Now this could be interesting. C|Net is reporting that Apple Computer plans to announce a switch from IBM's PowerPC line of chips to Intel's microprocessors. The announcement is supposed to take place on Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. Many analysts are skeptical of the move and say that it could erode the market share Apple currently holds.

On the other hand, I myself would jump at the opportunity to run Tiger on commodity hardware. The MacOS is something that I could see myself walking into the local computer store and actually purchasing. MS Windows - forget it! I fix enough Windows machines in a day to convince me that there is something inherently wrong with the Windows operating system. After many years of this I now believe that Microsoft is a marketing company with deep pockets. Software development appears to take second place at Microsoft.

The biggest reason I would jump on the MacOS would be it's FreeBSD roots. I'm a big fan of FreeBSD and OpenBSD or BSD in general. The operating system is industrial grade and has shown it's worth in many data centers throughout the world. I currently have a machine running FreeBSD 5.4 and another running OpenBSD 3.6 (Soon to be upgraded to 3.7 from a CD that was purchased in person from the technocrat himself, Theo DeRaadt). To clarify..., my definition of a technocrat is, "A technical expert who is a member of a highly skilled elite group". There should be no argument there! OpenBSD has kept more bad guys from attacking Windows boxes than anything Microsoft could ever hope to accomplish.

I can tell you, with certainty, that the two machines running the BSD's are more stable than they ever where with the various Linux distributions I've tried. As a desktop workstation they are more than adequate running KDE 3.4 but I wouldn't hesitated for a nanosecond to put the Apple face on them if the opportunity presented itself. If what C|Net is reporting turns out to be true come Monday that opportunity would certainly be on my radar!

Anyhow..., stay tuned. With Linux chipping away at the Microsoft edifice and now the possibility that Apple may be deciding to swing the sledge-hammer in the same direction it could be interesting to see where the boulders come to rest.

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be a 'Tiger nugget', they leave skid marks in the shorts of MS executives.

Hasta La L8r Señor MS Zealot

While going through my web logs yesterday I ran across an IP address from India and the referring URL was use.com with a long string indicating it was a search engine. It's real plain, like early Google but it is quite fast and the searches seem to be reasonably relevant. I did a quick search at Search Engine Watch but couldn't find anything on it. Unless they have something really unique to offer they likely won't last long. Search engines are hugely competitive.

Anyhow..., in an attempt to lure me away from Open Source Software, Microsoft fed me a gourmet meal and then gave me a book worth $107.99 CAD and a copy of Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition worth, according to Microsoft, $1245 CAD. Otherwise it was a slow day.

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be a 'fool's gold nugget' - You'll never lure me to the dark side Bill.

Hasta La L8r Señor Search Engine Contestant