Posted on Multiply Nov. 9, 2008, 1:18 PMHere, IMO, reflects what the title above says.

1. The OS Wars
This is a very old war indeed. Starting from “Mac vs PC”, Linux joined in with the “Linux vs Windows” argument, and then recently “Linux vs Solaris” and “Linux vs Mac”. As you might notice, the sub-list is ordered according to intensity, and Linux seems to pick a fight to all other OSes. Oh yeah, there is also the Linux vs. Unix fight, and the now-defunct Windows vs. OS/2. And also, there is the Android vs. Symbian in the realm of mobile phones. The OS war will be rekindled further with the future releases of Windows 7, Mac OS Snow Leopard, and newer distro versions in the Linux world. (FYI: for Ubuntu users, Ubuntu 9.04 will be named as Jaunty Jackalope, as far as I know. Please confirm.)

2. The Gadget Wars Still in the realm of IT, there is also the war of the gadgets: from the old Mac vs. PC argument (this time, the hardware) to the new iPhone vs. Windows Mobile, and recently, iPhone vs. G1. Also, there is also a fight happening in the realm of netbooks: Windows netbooks vs. Linux netbooks (more of an OS fight, but I’ll put it here anyway). And also, the classic Intel vs. AMD, and PSP3 vs. XBOX.

3. The Browser Wars Seems like the IT world is really a war field. As we all know, just like the OS big three (WIndows, Mac and Linux), there is also the browser’s big three: IE, Firefox and Safari. Seems like a projection: IE for Windows, Firefox for Linux, and Safari for Mac. And the browser war still wages on, as MS plans to release IE 8, Mozilla Firefox 3.1, and updated Safari versions (sorry, I am not updated on Macs). However, there is also a war waging on for the fourth place in the browser market share wars: Opera vs. the newly-released Google Chrome.

4. The War Against Cybercrooks As we all know, the cyberspace had become a battlefield as well. Security pros and experts are trying to prevent exploits from happening, and cybercrooks are constantly doing that. Cybercrooks have many things at their disposal: viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, backdoors, rootkits, social engineering, program exploits, vulnerable computers, SQL-Injection-prone websites, spam… You can name other exploits. (Recently, there is the clickjacking vulnerability; read about it here.) Oh yeah, there is also the war in the cybercrook community themselves for better programs and code, promoting competition which produces better code, and more powerful malware. Fortunately, browsers themselves are now equipped to be the first line of defense, with antimalware programs and the OS as the second and third line of defenses, respectively. As of spam, there is a zeroth line of defense: the email clients themselves. But then, it all still boils down to the user, because no matter how secure the computer is, if the user if a klutz, the secutiry is nothing. As often said, the end user is the weakest link, because ultimately, the user decides what he/she wants to do with the computer, not the device itself. (Anyway, the second line of defense is COMPULSORY for Windows users, and is often used an argument by Linux, BSD, Unix, Solaris, and Mac users to gain converts. They claim that the OS itself is secure enough (there is a firewalll enabled by default in most Linux distributions: iptables, and even this is optional unless the computer is a server), and I do testify that this lives up to its claim (unless of course the user wants to run malware in his/her computer, but even though, the spread rate is very miminal (as compared to Windows wherein malware tend to be wild), and the damage is very limited (as opposed to Windows where the virus may modify and delete things freely, leaving the user dumfounded and very frustrated))).

5. The Search Engine Wars In the realm of search, as we all know, Google rules the market. Hence, the classic Google vs. Yahoo!. Now, MS is willing to pick up a fight with the two by promoting Windows Live and making Windows users access it to download stripped applications from Windows 7 when it is released sometime in 2010. And as far as I know, Windows Live is not free (i.e. you have to pay in order to use it).

6. The Format Wars For those who do not know, a format war is a war where formats from contending technologies compete for supremacy, and hence being a standard to follow. New technologies tend to produce new file formats, like when MS introduced the OOXML format (Office Open XML) which is the format docx, pptx, and other MS Office 2007 file formats are based. Did you know that there is also a fight between ODT (OpenDocument Template, the one used by OpenOffice) and OOXML for standardization? Also, there is the famous Blu-ray vs. HDDVD format war (read more about it here). The format wars will be ongoing again once HVD (Holographic Video Disk) is released. Promising 50TB storage on a single disk, it is expected to battle with DVDs and Blu-Rays.

7. The Religious Wars Now we take a detour. As we all know, there is the classic Islam vs. Christianity. I don’t think it is dead yet, as evidenced by the presence of extremists in both camps. I’m not going to delve in deeper, as this is a very critical and a very complicated controversy. Also, there is a somewhat milder version of this war in the form of Catholic Protestants vs. Roman Catholics.

8. The War On Terrorism Now I do believe that my discussion from here and beyond will be like scattered stones on a beach. The war on terrorism, fueled by George Bush in the past and is still going on, is also a very complicated issue so I won’t delve on it too much. Anyway, a person may be viewed as a terrorist by one person but as a savior by another.

9. The War on Inflation Inflation is defined by wikipedia as “a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.” We all don’t like inflation because it makes the price of goods go up, as evidenced by the recent crisis until now we are experiencing and the threat of recession in the United States of America. People on all walks of life are affected by this ongoing war, and I do believe that this war may go on well into the future.

10. The Three Divides I wrote “three” because there are three kinds of divides we can take account for. All of this involves the “haves” (those people who have the resources and capability to use and exploit them to fulfill their needs) and the “have-nots” (obviously, those people who may have the resources but may not have the capability to use and/or exploit them to fulfill their needs, or the other way around, or simply none altogether).

a. The Wealth Divide This is a very old issue indeed, extending back further than the Biblical times. The terms rich and poor came with the invention of money. And since then, one of the goals of man besides from having eternal life is having eternal money, evidenced by the seven mortal sins SALIGIA: luxuria (extravagance, later lust), gula (gluttony), avaritia (greed), acedia (sloth), ira (wrath), invidia (envy), and superbia (pride). As we all know, there are manyconsequences of this divide, and one of them is…

b. The Digital DivideAdmit it: we basically cannot live without high-tech gadgets iIn this highly-interconnected world of ourstoday. But then, high-techdevices are expensive, so not everyone can have them, Consequently, this further leads to…

c. The Information Divide There are a lot of information avenues, ranging from word of mouth to books, that you might say that this divide does not exist. But then the divide here is the divide of those who have updated information against those who do not possess it, and also the divide between the possession of credible information against misinformation. This factor somewhat contribute in the wars mentioned above, and is also a deciding factor in the outcome of these wars.

Comments

None.