Instead of buying OLPCs or Classmate PCs, one community in Brazil is looking at their own solution to bring technology into their schools (using Linux of course). Their solution is a touchscreen desktop computer, according to CNet. At around $550 and lacking the mobility of the OLPC, it is not, however, clear if this new solution is really better.

The only real advantage this solution has over the OLPC (or similar inexpensive UMPCs) is the screen, which is both bigger and a touch screen. On the other hand, the OLPC is much cheaper and is very mobile, so children can take it home and use it there, allowing a student to continue to learn, explore, and figure out how the technology works. Given the benefits and disadvantages of each, which one is the best?

First of all, in some situations the touchscreen solution may not be an option at all, due to the price. If you have over a million kids to provide with a computer, spending $350 more per kid is a big deal.

Even if the touchscreen solution is an option, is it really the best option? At first the touchscreen seems like a real advantage, but what can a touchscreen do that a regular mouse and keyboard cannot (other than look cool?) (It appears there is also a keyboard, so typing is not an issue.)

Overall, allowing students to continue their learning and exploration at home at their own pace seems to be more important than providing a touchscreen at school and saving $350 just makes UMPCs like the OLPC even more attractive.

To be fair, the CNet article does make it clear that the people behind the touchscreen idea do not think this would work anywhere and there is also the advantage that most of the money goes into the Brazilian economy. Still, I am a little skeptical of this idea.

By now, everyone has heard of the XO laptop (better known as the $100 laptop that costs $200) and the Eee PC. Both are examples of inexpensive ultra-mobile computers that run Linux. Although they both serve different purposes, they are technically similar in many ways. Another interesting aspect of these laptops (or at least the XO laptop) is that Microsoft is scared of them, and with good reason. The market for these inexpensive UMPCs is growing and already some of the best known devices run Linux. Right now, Linux has some significant advantages for use on this new class of computer including ease of customization, price, and minimal hardware requirements. On June 30, the minimal requirements argument will become even more compelling.

When June 30th comes, Microsoft will stop selling Windows XP. This leaves UMPC makers in a difficult position. Not only does Vista have all the problems of XP mentioned above, but it also requires even more expensive hardware. When you are trying to bring the price down to around $400 or even less, every dollar you can save on hardware is important and by discontinuing XP, Microsoft is increasing the gap between Linux and Windows in how much money must be spent on hardware. In this way, Microsoft is hitting themselves on the head in a market where they are already losing and they very much want to win.

Following Sun’s recent purchase of another open-source company, MySQL, Sun has just bought Innotek, according to Information Week. Innotek is the supporting company behind the VirtualBox virtualization software, which is distributed in both open-source and proprietary versions. VirtualBox emerged as a frequently used virtualization product quite recently, but it already has features that compete with larger proprietary-only companies.

Although it is impossible to know for sure, this acquisition seems likely to be a good thing for the development of VirtualBox. Sun has previously shown their awareness of open-source software with their support of Open Office and there is no reason to believe they will do anything other than put more resources into the development of both versions of VirtualBox. Although it seems unlikely that there will be any very noticeable changes to VirtualBox in the near future, in the long term this acquisition should be good for VirtualBox.

After many of the Linux expos/conventions/meetings/whatever people point out that there seem to be a lot of Macs. So the first question is why do Linux people buy Macs? While, I think few people would dispute that Apples is really good at design. When you look at a standard Dell computer and a MacBook, the MacBook looks way, way better. There are a few other small reasons a Linux geek might use a Mac, such as already owning one, but I doubt that sort of thing is really the explanation for all the Macs.

This reasoning might seem a little counterinuitive at first. Who would think that Linux geeks would care about having their laptops look pretty? Really, though, this is not anything new. Compiz Fusion is, while also in some ways being useful, largely about looking cool. When openSuse came out with a pretty installer, it made news. Ubuntu’s new theme for 8.04 (now cancelled) got a lot of attention. All this points to one thing: Linux geeks really do care about how their computers look.

