Fallen Tech Blog

I work in IT Support and am often on call. As it's a real pain having to cart around a heavy laptop/notebook everywhere I go, I decided to get a mini-laptop/netbook such as the ASUS Eee PC ( http://wikipedia.org/ ). These are great little laptops that weight approximately 1 Kilogram (depending on the model) and measuring somewhere around 225mm x 165mm x 30mm making them hightly portable.

I originally purchased the 701 as they were suitable enough and the only real model that was available at the time. The Linux versions were the most common, which suited me fine as I am a Linux only user anyway (I don't run Windows on any of my machines). I found the screen size a little small however and when the 901 was released, I sold the 701 and decided on a 901.

I checked out many different suppliers but could only find the Windows version. It would seem no matter where I looked, only Windows. I even tried JB Hifi ( http://jbhifi.com.au/ ) but no luck there either. No suppliers would even order one in. It took months of monitoring and contacting various suppliers, and frequent visits to the most excellent price comparison website StaticIce ( http://staticice.com.au/ ). In the end I luckily managed to find one supplier that had a 901 with Linux!

More recently I wanted to purchase a new phone and decided I wanted to combine my PDA and phone into one. I naturally figured that since I'm moving from a Palm ( http://www.palm.com/ ) PDA to an all in one solution, I should investigate a Palm made phone.

Turns out they make them but unfortunately the more recent ones run the horrible Windows Mobile OS - something that I have used in the past and had terrible experiences with.

In fact, there was only one phone still on the market that ran the Palm OS, and it was exclusively sold by Telstra ( http://telstra.com.au/ ) and only as a pre-paid phone, namely the Palm Centro ( http://www.palm.com/au/ ).

So, my search began. I went to approximately 20 phone stores in the Melbourne CBD without success, 5 of which were "Telstra dealers" (I was not aware of the exclusivity at that point), but all had the same reply: "Don't have any, but we do have these ones running Microsoft Windows Mobile". I even tried to order one in without success. In the end I had no choice but to buy a Palm Treo 780 off eBay from America.

What's my point? I had good money to spend on good products yet it was near impossible to do so. Had I have not been so persistant, I might have simply purchased a Windows based Eee PC (installing Linux on myself) and bought a Windows Mobile running phone.

Poses the question, how many people are "settling" for things and ultimately counting to market statistics. No matter how good a product is, if it's not available people cannot buy it (or even see it for that matter)

OK seriously, I've been using the Internet since ... well lets just say I used to use BBS's until the Internet was available so from pretty early on.

I watched with interest as various companies started purchasing domains and putting near blank place holder pages up. This was exciting because at last there was a way for computer nerds to interact with these mass creatures.

I remember dreaming of never having to speak to an annoying under-trained person on the end of a phone for 45 minutes, just to find out something simple.

Sadly... now in 2008... these company websites are no better than they were back then!

Optus, Telstra, they are ALL useless crap.

I went to the Optus website about a year and a half ago tried to sign up for a pre-paid mobile phone account. The site was buggy and useless - I couldn't continue through the process and even if I could have, it kept telling me I wanted a business account even though I selected personal. I checked it out the other day - still broken.

Telsta are no different. I went to their website about 5 months ago to change to them as I'm sick of Optus but I couldn't find their plans and charges anywhere on their website... on THEIR website. In the end I had to look them up on a third party site. Can you imagine, going to a grocery store and asking how much they charge for a loaf of bread and they tell you "you'll have to ask the coffee shop down the street who buy some from us, they'll know".

I haven't found one company who's website is useful at all (excusing indexing type sites such as yellow pages etc). Some I've been to don't even have their address/phone number on them - USELESS.

I'm so glad everyone is now on the Internet - simplified life so much. pft.

I was listening to my favourite web based audio show (The Linux Link Tech Show (tllts.org)) the other day, and they were interviewing Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier, the editorial director for Linux.com (linux.com).

In the interview, Joe said something that got me thinking.

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Microsoft have an Open Source Software Lab at their main campus, "housing more than 300 servers which collectively run more than 15 versions of UNIX and 50 Linux distributions".

They state that the main reason the lab exists is for "testing interoperability" but also "helps Microsoft to build better products through a deeper understanding of open source software".

Microsoft even has a techie, nerdy, (sub)site available at http://port25.technet.com/ to present their cool, hip, friendly lab.

With (to my knowledge) Microsoft only ever doing things that benefit them, the question here is, is this good for the community?

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While sifting through some mailing list posts yesturday I came across a post on the jadmin mailing list asking for assistance with setting up a Jabber server (see http://www.jabber.org/ for more information).

What really got me was the way he was asking for help. People like this guy really aggravate and confuse me.

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