In other news today, Google confirmed the long-held belief/suspicion that it is working on a desktop OS. Called Goobuntu, the OS will be based on Ubuntu, an increasingly popular Linux Distribution, with extra google-bits added on top. In my view, there are two points which it would be crucial for the Google engineers to work on in order for there to be wide take-up of Goobuntu having just downloaded Ubuntu and had a look at it (I should add that I really know very little about Linux):

1. Hardware support
The average user does not expect to have to trawl support forums to find drivers for their hardware. It would have to ‘just work’, straight out of the box, without any tricky work for the user. For example, I ran Ubuntu, and was unable to connect to the internet because I could not make it recognise my USB broadband modem. This would be unacceptable for the non-computer geek, and the Windows CD would be re-inserted in seconds (I have given up with it as well, the ‘instructions’ for making my modem work are here. I have very little idea of where I would start). It is also notoriously difficult to install Linux on a laptop, with problems such as ‘win-modems’, whatever they are, not working properly. It would be difficult to persuade every device manufacturer to produce drivers for Linux, until Goobuntu had a major market share, and it could never achieve a major market share if it did not have very good hardware support.

2. Ease of use
This is linked in with the hardware support issue, but whenever I have tried Linux in the past I have not been able to use it properly as for any task slightly complicated, it seems that you have to use the command prompt. I, like many other people, have neither the time nor the inclination to learn how to use a ’shell’ (I think thats what its called) in Linux. Google would have to make there a GUI way of performing just about every single function. This is something Mac OS X and Windows do very well, and is no doubt a major factor in their prominence, whatever gripes people may have with Windows every so often.

Goobuntu could be a runaway success, with people seeing it as a way to leave Microsoft, which the vast majority of people seem to believe is the embodiment of all evil, but only if it moves away from the model of an OS which only geeks can use, towards a system which anyone between the ages of 3 and 101 can operate.

I should add that Google has given very little detail on Goobuntu, and has not even said that it will be made available to the end user. There is a remote possibility that it is only designed to run at the Googleplexes around the world.

UPDATE: Turns out that this is all an unfounded rumour, even though the Register reported that it had been confirmed by Google. Apparently, Google use ubuntu internally, but have no plans to make it available to non-Googlers. Just think of the post as what Linux needs to do before it can reach widespread home desktop use!

With the new IE7, which I have already fallen out with, I have just discovered an absolutely ridiculous flaw with it. MSN (part of microsoft) UK portal development teams have obviously not yet tested their site with IE7. It completely fails to render properly, as can be seen from the screenshots below.

I maintain my belief that the UI is odd, unintuitive and probably buggy (I hope its current state counts as buggy, because otherwise IE7 is going nowhere). For some reason, the menu bar (File, Edit, View etc) appears below the top fixed bar, and the Google Toolbar 4 Beta does not show up on new tabs, as it won’t appear on about:blank pages.

I have, however, managed to get IE7 to connect properly every time now, although it still seems incapable of rendering Blogger’s ‘create post’ page properly. All I can say is, by the time Firefox gets to Beta 2, it is certainly at a much more mature level than this program, which at the moment is completely worthless.

My first impressions of IE7 are not good. I wanted them to be, I really did, but they’re not.

First of all, it refused to connect to the internet. It would ‘dial up’ my broadband connection perfectly successfully, but then once it had connected it denied any knowledge of the event, asking me to connect again, which obviously didn’t work. When that failed, instead of trying to connect, it just gave up and decided to give me the option to go through that cycle again, or ‘work offline’, in which case it decided that it couldn’t connect and so that didn’t work either. It also refused to recognise any pre-existing connection that I set up before I opened the browser.

However, I did manage to make it connect eventually by clicking the right combination of ‘connect’ and ‘work offline’ buttons. I then decided to go to Blogger to post this post, which was already going to be negative. However the ‘create post’ section of Blogger did not work. The text appeared as white (well actually it didn’t appear at all, not even when I highlighted it or changed the colour) and all that happened was the cursor moved forward, as though I was typing spaces.

On the good side, however, subscribing to feeds worked very well and it presented the XML of the RSS/Atom nicely, so that is a good point. It does have a weird UI though.

I’ll do a proper review when I can bring myself to open the stupid program again.

Microsoft has just made IE7 Beta 2 available to everyone who wants it. It is available here for download. I am just downloading it now, and will report back with my opinion on it.

If you don’t already know, ‘Beta 2′ means that the program should only be installed by people who are prepared to risk potential computer problems. Before it is released to everyone, it will go through the ‘release candidate’ stage, and then released for everyone.

Features that IE7 include are:

• Tabbed browsing
• Phishing filter (tells you if you visit a fraudulent website)
• Improved rendering engine
• Lots of other stuff as well.

The installation has finished so I’m going to restart my computer now.

It turns out it’s entirely possible to hack Google China, and remove censorship. By replacing “&meta;=” with “&meta;=cr%3DcountryBR” in the URL. This removes all censorship and allows full access to all search results. It will be interesting to see whether Google responds by removing the ‘bug’ as quickly as possible, or drags its feet in creating a fix. It is clear that there will be many cases like this, with people finding ways to circumvent the system or there being doubt about what to censor. As I discussed here, if Google does slow down the process of rectifying these ‘problems’, they will be doing the chinese people a great service, and could concievably render censorship unworkable.

Google Toolbar 4 Beta was released today, promising features such as:
- Custom buttons to provide access to services such as Gmail, Google Video and other non-Google services. They are downloadable from a button gallery, and apparently site owners will be able to produce their own buttons for download in less than 10 minutes.

