Ahmadz Village

[Student Talk! series]
Summery on: Linux desktop distributions are headed in the wrong direction
By: Marawan Osman, student at Computer and Systems Engineering Dept., Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria Uni. Egypt
The main article found on: http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/261/1/  

    Programmers’ idea of desktop computing is mostly warped .They are focusing on adding more features and graphical extras just for competing with other desktop environments of other companies.

  The high graphical interfaces , like Aero Glass in Vista ,XGL/Compiz and the candy-like bouncy/trouncy OS X , these interfaces do not contribute in more productivity or making games more fun.
We should think of our real usage of computers. Unfortunately, these interfaces cause distraction to users. Also they are a heavy load on the system.
Graphical effects are sort of show off .They are not a real measure of the system’s capabilities.   

The desktop GNU\Linux will be more useful by the specialized programs that make the operating environment an essential tool. Linux has now great software programs and it’s the first choice for being a server OS. Linux is not indispensable .Many other alternative systems exist and they provide the same capabilities as Linux, without much effort in modifying your scripts to fit them. Other systems can still provide the same security and portability as Linux does.

The first few generations of Apple Macintosh computers were originally designed as desktop publishing machines. 
Now, Macintosh has lost its focus, its Computers became fancy PCs. (Although Apple Hardware and software is preferred by many audio and video recording engineers and artists). 

GNU\Linux can be an indispensable platform for many categories of users like software developers, professional writers and graphic designers.

The free software movement made GNU\Linux a strong choice for software developers.
However, Linux can be stronger if there is a desktop environment (or an entire desktop distribution) specialized for software development.
Currently you have to customize Linux to fit your needs and access your tools easily. Fortunately, there are many excellent IDEs for many programming languages. For example, Sun Microsystems’ Java Desktop System is in its way to become the ideal software development platform. 

There aren’t any really good programs or specialized environments for writers. Writers suffer in changing their work habits just to fit the limits of these programs. Writers need a suite for drafting, outlining and publishing. Screen writers should have specific tools for them too.
GNU\Linux do not have yet any powerful English drafting and editing tools.

  Graphics designers say that GIMP (The GNU Image Manipulation Program, it is a raster graphics editor used to process digital graphics and photographs) is good for computer graphics but substandard for printing graphics. It’s easier to use tools that are more specific in these tasks than a general purpose graphic design program. 

What professional writers and graphic designers need is a suite or collection of programs that perform a small set of focused tasks. Like with programmers, a specific desktop environment or distribution would also help.

Anyone can customize his GNU\Linux distribution to fit his needs, but that needs a person who is not tech-ignorant.

  Companies could design hardware compatible with a specialized GNU\Linux distribution. The majority of computer users need something easy to use and less-time to maintain. 

The future of GNU\Linux desktop computing is not in making graphics more entertaining. The future is in reaching a high level of usefulness to computer users.

Software developers have become shortsighted and disturbed by "feature envy" after Windows Vista was released.

[Student Talk! series]
Summery on: Microsoft and Google Vie for Virtual World Domination
By: Mohamed Samir, student at Computer and Systems Engineering Dept., Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria Uni. Egypt
The main article found on: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6/34647/01652999.pdf

      There is a big competition between the two big companies Microsoft and the great search engine Google. These two companies which spend a lot of money to reach what they aim for; have made a big step in the way of the use of the imaginary in the internet which means using the high quality images taken from space and satellites to make clear virtual representation for any spot of the whole earth for example "Google Earth" which belongs to Google.

The two companies know well that this market which called "local search" market generates a lot of money as it generated more than $3 billion last year and the observers say that by 2010 this market can generate more than $13 billion so it worth searching in it.

To reach this kind of service Google and Microsoft acquire two big companies in the field of getting high quality photos from satellites, these companies are Vexcel acquired by Microsoft and @last acquired by Google, this big co-operations have
reached a very good level in delivering a high quality of space taken photos the level in which you can see your home from those photos.

William B. Gail , the vice president of mapping and photogram-metric solutions at Vexcel acquired by Microsoft company describe the next two years aims of his company by telling us an example that if you decided to go shopping and there is a big list of stores in your mind using the service which will be available you can use the internet to walk and see through those stores and decide which one you will go ,or
another example if you want to make a restaurant reservation you can see virtually which table you want to sit in and reserve it online.

The two companies want to make a high detailed high quality virtual world which every computer application can access it to bring information, for example of this applications the car navigation system like the GPRS navigation system but in high detailed view, in the last few years this kind of photos taken from satellites were used only in forecasting or land surveying and military applications.

The acquiring of Vexcel and @last companies helped both Microsoft and Google companies to get precise measurements of the distance between landmarks in the 2Dimages and to store a lot of information about the data of these photos which enable them to make a very rich database and then the modeling of these land marks using a software like Sketch-Up in Google make them able to get a very good high detailed virtual model of any landmark in the whole earth.

It is interesting to know that Microsoft decided to make people themselves "the consumers of the services" help it in making the service by encourage them to take photos using any cell phone with camera and then upload this photo to it which will make a very good data base of photos which will help them in making this service.

Now, a lot of companies from a lot of countries see the benefits of this service and seek for it, because of its importance in a lot of application in military or marketing and also in education.