Stephen Lim, general manager of Linpus Technologies, predicts a 50% share for netbooks by next year. Stephan Lim, that is not going to happen.

Linux had it’s chance when Asus launched it’s netbook. Industry experts content that Linux is making a big push on the netbooks market as the operating system requires less hardware processing power, perfect for netbooks. Linux did not fail, but Microsoft simply extended Windows XP life on netbooks and the tables quickly turned. Linux was left in the dust, a place they long occupied.

Stephen is a dreamer, and his dreams of Linux penetrating 50% of the market would remain a fantasy. The release of Windows 7 and it’s capacity to run on netbooks would simply continue the surge of netbooks together with the software giant.

You can read the article here — Linux netbooks expected to reach 50% market share.

Image from Lenovo products.

I’ve realized that my last Tech Channel Roundup was nearly a month ago and I’m guilty of it. So, bear with me as I overload you with a number of interesting links that I found in some of the sister blogs.

Milo discovered a product especially useful for enterprises of all sizes called Nightwatchman, a good news that Microsoft didn’t lay off anybody in the Vista team. I knew that they didn’t touch the Silverlight team, but frankly I’m surprised about this because Vista hasn’t been very profitable to Microsoft. Or has it? One bad news is the Windows 7 minimum requirements. It may not be a good experience to try it on my netbook which just meets the minimum requirements and my laptop which is old enough to even miss the minimum. But if anyone is interested, you can get the Windows 7 look into Windows XP. He also found a couple of amusing videos, one called “how to say i love you.” and another a confirmation of love, a marriage at Taco Bell. Recession, aye?

Jason found a few websites that can assist you in unique ways: one for helping educate your kids, one a calendar to help others, and another to scan your computer online. He covered a lot of Windows Powertoys, a mobile media browser and found another reason to continue loving Zune. He also has a couple of how-tos for selecting non-linear text in a word document and sharing Outlook calendar availability. One bad news, I mean another one, is that Microsoft is shutting down MSN Groups.

Claire thought out loud about the gap between Linux and mainstream users, learnt something new about less (which all you Cygwin users may find useful), discovered a wonderful browser called Kidzui which attempts to make the Internet a more kid-friendly place.

Juan wonders whether the Mac is not invincible anymore and whether Apple really needs to make a netbook. He is glad to find a symbol cheat widget and an app that can save his day with a bunch of drawings. The latter isn’t my cup of tea. He along with Jayvee found out about Apple’s stand on piracy.

We are still more than ten days from the new year, but a majority of the world has already started retrospecting the last twelve months and forecasting the next twelve.

Jayvee inspects the culture of FAIL on the Internet and finds that video advertising is going to decline. Actually, the rate of growth of online advertising has reached a saturation point even though online advertising itself is continuing to rise.

In these tough times, when the economy has been slowing down, Clair suggests that choosing Linux and open source software has become more necessary. For those who are already in that path, there is a free Ubuntu training course. Ubuntu is Linux for human beings, isn’t it?

A survey found that only 1% of people are using Google Docs, and many of those use Microsoft Office already. However, Colleen feels that the Microsoft’s stranglehold on office suites may be slipping away with Microsoft promising and postponing their next release and the availability of too many options for the users.

Juan says that 2008 is the year of iPhone, which is not very debatable in the user sense though this is also the year for RIAs, Twitter (@bsravanin) and cloud computing. But then, he is an Apple guy. :-) He also shares the offer that MacUpdate is having as a holiday promo. A good offer, far better than dreaming about the Apple 24″ LED display which is about $900!

Speaking of promos, Jason has a post about the Sears Wish Promotion, similar to the HP Magic Giveaway which has recently ended. There is already several Top 10 lists too, like the top 10 viral videos of 2008. I personally don’t like the fact that these lists do not consider the rest of the year that is still to be lived through. The more important news is, in case you haven’t already heard, that a serious security flaw has been exposed in the Internet Explorer and it is advised to not use it for financial and other sensitive transations of any kind.