- Integration with the bookmark system, currently only available through the ‘personalised search’ page. This actually makes the bookmark system useful, as they are readily accessible. It is possible to tag the bookmarks, in a similar way to other services such as Delicious.

- Google suggest-type feature, including not only suggestions for complete searches, but also ‘did you mean?’ and history suggestions.

- ‘Send to’ feature. It is possible to send any webpage to Gmail, Blogger or to a phone via SMS, although I suspect that won’t work in the UK.

They have also announced a new ‘enterprise edition’. Precisely what that means I’m not sure, but I expect it allows computer network administrators to manage all of the toolbars on their network from one place, and support for different user profiles on the same computer.

My major gripe with the Beta is that it has not been made available for Firefox yet. This seems odd, considering that Google itself distributes Firefox as part of the Google Pack. However, it does look like a substantial release with some potentially interesting new features.

I would personally love to get my hands on one of the CTP (community technology preview) releases of Windows Vista, the next version of Windows due for release in the Autumn. However, I don’t have the thousands needed for an MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) subscription, and so I can’t have it.

The next best thing is to watch all the videos available on the web about Windows Vista at the moment. And believe me there are loads. First of all, the Windows Vista Weblog has links to a whole load of videos about various features in Vista:

I have to say the videos I found most interesting were the Aero UI video and the Sidebar and Gadgets one. There’s lots of detail there.

There’s also a video from Bill Gates CES keynote on the new features provided in Vista on the Microsoft website.

On a lighter note, going round the web recently have been a really funny set of videos comparing Windows Vista, due out in 9 months time to Mac OSX Tiger, which was released a few months ago. It has a guy talking about the new features in Vista whilst demonstrating the features on OS X. If you’re only going to watch one, I’d watch the first one as I think it’s probably the funniest, although they’re all very funny.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Enjoy!

A post arrived on the Official Google Blog on the decision to provide a local service in China, and therefore censoring results, as reported here. The post is actually very persuasive to Google’s point of view. I’ve quoted it here with some of the waffle cut out:

Our executives have spent a lot of time in recent months talking with many people, ranging from those who applaud the Chinese government for its embrace of a market economy and its lifting of 400 million people out of poverty to those who disagree with many of the Chinese government’s policies, but who wish the best for China and its people. We ultimately reached our decision by asking ourselves which course would most effectively further Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally useful and accessible. Or, put simply: how can we provide the greatest access to information to the greatest number of people?

We aren’t happy about what we had to do this week, and we hope that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information. But how is that full access most likely to be achieved? We are convinced that the Internet, and its continued development through the efforts of companies like Google, will effectively contribute to openness and prosperity in the world. Our continued engagement with China is the best (perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there.

Our launch of google.cn, though filtered, is a necessary first step toward achieving a productive presence in a rapidly changing country that will be one of the world’s most important and dynamic for decades to come. To some people, a hard compromise may not feel as satisfying as a withdrawal on principle, but we believe it’s the best way to work toward the results we all desire.

The full post can be read here.

There continue to be demonstrations against the decision, and there have been Tibeten Independence campaigners protesting outside the Googleplex as well as the various rants online, but perhaps surprisingly, it has become clear that there is significant support for Google’s decision.

Bill Thompson, a technology commentator for the BBC News website, is also pro-Google.cn.

On the practical side, he makes an interesting comparison to the situation in the UK:

If you use BT’s net service and type in the web address of a site believed to contain images of child abuse you’ll get a “site not found” error with no indication at all that the site has been censored by the Cleanfeed service - and of course, you have no opportunity to question the censorship or have a site removed from the list because you aren’t ever told it is on a list.

At least if I search for “democracy” on google.cn I’ll be told that the results have been restricted by local law.

He also believes that politically, Google’s decision is ultimately the best for China:

But if we in the West, with our liberal political culture and our attempts to build open societies, do not engage with China then we lose the opportunity to influence them and convince them of the benefits that this brings. If the Chinese government fears instability then we should offer help and advice and support, not closed borders and locked doors.

Different circumstances require different responses, and just because sanctions were the right way to put pressure on apartheid South Africa does not mean that a technology blockade is the way to influence China.

Constructive engagement in a way that respects but also challenges local law seems a far better option, and that, for all its risks, is what Google is attempting to do.

They may make some money out of it, but that’s fine, because they may also show the Chinese leadership that openness can bring benefits as well as pose threats.

My personal opinion is fairly neutral. On the one hand, I feel an enormous empathy for the Chinese people, that they are unable to enjoy the same rights to free speech as I do, and that I take for granted. Any policy which supports or strengthens Chinese censorship is therefore distasteful to me to say the least. However, the view that we should refuse to provide Chinese people with any decent access to the internet at all just because they are not allowed to view all of it seems illogical. I suppose that my gut feeling is that Google has made the right decision, but with it they should constantly push the boundaries of what they are allowed to show on their search results, in the hope of sliding down the slippery slope (a very good slippery slope) to freedom of speech on the Web, which is a goal to surely work for.

A few anti-censorship people have come up with some funny ideas for Google to use as logos on their new China service. It doesn’t look like Google’s move is very popular with the blogging community.

Google China Logos

I posted a little while ago about Nicholas Negroponte of MIT’s plan to produce laptops for $100 each for children in poor countries under his One-Laptop-Per-Child scheme. Today the UN gave important backing to the project, providing financial help to the project alongside existing donors including Google.org.

The debate as to whether this is a useful project continues to rage, but with the number of organisations supporting the initiative rising almost daily, Negroponte’s dream looks set to come to fruition, whoever wins the debate.