Reviewing Ed Bott’s Windows 8 Head Start | 7 Tutorials

After being walked through the basics by the earlier chapters, I think many non-expert, non-developers would feel confident trying out some of these more advanced topics. Having instructions from someone who really knows what he’s doing, and who can write everything clearly and without confusing jargon, is always important to understanding.

And a reminder that my special offer on this book is still valid.

Windows 8 Head Start is based on the Windows 8 Developer Preview, and in its 100 pages you’ll get a thorough overview of the new user interface and learn what you need to know to prepare. When the Consumer Preview arrives (in “late February”), I’ll immediately begin updating the book and making it substantially longer.

And here’s the best part:

If you purchase the current edition you will get the next edition for free.

Oh, and I have a coupon code you can use to get 30% off your order total when you check out. That means you’ll pay $6.96 instead of the list price of $9.95.

The book is available in a single download package that contains full-color editions suitable for reading on any device. Use the PDF file on your PC or Mac, copy the MOBI file to your Amazon Kindle, or use the EPUB file on a Nook or other Android device.

Interested? Here are the details:

• Go to the book page at the Fair Trade DX bookstore.
• Add the book to your cart.
• When you check out, include the code FriendOfEd. Your 30% discount will be reflected in the checkout price.

You can purchase the book at the Amazon or B&N store, but the checkout discount is only available from FairTrade DX directly. (Copies purchased from any source are eligible for the free update to the next edition.)

Why am I doing this? Because I want your feedback. Tell me what you want me to cover in the next edition and you’ll see that feedback reflected in my update.

I’ve excerpted one of the more boring parts here, but the entire thing is filled with eye-opening historical footnotes and observations.

Thoughts on intellectual property, Part 1

Patent law was created to preserve the rights of an inventor to the profits derived from his invention, without fear of the invention being duplicated by a rival; trademark law, the same for brand names (essentially to prevent counterfeit goods from being sold under a reputable name); and copyright law, the same for works of creative expression such as books, plays, and music. The three forms of intellectual property are nowadays often bundled together as far as legal rights are concerned, but it wasn’t always so.

Not convinced? As Malki points out, in 1877 someone in Congress tried to stealthily push through a law that would have abolished patents.

Read all about it.

Ziff Davis Enterprise, Channel Insider, eWeek Sold: Now What?

The short version is this: a spinoff from the 20th Century Ziff-Davis publishing empire was sold, and the acquiring company plans to lay off 80-90% of the staff. The company being sold is Ziff Davis Enterprise, which publishes eWeek, Baseline Magazine, CIO Insight Magazine and Channel Insider.

Here’s the part to pay close attention to:

Today’s news has nothing to do with Ziff Davis (a completely separate company) and ZDNet (the popular blog destination, also a separate business).

I write for ZDNet, which is a member of the CNET family of companies, which in turn is owned by CBS.

The ZD in ZDNet derives from its heritage with the old publishing company, but the two companies’ paths diverged a long, long time ago.

The VAR Guy post has a good recap of how the various “companies whose names begin with Z” have evolved through the years. You can also read my brief history, from 2006:

Ziff Davis is not ZDNet (and vice versa)

Anyway, best of luck and good wishes to my fellow writers/reporters who are getting pink slips.

(No, I didn’t bother clicking.)

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

The beta of Windows 8 (officially called the Consumer Preview) will be publicly released in “late February.”

Here are some links that might help you get caught up.

• Looking ahead to Windows 8: five big questions for Microsoft (by me at ZDNet)
• Windows 8: Why the coming beta is likely to be labeled the ‘consumer preview’ (by Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet)
• Windows 8 has a special Bing homepage, Consumer Preview name all but confirmed IMichael Gillett, LiveSide)

I’m also soliciting feedback on whether and how you plan to test the Windows 8 beta … sorry, Consumer Preview. Please take a second to vote in this ZDNet poll. If you have any additional suggestions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments here.

Red Hat extends Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle to ten years

I’m a big believer in “It’s not broke, then don’t fix it.” So is leading Linux company, Red Hat. The company has just announced that it is extending the production lifecycle of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and 6 from seven to 10 years in response to enterprise customer demand and Red Hat’s hardware original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners.