While you wait for the security update, be sure to take note of the 8 security bulletins that Microsoft is ending the year with. Various OS users may want to check out the 2008 Service Pack 2 beta releases.

Previously, I wrote that Cygwin provides an alternative to the windows shell, makes Unix-lovers feel more at home with Windows and vice-versa. That is only the partial truth.

The truth is Cygwin emulates Linux on Windows. If you replace the Windows background with any of the open-source wallpapers, hide the Windows task bar, and only run the cygwin terminal, you can almost cheat yourself that you’re running a Unix-based OS. This is thanks to a DLL named cygwin1.dll which is the actual Linux API emulation layer.

Cygwin is different from other utility packages providing Unix-like functionality like, say, UnxUtils because of the emulation layer. Cygwin is not using the native Windows libraries directly for Unix-like utilities. That could mean a difference in the speeds of their execution, but we are not benchmarking anything here. This works better to learn Unix-based OSs.

There are also a number of Linux packages that can be installed on Cygwin after rebuilding them from source. These are the Windows-alternatives to the corresponding Linux tools and are not always available on utility packages that are similar to UnxUtils.

You can download the Cygwin setup file from their home page. We’ll run through the installation next time; it should work on most Windows OSs except Windows CE (handheld). I’ve heard about Cygwin-Vista compatibility issues but that could mean errors here and there and not complete incompatibility.

I was looking at my Eee PC computer the other day and I was trying to figure what applications I should leave on there. I decided to ask you all what programs you might use on a daily basis. Then I decided I’d probably get answers like, “YouPorn and Firefox or my web cam for chatting up on CamContacts.” These would not be helpful to me as I need to keep these around anyway.

Image via WikipediaI looked through and figured out what apps I rely on. Firefox is probably the most used. I chat with Meebo, read my email through Gmail, write this blog via WordPress and search Google all in this wonderful browser. Second to that came Skype. It’s an important application to keep around because I use it daily to chat with friends near and far and have video chats with family members. Finally, the Microsoft Office suite. I know that I could use Open Office or Google Docs (which I use regularly) for all of my reading and writing needs but there’s something clean about Microsoft’s version. I still use 2003, since 2007 seems to be a memory hog on most of my machines (and I don’t have much to spare on the Eee).

After that, I can pretty much remove all of my other applications. Now I open the floor up to you. What do you use the most on your PC? Or Mac? Or Linux variant? Go ahead and share your dirty secrets. It’ll make you feel better.

Size doesn’t matter… Or so they say but the Eee PC could be the exception to the rule. A fellow blogger, Lia, wrote about the HP Voodoo, the Mac Air Rival. I say phooey! We don’t need a $2100 lightweight laptop, we need a 7″ computer that can handle the everyday tasks that we’ve all come to know and love (banking, email, document writing and more)!
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I hear this argument all the time from users. First off, it’s not a valid argument as we were taught in Philosophy 101. But more important, it’s usually said because people are uneducated about what Linux is and what it does. They would rather stay with a clogged up, aging OS rather than a new, spunky, and sexy OS. There are positive and negative points to this state of mind.

Clair, over at New Linux User, wrote a post about the wrong way to go about showing people what Linux can do. And I agree with her completely. The wrong way of showing someone why they should switch is to force it down their throats — and besides, this leads me to my first point (or is it second) that there is a reason that you need to force it down their throats. I can not imagine how difficult life would be if an IT guy had to explain why the kernel needs to be recompiled or why they only make that software for the PC (which everyone else uses). This would be a headache and a half.

On the other hand, learning about new technology is a great thing. We would still be in the dark, using the dirty holes in the ground to relieve ourselves and be trying to put squares onto axles to get the car going without learning about and embracing new technology. Linux has a great deal to offer both the personal and commercial front but they may not be there yet — or the users may not be there to accept it yet.

Either way, forcing new ideas and programs on people can only cause them to push back. It’s like and argument between a child and his mother about how much he wants the brand new Power Ranger toy (are they still around?). The more the parent pushes back, the more the child fights. Give it a rest, they will come around.