I found out today via Rui that Microsoft launched a beta version of the Monad or Microsoft Shell. This comes in handy since I’ve been on a quest for a decent shell / unix utilis for Windows. For what I’ve seen the MSH includes lots of commands / utils found in *nix and more. The MSH is close connected with the .NET framework, allowing advanced scripting and close integration with COM and the OS. This can be quite usefull but at the same time quiet dangerours. Nevertheless, it’s a big step for Microsoft to include an application so… “Unix”. 
You can also check these webcasts on the MSH
Looks like Bill is after another market share. This time he’s after a big piece of the pie that belongs to Apple.
Urge will feature MTV content for media centers and portable media players but NOT for iPod.
But not directly related to this topic but also in the same article, this is my favorite part:
Microsoft indicated that later this year, it will start selling external HD-DVD drives, which will enable users to watch high definition DVDs via their Xbox machines and also allow greater interactivity. At the outset, the new drive will be only for movies and does not include games.
Great! You spend 400� in a console that only reads DVDs and then you buy the HD-DVD drive for how much?? And no games will be supported! Way to go Microsoft.
Dunno wich Linux distrib is the best for you? Check the Linux Distribution Chooser.
Speaking about Linux, In my daily basis I’ve been blessed to work with Window$ at full time. Sometimes I have to retrieve and edit information from several text files and logs in order to troubleshoot problems that occurr. Not having a single Linux box in our network (except the proxy), I was in need to find utilities like tail, grep and other gnu/linux utils that worked in win32. I could install Cygwin, but I rather have something native instead of an emulated environment, so I installed UnxUtils - native Win32 ports of the GNU utilities I was looking for. It works like a charm!
Other app that I call essential is UltraEdit 32. Although it’s paid software, UltraEdit has great feautures.
Skipping to another topic: Reading.
I would like to share with you two excelent pieces of tech literature. One is a free book on Asterisk provided by OReilly , the other is a tutorial on Subnets.
Cross Photoshop with GIMP and what do you get?
The answer is GIMPshop! GIMPShop is a fork / hack from the GIMP Project, developed for Mac (but already with ports for Linux and Windows), GIMPShop changes the GIMP UI so that resembles Adobe Photoshop.
It sucks!
A one line review. There. I’m sorry Microsoft, but even with WinFX it can’t compete with Picasa / Hello. It’s too heavy on the CPU, it has almost no features / options, and it takes too long to download.
The eye candy is great, a Vista like theme and some 3D graphics, but the options are very few, only the basics and even those are reduced.
Try again!
Microsoft released yesterday Microsoft Max, a photo sharing and organizer tool, much like Google’s Picasa and Hello combined. Anyway, Max is built on WinFX technology, the setup program installs it but the download is not so small and MS servers are a little bit slow right now.
I can’t install it in this pc, because I have a portuguese version of Windows XP, and the setup program doesn’t allow me to install Max, but as soon as I get home I’ll try and post some screens.
Techblogs exploded today with what might be called the deal of the day (yes day, with the current pace of buys, sells and computer geek star recruitment, the IT world is changing literally in a daily basis), but still the question remains: WHY?
Why did eBay bought Skype? What will they do? How can they profit?
Well, in my stupid opinion, if anyone wants to “buy it”, we’ll have to look at this deal as “Let’s buy it before Microsoft does” or “Skype is better than Google Talk, so let’s buy it”. These are stupid, yes, but it has some logic. At this time, we have four variables in the IT Universe that might change the “balance”: Apple, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. And now eBay wants to play big.
- One - eBay has PayPal, a formidable service that’s used for more that auction payments. PayPal might be considered a pseudo bank, and who owns a bank controls the “money flow”.
- Two - eBay has Skype, a well established VoIP network infrastructure that’s growing every day. VoIP is the future of voice communications, no doubt, it’s prices are much more affordable than regular and mobile phone calls, so there’s competition and profit here, even more when Skype Video is released.
- Three – eBay is… a auction / trading company, living of transaction fees… this is the piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit. For now, eBay is not using Skype for site support calls with operators. It might prove to be useful in the future, to outsource or even license the technology, or just like they did with Paypal. Imagine a mega site that can operate as a Support Call Center for commercial websites. In the future, yes, but not for now.
PayPal will be used to buy more Skype Credits, that’s for sure, but this would mean nothing to eBay, other that a fem millions more using PayPal.
In my true opinion, Skype won’t be used / merged with eBay. I think we’ll be seeing eBay investing in more Skype In/Out infrastructures and creating new services, as Skype Video, to create some income. Videocalls is something that telecommunication companies still can’t provide at a low cost. Either way, it’s that or selling it to one of the four variables.
Now… eBay buying Amazon, that would be something…
I was updating my APT in Suse 10, and it was taking some time so I payed a little visit to Mozilla when I realized that Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 Beta 1 was released. I’m downloading it for Windows as well as for Linux so expect a post latter in the day.
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