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Microsoft has spent the last year working almost solely on improving Entourage to work better with Exchange. Last week they released Office 2004 Service Pack 2, which contains improvements to everything you've noted as being problems: Public folder support; sharing of mailboxes, calendars, contacts; complete global address list support; ability to do delegation... and so on and so forth. More information on MS's website.

Microsoft has spent the last year working almost solely on improving Entourage to work better with Exchange. Last week they released Office 2004 Service Pack 2, which contains improvements to everything you've noted as being problems: Public folder support; sharing of mailboxes, calendars, contacts; complete global address list support; ability to do delegation... and so on and so forth. More information on MS's website.

Download SP2 for Office 2004 and Entourage becomes a halfway decent Exchange client. Public folders work now.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=offi ce2004sp2

At Microsoft, we see a future full of potential. We're working to expand the possibilities for computing every day, by continually improving and advancing our current products and embarking on fundamental research that paves the way for tomorrow's breakthroughs. Through partnerships with universities, governments, and other companies, Microsoft is working to push the state of the art forward in ways that benefit everyone.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/innovation/

WinFS is available as an add-on to Windows XP.

And as a further note, if he replies to a Slashdot post, his/your business has already failed - you just don't know it yet. Any CEO/Executive that has time to reply (reading is ok) to trivial posts such as this one, is failing their role in his/her company. Being an Executive is a 24/7 job, and not easily condusive to "browsing the web".

It is nothing like get-apt, with get-apt can I purchase a version of StarOffice or LinuxNero online and will it store my install keys/software for it. get-apt is a means of distributing free software (it is a very very nice feature, I love it, use it all the time).. its like comparing apples and oranges. https://eopen.microsoft.com/en/default.asp is a similar site, but only organizes license keys. Since we are a reseller/installer company, we need an easy way to organize licensing information for all of our clients.. this site is a huge help.... HP has a similar site, but I havent had to use it as much.

Didn't Passport get cancelled? Are they building new systems based on a deprecated system?

It's being replaced in the upcoming Windows Communication Foundation (a.k.a. Indigo) with a more paranoid-friendly digital identity system. You can get your hands on a beta already. I expect that'll be a drop-in replacement and they need something to work with.

(In fact, MS Identity guy Kim Cameron's latest blog entry is called InfoCard Not Son Of Passport.)

http://www.microsoft.com/games/mechwarrior4/

Microsoft is now going to where the big battle bot bucks are. Hope they protect their interests!

Also, of course, I could never share documents with others at work.

I think the beauty of a text-only format like TeX and LaTeX is that you can share it with everyone. In fact, more people can make small additions to a TeX document than they can a Word document. There's also nothing for them to install, you can store the document in a revision control system and get meaningfull history (diffs), there's no hidden information inside of it, etc.

Commercial Products and Services:

ReplayTV: TiVo's ancient nemesis, it also 'just works'. I can't say whether it is more user friendly than TiVo, but it is far more customer friendly.

Windows XP Media Center Edition: Yes, them. Choose from multiple manufacturers but expect to face Microsoft Corp's version of the 'personal' computing experience.

Hardware vendors are now pushing DVD/HD Recording devices quite a bit. RCA, Motorola and Panasonic have products available.

Service Providers like Comcast and DishTV are now providing time shifting hardware and tv-on-demand solutions. Check with your choice of cable or satellite service provider.

Hobbyist Solutions:

MythTV: The Open Source, Do-It-Yourself DVR. Expect to build your own machine and play around a bit before it works the way you want. (Linux)

Freevo: MythTV, but not. (Linux)

MediaPortal: Who ever said Open Source was limited to Linux software? (Windows)

Meedio: It was a community based freeware product (myHTPC) that morphed into a commercial product without warning. Still a reasonable alternative to Microsoft for PVR function on the Windows platform. (Windows)

eyeTV: This Mac product has me seriously considering picking up a Mini-Mac to use as a media center. (Apple)

SnapStream (Windows)

SageTV (Windows)

Chris-TV (Windows)

ShowShifter (Windows)

On a personal note, I purchased the ReplayTV when it was first released and am entirely satisfied with it. Plus, by purchasing early I have never had to pay a subscription fee for data that is freely available elsewhere. If there had been a subscription fee I would not have purchased it.

Dan

OK so there's a license agreement for using MS Office XML schema's.

The terms of this agreement basically say you have the right to distribute use these schema's in any software system to READ AND WRITE Office documents ROYALTY FREE, so long as you give Microsoft credit and the real clincher is... you don't extend it.

