Google the new MS?

Headline: (hat tip to scott)
Digital Media Asia: News - NASA, Google to collaborate on 'entrepreneurial space industry'

All these marvelous, surprising and enthusiastic things that Google keeps getting into, and the hundreds of things you assume they are doing behind the scenes in their "labs" as we speak makes me keep thinking about the difference. The contrast between their actions and Microsoft's way of doing things, years ago, and even now.

For example Microsoft often bought out other companies not to have the new idea and do something exciting, but sometimnes in a defensive way, to put a competitor out of business so they wouldn't stop MS and their ho-hum ordinary stuff from succeeding. Suing rivals to slow them down, doing anything to prevail.

Google bursts out with a whole different attitude, like acquiring Keyhole to introduce Google Earth. They knew they could do something great with it, and they did. Microsoft always was predatory, never appreciating the third party software and even hardware (I mean, what was MS, a software company doing making mice or emulator boards for Apple II?) that helped them become the monopoly that they thought they had to be to keep from failing.

Instead, Google seems to have the crazy idea that if they do great, interesting and useful things, people will like that, and that will drive success. I certainly hope they prove that that is the better way to go about things.

Silver Clef Music

One new music publisher, Silver Clef Music, really is out in front, and I hope they are successful. They specialize in sheet music for school, community, and church groups - particularly bands, choirs, and orchestras, and for solos and ensembles of musicians from those types of groups. David Miller started this publisher of printed and digital sheet music to be part of the solution and the vanguard of the future, rather than part of the past.

Copyright laws at the heart, really leave reproduction rights and restrictions up to the owners and the publishers of music as to what is and is not permitted. Traditionally if you copy a piece in any way, xerox, hand copy, transcription, digital, you were in copyright violation because the publisher prohibited it. In practice, people violate this too much, and with the 21st century, it is harder for these copyright laws to be followed. Silver Cleff gives more practical and modern permission while still holding copyright and hopefully getting fair compensation for the sets they sell. Here is their short description:

We offer copyright permissions unique to the instrumental music world . . . . When you purchase music from Silver Clef, you also get the right to make as many copies as you need for the instrumentation or voicing of your group. If you have 32 horn players, just print 32 horn parts. If someone loses their music, or marks it up in ink, just print more. No problem.

The only thing you're not allowed to do is to give (sell, lend, transport, telepathically deliver) it to another group. Let them buy their own copy. But you'll never have a lost part again. You'll never have to forgo playing a wonderful Silver Clef arrangement because all the trombone parts are missing, or because all the viola parts have crumbled to dust.

Hopefully other publishers will follow this lead as we go further into the digital age. It is so practical and wonderful to have a .pdf file containing all the perfectly done parts for each instrument, or voice, and print it out when you need it without feeling like you are doing something wrong. Or in the future, maybe those parts will appear on a networked digital screen stand rather than being printed at all.

Just one more wonderful thing that Silver Clef is doing. They have started "Project Sousa", the "Project Gutenburg" for the music world, making whole arrangements of public domain pieces available to the public at no charge. The first music they completed were John Philip Sousa's own band pieces and marches. FREE! All in pdf! Amazing.

Future thin client computers?

I start this thread saying that desktop computers have evolved so they are too complex for their own good. Windows has tried to be all things and add multimedia, support for all sorts of content and hairy programs, making it vulnerable to viruses and other inherent problems just because it is trying to do so many complex things seamlessly, connected to the internet pipeline, subject to any kind of input.

In a nutshell, if you really try to DO something with the computer, it slows down, crashes, stops working the way it used to, and is a royal pain. Even power users have probably unacceptable levels of updates, repairs, re-boots, reformats, and typical users don't want to, don't have the time, or can't cope with the daily problems that seem to pop up. Time and expense.

The solution may not be yet another version of Windows, or OSX, or whatever.

The industry newsletters reported this Microsoft insider story:

Jim Allchin, a senior Microsoft Corp. executive, walked into Bill Gates's office here one day in July last year to deliver a bombshell about the next generation of Microsoft Windows.

"It's not going to work," Mr. Allchin says he told the Microsoft chairman. The new version, code-named Longhorn, was so complex its writers would never be able to make it run properly.

Well maybe they got beyond that, maybe they didn't, but are you betting that Longhorn, now called "Vista" will be the solution?

What is the possible solution? "Thin Clients"

In the 90's Citrix invented a system which takes all of the hassle of maintaining a PC away! A central server has all the goodies. Many clients simultaneously log on remotely from terminals, and use it as if it were there own. Slower computers and networks slowed acceptance back then, but Microsoft at first licensed the software from Citrix, then tried to steal the idea, but were stopped by a lawsuit, which lead to "Terminal Services" that Microsoft provides, but pays Citrix for the code. I know this because I knew someone who worked for Citrix in those days and told me about it. Microsoft was predatory, according to him.

I use my laptop that way. It's older, but not ancient, and I couldn't and didn't want to replicate all the programs on my main PC. So I set up just the bare bones, and wirelessly connect by Terminal Services to my main computer in the cellar, which acts as a sort of server. All that is transmitted is the keyboard and the screen ( thin client). It is so fast and responsive that I can hardly tell I am not on the other machine. Some video and sound is not perfect, but would be with even faster connections.

All my settings, updates, software, bookmarks, text files reminders are there, because actually I am there electronically.

Well imagine your PC just connected to the internet with who cares what minimum client operating system, pay a monthly fee to be connected to a server. It has all the programs you want. You don't have to worry about slowdowns, updates, viruses, conflicts, just use the computer. Of course some registry of settings would be stored for your individual setup, but that might not even be local.

If you have used a "Blackberry" or cell phone or such device to get on the internet, you get the idea. Just put that on a big screen with a keyboard, and there you have it. No license of windows necessary (sorry, Bill). No need to troubleshoot or wrestle with technical troubles. That burden is shifted to a server somewhere, where hundreds of clients can log in simultaneously as if it were their own personal setup.