The Ek’s Files

I’m an Ubuntu user. I made the switch a few months ago. I like it, and I won’t be switching back to Windows. Ubuntu is great, but I’ve never been able to understand the near-religious fervor adopted by aficionados of linux (or Mac, for that matter) when they talk about their beloved operating systems.

Ubuntu isn’t that much better than Windows XP. My installation of Windows XP was always extremely stable, and I haven’t found Ubuntu to be superior in that regard. I made the switch more for philosophical reasons than anything. I was having a big problem envisioning myself running Windows Vista in the future. Vista contains nothing that I find compels me to want to upgrade, and seems to have been created mainly as a vehicle to generate sales for Microsoft. Not that there’s anything wrong with MS trying to make money, but in my opinion there’s little added value. Was I running an operating system or a marketing tool? So I decided to make the switch to Ubuntu.

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Aaarrr, matey! There’s some scurvy dogs afloat would like to shanghai your router!

Network World reports that a new security exploit has been observed in the wild (that’s geek-speak for the real world) where visiting a compromised web page will result in your router or wireless access point settings being changed. In the observed case, the routers were caused to redirect users to a fraudulent banking site instead of the legitimate one. Yikes!

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My oldest young’un is a college senior, getting ready to enter the working world as an English teacher. College kids–er, young adults, sometimes exhibit tremendous enthusiasm for expressing ways in which the world would be a better place if only someone would listen. My boy’s lucky enough to be writing a column for his college newspaper (The Daily Nebraskan) which gives him the opportunity to express his viewpoints on a regular basis.

Here’s one of his columns, which I particularly enjoyed…

Sony BMG has thus far been the lone holdout in electing to provide its music in digital form that includes DRM (technology that limits what you can do with the media files you purchase). Now it appears that even Sony has decided that DRM no longer serves its interests. Why’s that? Sony (of Sony Rootkit fame), along with the other major record labels, appears to want you to be able to get music onto your iPod without having to sell their music through Apple’s iTunes music store. Apple, you see, wields enormous power in the digital music distribution world, simply because they own 80% of the market share. Apple has essentially dictated the price and terms for music downloads to the recording labels. Now the labels want to cut Apple down a notch or two by nurturing some competition.

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One of the foundations of the free-market economy is that competition drives innovation and value, and that’s good for the consumers who purchase and use goods and services. By and large, that’s a tough principle to refute. In general, the harder that makers of goods fight for our dollars, the more they’ll offer us for the money.

That’s all well and good when there are multiple producers competing for your consumer dollars. But what about when a company’s only competition is… itself?

Yeah, you know who I’m talking about, don’t you? Microsoft is one example of a company that’s had a virtual lock on many of the categories of software it sells. Take operating systems, for example. Who does Microsoft compete with when consumers are purchasing an operating system? Their market share is so overwhelming that Microsoft’s only competition is itself. You’d think that’d be a good thing for Microsoft. But when does the average consumer purchase an operating system? Generally, only when they buy a new computer. Microsoft makes money every time someone buys a computer that comes with its operating system installed. So new versions of Microsoft products are competing mainly with earlier versions of the same products. Does the consumer benefit from this?

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