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IMHO, the Apache group has gotten a little too comfy with their market dominance and years of blind faith from unix users. Sounds like it's time to remind them that especially if you're already on an open-source platform, you have a lot of choices.

Yeah, they need a message. Look at that beautiful graph now - Apache's hit 70% this month!

Obviously, they're hitting that percentage because, like, people don't have a choice in the matter. It must be dirty pool playing on the part of the ASF... right?

I find the Apache config file fairly easy to set up. It works reliably and without complaint every day, with now just shy of 5 years of perfect uptime...

Of course, you might consider this option... Pick your poison.

- Cisco buys SA (Scientific Atlanta)
- Cisco recently bought danish company Kiss Technology - now part of the linksys division (Some of you might remember them as the first company coming out with a Mpeg4/Divx set top DVD player)
(http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2005/corp_072205.h tml)
- Kiss has a long standing relationship with chip maker Sigma Designs, Inc.
(http://www.google.com/search?q=Kiss+Sigma+Designs )
- Sigma and Microsoft are working together to enable Windows Media CE product, including Kiss products
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/nov 04/11-30sigmadesignspr.mspx)
- Sigma is working with Microsoft on their MSTV IPTV platform.
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/sep 05/09-08SigmaIBCPR.mspx)
- SBC plans to release IPTV service using the MSTV platform.
(http://www.microsoft.com/tv/content/PressReleases /SBC04_IPTV.mspx)
SBC will use Motorola and SA set top boxes for this (service.http://www.sbc.com/gen/press-room?pid=480 0&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=21772)

Obviously Cisco wants to be a player in the IPTV space.

This article is interresting also, cisco was not named, so they must have realized that their were getting out of the loop. Not anymore with the SA acquisition: http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2005/09/09/tv -broadcasting-microsoft-cx_dl_0909autofacescan06.h tml?partner=yahootix

- Cisco buys SA (Scientific Atlanta)
- Cisco recently bought danish company Kiss Technology - now part of the linksys division (Some of you might remember them as the first company coming out with a Mpeg4/Divx set top DVD player)
(http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2005/corp_072205.h tml)
- Kiss has a long standing relationship with chip maker Sigma Designs, Inc.
(http://www.google.com/search?q=Kiss+Sigma+Designs )
- Sigma and Microsoft are working together to enable Windows Media CE product, including Kiss products
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/nov 04/11-30sigmadesignspr.mspx)
- Sigma is working with Microsoft on their MSTV IPTV platform.
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/sep 05/09-08SigmaIBCPR.mspx)
- SBC plans to release IPTV service using the MSTV platform.
(http://www.microsoft.com/tv/content/PressReleases /SBC04_IPTV.mspx)
SBC will use Motorola and SA set top boxes for this (service.http://www.sbc.com/gen/press-room?pid=480 0&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=21772)

Obviously Cisco wants to be a player in the IPTV space.

This article is interresting also, cisco was not named, so they must have realized that their were getting out of the loop. Not anymore with the SA acquisition: http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2005/09/09/tv -broadcasting-microsoft-cx_dl_0909autofacescan06.h tml?partner=yahootix

- Cisco buys SA (Scientific Atlanta)
- Cisco recently bought danish company Kiss Technology - now part of the linksys division (Some of you might remember them as the first company coming out with a Mpeg4/Divx set top DVD player)
(http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2005/corp_072205.h tml)
- Kiss has a long standing relationship with chip maker Sigma Designs, Inc.
(http://www.google.com/search?q=Kiss+Sigma+Designs )
- Sigma and Microsoft are working together to enable Windows Media CE product, including Kiss products
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/nov 04/11-30sigmadesignspr.mspx)
- Sigma is working with Microsoft on their MSTV IPTV platform.
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/sep 05/09-08SigmaIBCPR.mspx)
- SBC plans to release IPTV service using the MSTV platform.
(http://www.microsoft.com/tv/content/PressReleases /SBC04_IPTV.mspx)
SBC will use Motorola and SA set top boxes for this (service.http://www.sbc.com/gen/press-room?pid=480 0&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=21772)

Obviously Cisco wants to be a player in the IPTV space.

