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Rendezvous, Microsoft And Apple
serendigital writes "MacCentral reports that a BusinessWeek article entitled: 'A Rendezvous with Redmond?' has -- with Rendezvous -- created an actual threat to Microsoft. As reported by MacCentral, it's interesting to note that BusinesWeek's 'Byte of the Apple' columnist Charles Haddad is on temporary leave and this article was written by a substitute columnist."
They come out with the coolest technologies and they just work great!
WHY is this interesting to note?? Charles Haddad is nothing but an apple apologist, a real zealot. Have you read his previous articles? They are all sugar-coated for Apple. He runs the Apple column at that site, so this is to be expected of course, but I prefer more objectivity.
why?
because its open source...
Ironicly this is in redmond favor.... since if they ever see it as a threat to themselves due to their lack of such a feature, they'll simply incorporate it... And with that the advantage apple had over MS is gone.
With the major printers on board amongst others begining to support it.... I highly doubt it will take Bill long to make sure MS also supports it AND adds their own special "windows enhanced" features to it.
This whole situation is anologous to when apple made the USB only imac.... in a time when USB was common, but USB products weren't.... Apple suddenly created a greatly under-supported market.... which suddenly rushed to fill the whole with plethras of USB devices.... that didn't even take a year to become predominatly PC.
--Enter The Sig --
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Sure this "instant networking" is all very cool, but for most geeks in the know, we *want* to be able to configure till we die.
Security restrictions? Can I restrict the range of IP addresses that access my music folders? Password access? Encryption? I wanna tweak dammit! The problem with that is that as soon as you make the system more powerful and have all these geek-satisfying options, you need to be able to get down to the nuts and bolts of configuring it. Otherwise you end up in the same mess as MS, with users blindly enabling potentially insecure servers.
"In mathematics, it's not enough to read the words -- you have to hear the music"
How does security fit into DNS? Or any other low-level protocol? Does TCP authenticate your remote logins? No, but a protocol higher up on the stack does (like SSH). Rendezvous is a low-level protocol and does not deal with security. You can build an insecure web browser *g* as easily as you can an insecure Rendezvous app.
:-)
Correct me if I am wrong.
Why bother.
That's the point. It's not written by the guy who is known to be a real zealot.
If Apple creates a Rendezvous implementation for Windows I fail to see how Apple's market share will grow. It will enable PC users to get the benefits of Rendezvous without owning a Mac. It will also allow existing Mac users connect with their PC using co-workers and friends. And since it is a completely open technology the PC users will not even need a Mac involved at all. So that begs the questions, how will this benefit Apple?
Apple does not make money by packaging software and making it available for everyone to use freely. Sure they get to innovate and make their customers happy, but it does not win them more customers. This article seems to imply that creating cool technology and implementing it on a PC will help Apple. There needs to be some proprietary software in place for this to be true.
Now if they created a Rendezvous implementation for corporate environments and a Software Development Kit to be used by companies like IBM. At work I use Lotus Notes which has a messenger client. I would like to automatically find co-workers without all of the initial setup that I had to do when I started using it. I would also like to be able to monitor the servers on the network and use the printers more easily. If Apple could sell software to do all of that, and perhaps sell XServe systems with it I bet that would benefit Apple.
I really hope Apple does break into the corporate workplace. It would really simplify much of extra work that I do so I can get back to my real work.
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
Actually, if I could get a Linux laptop that did everything my Tibook does, I would. But there aren't any and most of the x86 laptops out there are trash.
Apple's desktops are the sleekest or sexiest, but unless you home build you own whacked case with neon and shit, x86 desktops look like crap too.
So I think his "Bill's boxes to Steve's elegant machines" hits the nail on the head. I still love my Linux boxen, but my Macs, for overall design and availibility of all the software I need, are better.
I believe the point that the author was making was that this is one more tool to reduce platform-dependence. The more freely programs and peripherals are able to communicate with one another across various platforms, the more Microsoft and Windows shrink into the background.
