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Word+visio.

Of course the person creating the drawings and documents must be proficient in technical writing (aka not an idiot), because no matter what tools you have, if you don't know how to explain things, they'll be useless. Try to get your documentation peer reviewed to make sure it makes sense.

Word+visio.

Of course the person creating the drawings and documents must be proficient in technical writing (aka not an idiot), because no matter what tools you have, if you don't know how to explain things, they'll be useless. Try to get your documentation peer reviewed to make sure it makes sense.

Oh there's nothing secret about it.

I looked at MS's website, and there is a tool published there which purports to remove "hidden" or "unwanted" data from Word/Excel/PowerPoint files, however it only talks about tracking and collaboration data. Would this tool remove the data from the other documents, which was picked up by "strings" as well? Can't test it at the moment as it requires validation (ugh) to download and I can't do that from a corporate PC, but would be very interested to know, if anyone else already has.......

The link to the MS tool is here:

XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio Express

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/ - FAQ
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?Fo rumID=882&SiteID=1 - MSDN Forums

XNA Framework and XNA Game Studio Express

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/ - FAQ
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?Fo rumID=882&SiteID=1 - MSDN Forums

The only drivers that must be signed for 32 bit Vista are drivers in the protected media path (DRM) or drivers that load at boot time. Kernel mode drivers for most USB devices, for example, do not require signing on 32 bit Vista.

From http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winlogo/drvsign/drvs ign.mspx
...
x64 versions of Windows Vista require Kernel Mode Code Signing (KMCS) in order to load kernel-mode software.

Components in the Windows Vista Protected Media Path (PMP) must be signed for PMP, and all other kernel-mode components must be signed by WHQL or Kernel Mode Code Signing, in order to ensure access to premium content.

Driver binaries that load at boot time must contain an embedded signature.
...

How many times have you heard the word "innovation" from a microsoftie?
(uncountable)

How much money does it spend on research?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/06/204 2218
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/120606-micro soft-research.html

How many times has it innovated?

http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/microsoft.html
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~fine/opinions/msinnova te.html
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.sh tml
http://www.mcmillan.cx/innovation.html

This last dude gave up, Last updated 27 June 1999. Basically, it came down to a list of all accepted innovation nominations compared to two accepted: Microsoft Bob (doubtful but accepted) and the fucking talking paper clip. Which is basically Bob redone as a more annoying Help file.

all I did was a google search for "microsoft innovate" without quotes, and I came up with ZERO microsoft sites, and a whole bunch which put "innovate" into the quotes it deserves.

Worthless software company. The only things they did right are SQL server (derived from Sybase, and even though it was apparently recoded it shares similar syntax), which actually has a decent track record on security issues, and of course Visual Studio (IMO until the .NET crapfest, but even that is well done, just a personal preference, except that they are trying to win against Java using an interpreted framework, but Visual Basic was completely reengineered and basically thrown away?) (but it uses a third party C/C++ library from Dinkumware, don't think they came up with any of that themselves) (oh and they didn't make the compiler either, they made it worse). But without microsoft we wouldn't need either of these. I believe they don't suck because they were made by developers, for developers.

Dinkumware info, apparently there is a license dispute so that MS can't package the updates in a visual studio service pack, so Dinkumware tells which lines to edit and how:
http://www.dinkumware.com/vc_fixes.html

std::string causes corruption. Sorry we can't fix it, upgrade to .NET or buy a C++ library:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813810
"When you build applications in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 that use the supplied Standard Template Library (STL), memory corruption may occur, or your computer may stop responding. "

Origins of MSC compiler
http://www.nimh.org/microsoft/
"`This is just a historical note about the C compiler microsoft sells. In the late 80's I was developing C programs under DOS using the Lattice C compiler. One day I got a letter from Lattice saying they were out of the C compiler business, I should contact microsoft for support. I found out that microsoft bought the compiler and exclusive rights to sell it from Lattice. "

O man I just pissed myself off again rehashing all that ineptitude.

if MS had supported POSIX / UNIX APIs in a protected mode subsystem, would Linux have really "happened"?

if MS had supported POSIX / UNIX APIs in a protected mode subsystem, would Linux have really "happened"?

