPL was, I came to know about the GNU Project, the Free Software Foundation and the GNU/Linux OS. Then, I thought about giving GNU/Linux I try. Now, everybody has a vision about GNU/Linux.. It is THE operating system which a techie would use. And it is free. So let's download and install it!! But........ What to download? The Installation The first thing I realized, there were lots of different downloadable distribution of GNU/Linux. Now the question was, which one to choose? So as I figured, with some help from Google of course, Ubuntu was (and still is) th

Tensai Sensei

Search This Blog