A lot of consumers and tech bloggers fail to understand that enterprises prefer stability over shiny new toys. It’s hard to imagine using a 10-year-old mobile phone or MP3 player, but boring corporate apps need stability on the dektop and server sides.

Interestingly, this puts the leading maker of Linux servers on the same support lifecycle as … Microsoft. Consumer versions of Windows are supported for five years, business versions (including servers) get extended support for a total of 10 years.

I’ve got an old but still useful post that explains it all:

How long will Microsoft support XP, Vista, and Windows 7?

The point of having a predictable release cycle—a new Windows version every three years—is to encourage upgrades. That’s especially true for consumers, who can skip one version but not two. Even so, full support will be available until the beginning of 2015. For businesses, anyone considering a Windows 7 migration can take comfort in knowing it will be supported for nearly another decade more—until January 14, 2020.

If you’re curious about how this translates into actual dates, the post also includes a table that breaks support for desktop Windows versions down by version.

Here’s what the man who spearheaded the standards-setting body had to say at the time:

It was critical for the success of the electronic book industry to unite and provide publishers and consumers with a common standard to which all eBooks could be formatted … Without a common standard, publishers would have to format eBook titles separately for each electronic device and the number of titles available for any device would be small. This would be a recipe for disaster.

Guess where that effort started.

I’ve taken the liberty of doing a little search and replace on this section:

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music books encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player reader can play music display books  purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable books that can be read on all players readers. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.

It doesn’t seem like anyone is working very hard to make that vision possible. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Windows 7 Inside Out, Deluxe Edition is an excellent reference and a genuine educational resource. It’s a huge book and has all kinds of information that the reader may not have known before (but can be put to good use immediately). If you buy only one Windows 7 reference book, this definitely should be the one. It’s a keeper!

My co-authors and I are grateful for the many reviews we’ve received like this one.

Just a reminder that this book, like all of my Microsoft Press titles, is available in digital editions without any DRM. You are free to use the content in any program and on any device you own. We (my fellow authors and publishing partners) trust our readers.

Ironically, the best way to get the electronic edition of this book might be to buy the print edition first.

The print edition of Windows 7 Inside Out, Deluxe Edition is currently available at Amazon for $37.79. The Kindle edition is available for $34.01. You might be able to find it for a lower price elsewhere. At Barnes & Noble, the print edition is $41.30, whereas the digital edition for the Nook is $40.31. Those are pretty paltry discounts.

O’Reilly, which distributes Microsoft press titles, offers the book as well, but not at competitive prices. The print edition is $59.99, the ebook is $47.99, and a package of the two is (gulp) $65.99. If you paid those prices, thank you very much for your generous support. (If you own a previous edition, you can qualify for a 40-50% discount, as I explain later.)

So what’s the most cost-effective way to add this book to your library?

The print edition includes a full PDF copy on the disc bound into the back of the book. If all you want is the ability to read the book on your PC and search for specific words or phrases, get the print edition and copy the unprotected PDF copy to your PC, Mac, or other device.

Want the book on an e-reader? You can get a DRM-free copy suitable for use on any e-reader for a mere five bucks.

Here are the details:

• Start by signing up for a free membership at oreilly.com, which distributes Microsoft Press titles. After you create your oreilly.com account and sign in, you can see all of the options available to you (including the option to purchase updated editions for a 40-50% discount) at this page: Exclusive Membership Offers.
• Buy a print edition of the book from any source you like, online or at a brick-and-mortar store. If you already own the book, skip to the next step.
• Register your new book using its title or ISBN number. Sorry, English-language editions only. And no, they don’t care where you bought it.
• Click Your Products and then click the Print Books tab. Order the digital edition of the book you just registered and pay $4.99 for the full e-book package. Here’s what the transaction looks like:
  

That $4.99 upgrade applies to any Microsoft Press or O’Reilly title on your bookshelf, making it a great deal if you want a copy for your Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, or Android device. After you complete the purchase, go to the Ebooks tab to see the download links. Here’s what it looks like for another of my titles:

The digital package you download from oreilly.com contains DRM-free copies in multiple formats. You can download any or all of them. For Android devices, choose ePub. For Kindles (including the Kindle Fire), choose Mobi. If you lost the disk and want a replacement for the PDF file, choose PDF.

