Predictions 2009

Just a very quick post for now - as you can see my 2008 predictions were over 80% correct - I have only missed the one regarding high-profile assassination (which however remains a possibility for 2009) and the success of the second generation iPhone.

I will only have one general prediction for 2009 and you probably already know about that - things will get A LOT WORSE - among other things expect 1 EUR = 2 USD, more war and generally the shit will hit the fan ... and I don't (yet) speak about the global warming shit - that will start hitting us in about 5-6 years :(

Also I will only provide one technical prediction for 2009 - things will look bad for the large players and especially Apple and Google, but it might be possible that specifically because things will be so ugly we might finally see some actual progress - at least better batteries but I really hope for (at least) one major innovation ...

Apple 'behind' the most hilarious Simpsons episode in years ...

The funniest Simpsons episode in years aired recently - you can also take a look at the best part here but let's just say that every single thing that is wrong with Apple is there (maybe except the recent action where Apple directly attacked free speech in a way that certainly makes Microsoft proud). There are many, many small references, including one to the famous 80's commercial ... just take a look for yourself (and don't be fooled by mactards - it IS incredibly funny).

Another 'funny' thing from Apple - as predicted they are getting closer and closer to their own antivirus industry - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550?viewlocale=en_US !!!

UPDATE - the knowledge base article above was removed by Apple - but I guess that is now far more embarrassing :)

Also even more embarrassing is the OFFICIAL LEGAL POSITION of Apple that ONLY A FOOL WOULD BELIEVE APPLE 3G ADS !!!

Mandriva 2008 Spring vs. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS ... and how neither one wins :(

You might remember from my old Ubuntu 7.10 vs Mandriva 2008 story and later from the Fedora vs. OpenSUSE vs. Ubuntu on both x86 and PPC that the winner of the 'end of 2007 Linux competition' was Ubuntu 7.10 (but only by a whisker or so) - and I was actually mentioning that the competition only started to get more interesting - so now we are a the end of the spring 2008 and it's time to see how things have evolved ...

Mandriva launched the new 2008 Spring version (or 2008.1) around April 9th 2008 and just 2 weeks later around April 24th Ubuntu 8.04 LTS was out clogging the internet pipes in a download frenzy :) Needless to say - I have tested some of the beta and release candidates before those launch dates and very soon I have also installed both final versions on a number of computers - but as always there were too many other more urgent things to finish first and I wanted a slightly longer-term experiment with those so only now I will try to do a (rather short) review of those two.

I will start with the good part - Mandriva 2008.1 got slightly better than the previous version with the new 2.6.24 kernel and the entire color theme and user interface remains very good, polished and usable - which probably make Mandriva one of the best distributions around if you want both KDE and GNOME.

In a rather similar way Ubuntu 8.04 has integrated the newer 2.6.24 kernel and all the latest sofware and has also done a number of small usability improvements - for instance for a newcomer from Windows WUBI might a nice way to take a first look at Linux.

Unfortunately here is where the constructive criticism must start - BOTH Mandriva 2008.1 AND Ubuntu 8.04 LTS just scream 'unfinished work' all over them - it might be a general Linux feature that it's an evolving target but the fact that 'managers' from both Ubuntu and Mandriva somehow decided that they will replace the major winner of the entire open-source philosophy of building software - we will ship when it is ready - with time-fixed release dates (which not even Microsoft is able to pull most of the time) is such a huge mistake - and is mind-blowing that the entire media is still missing the fact that by officially abandoning the 'we will ship when it is ready' approach the open-source just handed a major victory to the closed-source camp :(

Among the worst parts in Mandriva:

1. On clean installations on certain notebook video cards (and NOT the 'latest stuff', just ordinary intel cards that worked perfect with the previous installer...) the dual-output leads to a bad graphics configuration and the system can not start in GUI mode - a more experienced user is able to fix things very quick from the command line but it's easy to see how somebody without any previous Linux/X11 experience will run scared and never look back;
2. There is still a problem with suspend/hibernate which seems to be related to a 'video suspend script' - the 'suggested workaround' is to remove the script /usr/share/pm-utils/sleep.d/20video ???
3. CPU SpeedStep is OK for 1.2 GHz Low-Voltage Pentium-M models but not for the slightly-newer 1.4 GHz Low-Voltage Dothan ??? (which works fine in Ubuntu or Windows).
4. HUGE problem in certain configurations with the default inode size on EXT3 - 'normal/older' versions of GRUB can not even boot from those !!!