Fairly alarming that a simple document meant to basically contain text, can launch code on an OS.

there is add for TechNet Security Center on that page
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/default. mspx

..... at

this http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/getstarted/v1_0 /default.aspx

You'll see that it includes the following:

"A set of useful technology libraries services to help developers get started with writing robot applications, and tutorials which illustrate the basics of how to get started in a variety of programming languages."

Does that include functions like:

- Chair throwing
- Google bashing
- Threats of death to Eric Schmidt

Just wondering....

Oh, and here are all the links from the M$ website that claim "support Microsoft Robotics Studio".

Looks like somebody woke up on the wrong side of the rock

But in all seriousness even the free package is pretty awesome. You can do time-domain rigid-body simulation at your computer, before building your robot to spec. This isn't just software to control a robot (it is that, too ... but that's easy. People have been doing that for years. Parallax, MIT's BOTboard, etc.) This is a prototyping environment whose resulting code can be directly used in your robotic project. It's a step forward in integration, and quite slick in my humble opinion.

There was actually an interesting article in MSDN on how to use the pre-release version for Concurrent programming. I'll guess that since the general consensus is MS is evil nobody has read this yet: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/09/con currentaffairs/default.aspx Concurrent Affairs: Concurrency and Coordination Runtime I personally haven't actually downloaded and used the code but it sounded promising in the article.

Here's a link to the video introduction. http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/media/MSRS_Intr oToSim_300K.wvx

"the 'standard' Pioneer P3DX robot that's made for home use is $40,000"

Works with cheaper stuff too. Microsoft Robotics Studio works with a bunch of affordable hardware such as the Lego Mindstorm NXT and the Roomba iRobot.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/learn/tutorials /setuphdwr/default.aspx

The article is referring to Network Access Protection (NAP). NAP is not built into the stack - it utilizes existing network protocols to enforce policies. Enforcement mechanisms include DHCP, 802.1x, VPN, and IPSec.

Maybe it hasn't been pushed by WU/MU yet, but here's a link to the bits: http://www.microsoft.com/belux/nl/windows/ie/downl oads/default.mspx

Enjoy?

They sort of have that with XNA Creators Club, but the barrier to entry is high ($49 for 4 months, $99 for a year) and there's no easy download solution just yet (you have to download from a 3rd party and run it yourself). Still, it gives you native access to develop on the console and use the full power of the hardware. Not the top priority for casual games, but the option is still there.

I discover NAC/NAP. Network Admission Control and Network Access Protection. While the idea is noble, its going to be costly (for customers) to implement in mixed networks. They also don't discuss non PC network clients (Printers, Scanners, hand held etc). Even worse (see below), your going to have to pay for a 3rd party network stack for Windows 2000.

White paper here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/0/8/d08df 717-d752-4fa2-a77a-ab29f0b29266/NAC-NAP_Whitepaper .pdf

Interesting chat transcript here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/t rans/network/06_0914_tn_network.mspx

From the transcript:

Q: NAP seems to fulfill the pre-admission health/integrity check very well. Can customers use the same NAP infrastructure to support post-admission NAC? e.g. with NAP today I can check a desktop PC is healthy when it joins, but what about 24 hours later?
A: Post-admission enforcement depends on the enforcement mechanism you're using. For instance, health will be re-evaluated when a client attempts to renew their IP address when using DHCP as the enforcement mechanism. For IPSec, it will happen when health certs expire. For 802.1x, it will happen when re-authentication occurs. For VPN, it will happen when clients reconnect. Any health change on the client will trigger re-evaluation of the health state, too.

Q: What is the likelihood of a NAP agent for Windows 2000 clients in the network?
A: We are not planning to implement a Windows 2000 NAP client. However, we are licensing our protocols to 3rd party companies so that they can offer NAP clients on Windows 2000 (and other OS's like Mac, Linux, etc.)


Enjoy,

I discover NAC/NAP. Network Admission Control and Network Access Protection. While the idea is noble, its going to be costly (for customers) to implement in mixed networks. They also don't discuss non PC network clients (Printers, Scanners, hand held etc). Even worse (see below), your going to have to pay for a 3rd party network stack for Windows 2000.