This still leaves the question of why Macs? Surely there are other companies that make cool looking laptops right? While… I guess there is Alienware, but they are on a fine line between “cool” and “just wierd,” so who makes laptops to rival the design of the MacBook and MacBook Pro? As far as I know of, not really anyone. I am sure there are companies out there trying to compete with Apple’s designs, but they don’t seem to be doing so well since Apple is still considered the king of design.

We already have companies like System76 and ZaReason making Linux-based computers, but why doesn’t one of these companies try more for style. Sure it might require more initial investment, but don’t you think a laptop designed to rival Apple’s designs would attract customers?

A recent Linux.com article related the experience of its author in setting up Ubuntu for his mother.  A subsequent post on The Open Road responded to this article by saying that anything that requires an explanation of how it worked out is too complicated and that Linux sacrifices usability for control. The author of this post also made a comparison with his own experience having his family members switch to the Mac. While I agree that setting up Ubuntu was somewhat complicated, the author of the post does not seem to understand that the same project would have been much harder, if not impossible, if Windows had been used.

The most obvious issue complicating the Linux.com author’s project was that the computer was built from spare parts the author happened to have lying around. This can potentially complicate the project in a number of ways (trying to find drivers, not good enough specs,) but neither of these issues were really the problem. I do not know what exactly would have happened if Windows had been installed on a computer like this, but I can tell you that Vista would not have worked. Once XP is discontinued, Linux will become the only option for old computers.

Another problem from recycling old parts is that you have to install the OS yourself. The author of the post seems to think that installing Windows or OS X is easy compared to installing Linux, but he is really comparing having the OS pre-installed (with Windows or OS X) to having to install the OS oneself. A computer novice will not want to install the OS himself no matter what OS it is, and if you are looking for a computer with an OS pre-installed, there are multiple Linux choices for around $200. (Side note: I have installed Ubuntu, Windows XP, and Windows Vista and I can tell you that none of them are “hard” to install, but I find that Ubuntu is the least painful, since, at least in my experience, it takes the least time.)

After the OS was installed, all that was left to do was customize the interface to be more familiar and install applications that were similar to Windows applications. When you install an OS, you almost always have to install applications and this would be the same on any OS. In fact, in Ubuntu you have a lot more applications available out of the box, reducing the chance you have to install more applications.

The other customization the Linux.com author made was to remove the top panel and customize the bottom one to make it seem more like Windows. To do something like this on Linux, you just have to do some right clicking and drag and dropping. To do this on Windows, you need commercial software. To do this on OS X, well… can you do anything like that on OS X?

While Linux might not have gotten everything perfectly out of the box, compared to what you would have to do to make Windows or OS X work in this situation, it was really quite easy.

Even Microsoft has realized that open-source cannot be ignored. For years, Microsoft’s open-source strategy has basically been to destroy or ignore open-source software, and it seems like they have not gotten much smarter. Microsoft’s “Director of Platform Technology Strategy and the company’s Open Source Software Lab” recently explained the company’s open-source strategy to ZDNet. If this is really the strategy Microsoft intends to follow, it is almost comical.

As far as I can tell, the theory is this: let open-source people port their applications to Windows and hand them a piece of rope so they can tie themselves to all of Microsoft’s proprietary products and cannot leave. (And if you need Linux, use Microsoft’s virtualization technology to run it on Windows.) As you can see, this is not going to work.

Perhaps this strategy would work if Microsoft had an absolute monopoly on the OS market, but if that is what they are thinking, I have bad news for them, once they catch up to the 21st century.

If anyone can figure out what Microsoft is thinking, please let me know. I sure can’t figure it out. Unless.. I know! This is how Balmer will make everyone port their applications to Windows!

There’s been a lot of talk today about Microsoft’s effort to acquire Yahoo and what a successful takeover might mean for various open source software work with which Yahoo is associated. I’m not sure what to make of all that, but I am struck by the fact investors seem to think that a Microsoft takeover of Yahoo will make the combined company worth about $8 billion less than the sum of the values of the separate companies. How did I get this number? Well, the merger became public information before the stock market opened this morning. At the end of today’s trading, Microsoft’s stock price had fallen by $2.15 per share, while Yahoo’s stock price had risen by $9.20 per share. Multiplying these share price changes by the number of shares for each respective company, the implied value of Microsoft was reduced by $20 billion, while that of Yahoo was increased by only $12 billion. Investors, at least, are betting that Microsoft cannot successfully integrate Yahoo’s business into its own, and that the takeover will effectively waste $8 billion.