This article is interresting also, cisco was not named, so they must have realized that their were getting out of the loop. Not anymore with the SA acquisition: http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2005/09/09/tv -broadcasting-microsoft-cx_dl_0909autofacescan06.h tml?partner=yahootix

Which Microsoft financials are you looking at? The Home and Entertainment department (which is what the Xbox is part of) posted losses of 1.2B in 2003, 1.2B in 2004, and 391M in 2005. That's hardly profitable for two years. You could read MSFT's 10-K report, or the many articles that have been written about it.

Thank you for your interest in obtaining updates from our site. To use this site, you must be running Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later. To upgrade to the latest version of the browser, go to the Internet Explorer Downloads website.

It does. See section 5. (Google HTML conversion of original Word document).

then there should be ... no penalty.

But there is. So what's your next suggestion for Microsoft?

Later this year Microsoft is planning to release a hard drive based MP3 player.

They already have. It also plays video. And it was released over a year ago.

Later this year Microsoft is planning to release a hard drive based MP3 player.

They already have. It also plays video. And it was released over a year ago.

Lemme fix that link for you
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/default.mspx

I'd say they've managed to exploit it fairly directly.

Oh, they managed to exploit it, albeit indirectly.

The difference between Vista and XP is that Vista defaults to IPv6-enabled. In an out-of-box installation of Vista, all IPv4 traffic goes through the tunneling protocol, as the grandparent suggests.

Sun has also made some boneheaded moves. Can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding. ("They Might Be Giants" reference.)

It was under XP Pro (which uses a different version of TweakUI than 2K).

I hadn't tested the problem in a while, and I'm unable to reproduce it now. Perhaps it was something that got fixed in SP2.

It was under XP Pro (which uses a different version of TweakUI than 2K).

I hadn't tested the problem in a while, and I'm unable to reproduce it now. Perhaps it was something that got fixed in SP2.

Puts a new twist on MS AntiSpyware (Beta). We'll only show you the ads we want you to see....

Longhorn has an IPv6 stack built in, find your favourite Linux distro and demand an IPv6 stack in that.

What Linux distribution doesn't have an IPv6 stack built in these days?

And for that matter, Windows users don't have to wait for Longhorn either. Windows XP has an IPv6 stack built in too: How to install IPv6

I'm actually interested in what, specifically, is lacking in OpenOffice.

You are not and it is in fact people like you that have doomed OOo to be the mediocrity it is.

Read this and you might get some enlightenment as to what is "lacking". But I doubt that.

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/

Beware windows apps with calls to SetWindowsHook() with WH_KEYBOARD or WH_KEYBOARD_LL as the idHook

Enjoy

Not quite... Check here. Scroll down to the 'Open Value Options' section. Note there are three options of Open Value licenses, one of which is subscription. It is that option that is nonperpetual and also according to this page not an option in the US or Canada.

I actually read the fine print.

From Microsoft's own site:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/open/d efault.mspx

Look at the 'Term' row, it is a two to three year span.
On the certificate that you get in the mail when you purchase an agreement you'll see this line of text:

"...provides you with rights to run the software only during the term of the agreement with Microsoft (nonperpetual)."

hence at the end of the agreement, it becomes illegal to run said software because you no longer have the rights to run it.

This wouldn't be a factor in their motivation.

Have you heard of windows activation ?

Anyone who thinks they can pirate software these days with impunity is extremely technically ignorant. You'd have to be a complete moron to run a system on a pirated server system live on the net.

And the slashdot reporting of this story seems to be a little off.... it does not say they halting support for 32bit, just that they are supporting 64 for all their server products, which they have been doing for the majority of their server systems for quite some time.

The thing thats really changed is as of .NET 2.0 we now have 64bit CLR.

Norton Internet Security 2005 AntiSpyware Edition

McAfee AntiSpyWare 2005

Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)

This is their business. Period.

It isn't correct to assume that 91/250/EEC implicitly forbids reverse engineering when the conditions of Article 6 are not met.

5. LIMITATION ON REVERSE ENGINEERING, DECOMPILATION, AND DISASSEMBLY. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Product, except and only to the extent that it is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation.

The legal effect of this is that EU member states are not allowed to pass local laws that requires the authorization of the rightholder in the situation described in Article 6.

It's a version behind, but there is a Windows Media Player plug-in available for Mac OS X.

So we're halfway there...

I think you are using some kind of auto-update feature, right?