Good or at least better-than-Ubuntu stuff in Mandriva 2008.1:

1. Ndiswrapper still works;
2. Compiz seems to be working for the first time stable with KDE;
3. notebook HDD problems seem to be handled better than in Ubuntu;
4. Default UI is better than in Ubuntu.

Worst parts in Ubuntu 8.04:

1. Ndiswrapper is no longer working (there is a bad workaround here but it's not working in all Broadcom configurations);
2. Suspend/resume is again not always working :(
3. Many things that look 'unfinished' or 'untested';
4. still using the old/unpatched GRUB that can not boot on newer EXT3 with big inodes;
5. Default UI is still hurting my eyes :)

So who is the winner of the spring contest ? If I would be forced to pick just between the two from above I would say Mandriva might be now one whisker ahead on some configurations - but the actual unexpected winner is Ubuntu 7.10 which still remains the main Linux on my ultraportables !!!

That is showing a dangerous closed-source precedent now moving to Linux - just like many people will still favor XP over Vista or OSX 10.4 over 10.5, it is now the first time when a newer 'generation' of Linux distributions fail to become clearly better than the previous one ... That is definitely related to the fixed release schedule imposed by the above distributions but might also raise a small question - is it possible that the complexity of modern distributions (meaning full operating systems, and I include here Vista and OSX 10.5) might have now reached a point where it is no longer possible to 'get them right' the first time ?

What can you do when you need the portability of the MacBook Air but you only have 500 USD to spend ...

First things first - if you just want the HotAir in order to "make you look cool" (as probably 95% of the owners do) you have already lost that battle, time to go away, nothing for you here ... However if you really like the idea of a very portable notebook, you are not crazy about glamour and you only have very little money - keep reading - there is still hope :)

For a smart buyer there ARE a few low-cost alternatives but you will need to set your priorities straight - first real question is "does size matter to you ?" :) Or in other words - how good are you with very small screens and keyboards ? If you don't mind a VERY small screen and a small keyboard you can actually get something SMALLER than the MacBook Air starting NEW around 300-400 US$ - either the already famous Asus eeePC or the newer Everex Cloudbook - get the first if a more normal touchpad is important to you, the second if disk size is essential.

However there is a serious problem with both of the above - the screen is actually more than 3 times smaller than the Air and the keyboard can feel too small at first so you will NOT write your novel on a 7'' screen (and generally you should also avoid reading one if you care about your eyes).

If money was no object there were many other choices a LOT better than the HotAir - Panasonic W or Y series, Lenovo X61 and X61T, Dell Latitude XT, and soon the Lenovo X300 which seems quite nice ... but obviously those are in the same price range as the Air (but without skimping on any important features and then selling that as a 'major progress') ... so the only route left is pre-owned ... but amazingly you can get something with BETTER FEATURES than the HotAir for about 500 US$ - just head for ebay or craiglist and look after a Dell X300 or Dell X1 - the 'secret' is to buy from a bigger seller that probably got a (very) large batch that was retired by a bank or something like that -they will have a decent description of the item, 10000+ feedback (so a scam is very unlikely) and most often you will get 2 weeks of 'warranty' so if things go wrong you can still send it back ...

X300 is cheaper and I recommend the models with the 1.4 GHz Low-Voltage CPU (but the older 1.2 GHz Low-Voltage CPU is also just fine and runs circles around the 600 MHz Celeron Low-Voltage from the eeePC). X1 comes with an Ultra-Low-Voltage CPU around 1-1.1 GHz - that one was only somehow superseded by Intel in 2007 by some models and the first major step forward will actually come in 2008 so it still is almost as good as it gets in the ultra-cool CPUs!

You can probably get a good X300 with 640 MB RAM, 30-40 GB HDD, docking station, combo CDRW/DVD and two batteries under 400 US$ delivered - if you want more RAM you should try to get one of the cheaper models with only 128 or 324 MB RAM since any memory upgrade will mean that you will throw away the memory from inside and add a 1 GB SODIMM stick from Crucial or similar for around 80 US$ - for a total of around 1.1 GB RAM which should be OK for any decent scenario. The same can go for the HDD if you need LOTS of space - you can upgrade to a 120 GB WD or Samsung 2.5'' model for well under 100 US$. The total will most likely come to less than 550$ even if you do both upgrades, and you will have an amazing subnotebook that is LIGHTER than the HotAir and has ALL the extensions you will ever need - USB, FireWire, PCMCIA, SD card reader, Ethernet, WiFi, video out, swappable battery, even modem and IRDA :)

Most of the machines will come with the original XP sticker so you will be able to install a clean legal version of the Dell OEM XP - but the hardware configuration is rather classic at this moment and most of the modern Linux distributions will work just fine (eventually with a little tweaking on the WiFi and Suspend to RAM part).