Let's quit the emotional BS and talk tin tacs... how much input do you think the guys at OpenOffice have on the OASIS standards when it comes to the evolution of the OpenDocument format ?

A) 10%
B) 20%
C) 90%
or
D) Complete Control

Considering OpenOffice is really the only software with any footprint at all in the market place using this schema, I'm betting right now and for the immediate future it's bound to be C or but really probably D. I also think you have to be completely naive to think the OpenDocument schema comes with no strings attached, it also comes with license agreements that you have to adhere to so basically what we have really is two groups competing with each other. There's nothing wrong with that.

Microsoft invented the embrace, extend, extinguish doctrine, they're not about to let anyone use their own tactics against them. Allowing someone to extend their own schema would create a one way flow from MS Office to a competing product, documents written by competitors software in the extended MS Office schema would be incomplete when viewed in an MS Office application. I think it's reasonable for them to insist that documents based on their schema's be readable (in their entirety) by MS Office.

I personally haven't encountered an enterprise using OpenOffice, I don't know what its market share is but I'll guess and say not much, until it has a reasonable market share I don't blame Microsoft for not supporting it, that costs time, money and comprimises their OWN vision for their OWN product. The schema's Microsoft have provided give complete transparity to Office XML documents, they are clear, very well documented, any software product should easily be able to support them, allowing that software to freely manipulate and rewrite that data into any schema it likes.

Uhm, the .NET Compact Framework is totally free:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/understandin g/netcf/

but I agree eC++ is ugly and a pain.

But Symbian market share still growing.

Proof? References?

I said the kernel is written in C#..Mistake.

The "kernel" is written in unmanaged code which would be C .. I think

The Managed Operating System is what is written in C#.

VEry interesting concept. I can allready imagine..

PS: C# and LINQ .. cool .. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/future/

PSS: SNAFU = Situation Normal All Fucked Up.

No, not the same issue. If Access 1.0 had used an open format, even if I couldn't acquire a copy of a sufficiently old version of Access, I could always read the specification and implement a translator that converts to a newer format which modern software can read. Now, whether or not that's worth the effort depends on the circumstances, but it would be orders of magnitude easier than reverse-engineering the format, or finding some way to acquire the ancient software and the infrastructure needed to run it.

It appears that Microsoft is publishing the specification for Office:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/xml/xmlletter.mspx

"Microsoft will publish the new Office Open XML Format specifications with the Open and Royalty-free license that we first made available for the Office 2003 XML file formats.


And, odds are, given an open format someone else will have already written the translator and published it as open source. Especially if the format in question was widely used.

You mean something along the lines of what a myraid of programs, such as Open Office, already do for MS Office file formats?

Again I repeat: The problem that you've outlined in your example is more likely due to the age of the format in question and not so much that it's proprietary. You don't have an Access 1.0 conversion program because no one's interested in writing one.

Uses of the current version of Office already have the option of saving in XML data formats. However it's currently not the default but it is very simple to configure office applications to save in these formats by default. The next version Office 12 will save in xml by default
Don't be surprised if this ends up being a boon for Microsoft with governments upgrading to Office 2003 and/or Office 12.

I have got the the EVC free for now.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa milyid=1dacdb3d-50d1-41b2-a107-fa75ae960856&langua geid=f49e8428-7071-4979-8a67-3cffcb0c2524&displayl ang=en

Or do you mean, that if it's not opensource, it is not free? Who needs the source if the tool just works. Actually the free give away of the EVC is a part of clever Microsoft strategy to rule the mobile world. As it seams they are quite successful on that.

Anyway thanks for modders to take the typos with nice sence of humor. They are worth the Funny flag :)

I can't give any solid info, but I can give a personal anecdote.

We recently had an 8gb VSS database corrupted, with about a quarter of the files unrecoverable. If you do use VSS, remember to do a -FREQUENT- analyse and fix on the database. And keep the database below 3gb - above this, you tend to get corruption issues.

Split your VSS database into managable chunks.. and (I'll repeat this again) don't allow your database to grow out of control, and not be maintained.

I'm sure you could find a few articles on Microsoft Support KBs to back this up.. just search for Sourcesafe and Analyse.

http://research.microsoft.com/~awilson/wand/defaul t.htm

The potential's there, Nintendo's just a step ahead. Or fifty...

Its obviously good, because even though it is overhyped and overexposed, people are still buying it.

I know a lot of people who would sigh with relief, happily accept a lightweight thin client and throw out that hideous, malware-ridden fat-client piece of junk in the corner that they never understood and rarely worked properly.