Well, you can also use the "offline" updating from here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/

On my machine both Opera and Firefox (both should be latest versions of each) bounce me from www.windowsupdate.com to http://update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/thank s.aspx?ln=en&&thankspage=5 which says:

Thank you for your interest in obtaining updates from our site.

To use this site, you must be running Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later.

To upgrade to the latest version of the browser, go to the Internet Explorer Downloads website.

Now I'm sure you can add things to firefox to get it working, I'm just wondering what you did :)

I don't understand your tagline regarding Mosaic. You don't have to remember it, it's an integral part of any IE browser, even today. Open your M$ browser and click Help then About. Mosaic is still there and M$ still pays licensing fees for it to SpyGlass. If you don't believe me, read the history for yourself.

My opinion can be summed up in two words: Income Stream

We know that Microsoft wants to get into the content distribution business for some time now, to compete with iTunes and Tivo. Their current transport of choice is the "Windows Media Video" (WMV) format, which is optimized for streaming (RealVideo competition) while providing built-in copy protection (Apple M4P competition).

So, you have an untapped market out in Linux world, running their crazy independent browsers, and because of that, you can't guarantee that they'll be able to run all of your (protected) content. I would fathom that the the Linux demographic is largely composed of 20-30 year olds, the same demographic that would be most likely to pay for online content.

So, in order to tap the market, you have to create the content delivery mechanism, and do it in a way they'll all accept. So, now y'all get a new Add-In from Microsoft. Its one step back (not getting Linux to convert to Windows/IE) and two steps forward (more money in the bank).

How did the parent get modded up?

... until they start fixing some glaring bugs in Windows

They did http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330909 fix this bug, a long time ago with SP2, or with the individual update released about two months ago.

Do I really care if I get access to the shit on Windows Update .

The irony here is palpable. You don't care about getting updates, then complain that MS isn't fixing their bugs.

When Windows Update works like emerge, I might consider using it.

WTF? Take a stroll into the Control Panel and set your Windows Update to "Idiot" and you won't have to do a thing. Complaining about MS is one thing, but bitching about stuff they're doing right when you obvioulsy haven't taken the time to do 30 seconds of googling is just pitiful.

Um, actually I said what I said, that they should support it, like they already do with Windows XP 64.

Without a consumer OS that supports 64-bit what's the point of buying or even selling consumer grade 64-bit processors?

"By making Longhorn run poorly on 512 Mb and a single-core CPU less than 2 ghz... "

wait, we're still talking about windows right?? I dont think MS has to "make" their OS's run poorly, they just do...

If you can afford it, a commercial solution from IBM, LanDesk, or Acronis is probably going to be easier to administer. But if your like me, your on a tight budget and don't mind using free stuff that takes some massaging.

Windows:
-------------------
If your deploying Windows, then I would suggest you use M$'s free (as in beer) solution, Automated Deployment Services:

I've used this in my lab for cloning Windows 2003 instances. It's a PXE/tftp based solution. It works very similarly to IBM's RDM, LanDesk, etc.. but with a crappy administrative interface. Took all of 3 hours to setup, including my RTFM time. After setting some QOS for my server's switch ports, I had extremely good throughput from MS's 'Reliable TFTP' service, which I cannot say I had with IBM.

This same setup could be done via syslinux + slim kernel + small root fs via NFS, but don't forget the need to use Microsoft Sysprep right before you clone your image. Whichever route you go, you'll want to switch to a Volume Licensing model for your client machines, so you won't have to worry about maintaining a database of 300+ license key allocations.

to brad, i choose firefox so i wouldn't have to deal with your crappy programming skills so...i don't think i'll be installing your plugin

I see your real agenda is protecting me counterfeit software: "The Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program is part of Microsoft's on-going effort to protect its customers and partners from counterfeit software, and increase customer awareness of the value of genuine Windows XP."

Thanks for the help but i can handle that on my own!

Actually Microsoft will not go after you for purchasing Windows XP from "Honest John's Windows Stall" (or at least not 1 single copy, for 20 copies they might)

From Microsoft's web site note question "What is the genuine Windows offer?" and their answer?
"The Microsoft genuine Windows offer is designed to help customers who unknowingly purchased counterfeit versions of Windows XP, by offering those who qualify a complimentary copy or electronic license key for a genuine copy of Windows XP."

