Predictions 2015

Retrospective of predictions 2014.

My mother will master Ubuntu 12.04 - a very cheap OS that allows you to focus on web browsing.

Well not a master but she was able to use it indeed for web-based email, web-based chat, and web searches. There was a complain nevertheless: "there are always updates". Interesting comment. Prompts for updates should IMHO be an easily findable opt-in. Then again 3% of the users think that the OS should ask confirmation for each byte of input/output by default, and that changing it should require to create your own fork of GNU.

Firefox OS will get a ridiculous but historical 2% of share among web users, and I will buy one.

I don't know what the market share of Firefox OS is, and I did not buy one. Very poor hardware is still the only one sold with support for Firefox OS. A camera that I don't regret to use is certainly a must feature for me. Hopefully during 2016 this will change.

Internet Explorer 9- will only matter if you are addressing hardcore dinosaurs. Hopefully jQuery guys will realize of this and will release a half-sized version of jQuery named jQuery 3, that I will not use anyway.

Yes! IE9- does not matter anymore. jQuery guys realized of this: no. Do I care: no.

The only remaining mainstream usage for desktop applications will be accessing USB devices. The rest of the mainstream things will be done through the web. asm.js' utopic but real 1.5x slower than native speed will be a big factor.

Wrong :( WebRTC is, as a matter of fact, still in "release candidate" state. There has not been also enough increase on web-based apps to acknowledge yet that "everything but USB stuff is on the web". ES6 will soon make things easier but I think the resulting apps will not flourish until 2016.

And now predictions 2015:

1. I will write few-to-none new posts on this blog. It feels like there is no point anymore. The situation now is so different. Back in 2009 Microsoft owned our asses, and all but using Windows caused unavoidable frustration. But now mobile _is_ the new personal computing platform, and Microsoft has lost this war by far. Android is the new Windows, and it comes with a first-class web browser. Now if only spreadsheets made on LibreOffice did not suck when opened on Excel...
2. There will be zero new projects made on Adobe Flash.
3. WebRTC will support VP9 and kick ass.
4. Somebody at YouTube will realize that refreshing the page on log-in sucks, and will do that on Ajax.
5. The most interesting OS in the world (Firefox OS) will continue to be shipped only on infra-hardware.
6. Will buy a new battery for my 4 year old laptop, since newer laptops are not really that better.

Fix for noise on Skype for Ubuntu 14.04

Instead of running simply skype, run this:

env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 skype

Source: Get The Sound Working In Skype With Ubuntu 13.10

Together with the fix for the camera, the thing to run is:

export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so && env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 skype

Which sucks.

A bit better is to have this in a script on the desktop that you can simply double click. So write the following in it.

#!/bin/bash
export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so && env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 skype

And give it run permissions by doing right-click on the file > "Properties" > "Permissions" > and check "Execution permission".

I hate Skype.

Desktop wars: Linux 1, Windows 56929

How Munich switched 15,000 PCs from Windows to Linux.

Sumario en castellano de cómo Munich ha migrado 15.000 PCs de Windows a Linux.

Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning.

Fix slow Windows 7

1. Create a bootable Xubuntu USB installer. You can follow these instructions. Latest version recommended.
2. Stick the USB in the computer, reboot, and on the BIOS, select the USB as boot drive with priority over the hard disk.
3. On the Xubuntu installer, follow the steps to replace Windows 7 by Xubuntu.
4. Once booted up and logged in, run these commands on a terminal to replace the default crappy office and multimedia applications by the excellent LibreOffice and VLC:
   1. sudo apt-get remove abiword gnumeric gmusicbrowser parole
   2. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
   3. sudo apt-get update
   4. sudo apt-get install libreoffice vlc
5. Optional: if it is the computer of a friend, amaze him/her by telling that there are no viruses an no antivirus is needed.
6. Open Firefox and install Adblock Plus.
7. Enjoy for many years without virus nor performance drop!

Preview of the result:

Before	After

Predictions 2014

Retrospective of predictions 2013:

Chrome hará un 95 % en el HTML5 test. Firefox menos.

Uishh almost. Current Chrome is 91 % and Firefox is 80 %.

El share en desktop Chrome/IE/Firefox será 40/30/20.

No but close. IE is below expected thanks to Safari keeping the pace and Chrome pushing harder.

- Saldrá Firefox OS, funcionará en móviles de 150 euros, será la plataforma con menor coste de desarrollo marginal y deployment para el 90 % de las aplicaciones móviles, pero no llegará a los targets porque Telefónica no hará la correspondiente inversión en marketing, porque... - No más del 50 % de las aplicaciones que interesan a los targets tendrá versión "compatible con Firefox OS" (o sea, HTML5). - Saldrá un listo que inventará una palabra moderna para One Web. Los empresaurios oirán la palabra en alguna conversación y empezarán a decir que ellos "ya lo hacen", provocando el punto anterior.

Hmmm I am pretty impressed of how Telefonica is marketing Firefox OS. Is like they are doing that for real.

It is the first prepaid phone they offer as of today, and the "more info" page offers a quite friendly and useful video about its basic setup and usage.

Sadly they are out of stock. I guess that that is a good sign though!

Los targets seguirán comprándose móviles de 600 euros y pagando tarifas de 600 euros al año porque "necesitan movilidad", pero seguirán rechazando Google Drive para trabajar porque "no es seguro".

Regarding the 600 euros, I can understand because they are already using quite more their phone than their computer - so it makes total sense to spend more in the first one. And regarding Google Drive, well, turns out that mostly any guy with a federal badge in the United States can peek at everything you do on the Internet - so I quite understand this one as well.

And now predictions 2014

1. My mother will master Ubuntu 12.04 - a very cheap OS (free on acquisition, very low maintenance cost) that allows you to focus on web browsing (instead of avoiding crapware, managing updates, and reinstalling things because malware ruined them).
2. Firefox OS will get a ridiculous but historical 2% of share among web users, and I will buy one.
3. Internet Explorer 9- will only matter if you are addressing hardcore dinosaurs. Hopefully jQuery guys will realize of this and will release a half-sized version of jQuery named jQuery 3, that I will not use anyway.
4. The only remaining mainstream usage for desktop applications will be accessing USB devices. The rest of the mainstream things will be done through the web. asm.js' utopic but real 1.5x slower than native speed will be a big factor.
5. Linux will take over the desktop. Joke!