Another HUGE advantage over the Air or any of the 2000-3000 US$ new subnotebooks is that you can actually get 2 notebooks + all upgrades for under 1000 US$, and at that point you can always keep them 'cloned' and at any moment something fails you just switch to the other one - unlike a new expensive model where you might have warranty, but that means you will send the notebook (most likely together with ALL you confidential information) to be repaired and AT BEST you will get it back in 1-3 weeks ...

Finally here is another somehow similar post - Cloudbook vs eeePC vs X31 Thinkpad - the IBM Thinkpads are probably even better built than the X300/X1 but are slightly heavier and do not have a touchpad :( (that last one being the reason why X61T was not the absolute best TabletPC ever on the price/performance ratio - but I hope that Lenovo X71 will fix that :) ).

Managing notebook HDD problems with Windows Power Events Monitor (+ hdparm + smartctl)

Do you remember the relatively recent frenzy around how in Linux there was a very aggressive policy regarding disk-drives with the result of very premature HDD failure? Well - the good news are that it was not something wrong that Linux was doing, the BAD news are that the same problem is now present with certain HDD models under Windows too !!! The problem is related to the huge number of head loading / unloading and I had posts about that story here, here, here and here - the fact that the bug can generate some loud noise is the partially good part (since you might become aware of it, but that only takes place in like 25% of the drives), the real problem is that after a certain amount of head loading / unloading your HDD will just fail, and that can take place even after only a few months of use ... (more likely a little over one year so that many disks will be out of warranty and full of important data). The WORSE part is that on some of those HDD models setting 'saner parameters' only works until the HDD is powered-down OR SUSPENDED - so for instance even if you manage to disable that infuriating disk-clunking it will be back as soon as you resume your notebook from standby!!!

Under Linux the fix was not very complex - for instance under Ubuntu I have created a text file /etc/init.d/hdparm-B with a content like:

#!/bin/sh
hdparm -B 254 -S 61 -M 254 /dev/sda
echo 30000 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
echo 8 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio
echo 24000 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs

and then symbolic links to that as /etc/rcS.d/S92hdparm-B and /etc/acpi/resume.d/99-hdparm-B.sh (it is simpler than it sounds).

Under Windows however things are not as simple since there is no very clear folder where to put some commands that you want executed in certain conditions ... and since the irritating disk clunking (from head loading/unloading) is now also a serious problem under Windows with certain laptop disk models (like for instance Western Digital WDC WD1200BEVE) a small helper program was needed ...

Initially I have used myself some other of my own programs that are always running on my notebooks, but when two of my friends asked for help with just the same problem it was clear that a more generic solution was needed - and in about 2-3 hours on Sunday I have placed together a small program which will solve that problem in a way that should be very simple for most of the technical Windows users - it just took two days after that to get the project on SourceForge :) (together with the source code which is GPL v2).

So what you need to do is to first go to the SourceForge page for the binary release for Windows Power Events Monitor and download the program (the start page for the project is here and from that one you can also navigate to the page with the source code).

In order to install the program you just need to unzip the content of the binary release to your C:\ drive root - you will get at the top a folder called C:\_smart (which later you can rename or move, but it will be easier to test it this way), and inside that folder you will find the program that you need to run as C:\_smart\bin\pwr_mon.exe - just start it and a new icon will become visible in the system tray - the light-bulb will be ON if the computer is on AC and OFF when using batteries, a right-click will bring the main menu of the program from where the main window can be shown/hidden. If your HDD is one of those that will not retain the settings over power-off or standby (some Western Digital and some Samsung are certainly in this category) you will also need to create a shortcut to this program somewhere in your StartUp folder (or the StartUp folder for all users).