White paper here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/0/8/d08df 717-d752-4fa2-a77a-ab29f0b29266/NAC-NAP_Whitepaper .pdf

Interesting chat transcript here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/t rans/network/06_0914_tn_network.mspx

From the transcript:

Q: NAP seems to fulfill the pre-admission health/integrity check very well. Can customers use the same NAP infrastructure to support post-admission NAC? e.g. with NAP today I can check a desktop PC is healthy when it joins, but what about 24 hours later?
A: Post-admission enforcement depends on the enforcement mechanism you're using. For instance, health will be re-evaluated when a client attempts to renew their IP address when using DHCP as the enforcement mechanism. For IPSec, it will happen when health certs expire. For 802.1x, it will happen when re-authentication occurs. For VPN, it will happen when clients reconnect. Any health change on the client will trigger re-evaluation of the health state, too.

Q: What is the likelihood of a NAP agent for Windows 2000 clients in the network?
A: We are not planning to implement a Windows 2000 NAP client. However, we are licensing our protocols to 3rd party companies so that they can offer NAP clients on Windows 2000 (and other OS's like Mac, Linux, etc.)


Enjoy,

When you install IE7 and Print emails received in html using outlook. There is a bug where the emails print in about a font of 1.
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en -us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.outlook&tid=5 3028d9d-6499-4e5c-a928-71fd00e01da1&p=1
This sure seems like a problem. Maybe not critical but if they ladies in my office dont stop complaining about it then it might become critical.

They probably need to license the ribbon. Since that page says:

Can any applications use the license?

The license is available for applications on any platform, except for applications that compete directly with the five Office applications that currently have the new UI (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access).We wanted to make the IP available broadly to partners because it has benefits to Microsoft and the Office Ecosystem.At the same time, we wanted to preserve the uniqueness of the Office UI for the core Office productivity applications.

...maybe they won't do it any time soon...

I don't know any admin who would use these for a corporate network. ISOs are typically a thing you use when you only have one or a handful of individual machines to update. WSUS makes things easy to customize for what computer receives what individual patches without messing with DIY patch ISOs. WSUS Server chaining, replicas, or offline updates allows you to copy settings to other WSUS servers without worrying about 'backup ISOs' of what you have selected. It does it all for you.

Er, they have Windows XP SP2 available. That came out well after 2002 IIRC.

I didn't look around more for other newer patches, but they might be doing that as well.

I know that you can go here and download Service Pack 2. There's lots of other individual patches that can be downloaded there as well...

From what I can tell, the value add of this site (and the autopatcher site) is that they download the patches for you all at once, and that they package some sort of script that figures out what needs to be applied.

However, according to the Terms of Use on the Microsoft site:

The Software is made available for download solely for use by end users according to the License Agreement. Any reproduction or redistribution of the Software not in accordance with the License Agreement is expressly prohibited by law, and may result in severe civil and criminal penalties. Violators will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible.

I know that you can go here and download Service Pack 2. There's lots of other individual patches that can be downloaded there as well...

From what I can tell, the value add of this site (and the autopatcher site) is that they download the patches for you all at once, and that they package some sort of script that figures out what needs to be applied.

However, according to the Terms of Use on the Microsoft site:

The Software is made available for download solely for use by end users according to the License Agreement. Any reproduction or redistribution of the Software not in accordance with the License Agreement is expressly prohibited by law, and may result in severe civil and criminal penalties. Violators will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible.

You must download ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/ reskit/nt40/i386/reg_x86.exe before using it if it cant find it. rename it to reg.exe and put it in client/bin

I would be interested in what the /. community thinks of Microsoft's Inductive User Interface guidelines. Do you remember in the first part of this decade, they started cranking out the next version of their consumer windows applications (e.g. Money) with these really simple, web-esque GUIs? That was all driven from their usability research at the time. The basic premise is this. A screen with a single, clearly stated, explicit purpose is easier to understand than a page without such a purpose. Sounds a lot like do one thing well.

Is this a new version of Microsoft "Get the facts"?

You forgot about these penniless asshats?

One quick clarifying point, all Visual Studio Express products can be used for commercial use.

From the FAQ
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support/ faq/default.aspx


Can I use Express Editions for commercial use?
  Yes, there are no licensing restrictions for applications built using the Express Editions.