THey probably have several reason for doing this, for one you only have 20 copies, but Honest John is selling them and probably has thousands and is a much better target, for two Microsoft generally doesn't go after individual people, it just is not cost effective, three it is not particularly good PR, adn four they might not even have much of a leg to stand on if you have a legitimate claim that you didn't know the software was illegitimate.

Not saying your analogy is flawed, but you might want to pick a better target than Windows XP.

If you're even considering imaging, please don't. Try unattended. It may take a week or two and a few dozen trial installs but once you get the hang of it you will never want to go back to imaging.

Look at it this way. With unattended, you can assign different profiles to different computers, and they can inherit from each other. Say one group needs x apps, another group needs y apps, and another groops needs x y and z. With unattented that can all be maintained with three very small batch scripts. With imaging you would need to create three large images, and maintain each of them. With unattended, you maintain the master packages and all of your configurations make use of it.

Hardware detection is also easy. When I dealed with cloning I ended up having to keep multiple copies of the same image but configured for each different hardware. With unattended, you extract all the drivers into the $oem$/$1 directory and each computer's hardware is automatically detected and configured during the install. I can easly add any new hardware I want with no additional maintence.

If you need to apply different policies (without AD) learn how to use secedit. It's easy to write secedit and regedit scripts for unattended that will apply all configuration and policies automatically. Microsoft's Windows XP Security Guide covers this well.

Try unattended. You will not regret it.

Also, just as a comment to the above post, it's not neccessary that the NICs support PXE. Etherboot solves that. Etherboot gives a small (15k) image that can be put on a floppy, cdrom, lilo/grub, etc and will boot to PXE. It's not neccessary for the NIC to support it.

I suggest you use only Sysprep to change the SID. I've tried other tools, such as the one from Sysinternals.com, and they have introduced errors.

There is a download site, but Microsoft's search facility has never worked very well, and I can't find the URL now. Wait, I found it: Sysprep.exe for Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Use only the version of Sysprep.exe and Deploy.cab meant for your operating system and service pack.

When you run Sysprep, you automatically change the SID.

I suggest you use only Sysprep to change the SID. I've tried other tools, such as the one from Sysinternals.com, and they have introduced errors.

There is a download site, but Microsoft's search facility has never worked very well, and I can't find the URL now. Wait, I found it: Sysprep.exe for Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Use only the version of Sysprep.exe and Deploy.cab meant for your operating system and service pack.

When you run Sysprep, you automatically change the SID.

If you're doing windows cloning, you may want to look into this free NewSid Utility from sysinternals.

Except for the fact that doing so puts you squarely in unsupported territory. The only supported way to duplicate Windows boxes is by using Sysprep (also free and already included on your Windows CD).

Anyhow back to the point, do these window remote administration utilities allow the app to be updated while the user is still using it or provide miminum distraction compare to say an rsync?

Yes. Look into MSI. I'm not an expert on it (I'm not a Windows guy, but I've worked with some and seen what they do), so I can't tell you exactly how you use it.

You may be right but to me its still FUD since you did not name any apps and therefore I have no way to verify your claim.

Take a look here. It looks like the installer client is something you have to install on Win95/98/ME, but it's built into Win2K and later.

Yeah, that was a disaster. They switched back to BSD, and rethought it. It is currently running an all MS environment, though.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/ case/hotmail/default.mspx

That link describes how they converted from FreeBSD to a Windows 2000 server environment on IIS5.

well I think both of you are flirting with death if your systems have been running for more than 8 days

Oh, I dunno, maybe RIS?

Also, I never found any mention the 68% figure quoted in the article. In fact, there is no mention of the subject of upgrading in support of business needs at all; it deals only with deployment/use of a database server. Not to mentioned that the Windows system in the study is Server 2003, not Windows 2000, as is mentioned in the article.

In fact, now that I think about it, they MUST have linked to the wrong .pdf, because the study I read (linked above AND in the original article) have nothing to do with the statsitics quoted. (The link I followed is here.) Further, the .pdf was written in June 2005, but the article is from November...something is up...

Looking at the Microsoft site, they make no mention of those statistics either in regards to the linked report. Their summary page is here and links back to the study the article links to.