The actual low-level work is done by the Windows version of hdparm (it is included in the binary release from above) - but the actual parameters are in the three BAT files that are VERY SIMPLE to tweak so that you will get the desired results for YOUR configuration !!! Everything involved is located under C:\_smart\bin\ and by default the values that are used are picked for the Western Digital WDC WD1200BEVE - which in my personal experience so far was among the 'worst offenders' - so when I am running it plugged-in on AC I am setting it to such values that Advanced Power Management (the thing that generates the 'clunking') is 'practically disabled' (-B 254 in H.BAT) and also the Acoustic Management is set to 'fast' (-M 254). However on batteries another BAT file is called - H_BATT.BAT - and for that one I am using slightly more power-friendly settings (-B 253 -M 128) that will generate SOME clunking (but the batteries will last longer and the HDD will be slightly better protected if you drop it on a hard surface) - if you want to eliminate that residual clunking just change the values from H_BATT.BAT to the same as H.BAT (-B 254 -M 254).

There is also a third BAT file that is called just once when the program is started - it is H_FREEZE.BAT and it will protect your HDD (only until the next restart) from being hardware-locked with a password that you do not know (that action has no effect if you already have a password on the HDD and also you can still set/change the HDD password from BIOS after a full reset - don't forget to also place a password on the BIOS itself!). Some newer BIOS versions will already take care of that 'security freeze', but unfortunately not all - and certainly very few of the older computers BIOSes ...

If your notebook has two internal HDD drives (a friend of mine has one of those monsters) you will just have to edit the 3 BAT files and add a second line on each of them for /dev/hdb instead of /dev/hda. Also other actions that you would like to automate when the computer is restored from standby/hibernate or when the AC/DC status changes can be added to those BAT files so you can feel free to experiment :)

Another very nice thing that you can do with the programs from that folder is to check the 'health' and 'age' of your HDD - just get to a command prompt in that folder and run a command like

smartctl.exe -d ata -a /dev/hda > 1.txt

and after that you will have a file called 1.TXT where you can see things like the number of hours your HDD was ON (under Power_On_Hours, but some HDDs might have the amount of MINUTES here) and the amount of head loading/unloading (under Load_Cycle_Count) - if your Load_Cycle_Count is over 100000 you should start worrying (also if Reallocated_Event_Count is bigger than 0 before 1 year). And if dividing Load_Cycle_Count by Power_On_Hours results in a number bigger than 30 cycles/hour you probably need this program badly :)

So that's it - you can now use your notebook HDD without that annoying noise and without fear that in 6 months it will die as a result of too many head loading/unloading! (also please add comments to this post if you encounter any problem; the testing could not be very extensive on Vista so any feedback is welcome).

Retarded by design

At some point during the last decade or so a trend emerged with some companies - and 'defective by design' was the generic name for those attempts to fool the consumer into paying more for less or for nothing at all. The vast majority of those attempts were promptly punished by the informed consumers, and the offending companies are now in a constant fall. But while Sony was punished by the buyers after installing rootkits on their computers and Microsoft have long been a disgraced monopolist, one company managed to thrive by taking the precise same tactic and slightly changing it to what now is almost a trademark - 'retarded by design' - and is of course the worst monopolist of all, Apple itself.

The same company policy was visible with the latest Macworld announcements when Apple - together with the major labels, which for a long time were trying to pull this one - decided that it will be a lot better for their bottom lines to only rent you stuff - just another name for further limiting the consumer rights and making you pay again and again for the same thing. I have serious doubts that the informed consumers will fall for that, but given the rather low price there will be enough takers - however the profits will also be rather small and I also predict some nagging technical problems ahead (not to mention that what Apple calls 'HD movies' is actually something inferior to even the decades-old DVD quality).

The same 'as restricted as possible' approach could not be missing from the other Apple products - consumers were promised that the (unimpressive for anybody with any computer experience) Time Machine would work over the network - but of course that in order to get that you will have to buy some more stuff from Apple - that is somehow funny since it is pretty much the same as with Micro$oft, which the vast majority of macmorons love to hate :) (note for the fanboys - there is a free hack to do that and avoid paying the Apple tax - but I will not provide a link since you should learn to think/search for yourself).

But the absolute best example of the 'beautiful but retarded by design' company policy is the new Mac Air - which is actually the supreme design when the actual goal is to get as much money possible from your customer yet providing something that will have the absolute minimal use and the shortest possible life - 'planned obsolescence' at its best!