If you’re confused by those acronyms, I’ve put together an explainer here: On digital book file formats.

Questions? Please ask away in the comments below.

[W]e have decided to merge MIX, our spring web conference for developers and designers, into our next major developer conference, which we will host sometime in the coming year. I know a number of folks were wondering about MIX, given the time of year, so we wanted to make sure there’s no ambiguity, and be very clear… there will be no MIX 2012.

O’Brien cites good reasons: developer confusion and "event fatigue" on the part of reporters, analysts, and tech bloggers. (Like me.)

"Sometime in the coming year" is a pretty broad timeframe. But there’s a big clue in the end of the post:

And something that was more behind the scenes but very relevant to the time management aspect relates to our engineering teams. If you’ve gone to a Microsoft developer event, you know that a non-trivial percentage of speakers and participants are from engineering. They take time out from shipping to prepare for and travel to these events and connect with developers, and their time is one of the most valuable resources we have in the company.

My takeaway from that is that the event—let’s call it BUILD 2012—will take place after Microsoft has released Windows 8 to manufacturing but before the product has gone on sale to the general public. If we assume release to manufacturing (RTM) in late summer (July/August) and general availability (GA) in late October, that puts this year’s developers conference on track to be exactly one year after last year’s event, in mid-September.

More details and speculation from my ZDNet colleague Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft to replace Mix with a new developer conference

[P]hysical intrusion is now unnecessary to many forms of surveillance. … With increasing regularity, the Government will be capable of duplicating the monitoring undertaken in this case by enlisting factory- or owner-installed vehicle tracking devices or GPS-enabled smartphones.

[...]

More fundamentally, it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. … This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks. People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries, and medications they purchase to online retailers. Perhaps, as JUSTICE ALITO notes, some people may find the “tradeoff” of privacy for convenience “worthwhile,” or come to accept this “diminution of privacy” as “inevitable” … and perhaps not.

Here’s the part that really resonates with me:

I for one doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure to the Government of a list of every Web site they had visited in the last week, or month, or year. But whatever the societal expectations, they can attain constitutionally protected status only if our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence ceases to treat secrecy as a prerequisite for privacy. I would not assume that all information voluntarily disclosed to some member of the public for a limited purpose is, for that reason alone, disentitled to Fourth Amendment protection.

Meanwhile, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Congresspersons and Senators who understand these issues with even a fraction of Justice Sotomayor’s depth.

(h/t Forbes)

I’ve been told by a publisher that they want a second edition of one of my books. Their conditions on me are that I drop this series of ebooks I’m working on because it might compete with the title. When I said no they responded that that’s ok they’ll just get someone else to revise my book.

My book.

It’s not really mine. Even though the copyright is in my name, that turns out not to mean very much.

So am I bothered by the iBooks Author EULA? No. But maybe that’s because I’ve been signing contracts with traditional publishers for so long.

Traditional publishers have standard contracts that are filled with all sorts of onerous clauses. One reason I have been represented by a tough-as-nails literary agent for 15+ years is so that crap like this doesn’t end up in contracts I sign.

That 15% commission seems like a lot until you run into situations like this, especially with a successful book.

NBC News is launching a book publishing arm to capitalize on growth in e-reader and tablet adoption, the decreasing cost of e-book production and a backlog of over one million hours of video content.

NBC Publishing, as the business unit will be called, will be part of NBC News, a division of media conglomerate NBCUniversal, and will be based in New York at NBC’s headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

“Over the last two years, we’ve been looking at the tablet market and e-reader market and watching it develop,” said Michael Fabiano, general manager of NBC Publishing. “Consumers are getting more comfortable downloading books with video. None of this is slowing down any time soon.”

The company will produce enhanced e-books using both archival and new NBC video footage as well as traditional, print-based e-books.

NBC is mum on details about formats and production partners.