The "personal firewall" in Windows XP SP2 was never advertised to block outgoing connections. In fact, this PDF states: "Windows Firewall blocks unsolicited incoming traffic. However, you cannot configure Windows Firewall to block outgoing traffic."

So of course it failed every test.

Does that include a compiler?

The .NET SDK has always included a free command-line based compiler.

I figure it is meant for Visual Studio. How many $100 bills is that again?

Zero.

AFAIK, XInput has the ridiculous requirement of needing the 360 PC Controller to function at all. That may have changed since I first looked into it at it's release (times change after all...) but if it hasn't, it's really nowhere near a good replacement for DirectInput.

XInput works with keyboards and mice as well (for example, see the Spacewars demo game that's included with XNA Game Studio Express for keyboard support). As for joysticks/gamepads/other controllers, that's up to the developers. They should be able to write their own XInput drivers. Xbox 360 controllers already have a driver available that should work with the Xbox 360 wired controller (also called the Xbox 360 PC controller, exact same product with different packaging), any third-party wired 360 controllers (I haven't tested this, mostly because 99% of third-party controllers suck), and now also the 360 wireless controllers with the Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver (good luck finding one in stores, as they're currently relatively rare).

Humor, the hallmark of yet another J. Allard led group.

A Hybrid Hard Drive is a new type of hard drive with an integrated non-volatile flash memory buffer. If your machine is equipped with a Hybrid Hard Drive, Windows Vista takes advantage of this hardware to boot, hibernate, and resume use more quickly. Hybrid Hard Drive technology can also improve system reliability and battery life.

I guess you can get more details from their technical report:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.a spx?type=Technical%20Report&id=1191

He big difference: Ghostbuster does a high/low scan with low being a "reboot to trusted media". Rootkit Revealer just uses two different APIs to do the high/low scan

Strider GhostBuster can do three different types of scans. See http://research.microsoft.com/rootkit/. Only one of the requires a reboot, and the one they call an "inside-the-box scan" is essentially the same thing that RootkitRevealer does. (And yes, even that was described in a paper submission before RootkitRevealer was authored.)

My gaming mouse of choice has become the Intellimouse Optical .

But I've noticed something strange with Microsoft Mice, they use a specialized driver (19 megs no less) and develop huge stuttering issues when you don't use the driver.

There's also a problem involving the driver locking up occasionally.

Microsoft would agree with you. That's one reason why they've adopted the "ribbons" interface for Office 2007

Now, personally, I see this as a minor evolutionary improvement on the 'tool palette' interface made popular by Adobe Systems' Photoshop and Illustrator appliations, but that's just me.

I guess /. assumes you know about current technology since you are browsing its pages... Aero is a set of GUI features from Microsoft's new OS, Vista.

Singularity is a Microsoft Research project started in 2003 to build a highly-dependable operating system in which the kernel, device driver, and applications are all written in managed code. The lowest-level x86 interrupt dispatch code is written in assembly language and C. Once this code has done its job, it calls the kernel, whose runtime and garbage collector are written in C# and run in unsafe mode. The hardware abstraction layer is written in C++ and runs in safe mode. There is also some C code to handle debugging. The computer's BIOS is only called during the 16-bit real-mode bootstrap stage; once in 32-bit mode, Singularity never calls the BIOS again, but rather calls device drivers written in C#. During installation, CIL opcodes of the C# kernel are compiled into x86 opcodes using the Bartok research project. Bartok is an optimizing compiler written in C# for translating CIL into x86.

Its a logical extension to the program "rootkit revealer" by sysinternals (who they happend to have bought out).

Which is an interesting comment considering that GhostBuster came first.

Its a logical extension to the program "rootkit revealer" by sysinternals (who they happend to have bought out).

Which is an interesting comment considering that GhostBuster came first.

Actually, in a rare turn of events, GhostBuster isn't the reincarnation.

MSR has been working on GhostBuster for some time, with a white paper released July 2004. That MSR site says that RootkitRevealer was released Feb 22, 2005. This fact is confirmed by archive.org, where the version archived Feb 22 does not contain RR and the one from Feb 23 does. (Not to mention the front page listed it as Feb 22.)