Kingdom Keys Bookmarking Blog

I was green with envy at those smart cookies sporting an iPad wherever they go. I do a lot of writing and I like the tactile feedback of a proper keyboard. Squinting at a screen covered with slimy fingerprints isn't my idea of productivity either.

So for a third of the price I got a micro laptop. It runs 3 operating systems: Windows 7, Android and Linux Ubuntu. I dislike Apple for their obnoxious ways in cultivating a captive audience of customers. It started with the iPod. I just gave up on iTunes. Why can't you just drag and drop MP3 files between your hard disk and the USB memory? Why do they have to mangle the filenames beyond recognition?

But I have discovered that Mircrosoft and Google are just playing the same silly games. Migrating from Vista to Windows 7 I discovered that Microsoft Mail was missing on purpose. They want to leverage their hotmail portal and copy what Google did with Gmail. Then they also remove the ability to change the desktop background as an incentive to part with cash to upgrade from the Windows 7 Starter version... Fortunately there is a free utility to download to do just that. I also used Thunderbird mail client made by the same people who released the Firefox web browser. Of course for a $250 micro PC I am not paying for a Microsoft Office license. I use Open Office instead...

The Android operating system is an abomination. I used it on my Samsung phone for 6 months but for a tablet it is next to useless. There are no native applications for word processing, spreadsheet and the like. Even though it is a port of Linux the Open Office suite isn't available for it. Furthermore in order to use Android Market you have to have a device registered against your Gmail address. So every time I try to download something on the micro PC it ends up on my phone instead. In their attempt to rule the world and track who downloads what they forgot to figure out the same person might use more than one android device...

If you take the time to download the entire CD for Linux Ubuntu you will have a pleasant surprise. It loads real fast and comes complete with a suite of applications to do computing on the go. It has a multi boot utility so you can pick and chose which operating system to run at startup.

Cloud computing has a dark side to it. Big brother wants to monitor everything you do. In the future people might use their gmail address to transmit bogus emails to fool eavesdroppers as to their real activities... In the meantime we have to put up with idiotic behaviours from marketing behemoths who think they own their user base and can make us do what they want.

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