That's a lot of pejoratives in there, but you know, there are reasons we moved beyond mainframe-only.

a) the day they discover their DSL's down and they need to create a report/greeting card how hard do you think they're going to swear?

b) websites like Yahoo and MSN generate huge numbers of trouble tickets for relatively simple tasks like mail. Care to provision and run a support organization to take care of hundreds of thousands of consumers running your Office Suite?

c) People need mobile access to their data. Chips are getting faster (and now, cooler). Laptops, handhelds and phones are getting more powerful (and popular) every day. You mean people are going to buy those and then wait for ages as that 25MB RAW image of their cat or 800MB hi-def video of Junior at the ball game downloads s l o w l y from their online store?

Dream on, sucker.

And oh, about that 'rarely worked properly' thing: check out Microsoft OneCare. The fact that Microsoft is the vendor is irrelevant (Apple could easily offer something similar through mac.com, I believe they already offer some online antivirus), the point is that just because current OSes have crappy self-healing doesn't mean things will forever be like that -- the combination of a 'fat' client and a fat pipe can create some amazing stuff.

I was going to write up an answer but I decided I'll jus post a bunch of links to help you with your study and enlightenment.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/h gtobeta1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml =theshow/en/Episode042/manifest.xml

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valoninput.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valongraphics.asp

http://winfx.msdn.microsoft.com/library/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnavalon/html/avalon07072004.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnlong/html/avalonmarch2005ctp.asp

I was going to write up an answer but I decided I'll jus post a bunch of links to help you with your study and enlightenment.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/h gtobeta1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml =theshow/en/Episode042/manifest.xml

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valoninput.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valongraphics.asp

http://winfx.msdn.microsoft.com/library/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnavalon/html/avalon07072004.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnlong/html/avalonmarch2005ctp.asp

I was going to write up an answer but I decided I'll jus post a bunch of links to help you with your study and enlightenment.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/h gtobeta1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml =theshow/en/Episode042/manifest.xml

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valoninput.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valongraphics.asp

http://winfx.msdn.microsoft.com/library/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnavalon/html/avalon07072004.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnlong/html/avalonmarch2005ctp.asp

I was going to write up an answer but I decided I'll jus post a bunch of links to help you with your study and enlightenment.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/h gtobeta1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml =theshow/en/Episode042/manifest.xml

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valoninput.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valongraphics.asp

http://winfx.msdn.microsoft.com/library/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnavalon/html/avalon07072004.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnlong/html/avalonmarch2005ctp.asp

I was going to write up an answer but I decided I'll jus post a bunch of links to help you with your study and enlightenment.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/h gtobeta1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml =theshow/en/Episode042/manifest.xml

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valoninput.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valongraphics.asp

http://winfx.msdn.microsoft.com/library/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnavalon/html/avalon07072004.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnlong/html/avalonmarch2005ctp.asp

I was going to write up an answer but I decided I'll jus post a bunch of links to help you with your study and enlightenment.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/h gtobeta1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml =theshow/en/Episode042/manifest.xml

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valoninput.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valongraphics.asp

http://winfx.msdn.microsoft.com/library/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnavalon/html/avalon07072004.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnlong/html/avalonmarch2005ctp.asp

I was going to write up an answer but I decided I'll jus post a bunch of links to help you with your study and enlightenment.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/h gtobeta1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml =theshow/en/Episode042/manifest.xml

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valoninput.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/building/presentat ion/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/a valongraphics.asp

http://winfx.msdn.microsoft.com/library/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnavalon/html/avalon07072004.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnlong/html/avalonmarch2005ctp.asp

Microsoft has now separated the code that controls the presentation from the actual presentation.

Have a look at the advisory yourself.

I also can't imagine that any of the clicks the advertisers get are legit. It's probably mostly accidental clicks as people are navigating around.

Of course, the best thing would be to encourage people to make their sites a little more user-friendly with more than a few words of text on each page. But barring that, some form of ad blocker that finds and kills these things would be a good idea. Maybe someone can write one for Firefox and Internet Explorer?

There's a recent article on MSDN that talks about Ajax on ASP.Net:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnaspp/html/ASPNetSpicedAjax.asp

Yes, it will. Windows Media Player comes with every freakin' PC. It has had this synching functionality for a long time. Why do Mac fans keep bringing this up?

Why do Apple fans think the iTunes/iPod integration is so much better than the integration of Windows Media Player and any device that supports playsforsure (like the Dell Ditty).