In fact, I did several google searches (and MS searches!) to try to find ANY study in the Microsoft whitepapers section that has any mention of upgrading from SUSE Linux 8 to 9, or a mention of "hitting the wall", or a mentioned on Linux taking 68% longer than Windows to upgrade to suit business needs. I found no results. In fact, there was only one result on the entire Microsoft site regarding SUSE Enterprise Linux 9, and it wasn't relevent. Oh, and Vnunet didn't provide a copy of the report as the submitter states...that link goes back to an (incorrect) page at Microsoft.

In short, can I read the study that this article is talking about? I'm curious to see what it says... =)

Also, I never found any mention the 68% figure quoted in the article. In fact, there is no mention of the subject of upgrading in support of business needs at all; it deals only with deployment/use of a database server. Not to mentioned that the Windows system in the study is Server 2003, not Windows 2000, as is mentioned in the article.

In fact, now that I think about it, they MUST have linked to the wrong .pdf, because the study I read (linked above AND in the original article) have nothing to do with the statsitics quoted. (The link I followed is here.) Further, the .pdf was written in June 2005, but the article is from November...something is up...

Looking at the Microsoft site, they make no mention of those statistics either in regards to the linked report. Their summary page is here and links back to the study the article links to.

In fact, I did several google searches (and MS searches!) to try to find ANY study in the Microsoft whitepapers section that has any mention of upgrading from SUSE Linux 8 to 9, or a mention of "hitting the wall", or a mentioned on Linux taking 68% longer than Windows to upgrade to suit business needs. I found no results. In fact, there was only one result on the entire Microsoft site regarding SUSE Enterprise Linux 9, and it wasn't relevent. Oh, and Vnunet didn't provide a copy of the report as the submitter states...that link goes back to an (incorrect) page at Microsoft.

In short, can I read the study that this article is talking about? I'm curious to see what it says... =)

you and me are probably the only people who even downloaded the PDF, much less looked at it.

vnunet linked to the wrong report
MS's short summary
The Correct PDF

[Your Complaint About /. Editors Here]

you and me are probably the only people who even downloaded the PDF, much less looked at it.

vnunet linked to the wrong report
MS's short summary
The Correct PDF

[Your Complaint About /. Editors Here]

I don't know if you RTFA, but I did...
then I looked at the linked PDF and got confused,
because that PDF is about database security.

The correct Link:
MS Summary Page
The PDF

[Your Complaint About /. Editors Here]

I don't know if you RTFA, but I did...
then I looked at the linked PDF and got confused,
because that PDF is about database security.

The correct Link:
MS Summary Page
The PDF

[Your Complaint About /. Editors Here]

The concept of a "Type Manager" is essentially what Microsoft is going for with the Vista + WinFS combination.

WinFS will allow for developers to store easily accessible meta-data about any kind of file they want. They can publish these schemas (all XML), and allow other developers to utilize this meta-data in their own applications.

Vista's explorer allows developers to extend the display of a file or folder to include this meta-data, as well as implement their own UI components for displaying non-textual meta-data, such as album art or video icons or whatever.

The key thing that Microsoft is doing that others don't seem to be (perhaps because they aren't in a position to mandate it) is that the extensibility should not come at the cost of UI consistantcy. Yes, it's awesome to be able to open a folder full of music on your computer and have that inteface be taylored to dealing with music, but it shouldn't be so different that common tasks that apply to all file types aren't possbile or are convoluted.

While these videos are somewhat outdated, they show the direction Microsoft is trying to take things and it's quite innovative:

Vista Concept Videos

In particular, the Higher Education video shows the potential of WinFS.

The concept of a "Type Manager" is essentially what Microsoft is going for with the Vista + WinFS combination.

WinFS will allow for developers to store easily accessible meta-data about any kind of file they want. They can publish these schemas (all XML), and allow other developers to utilize this meta-data in their own applications.

Vista's explorer allows developers to extend the display of a file or folder to include this meta-data, as well as implement their own UI components for displaying non-textual meta-data, such as album art or video icons or whatever.

The key thing that Microsoft is doing that others don't seem to be (perhaps because they aren't in a position to mandate it) is that the extensibility should not come at the cost of UI consistantcy. Yes, it's awesome to be able to open a folder full of music on your computer and have that inteface be taylored to dealing with music, but it shouldn't be so different that common tasks that apply to all file types aren't possbile or are convoluted.

While these videos are somewhat outdated, they show the direction Microsoft is trying to take things and it's quite innovative:

Vista Concept Videos

In particular, the Higher Education video shows the potential of WinFS.