http://www.howesystems.com/pblog/index.php http://www.howesystems.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry081121-040134 There are two variants available a Windows XP version and the less expensive Linux version. Judging by the sales volumes, people have voted with their feet and wallets and have declined to pay the Windows tax. And the savings by going the Linux route are quite substantial. Linux will operate on the lower specification model, whereas Windows XP requires a higher specification model and you have to pay Microsoft for the operating system.
The popularity of these small netbooks has forced Microsoft to review the future viability of XP as Vista was clearly unsuited to these devices.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the Acer is that it has changed the market place forever. It is now possible to make computers with mass appeal and ship them with a Linux operating system. Asus a competitor of Acer were first to market such a device but Acer shipped a cheaper and more attractive product and had the courage to stick with Linux in the face of commercial pressures from dominant players in the market.]]> http://www.howesystems.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry060927-110447
Although Bono the lead singer with U2 made an appearance at DEMOfall 2006 in San Diego yesterday, the real stars of the show were the emerging technologies that will affect peoples lives.

One such technology that made its debut was the USBCELL from Moixa Energy. The USBCELL pictured above on the left is an AA battery that can be recharged from a USB port on a PC. This means that you can recharge your batteries without the need to carry a specific charger. A really compelling product with an immediate application.

The USBCELL pictured is just the start. Simon Daniel, founder and director of Moixa Energy is a passionate advocate of rethinking the Energy Axiom which is the basis of the 20th Century power supply, the AC mains distribution system. Today there are a plethora of small electronic devices with associated adaptors, plugs and cables which are more suited to a low voltage power supply. If we used this low voltage power supply for these devices then it would mean that renewable energy such as solar and wind or micro power generation would be practical.

When I talked with Simon Daniel, we discussed the applicableness of this low voltage power supply in countries and continents with largely rural populations like India and China and Africa. Universal mains electricity in these countries is neither economic or environmentally justified. The low voltage power supply could be used to power cell phones, radios and computers. Thus enabling these communities to join the information society.

I dont know whether Bono or Simon got to talk but I do know that Bono has a long term interest in Africa and alleviating the poverty of contless millions. To people in the west we could dismiss having a radio as just a means of entertainment but in Africa radios can save lives by educating people about AIDS or by providing accurate weather forecasts that can help farmers save their crops.

David Howe

David Howe is Managing Director of Howe Systems. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent company policy.
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Dell no doubt know what they are talking about. But it begs the question, why do you need 1GB of RAM. Not so long ago a PC with 128MB of RAM was adequate for most desktops. Now to stay current you need 1GB. Why?

Could the answer be that this has less to do with direct user benefits and more to do with policing user behaviour and that hot potato Digital Rights Management.

By the way if you have a laptop chances are that Vista is not for you. A significant number of laptops do not have 1GB of RAM and will not support 1GB of RAM.

Its going to be a hard sell putting Vista on every desktop and laptop. Basically change or modify all your desktop machines and make a leap of faith and buy an untried operating system.

David Howe

David Howe is Managing Director of Howe Systems. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent company policy.]]> http://www.howesystems.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry060811-080149
What is interesting about AdWords is that it results in highly targeted advertising spend. You select your message wording and you select hidden keywords that will trigger an impression of your adevertisement on the search results page.

You pay per click to your chosen landing page. You set the budget per month or day and depending on the package you've chosen you can set the maximum cost per click for individual keywords.

Certain keywords cost more per click than others and the more you are willing to pay the more impressions you get. However Google do not charge the maximum cost per click all the time. Google actually have a bidding engine that sets the price per click and the more you are willing to pay the higher the position of your advertisement.

Considering the revenues that AdWords generates, how do you know if you are getting fair value for your bid? To be honest I don't know the answer. How do you put a value on words after all?

Well, Google have found a way of putting a value on words. As they say in Readers Digest -'It pays to improve your word power'. Google no doubt agree!!

David Howe

David Howe is Managing Director of Howe Systems. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent company policy.
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As a long time user of Firefox, it is difficult to contemplate using any browser that does not support tabbed browsing.

Why is Tabbed browsing so useful? It reduces clutter on the desktop and allows the user to open multiple sites and skip between them seamlessly. Just imagine you are doing comparative shopping between several sites, with Firefox you have a sane way of comparing the offers from vendors.

And when your finished, you can close all the sites on Firefox in two clicks. The second click is to verify you want to close all the current tabs. No need to hunt around your desktop for open websites and multiple pop-ups. Sanity in an increasingly insane world.

David Howe

David Howe is Managing Director of Howe Systems. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent company policy.









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In a statement Microsoft said it was "ending support for these products because they are outdated and these older operating systems can expose customers to security risks". This is extraordinary, surely the longer an operating system is supported (patched and revised), the more stable and secure it should be. At least thats the experience with other operating systems.