I’m skeptical that they’ll really be able to create "new multimedia experiences." In some respects, this reminds me of the mania that ensued when publishers discovered interactive CD-ROMs back in the early 1990s. I might even have a rare collectors copy of PC Computing on CD-ROM buried in a box somewhere…

How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States.

This quote about Foxconn is especially chilling:

“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

Once, high-tech products were not just designed in the U.S. but made here too. Those jobs are gone, and they’re not coming back:

“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

John Gruber concludes, apparently without irony:

Chinese manufacturing isn’t merely cheaper, but also perhaps even more importantly, nimbler, more flexible, and faster.

I guess that’s one way to describe it. It sounds more like America’s company towns on a much grander scale.

And yes, it’s not just Apple. But as the largest manufacturing company in the world (at least as measured by market capitalization) and one of the most profitable, Apple gets the spotlight here.

So here’s the first in a series of posts on digital publishing in general and in specific.

Today’s topic: file formats.

The acknowledged open standard for ebooks is EPUB, which superseded the Open eBook standard in September 2007. EPUB is developed and managed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). That group has a membership of more than 300, including a who’s who of traditional publishing, open source advocates, publishing tool makers, font companies, and more. Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft are all members. Amazon is not.

Apple has used the EPUB format exclusively since its introduction of iBooks in April 2010. At the time, Apple called EPUB “the most popular open book format in the world,” and today it refers to EPUB as “the industry-leading … digital book file type.”

With the release of iBooks Author in January 2012, Apple has introduced a new, proprietary ebook format that is based on EPUB but is incompatible with software and hardware designed to use EPUB. The iBooks reader still supports DRM-free EPUB files, regardless of their source.

Every Android-based device I’ve seen supports EPUB directly, including the Barnes and Noble Nook Color and Nook Tablet.

Amazon’s popular Kindle devices do not support EPUB format directly. (This limitation applies to the Kindle Fire as well, despite the fact that its operating system is an Amazon-customized version of Android.) The default format on the Kindle is Amazon’s proprietary AZW. Kindles do, however, support the MOBI format (.mobi), which was originally developed by Mobipocket, which was purchased by Amazon in 2005.

Some e-book distributors (including Fair Trade DX and O’Reilly, where my books are sold) include MOBI files in their retail offerings. You can also use software to convert EPUB to MOBI format. I use and recommend the free, open source Calibre ebook management program for this and many other tasks.

The preceding formats are all designed for use with reflowable content, meaning that fonts and graphics shift to adapt to the display. So you can read the same ebook on a smartphone, a tablet, a dedicated reader, or a PC/Mac.

Reflowable content works great with fiction or books that include inline illustrations. It’s not so good for projects where the designer wants to control the precise arrangement of each page, including fonts. For that purpose, the best choice is still a PDF file.

There are many more digital book formats (see this Wikipedia article for an exhaustive list), but those are the ones that matter.

Digital rights management (DRM), aka copy protection, is an optional feature in the AZW and EPUB formats (and, presumably, in the new iBooks format). None of the digital editions of my books include DRM, but that’s a topic for another day.

Plug: My latest book, Windows 8 Head Start, is available in a downloadable package that includes three DRM-free digital formats for 30% off its $9.95 list price, with a free update to the next edition. Details are here.

Cross-posted to fairtradedx.com

Update January 24: After a morning spent on the phone with CenturyLink support (via Skype, ironically), I finally managed to reach people with problem-solving capabilities at CenturyLink. Phone service is back online, numbers will be ported to landline effective January 31, where they will basically be parked, and I will have the opportunity to research the best replacement. Whew!

Update: As of Monday morning, January 23, less than two days after getting the “final notice” call I describe below, my existing numbers have gone dead. If you try to call my home or business number, you will get a message that says the number is out of service. I have dial tone, but if I try to make a call I am told that my service has been suspended. Thanks, CenturyLink!

The company that has been supplying me with phone service for the past five years or so is dumping me.

Well, technically, CenturyLink (the company formerly known as Qwest) has decided to stop offering its residential VOIP service and is shutting it down completely as of January 31. Yeah, that’s less than two weeks from now.