The MacBook Air is a LIE from the very start - not only you can see in many posts and articles that it is NOT the thinnest notebook, but the entire marketing strategy around that is only a classic play on the american obsession with thin, beautiful ... but shallow and without any value or loyalty :(

You see - unlike a PHONE the thickness of a notebook is totally irrelevant (since you will not be able to place it in your pocket anyway) - and is just a gimmick designed to cover the absence of any other major innovation. The actual value is in the WEIGHT - and that one is OK in the Mac HotAir, but there are MANY other better notebooks that are (a lot) lighter so SteveJ could not score any points on that direction so he needed some other 'catchline' for the fanboys :)

Surprisingly MacBook Air also gets 3 things right - but unfortunately for Apple the company used for the last ten years the entire power of it's famous distortion field against precisely those things when Dell and Toshiba and other were getting those right in the first place - and as a result the brainwashed fanboys have seen very, very little value in the fact that the CD is external (a feature about 10 years old in the Windows subnotebooks), the CPU is one of the Low-Voltage Intel models (which ARE more expensive for a very good reason, but for instance IBM/Lenovo was using similar models in the X61 and X61T for about one year now), and finally the screen is pretty much the ONLY thing that an Asus eeePC owner might really miss (at about 1/5 - 1/8 of the price, and actually a much easier to carry form factor).

But unfortunately the number of things that Apple got right are dwarfed by the amount of the deliberately bad decisions - the smallest one is that you can not expand the RAM but the fact that the ONLY 'expansion' that you get is a standard USB2 is something so stupid it's not even funny - other subnotebooks get a PCMCIA slot (where you can get 3G cellular coverage for instance), 2-3 USB ports, FireWire, memory-card readers (even eeePC has a SD card slot), gigabit Ethernet (try to backup your HDD over the wireless if you think you don't need it) and more ... last but not least being a battery that you can replace 'on the go' and get even 12 hours of battery life if you really need it! (in contrast HotAir customers will either send it to Apple for an expensive replacement - which is OK given that they will not miss it since the HotAir is only used to impress other morons - or more likely just throw away the entire gizmo - probably one of the LEAST environmentally-friendly notebook models ever built in spite of all the marketing speak that you will get from the Apple sales droids).

And of course the competing high-end models that are really expensive and a clear difference between a fanboy wannabe and the real upper-class have certain exclusive features - like being a convertible tablet (however I still consider the Dell one slightly overpriced, but at least that one gets the Ultra-Low-Voltage CPU versions from Intel) or some of the amazing Panasonic models which are not only packing a DVD writer in the same weight as the HotAir, but are also spill-resistant and about 5 times tougher!!!

So in the end there is only one thing that will sell those new products, and you can see it following this link :)

I call bullsh*t on Cringely's 'predictions'

First of all - when you predict that Vista Sp1 will be shipped in 2007 and you get that wrong you can:

a) admit you were wrong by a month or two - not much but still 8-16% ...

or

b) claim that Vista SP1 just shipped (even if it's only RC1 right now).

And no, Vista was NEVER supposed to eliminate service packs, and EVERYBODY knew that SP1 will come very soon - you were just placing the wrong date on it ...

And now let's see what Cringely could see for 2008 ... hmm at no. 8 'Bill Gates will be retiring from Microsoft in 2008' - no kidding genius, and you made that bold prediction on the 4th of January when the Internet was already full with the funny movie showing what Bill will do after retiring at CES ...

And yes, at no. 10 we have 'a 3G iPhone is coming'. Wow, that was indeed unexpected and a bold prediction :) I guess your list was a little too thin ?

At 11 - 'Apple will introduce a subnotebook/tablet computer/media player' - can you be any LESS specific ? Not to mention that EVERYBODY will get a subnotebook in 2008 ...

At 12 - 'Along the same lines look for OS X to bifurcate clearly into two lines -- Mac OS X and plain OS X (for devices like the iPhone) with Apple licensing (non-Mac) OS X to a few companies, including Sony.' THIS WOULD BE THE DAY PIGS FLY AND HELL IS ALREADY ALL FROZEN !!! But I guess that you will claim you got it at least half right - since they have a mini-OSX for the iPhone ... oh, wait, that already took place in 2007 ??? Are those the ONLY bold prediction that you can get half-right ?