It's really freakin' easy to buy songs from or subscribe to MSN Music, Napster, Musicmatch, et al. It's really freakin' easy to synch your music using Windows Media Player. Believe it or not, some people actually dislike the iTunes app.

what's the <wbr> tag all about? IE only right? (not sure)

hitting "Ctrl-A" in firefox with the Web Developer Extension installed (W3C Markup Validation Service - form upload) gives me around 40 errors - some from the included commercials but some slashdot related too...hitting "Ctrl-H" (check by url) even gives a nice 403? doesn't really help in debugging ;)

hey do you NOT want people to check if your code is standard compliant? or do you just oppose the W3C Markup Validation Service? i know "clean HTML" doesn't really imply standard compliance - well actually i implied it...

nice tableless layout though!

• Consider .NET Development Center. MSDN has been following this documentation presentation model for years and it proved to be quite convenient for developers. You get a hierarchical API tree on the left and documentation on the right. The documentation for API groups is clumped together with nice introductory articles etc. Unfortunately it is practically impossible to generate using Doxygen.
• Doxygen is not scalable. Period. If your source base is 10 million LOC and you change one function in one tiny file, you will have to run Doxygen on your entire source base to incorporate the change.
• Neither is Doxygen geared toward generating API manuals. This is actually the worst problem with the whole situation. I've seen projects, where people would generate Doxygen style API reference and call it "documentation." Well, just having a huge list of documented function is not documentation.

Call me crazy, but I think that AoE2 is still an awesome game. And I don't know if it counts as a "game" since it's just a cinematic, but I think that the opening is genuinely moving, and it immediately sucked me into the game before I even played for the very first time. Very well done, Ensemble!

Coming with the installer? Show me too.

The Visual Studio installer was infected with the Nimda virus a few years ago. Coincidentally it was also the Korean language version that was the culprit. Here's the Slashdot discussion from 2002.

• T3h Pr3tt13z (you know, all these useless memory hogging XPThemes shits and playmobil© look&feel hiding anything you may need in places you won't find them)
  
• SP2 (firewall, MSIE SP2)
  
• IE7 compatible
  
  
• Network bridging
  
• Cleartype (distinct from "T3h Pr3tt1ez" in that it's actually useful for making text more readable on modern displays)
  
• AppLocale, which is invaluable if you need to run legacy applications in different codepages
  
• Multiple desktops
  
• Going to get WinFS

Take a look here. Note the replacement of the menus with tabs!

Interestingly, MS also shipped a Korean product infected with a virus (Nimbda). Clearly this is a case of OSS being unable to innovate on their own, stealing valuable ideas from Microsoft.

HOW YOU RIKE ME NOW HANS BRIX? :-P

These days, if people have to run MS Office, I suggest 2003 though, just for Outlook 2003. As for the rest, I couldn't really care, but I think Outlook in former versions were just too insecure and having too few safety nets.

Just search for the section titled Outlook 2003 Security here and you might be shocked by the stuff former editions didn't have. The executable attachment blocks and address book protections can be invaluable in new virus outbreaks.

Of course, a virus shouldn't even *get there* if the users were "educated" and servers filtering malicious mails, but I still think this final frontier for viruses should really be well armed as well in this day and age.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/s ep05/09-13OfficeUI.mspx Click the thumbnails on the right.

Link to Channel9 coverage http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=1147 20

Link directly to video http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/5/b/65b05 191-a526-44bc-80e5-3f5399aeb162/new_julie_larson_g reen_office12_ui_2005.wmv

Definitely, check out these screenshots, I mean I haven't tried it but this ribbon thingy doesn't strike me as intuitive as the menu paradigm we're used to.

Microsoft's Screenshot
Zdnet series of screenshots

Plus it takes loads of screen real-estate.

The proof! There is no stupid "classic mode" in Office XII!

It's not running in the kernel. It doesn't run with privileges that are above the current users. In fact, there's nothing about IE's "integration" that Mozilla isn't just as vulnerable to (in effect, anything IE can do, so can Mozilla, because IE just uses userland API's the same as Mozilla does).

A privilege elevation vulnerability exists in Internet Explorer because of the way that Internet Explorer handles Drag and Drop events. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by constructing a malicious Web page that could potentially allow an attacker to save a file on the user's system if a user visited a malicious Web site or viewed a malicious e-mail message. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability.

You appear to have confused IE with IIS, several portions of which do run in kernelspace: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo wsserver2003/technologies/webapp/iis/iis6perf.mspx

IE is more secure... if you don't use it.

I know you're joking, but as it happens, you're actually wrong.

2/2/2004: KB832894: Security Update for IE6/Windows XP: "This affects all computers with Internet Explorer installed (even if you don't run Internet Explorer as your Web browser)."

Yes, IE is that fucking bad.

IE is not free, even as in beer.

It is. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads to download a copy (though I have no clue why anyone would prefer IE6 to Firefox)