That's why MS got all fired up about stomping Netscape into the ground, because the browser is supposed to enable platform-independent computing.
Yeah, it's kind of a stretch to think of Rendezvous as a "Windows killer," but it's just one technology of many to accomplish that task.
Actually, if I could get a Linux laptop that did everything my Tibook does, I would. But there aren't any and most of the x86 laptops out there are trash.
Well, there is nothing stoping you from running Linux on your Tibook, you know.
It's quite relevant. One of the points of the article was that I/T configuration is a significant cost for companies, and the poster took it further by pointing out that competent I/T help is a factor that exacerbates the problem. The poster also correctly points out that in some places, Apple faces a severe uphill climb, because they're not even considered by some I/T "professionals" who've never given their products more than a cursory examination. In other places, I/T professionals (actual ones) have a wide grasp of technologies, not tied to a single vendor or platform, and they'll use whichever one seems to be the best value for the investment.
Apple solutions aren't always going to be the best. I'm not claiming that. I'd even go so far as to say that sometimes, using MS stuff is the right thing for a company or project, despite the fact that I detest their business practices (and think they've earned every bit of antipathy they've received). But the bottom line is: there's a world of I/T and software workers out there who'll never even consider (let alone attempt to become proficient with) technologies outside their favorites, and that's simply not professional. No company or platform out there holds a monopoly on good ideas.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Remember when you used to be able to telnet into your hosting account?
.. because users have to configure them manually, and we can't expect them to all get it right! So a zeroconf network is actually a good thing .. the details of what gets shared and open by default is left to computer security professionals instead of users who don't know any better or dont have the time/money to properly educate themselves as to how to secure a wireless network.
.. lets keep the bathwater! All we really need to do is keep aware of the design and out of the box configuration of the bathtub, and improve it as neccessary. Fortunately, even in MSes case, that is the trend. Ship or auto-configure in a conservative state, and try and limit the amount of times it becomes neccessary for people who may not be experts to tinker. (And before you jump on me, yes, it should be simple and easy for an expert to override zeroconf situations.)
People didn't have or know too much about Telnet, so default services and configs of servers wern't too "locked down" out of the box.
Fast forward, and distros and OSes are becoming increasingly locked down out of the box. Nobody who will eventually make money as a web host is letting you connect to their servers with anything less than SSH.
What many people fail to realize is that an increase in the ease with which we can 'discover' possible points of entry and visibility of services (affected by both changes in technology and increased unbiquity of access clients) results in a hightened awareness of security and generally more secure out of the box configs.
The funniest part is how many insecure WAP networks are out there
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water here
"Old man yells at systemd"
granted, I've never been inside of a mac,
Obviously.
but from what I know it's all propriety apple stuff
Then you don't know anything. No offense.
DDR RAM, IDE HDD (on a *gasp* ATA bus), AGP Video-cards, PCI expansion slots, USB, IEEE 1493 (Firewire, iLink), ZIF processors.... in every powermac sold today (and has been sold for a while).
In fact, my Powermac has a Seagate HDD, a nVidia videocard and shikatronics RAM.
I thought that this kind ignorance had disappeared, but I guess not.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
A protocol like Rendezvous is not passive. It must broadcast queries and respond to broadcast queries for this type of system to work. that goes beyond firewall and obscurity concerns. The responses to those queries must be sufficiently validated so they can't cause problems in the network. Someone could create an intentionally malicious reply that indicates the presents of certain devices that are not really there. Your machine then interfaces with that device with a certain amount of trust. If it is really a trojan on the network, how do you know? A few well times "transmission errors" or inconsistant resource replies can turn into DOS across the board.
Active discovery has to take a lot more risks than simply hunkering down behind a firewall. It must place a certain amount of "Trust but Verify" on its surroundings. You aren't always behind a company firewall. Sometimes you are sitting in the airport waiting for a flight and checking your email through the local wireless hub.
And since this is all supposed to be zero-admin, just how much hands on configuration and oversite do you think the user should be put through?
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.