One of the nicest features is Triggers, which let you run commands in programs using the same set of keystrokes no matter what program you’re in. This comes in really handy when you want to control a background program like iTunes, and Quicksilver has a built in iTunes trigger module. Here’s my setup, which you can get to in Quicksilver by going to the Triggers section, and clicking on iTunes:

Under OS X, command-space (command = ⌘) takes you into Spotlight, whereas Quicksilver’s default activation key is control-space (control = ^). I picked the option key (⌥) to control iTunes, as it’s not used as much. ⌥-space starts and stops the music, ⌥-(0-5) applies a star rating, and the ⌥-arrow keys switch between songs and changes the iTunes volume.

Previously I used 3rd party software like SizzlingKeys to control iTunes, but it didn’t let me directly set a rating – I could only raise or lower an existing one. For that purpose, Quicksilver works a whole lot better.

What’s interesting from my perspective is that it’s built on many technologies in common with Apple’s iPhone, such as a Unix-like kernel, WebKit for rendering web pages (also used by some Symbian-based Nokia phones), SQLite for data storage, and a GUI compositing library for rendering data to the screen. Additionally, Android supports XMPP (aka “Jabber”) which is being used by both Apple and Google for interoperable chat – Apple has shipped a Jabber server in the last two revisions of Mac OS X Server. I wouldn’t be surprised if a future version of the iPhone firmware supports chat via Jabber. From Android’s API overview, it looks like they also intend to use XMPP for other device-to-device communications (for interactive games, location notification, etc.).

Where Android differes from the iPhone is that Android’s applications are written in Java and processed into a special bytecode (i.e. not Sun’s default java bytecode) made to work well on the Dalvik Virtual Machine, which supposedly runs better on slower mobile CPU’s. This sounds, to me at least, like a way to allow compatibility between phones, as opposed to the “write once run everywhere” idea that Java was designed for. From the design, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone develops an “Android Environment” for the iPhone, but I’d expect that most applications would look like crud, as they wouldn’t fit with the iPhone UI style.

So where does this fit in with the larger phone market? It really depends on hardware support – if the hardware looks good, the UI looks good, and, more importantly, works really well, Android will be a winner. Is this likely?

Looking at the current crop of phones beyond the iPhone, I don’t think so.

It’s a good effort, and I hope it succeeds, but decentralized development in the Linux community hasn’t come up with a consistent, polished UI as of yet. From a UI perspective the ideal would be that the default applications from a small team at Google are solid and well designed, to the point that they don’t get reinvented ever time. If not… good luck Android users.

Computer virtualization is commonplace nowadays, what with VMware releasing free software to virtualize an operating system, along with other similar OSS projects, having “Free Windows” would mean that geeks could load MS’s free offering over Linux or Mac OS X (intel version), and for no cost run all of the Windows only software out there.

Imagine a linux distro that layers Windows over a secure “linux shim”, providing high end firewall and other features, such as rapid lab reimaging of all windows environments. Got a problem with your windows? Wipe it and reinstall in a matter of minutes.

John Gruber points out that OSS’s percieved value is it’s monetary cost which could be nulled by “Free Windows”. While this may seem logical on paper, in reality the biggest win you get is flexibility and the freedom to tinker, and share those bits with others. Also, Linux and the BSD’s tend to fit into the server/workstation market, not the low end market – if “Free Windows” does get released, it’s most likely going to be closer to the Windows XP Starter Edition, not their high end server platforms.