As one blogger points out, Opera’s minimal success is difficult to understand, because Opera is filled with innovative and useful features, yet it has no where near the adoption of Firefox. The blogger’s explanation is that the user interface and experience is too different from Firefox and IE, and therefor not appealing to new users. While this may in part be true, I believe that openness is the key difference that prevents adoption. By openness, I mean the ability to customize the browser to be what you want it to be. Firefox accomplishes this on multiple levels. First of all, everyone is encouraged to write extensions (and a lot of people do.) These extensions are enough for most people to customize their browser to be anything they can think of. (Skins should be mentioned too, but Opera has those.) At the base of this ability of customize Firefox is that it is an open-source project. You can’t get any more customizable or flexible than that.

The author of the post mentioned above dismisses these differences as not things the average user would care about, but I think this misses a key point. Firefox is mostly spread through word of mouth, originating at tech-savvy users who care enough to do the research. These tech-savvy users tell their friends to use whatever browser they like and soon enough their friends are telling their friends and so on. In this way, some one who has no idea what an “extension” is or what “open-source” is may be using Firefox because it is open-source.

There is no reason this should only apply to Opera and Firefox. This same reasoning can be used with almost any piece of software. If you can think of any more examples of this, go ahead and post them in the comments!

One of the main reasons the Eee PC is as attractive as it is to so many people is the price. $400 for an ultra-portable is incredibly cheap compared to other ultra-mobile computers, which often cost over $2000. (See the Sony VAIOs.) As a post on Crave points out, though, the Eee is not really quite a full computer. (Both due to the hardware and the pre-installed software, which is what most people will use.) That post proposes an alternative computer for those looking at an Eee PC, a refurbished 15″ HP notebook that goes for $465 and includes 1GB of memory and a 120GB hard drive. Although this machine may have better specifications, it is not an Eee PC competitor for a number of reasons. (To be fair, the writer did mention that these differences existed, but still pitched the HP notebook as an Eee PC competitor.) First, there is a huge difference between a 15″ and a 7″ screen. The HP’s 15″ screen is starting to approach desktop replacement size, while the Eee PC’s 7″ screen is in the ultra-portable range. Second, the HP notebook that is referenced is a refurbished model. It is not at all uncommon to have huge discounts on refurbished models. If the Eee was refurbished it would cost even less.

Although the HP laptop mentioned above may not be directly competing with the Eee PC, it is still an attractive deal that could pull away customers from the Eee PC and Linux. Right now, there is not a compelling Linux-based alternative to regular budget laptops that has gotten any attention. Linux needs something to fill this gap and someone that will do it as well as Asus did. (I know someone will tell me there is one that exists, but if I have never heard of it, they are not doing a very good job marketing it.)

A recent post on Pingdom looked at what Google Trends has to say about Linux distributions, Linux, KDE, and other similar keywords. Although Google Trends, which lets you compare how many searches various terms are getting in Google, has the potential to reveal many interesting trends, it is not clear that the results are an accurate representation of interest in a particular subject. Words that have multiple meanings, for instance, will not be accuratly represented in Google Trends. This, however, is rarely a problem for Linux-related terms, due to the uniqueness of most names.

Apart from these confusions, however, how accurate is Google Trends as a measure of interest? Well, it depends on what you mean by interest. Because Trends is based on total searches, it is basically impossible to distinguish between a few people who do a lot of searching or a lot of people who do a little searching. While this might make it a bad option for deciding which product is more popular and similar comparisons, it does not make it bad for everything. Google Trends is very useful for discovering which term is used more. For example, a comparison of Ubuntu and Linux shows that Linux has gone down while Ubuntu has gone up, indicating that the trend (no pun intended) is for people to talk about individual distributions, not Linux as a whole.

In summary, while Google Trends may not be perfect, it is very useful for comparing trends in how people refer to various things, particularly if the phrases are unique.