Windows and Cloud Computing - Audia Resident Evil After-Market Taste-and-Buy

I bring fresh shower for the thirsting flowers

From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams

Shelley, The Cloud

This as today marks one year since Audia Granston (March 9^th 1981 to April 26 2010) died from Cervical Cancer. I hope cat-like demigod Bastet is keeping her company and the God Anubis is making playful barking chatter with her as she regales them with her life story while being carried down the River Styx to Hades.

Audia Granston’s Bible says no sexual intercourse before Marriage. So says Audia. However, Audia pointed out that Taste-and-Buy is ok - however you want to interpret that. Grocery shopping was always a fun experience with my SDA Princess while alive!!

Such is my advice to Jamaica on Nuclear power: Taste-and-buy, as Professor Dr. Gerald Lalor seems to be hinting at with a suggestion to set up a 10MW Demonstration Nuclear Plant in Jamaica in a demonstration of its safety and long term viability.

Most likely it will be hosted on the University Of The West Indies, so they can have the enviable priveledge of being glow-in-the-dark guinea pigs first!

Here in Jamaica, we are moving away from just talking about Nuclear Power to actually dabbling in it, with Senator Phillip Paulwell and Professor Dr. Gerald Lalor, Director-General for the International Centre for Environment and Nuclear Sciences (ICENS) now being joined by OUR (Office of Utilities Regular) Zian Mian in a call for Nuclear Power as stated in the article “Increased calls for Nuclear Energy use in Jamaica”, published Sunday April 24 2011 11:46:26 by Go-Jamaica.

I support this move, especially as it may bring about Energy Sector Liberalization as stated in my blog article entitled “Nuclear Power and Net Metering - Paulwell's Energy Sector Liberalization Chess Game”.

But they face a very tough crowd in Jamaica still Media-shocked as they watched the Cloud of radioactive nucleotides rise up above Fukushima Dai-chi No. 1 Reactor on Friday March 11^th 2011.

Good luck to The Three Musketeers (2011) as they champion Nuclear Power, which is safer than Coal as argued in my blog article entitled “Philip Paulwell's Nuclear power in a Bathtub - SilkWood meets the China syndrome”!

Meanwhile Silicon Valley has its head up in the Clouds

Microsoft recently announced that it is allowing regular folk like me and you to try out Microsoft 365, their Cloud-based version of Microsoft Office as stated in the article “Microsoft opens up Office 365 as Public Beta”, published April 18, 2011 6:37 AM PDT by Lance Whitney, CNET News – Microsoft.

Yes, Taste-and-buy again…albeit Americans are more likely to say Bait-and-switch!

This is possibly Redmond-based Microsoft’s answer to Google Apps such as Google Reader, Gmail and Google Docs, which, despite no longer being beta, still have a freebie feel to them that I dislike a point of distinction that I and CNET News Writer Josh Lowensohn seem are par for course as stated in the article “Previewing Microsoft's Office 365”, published November 24, 2010 4:00 AM PST by Josh Lowensohn, CNET News – Microsoft.

Not to mention being dependent on the Cloud, computer-speak! Achilles heel of Cloud Computing – the Internet and the stability of servers, which the Amazon Cloud Failure as its being called occurred, shaking up nerves and causing widespread online outages as stated in the article “Amazon failure takes down sites across the Internet”, published Friday April 22, 2011 9:26 am ET By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer, Yahoo News

Up to about Sunday April 24^th 2011, Amazon had restored most services dependent on its Servers – the gory details best explained in the article “Amazon restoring AWS, but slowly for some”, published April 22, 2011 12:12 PM PDT by Stephen Shankland, DeepTech - CNET News.

So coupled with the news of the consolidation of businesses Western Digital Corp purchase of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies on Monday March 7^th, 2011AD and Seagate Technology PLC - Samsung Electronics Co. Deal on Tuesday April 19^th 2011AD respectively, this suggests that the Master Plan to push towards the Clouds is still on track.

Make that a place for two please!

Google Chrome OS powered Cr-48 smartbooks as stated in my blog article entitled “Google Chrome OS and Open Source - Star Wars A New Hope” are soon to come out of beta in the Summer of 2011.

Possibly the New Apple iPhone 5 may have some Cloud-based elements in its designed as opined in my blog article entitled “Apple and the Cloud Phone - Cheaper by the dozen and Up in the Air” and my Geezam Blog article entitled “Towards a Cheaper Apple iPhone - Batteries Not Included”. Other Cloud push are under way, too numerous to mention, but with the same end result; grater software security.