And at 13 - 'Apple will build into some Macs support for the Windows API, allowing Mac and Windows apps to run side by side with no need for virtualization software except to run Linux. This fits with Apple's surprising new role as a competitor to HP and Dell for the business workstation market. But what's REALLY surprising about this is it will all be with the permission of Microsoft, which will still get a license fee from Apple, though in this case it is for just licensing the API and promising not to keep any of the APIs secret. Therefore, could the logical successor to Windows Vista actually be OS X? Only if Apple licenses Mac OS X to other companies, which I don't see happening.' Is this one in any way related to the other famous moronic prediction (about 1-2 years ago) that Apple will start using Linux/Windows for their kernel ?

And just to have my first 'victory lap' of the year - just as predicted (at 2), recession has arrived but is not yet official :)

First CoolHints and LameAlerts for 2008

First a few more words on the Asus eeePC - the product was very cool as a gift or self-gift for the end of 2007 but you need to think ahead and just accept the reality!

1. The product was initially announced at 199 US$ and it was smart from Asus to use the huge momentum for new year sales and do a decent amount of profit and get a HUGE amount of followers, but in order to keep those going NOW is the right time to start thinking about the 199$ target and implement that in less than 2-3 months! (serious competition IS coming).

2. Having a 63 MHz bus in 2008 is crappy in a 400-500 US$ product, MIGHT be OK in a 199 US$ product ! Either way power-management seems to suck :(

3. To the new eeePC fans - stop whining about bigger batteries - the 5200 mAh is already huge (and rather heavy) and there was an announcement about a 7000+ version - with something rather similar well-engineered models get 8 hours with a full 12'' screen (which is about 3 times bigger - hard to believe until you see it) and real 120 GB HDD !!!

4. A screen at least 10'' is a must for any model over the 199$ mark!

5. Ideally if you think about a model over the 500-600 US$ mark consider at least a 16 GB HDD that is somehow upgradeable. Apologists and morons that somehow believe a (cheap) SD is 'just as good or better' should first compare timings :) Also I don't see any good reason why such a model should have less than 2 GB RAM (OK, one acceptable reason - 'suspend to disk', but 2 GB RAM is still great to have).

6. If you take a look on the forums you will see that almost half of the users (OK, of the most vocal users) have installed XP but it seems most of them never heard that XP needs 800*600 - if you can read you will find that on the XP starting page so stop whining on how the problem is in XP. (and just as a note - OSX has just the same problem from the very first dialog). That being said the 800*480 screen is still usable in XP once you get the 'virtual 800*600' video driver (but you should always be very frugal with screen space - including tray/taskbar space).


But all the above are just nothing compared to the next huge CoolHints for Ubuntu and Firefox:

a) the next Ubuntu 8.04 is supposed to have Long Term Support and be the next 'gold standard' for Linux distributions - but no matter how much better it will be inside, people will always first see the LAME BROWN - just drop the brown or at least provide 1 OTHER theme (ideally DARK BLUE) that should be ALWAYS available (even on the mini-CD, micro-SD or whatever else); also I know that there are some people there very strict about licenses, but I believe that ndiswrapper and all the 'firmware cutters' are perfectly GPL and SHOULD BE ON THE LIVE CD !!!

b) I understand that FireFox creators were just too eager to get to the 3.x level which somehow is unconsciously associated with the 'first stable/hugely popular release' (thanks to Microsoft of course) but now there is NOTHING else more important left than to JUST FIX THE BAD SINGLE-THREADED MODEL (and whatever else makes JavaScript to suck big time in FireFox) and ADD A SIMPLE WAY TO START MULTIPLE INDEPENDENT FIREFOX PROCESSES !!!

Predictions 2008

This year I will start with the non-technical part and only then go to the technical predictions.

1. Huge problems ahead for the more progressive US presidential candidates - with a very large probability of one being assassinated or dying in very strange conditions - the probability is directly related to their commitment to progressive values (and resistance to the military-industrial complex) and IMHO the 'risk order' goes like most likely = Kucinich (which was on a hit list before), Ron Paul (very, very likely given that unlike Kucinich he has no competitor of general-election-value - meaning not a religious nuts or 9/11 war monger - in his party), Edwards and also Obama (which is surprisingly low-risk-conservative lately but race might play here an extra role).

2. US recession will become official and will deepen.

3. Stock adjustments - AAPL under 100$, MSFT and GOOG down, also I don't see DELL going in the right direction if they keep doing stupid marketing choices.

