Vista week. Vista year? Not likely.

This week has got to be Microsoft Windows Vista week. After all, it’s a product that will affect the luves of every PC user sooner or later- when we upgrade to it at some point in the future- and it’s Microsoft’s long-awaited operating system, arriving over 5 years since the launch of Windows XP which has been plagued with security issues and bugs.

In all fairness, XP is also a powerful operating system which is feature-packed and has successfully facilitated our computer lives for many year; but out with the old and in with the new.

As you would expect, loads of stories are now coming out about Vista, bloggers are either praising it or tearing it apart and it is flying off the shelves so far, having been launched on Tuesday 30 January.

Here’s an interesting comment by a reviewer I came across: “It took five years, $6 billion and 8,000 workers for Microsoft to develop their new ‘Vista’ operating system, but if you’re smart you won’t buy it right away.”

Why? Well because XP can still give you what you need for now, and maybe the ‘wait and see’ game is the best one with a new operating system.Another sharp comment I’ve seen goes as follows: “Microsoft owns 90 per cent of the operating system market and when you’re big, you’re a target... just by installing it you are going to be putting yourself in front of the firing squad that’s going to be going after Microsoft.”

You can rest assured that Vista will be plagued by viruses, trojans, worms and more; just like good old XP. But, maybe, it will have less holes and vulnerabilities. Vista includes considerable security improvements, including a firewall that blocks network traffic in both directions and an anti-spyware program. You still need to get anti-virus software. Vista also adopts "user authentication," which prompts you before the installation of anything that might damage the system. Moving onto the next major talking point, Vista comes in so many versions!

The version for you and me is Home Premium, which sells for $159 if you upgrade from an older copy of Windows. That’s quite expensive. The cheaper option at $99 is the regular Home version, lacking in advanced multimedia features available in premium. It’s also a very heavy and demanding application, requiring 15 Gigabytes of hard disk space and at least a 1 gigahertz processor plus 1 gigabyte of memory.

It gets worse if you got for the aptly named “Utlimate Vista”. As Microsoft says, it’s the ‘no compromises version’. It’s got everything from the Home and Business versions, plus loads of security features. Needless to say, you’ll have to throw away your PC and buy a new super-duper system to run it!

Summing it all up is one my favourite tech writers, Rob Pegaroro, who says “For most people with older machines, Vista demands too much to justify its benefits. Wait for Microsoft to fix the inevitable bugs in Vista and for Windows developers to rewrite their software to work better in Vista. Then, if you’re both patient and lucky, by the time you’re ready for a new computer, Vista will be ready for you.”

Resist the temptation and wait. That’s what I’ll do, unless the nice people at Microsoft Jordan send me a copy!

zanasser@gmail.com

Web solutions for the region from Amman

Being involved with the organization of the Jordan Web Awards has provided me with some insights on website development in Jordan, and how it has evolved over the past years.

The good news is that local companies deliver web solutions that rival those in the US and Europe, and have in fact produced website projects for those markets for many years.

On the regional level, it seems Jordan is quite a center for web design and development, with major clients in the Gulf depending on Jordanian companies, or the Jordan branch of a regional company, to provide web solutions.

One of the best and most impressive examples has to be the Dubai Financial market website, which was developed by essence software here in Amman.

Imagine that, the financial market of one country- the regional center for business Dubai- was developed in another country! It's a source of pride.

Looking at other sites, you will note that companies like Information Technology Planet (ITP), Primus (a division of Computer Networking Services) and SYNTAX Digital are also very active in regional markets, providing excellent websites to regional and multinational companies and bodies.

As the market evolves, the next wave of web developers is emerging from the marketing communications industry. Advertising agencies are setting up web development and electronic marketing arms. The most prominent two examples in Jordan are Wunderman, part of the TEAM Y&R group, and eWorks part of the Publicis Group; both of whom also now have a marked presence in Jordan.

Alternatively, it appears that the established web development companies have truned their hand more towards software development.

To begin with, it must be noted that website solutions now involve heavy programming and development and web developers suddenly found themselves at the forefront of the software industry when every client decided that web integration into business software was the way to go.

It meant that traditional, offline software developers were scrambling to get the web development knowledge while web development specialists became ‘web solutions’ companies.

In any case, with a maturing market, what is clear is that there will be a need for quality control and standards. Not only will it ensure the good reputation of Jordanian and regional web solutions, but it will create a whole generation of quality-conscious web experts.

The estabslishment of web standards is the way to go, and it's already underway with the announcement of the Interstandards organization for the Middle East, based in Dubai. Apparantly, a Jordanian is behind that too.

It seems to me that our human resources are at the forefront of web applications and technologies, hopefully it will benefit the country even more in the coming years.

zanasser@gmail.com

Stuck in Beta forever?

If you’re not familiar with the term ‘beta’ in the information technology field, it basically means that a product is in ‘final testing and in limited release’.

The funny thing nowadays is that many of the websites I’ve used for over a year are still in beta, and are by no means limited to a few users.

As 2007 begins, one thinks back to 2006 and 2005 to realize that Gmail for example has been in beta for 3 years!

Microsoft’s Live Mail, the successor to Hotmail, has also been in beta for around a year a half, and the new version of Yahoo has been in beta for over a year!

Some industry analysts and bloggers joke about it saying that it seems to take longer to develop a website than it does a whole operating system!

A new version of Windows spends a few months as a beta version then completes its release.

Whereas with these sites, and other similar examples in every region of the world, the site owners see no problem with creating an impression that the site is still under testing; as it doesn’t stop them from selling advertising and generating business on the site.

Users still flock to the sites, and trust that ‘beta’ means “we are constantly improving an already reliable service”!

Take Gmail as an example. It is an excellent, fully functional service, with lots of extras like instant chatting with other fellow ‘Gmailers’, and the biggest storage in the universe, 3Gigabytes, and excellent design that is a pleasure to use.

Maybe, what Google mean by the word ‘beta’, is that it’s ‘beta than the rest’. Get it?

Or, more seriously, the thing that’s still in beta is the contextual advertising engine which delivers text ads to you while you use Gmail, based on the body text of your email messages. Surely, Google is working everyday to perfect that, because it makes them so much money!

That explains why everything about Gmail is free, including the service of downloading your messages to any standard e-mail program, such as Outlook or Thunderbird, at no charge.

Back to the Middle East, visit iToot.net, a site which has been online for a year and claims to be in ‘eternal beta’. A site for video sharing in the region, Ikbis.com, has been in beta for over two months and isn’t looking to change that status soon either.

Souq.com, a now very successful auctioning site in the UAE and Jordan, stayed in beta for over six months!

Even a site I’ve released since November, www.mediaME.com, has been in beta ever since; and I haven’t taken the time to define what level of services I believe are final to claim the site is no longer in beta!

And therein lies your answer. It seems Gmail, Yahoo Mail and other are suffering from ‘beta-removal-phobia’, because that would mean there’s nothing left to improve and that’s that!

Maybe we should all just agree on another term like ‘constantly developing’ or ‘condev’ for short. And use that instead of killing the original meaning of the sequence, alpha-beta-final product!

Published in The Star
zanasser@gmail.com