Did I mention that they forgot to actually tell me they were doing this? I didn’t find out until yesterday afternoon, when both my home and office lines rang simultaneously. Each was getting the same robocall from CenturyLink, with a professional announcer’s voice telling me this is a  “final notice your my broadband phone service.”

My reaction: What? Is this a collection call?

The caller went on: “This matter requires your immediate attention. If you have already contacted us regarding the discontinuation of your broadband phone service, pleases disregard this message.”

Me: “Discontinuation”? What?!

The caller continued:

“This is your final notice that service will be discontinued in the next week.”

Me: [unprintable]

Needless, to say, I stopped working on the project that I had hoped to work on for the rest of the day and dove headfirst down the CenturyLink support rabbit hole.

The support rep I spoke with was very polite, profusely apologetic, and completely unhelpful. The service is going away, and the only option they are willing to offer me is to switch my VOIP numbers over to landlines. Plain Old Telephone Service, or POTS.

Me: Oh, hello, 1999! So nice to see you again.

Oh, and did I mention that that option will raise my monthly phone bill by 90%? And it will require a visit from a CenturyLink tech? And I’ll have to fiddle with the structured wiring in my house, which hasn’t had a POTS jack in years?

Gee, thanks, CenturyLink.

The unhelpful people who staff the apparently ironically named @CenturyLinkHelp on Twitter told me it’s not their fault:

@edbott Sorry you didn’t get your notification we started informing customers on 11/14 via  direct mail,bill messages and voice message

You know, as someone who writes about tech for a living and relies on phone service, I would remember a message like that. I never received a single notification of any kind. No paper (my bill is paid automatically each month via direct deposit, and I signed up for the paperless billing option long ago), no e-mail, no phone message until yesterday’s “final notice.” And they obviously know how to reach me.

I do have options, of course. I asked my Twitter community for suggestions and they came through with some excellent suggestions. Here’s my list of options:

• Switch to an alternative independent VOIP service like Vonage. That would actually save me some money.
• Switch to MagicJack Plus. The Plus version doesn’t require a direct PC connection (which would have been a  deal-breaker). Reviews are mixed.
• Switch my VOIP service to Comcast, from which I currently get Internet and cable service. A promotional rate would save me money for the first 6-12 months, but after that the costs would be nearly double what I’m now paying. At least based on my reading of Comcast’s confusing website.
• Attach an OBi device to my network and use Google Voice or another free service.
• Attach an Ooma Telo device to my network and then use their free service (there are some taxes and service charges to be paid). My Twitter community seems to love this option.

But there’s a complication in most of those scenarios. Anything that involves moving my service away from CenturyLink also involves porting my telephone numbers. Everything I’ve read says that process takes a minimum of 10 working days and can take even longer, depending on how quick the new service is and how cooperative the old one is. The robocaller made it very clear the clock is ticking:

“As a reminder, if you wish to retain your existing VOIP telephone number for an alternate service, you will need to call us. Otherwise, this number will no longer be available to you.”

After doing some research yesterday afternoon, I called CenturyLink this morning as soon as they opened. This time I insisted on talking to someone with actual technical knowledge of what the company is doing with this service. What he told me is even worse than I heard yesterday: “As of the 23rd [that's Monday, one business day from now], they are taking down the platform. If you want to port these numbers, you gotta do it quick.”

He made it clear that if the numbers go out of service before the porting is completed, I lose them for good. Family, friends, businesses that have those numbers in their contact lists will get a “this number is disconnected” message.

So my only viable option at this point is to grit my teeth and allow CenturyLink to switch me back to their landline service. I just got off the phone with the company and got the ball rolling. But even they can’t guarantee they can get the work done in time.

If they do come through (fingers crossed, knock on wood, chant to every deity I’ve ever heard of), that will buy me a month or two to research my options and choose one based on something other than panic.

My favorite part? The robocaller voice signed off with this cheery message:

“We value you as a customer, and thank you for allowing CenturyLink to serve you.”

No, thank you, CenturyLink. As customer service goes, this is about as bad as it gets.