4. Currency and oil-price problems.

And now let's get to the more technical part.

5. Nothing interesting from Apple - maybe a subnotebook but eeePC has already taken all their steam so they'll be left only with the fanboys willing to pay 1500-2000 US$ for a slimmer version of eeePC. The iPhone SDK will be a disappointment and the full iPhone v2 will be VERY late (maybe not even in 2008) since it might be possible to see a lower-end mini-iPhone or similar.

6. The 'Google phone' will not be a huge hit but will capture a defensible position on the market.

7. Almost all the big hits will come from less-established players (but not necessarily small - think Asus, but I am quite afraid that in their case the peak was reached with eeePC and now 'managers' will take over 'enthusiasts' with very poor results - but I hope they'll do better than Dell and prove me wrong). Also keep an eye on other companies in the same area - Sager, Clevo, maybe even Lenovo!

8. There will be an interesting battle in the OS arena with both Vista and Leopard getting better, but the largest growth will come from the other major player and 2008 might become 'the year of Linux' - and I will personally wait with a lot of hope for the next Ubuntu and Mandriva versions!

9. AMD is not looking good - they have totally missed so far the trend towards notebooks and now might miss the next trends , which will be ...

10. Overall 2008 will be the year of the subnotebooks and advanced mobile phones - but with a recession starting and with a rather saturated market 2008 is not the year to try to 'cash-in' as luxury items (as for instance Dell is trying) but instead is the year when the smartest players should go for the 'best value' range and gain market share and more important - followers ! (that is also the reason why it will probably be 'the year of Linux' - since that is currently the most solid and more-intelligence-less-instinct-driven community , but for a company to succeed in appealing to that segment they really need to have a good hardware product at a decent price).

eeePC and other 2007 final stuff

A short note on the eeePC from ASUS - I have spent some time playing with one and it is quite nice - the keyboard and trackpad are very small but you can get used to that after some time. The main problem is just as I predicted - the screen - while some people might find it usable I am afraid it is way too small for me - I might consider it when a version with a 10-12 inch screen model will be available but I will not hold my breath ... which gets me to my next point - why that small hit was coming from Asus and not Dell or Apple or somebody else ?

It is not since Asus are incredibly innovative - while they are actually building/trying A LOT more models than Dell and Apple COMBINED, their general strategy only had mixed/unimpressive results.

And just like Dell, Asus does not really have any chance to sell stuff based on myths (and certainly unlike Apple, which is 90% based on that) - the difference is that Asus already knows that while Dell is still 'trying' with stupid choices like the recent pricing on the latitude XT :)

The real reason why Asus managed to get this small gem (still unfinished IMHO but there are like 350000 people out there that tend to disagree with me on this point) is that they didn't have a huge clue on the final results (they have like over 10 small notebook models, from 7 to 10 to 11 to 12 to 13.3 inch screens, prices from 300 US$ to 2000 US$) but they had little market to 'defend' - so instead of thinking how NOT to launch something new, they just went for it and got a very impressive start together with a decent amount of followers!

Make no mistake - we still do not know if on the long term Asus is more committed to future happy customers rather than making a quick buck - and we will see that in less than 12 months if new models with at least a 10'' display, 2 GB RAM and a 16-32 GB solid-state disk will become available. And the absolutely first thing to fix will be the pathetic bus underclocking (which seems more like a dirty fix for a major motherboard-design fu*kup).

Another small observation - I find quite impressive the preloaded Xandros Linux and IMHO you should first give it a try before installing other stuff! But more about that eeePC in a future post.

Surprisingly the major loser in the subnotebook marketplace might not be Dell (which might still sell a few highly overpriced tablets to some government) but instead Apple - which will now see some serious competition already establishing itself in this area just a few months before Apple was probably considering an entry...

Let's finish the last post of the year with a quick review of my 2007 predictions - while most of the predictions were rather generic I can claim at least 9 out of 10 to be hits - even if the iPhone had surprisingly good sales (but probably less than 20% of those activated with AT&T) the global market share is like 0.5% and the only miss was the part with the drop in the stock of the big companies - but that is not a matter of IF and instead a matter of WHEN - certain things have moved at a much slower rate but I still expect to see that precise prediction coming true very soon!!!

That being said - 2008 will bring many interesting new things so let's hope we'll all be able to enjoy those to the max!