So Microsoft in its wisdom is creating 70 million honeypots. Honeypots are computers that attract what Microsoft like to call "the bad guys".

Microsoft are urging their 70 million customers to upgrade to a newer operating system which I guess may involve an additional cost and junking all your old software.

What if a proportion of customers dont upgrade. The problem is that
these customers now represent a security threat to everyone else. Imagine if it was possible to take control of a fraction of these machines. Thats a hell of a lot of processing power in the wrong hands. In addition the "bad guys" now have a stationary target to hone their skills on.

As a responsible corporate citizen Microsoft should provide security patches. Its not like 70 million is a small number of customers.


David Howe

David Howe is Managing Director of Howe Systems. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent company policy.]]> http://www.howesystems.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry060711-174808
In his book "Primal Branding", Patrick Hanlon examines the 7 factors that make up the emotional attachment to a brand. Of course the idea is to create a belief in a product that makes the consumer use a belief system when buying a product. How powerful an idea is primal branding? Well, most of the great wars of the past and present have been fought on the basis of beliefs. The Crusades and the war on terror are good examples. Linux v Microsoft is another example.

In the book "Why Johnny can't brand", Bill Schley & Carl Nichols take a product centric look at the Dominant Selling Idea. They argue that you can allways be number one in your chosen field. Of course the magic word is "chosen". Also they examine the power of the Tag Line. Most today are meaningless but to be powerful they must have resonance or a strong belief system behind them.

I wonder what the tag line for Linux is?

Linux the free OS?

True but there's a problem with the word free. The belief, that if its free, it must not be of saleable quality. People in the know realise that the word free relates to freedom.

Perhaps the real resistance to Linux is that it challenges our assumptions that capitalism is king. For the winmills/giants read Microsoft. Yet Linux a no cost OS (assuming you have boadband) exists and is thriving.

The real surprise is that Linux is most effectively used by the largest companies, who could afford to buy the OS of their choice but choose Linux, just ask Google.

David Howe

David Howe is Managing Director of Howe Systems. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent company policy.]]> http://www.howesystems.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry060707-033131 Compare this with proprietary formats. Most proprietary formats from 10 years ago are unusable, even where backward compatibility was guaranteed by the vendor. So a word to the wise - make sure your old files work with a new version of software before adopting it. Otherwise you could end up with the appalling vista that thousands of man hours of work are now garbage.
So when the city of Boston (MA) worries about data longevity and insist on the Open Document Format (ODF) they have a real issue. Imagine a paperless city where records are stored for future generations, it seems reasonable to insist on a format that is non proprietary i.e. Open.


David Howe

David is the Managing Director of Howe Systems. The views in this article are his own and do not constitute company policy.]]> http://www.howesystems.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry060707-025804 In a statement that was hailed as vindication for the government, the hardware was deemed suitable but the software was deemed to be unsuitable and would have to be re-written. This was after repeated attempts by the panel of experts to get access to the source code from the vendor. The source code is necessary to verify that the machines would operate correctly.
Some vindication! Its all a bad joke.
The Irish government have demonstrated that when it comes to technology they are numbskulls. The result - a mountain of hardware that is now in secure storage is now likely to gather dust.
What makes this all so amusing is that the electoral register is a shambles with thousands of dead people entitled to vote. And believe me in Ireland the dead vote! Remember to vote early and often.

David Howe

David is the Managing Director of Howe Systems. The views in this article are his own and do not constitute company policy.]]> http://www.howesystems.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry060704-140439 'If you can cheaply replicate a technology product (software is a good example) the rate of adoption of your technology becomes more important than what you charge for it. The aim of course is to achieve market dominance or a de-facto standard with your technology and once this is achieved you have gained the key to untold riches'.

Google and Adobe have both gained market share by giving something away at little or no cost to the consumer. Google of course offer you access to the best search engine for free but attract revenue from advertising. Adobe give their pdf document readers away for free but charge for the software to encode documents.

Microsoft own the de-facto standards for wordprocessing and spreadsheets and charge handsomely for them. A de-facto standard works because it is universally accessible i.e. can be read by others. So here is a conundrum - is piracy good for microsoft? The answer has to be a qualified yes. To make money a majority of law abiding users must pay a license but nearly everyone must be able to read the documents otherwise it would not be a de-facto standard. Imagine having to use a different format for every recipient, that would not work. In fact a law abiding person may receive a document from a pirated version of software and feel compelled to buy a license to read the document. So at some level piracy is indeed good for Microsoft.

David Howe

David Howe is the Managing Director of Howe Systems. Any views expressed are purely his own and do no constitute company policy.

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