Smartbooks and smartphone may be going the way of the Cloud, promising increased security for software.

How so?

Currently Windows XP Professional SP3 is the most stable version of Microsoft Windows – not to mention the most popular.

The Consumer Reports article “Windows XP still more popular than Windows 7 or Vista”, published April 25^th, 2011 2:07 PM by Consumer Reports, COMPUTERS AND INTERNET backs me up with stats:

1.      54% of PCs have Windows XP installed - ten (10) years since release in 2001

2.      24% of PCs have Windows 7 - just eighteen (18) months old

3.      10% of PCs have Vista - lasted only six (6) months in the wild

Windows 7 has not yet, from my experience in the wild installing computers in my latest business venture, become stable enough. This as Windows 7 is yet to release the full stack of Service packs with Techies now currently anticipating Service Pack 2 as stated in the article “Windows 7 Service Pack 2: What to Expect”, published April 11th 2011 By Mary Branscombe, TechRadar.

Window 8, now on the horizon, is rumored to have elements of Apps like Mac OS X 10.1 aka Lion and Windows Phone 7 tiles in a Cross-Platform Ecosystems smartphone (and possibly Tablet?) Integration with Cloud Computing thrown in as suggested by CNET News Writer Lance Whitney in the latest article entitled “More windows 8 leaks reveal Cloud synching”, published April 19, 2011 10:25 AM PDT by Lance Whitney, CNET News – Microsoft.

Apparently Google’s Chrome OS powered Cr-48 smartbooks have them worried and intrigued at NC (Network Computing). Plus, it’s more secure than shutting down rogue copies of Microsoft via the Service Pack Updates. Something which I have noticed with the majority of computers I have been repairing, the bulk of my business mainly involving resurrecting PC’s whose Windows OS have crashed.

Eventually Windows XP Professional SP3 users will have to migrate to a higher plane, when they discover that newer release of programs need the .NET Framework 4.0, which is installed over the Cloud, to work.

Worse, Microsoft may even incorporate elements of Cloud Computing, making the idea of installed programs a thing of the past as we range up to 1TBps speeds by 2014AD as stated in my blog article entitled “Verizon, NEC and the Dawn of the Terabit Age - Audia's FlashDance and Surf's Up”.

Currently Microsoft supports .NET Framework 4.0 on Windows XP Professional SP3. Thus releases higher than .NET Framework 4.0 may, like the Service Packs, check for Genuine Windows installation as a means of preventing programs from running on illegitimate copies of Windows XP Professional SP3.

Believe it or not, the Service Pack and .NET approach were suggestions of mine in 2003 and to a bunch of brain-dead Shurpower Generator Engineers in April 2009 respectively.

Thus stamping out piracy by making owners of running pirated copies of Windows XP Professional SP3 unable to run new programs! So if Windows 8 is Cloud-Based, then Software Pirates will be using Windows XP Professional SP3 a while longer to the point of being obsolete.

Clever indeed, If I do say so myself, tooting my own horn!!

As we Jamaicans say “caan ketch Quacao, ketch him shirt”!

That may not be the only impetus. Defections by No. 1 PC maker Dell to Ubuntu in 2007 and No. PC maker HP to WebOS in 2011, both Open Source as stated in my Geezam Blog article entitled “HP and WebOS - 2011 is the Year of Linux on PC”, have left Microsoft feeling neglected and thus prompting the rumors of them getting a tad more nebulous – with software more secure in the Cloud.

Both in the OS realm as well as in the Productivity Software market, Tablets and Cloud Computing with clients mainly in the Enterprise and Corporate settings, their traditional Bread-and-Butter, is coming as opined in my blog article entitled “Microsoft Windows 7 vs Google Chrome OS et al 300 and Quo Vadis Dominae” , that is!!

Especially with their Nokia + Microsoft Partnership as my blog article entitled “Nokia + Microsoft vs HP WebOS - Gartner's Ocean's Eleven Plan to Rob the Casinos”!

Cloud computing may be awhile in coming to Jamaica as pricing and reliability issues need to be resolved quickly by the Telecoms Providers , the reasons stated for the continued longevity of DVD and Blue-Ray discs even if the whole of the US of a went to the Cloud as opined in my blog article entitled Netflix & the Death of Blu-Ray - Rise of the Machines meets Chicken Run

Jamaica may find that we are not only behind, but on the ground – while the Developed World is up in the Clouds.

This is Open Source and Cloud Computing at its best and Microsoft is finally getting with the super hero thing, Audia Granston as Milla Jovovitch in Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) Style!