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The problem with Lifehacker’s computer manufacturer ranking

Dave Farquhar Hardware November 20, 2013October 11, 2019android, apple, asus, black friday, dell, hp, lifehacker, toshiba, Western Digital

Lifehacker posted a controversial computer manufacturer ranking this week. I’m not sure how you can rank anything with Apple, HP, and Dell in it and not be controversial–someone’s going to be offended that their favorite isn’t at the top and their least favorite isn’t dead last–and while I agree with it more than I disagree with it, there are at least three problems with it.

So, let’s go. Read more

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Sculley on Jobs

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing September 11, 2013September 16, 20231980s, amiga, apple, apple ii, Apple Lisa, atari, commodore, IBM, Korea, macintosh, pixar, Steve Jobs, Toy Story

John Sculley famously fired Steve Jobs in September 1985, a move that’s pretty universally panned today. Nearly 28 years later, Forbes asked Sculley about it.

Here’s the money quote:

“He was not a great executive back in those early days. The great Steve Jobs that we know today as maybe the world’s greatest CEO, certainly of our era, he learned a lot in those years in the wilderness.”

Dave Farquhar

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Cringely takes on Ashton Kutcher’s movie about Steve Jobs

Dave Farquhar Macintosh, Retro Computing August 25, 2013July 17, 20171990s, apple, Apple Lisa, capitalization, IOS, os x, Steve Jobs, unix, windows nt

Mark Stephens, a.k.a. Robert X. Cringely, wrote last week about his disappointment in Ashton Kutcher’s movie Jobs, about the late Apple co-founder and CEO.

Here’s the most important part of his quasi-review:

[S]omething happened during Steve’s NeXT years (which occupy less than a 60 seconds of this 122 minute film) that turned Jobs from a brat into a leader, but they don’t bother to cover that. In his later years Steve still wasn’t an easy guy to know but he was an easier guy to know. His gut for product was still good but his positions were more considered and thought out. He inspired workers without trying so much to dominate or hypnotize them.

Indeed. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Windows NT turns 20

Dave Farquhar Windows July 27, 20131990s, apple, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, vista, windows 2000, windows nt, Windows XP

The first version of Windows NT, version 3.1 (to coincide with the then-current 16-bit version of Windows) was released 20 years ago today. It was an insanely ambitious effort for Microsoft that took a while to pay off, though it eventually did in spades. Windows NT was what killed off Novell and OS/2 and turned the proprietary operating system market into a duopoly. Although a user running it wouldn’t see much difference between Windows NT and regular Windows except that it didn’t crash nearly as much, it was the first version of Windows that qualifies as a modern operating system, with pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory.

Dave Farquhar

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Now that Microsoft is IBM, it needs to avoid IBM’s big mistake

Dave Farquhar Windows July 18, 2013July 14, 20171980s, amd, apple, compaq, computerworld, IBM, intel, lenovo, Roku, xbox

Whether Microsoft likes it or not, it’s turned into IBM. The biggest difference I see is that when Microsoft makes a mistake, it catches up with them much faster than the same mistake did to IBM.

But IBM’s biggest mistake was its adamant refusal to compete with itself. And that’s what Microsoft is going to have to avoid. Like Computerworld says, Apple says if you don’t compete with yourself, someone else will. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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This week in mobile

Dave Farquhar Android June 16, 2013June 15, 2013android, apple, cisco, citrix, IOS, Jelly Bean, nexus

I have zero intention of doing a mobile roundup every week, but it sure seems like there were a few noteworthy developments in the mobile field this week that are worth mentioning. So, here goes.

Dave Farquhar

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Where Microsoft lost its way

Dave Farquhar Windows June 7, 2013July 9, 20171980s, 1990s, 6502, amiga, android, apple, apple ii, AT&T, atari, atari st, commodore, Digital Research, excel, IBM, IOS, Microsoft Basic, MOS, motorola, motorola 68k, nintendo, sony, unix, windows 8, windows me, xbox, XT

John C. Dvorak wrote an analysis of how Microsoft lost its way with Windows 8 this week.

All in all it sounds reasonable to me. His recollection of DOS and some DOS version 8 confused me at first, but that was what the DOS buried in Windows ME was called. But mentioning it is appropriate, because it shows how DOS faded from center stage to being barely visible in the end, to the point where it was difficult to dig it out, and that it took 15 years for it to happen. He’s completely right, that if Microsoft had pulled the plug on DOS in 1985, Windows would have failed. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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No, this doesn’t mean Ubuntu and Linux are giving up

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Software June 1, 2013January 6, 20251980s, amd, amiga, android, apple, atari, commodore, compaq, IBM, intel, ipad, Libre Office, macintosh, Microsoft Office, motorola, Packard Bell, red hat, ubuntu, unix, windows 8, XT

This week, Mark Shuttleworth closed the longstanding Ubuntu bug #1, which simply read, “Microsoft has majority market share.” Because Microsoft didn’t lose its market share lead to Ubuntu, or Red Hat, or some other conventional Linux distribution, some people, including John C. Dvorak, are interpreting this as some kind of surrender.

I don’t see it as surrender at all. Microsoft’s dominant position, which seemed invincible in 2004 when Shuttleworth opened that bug, is slipping away. They still dominate PCs, but PCs as we know it are a shrinking part of the overall computing landscape, and the growth is all happening elsewhere.

I have (or at least had) a reputation as a Microsoft hater. That’s a vast oversimplification. I’m not anti-Microsoft. I’m pro-competition. I’m also pro-Amiga, and I’ll go to my grave maintaining that the death of Amiga set the industry back 20 years. I have Windows and Linux boxes at home, my wife has (believe it or not) an Ipad, and at work I’m more comfortable administering Linux than Windows right now, which seems a bit strange, especially considering it’s a Red Hat derivative and I haven’t touched Red Hat in what seems like 400 years.

What Shuttleworth is acknowledging is that we have something other than a duopoly again, for the first time in more than 20 years, and the industry is innovating and interesting again. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Windows vs. Linux kernel performance

Dave Farquhar Linux, Windows May 13, 2013December 3, 20181990s, acer, amd, apple, dell, hp, intel, lenovo, NSA, oracle, sp3, unix, vista, windows 8, windows nt, Windows XP

An anonymous Microsoft developer spilled some juicy opinions about why Windows kernel performance isn’t all it could be and answered some longstanding questions about Windows vs. Linux kernel performance in the process. Although he has recanted much of what he said, some of his insights make a ton of sense.

Dave Farquhar

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How the IBM PC became the de facto standard for desktop computers

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing May 4, 2013May 1, 20251980s, 1990s, Ad Lib, amiga, apple, atari, atari st, compaq, Creative Labs, Digital Research, excel, IBM, intel, motorola, radio shack, Steve Jobs, Tandy, tandy 1000, Texas Instruments, TI, VGA

I saw a question on a vintage computing forum this week: How did the IBM PC become the de facto standard for PCs, and the only desktop computer architecture from the 1980s to survive until today?

It’s a very good question, and I think there were several reasons for it. I also think without all of the reasons, the IBM PC wouldn’t have necessarily won. In some regards, of course, it was a hollow victory. IBM has been out of the PC business for a decade now. Its partners Intel and Microsoft, however, reaped the benefits time and again.

Dave Farquhar

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