Windows 7 Memory Usage Critic Outed As Fraud

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Windows 7 Memory Usage Critic Outed As Fraud

Posted by timothy on Sunday February 21, 2010 @11:48AM from the that's-a-lotta-drama dept.

A few days ago, we ran word of a report alleging that Windows 7 consumed more memory than it should, based on a report from Devil Mountain Software; a followup post linked to Ars Technica's robust deconstruction of that claim. Now the story gets weird: Fred Flowers writes The original story quoted the company's CTO, Craig Barth on the issue. Now, InfoWorld editor in chief Eric Knorr has still more to add. From Knorr's blog at InfoWorld.com: 'On Friday, Feb. 19, we discovered that one of our contributors, Randall C. Kennedy, had been misrepresenting himself to other media organizations as Craig Barth, CTO of Devil Mountain Software (aka exo.performance.network), in interviews for a number of stories regarding Windows and other Microsoft software topics. ... There is no Craig Barth.' Knorr's post goes on to say that Kennedy has been fired from his blogging gig at InfoWorld over this 'serious breach of trust,' and that his blog will be removed."

52 of 451 comments (clear)

Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Rewind · 2010-02-21 11:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Even with all the real things you can slam Microsoft for, some people feel the need to make things up. Reminds me of that pre-Vista paper by that (I think) NZ guy that was full of stuff that even then people who had the RC knew to be false. Sensational things get page views I guess.

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1. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by gad_zuki! · 2010-02-21 12:06 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  >And the world goes on. Even if Win7 had huge memory problems, it wouldn't have stopped people from buying it.
  I doubt that. MS's Vista sales were hurt badly by its reputation. Most shops skipped over Vista completely. Apple got a little sales boost too.
  >Though I wonder how close this comes to an actionable legal issue?
  Christ, what ever happened to basic responsibility? Or buy beware? How about reading reviews before buying something or returning the product if you dont like it? Is lawsuit now the default action?
2. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by sopssa · 2010-02-21 12:14 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Vista was mostly looked badly because they introduced new security features. Features that linux zealots always yell about, like proper admin/multiple user control, securing files and directories and so on.
  The fact is, people had got used to everything being simple. When MS did add these new security features (as needed now a days), they got called about. I already see the replies mentioning how the UAC is bad and nuisance for user, so i preemptively answer here - It's a lot better than Linux's su and sudo alternatives. With su you give full control over the root account, with sudo you need to write it every time you require root account. UAC is actually a lot better than what there is available for linux, in desktop use (in command line/server use it pwns).
  Win7 is more popular now because people have got used to these features. Stupid sheep is, well, stupid and have to take generation to get used to it.
3. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by SanityInAnarchy · 2010-02-21 12:34 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Vista was mostly looked badly because they introduced new security features.
  Nope, it was how they did it.
  
  Features that linux zealots always yell about, like proper admin/multiple user control, securing files and directories and so on.
  Yep, not only did they rip off sudo (which would've been fine), they managed to screw it up.
  
  It's a lot better than Linux's su and sudo alternatives.
  I'm sure you'll tell me how...
  
  With su you give full control over the root account,
  Yep, just like UAC.
  
  with sudo you need to write it every time you require root account.
  WTF do you mean by "write it"? Did you mean, edit the sudoers file? Yeah, you could do it that way, I suppose. Or did you mean, enter your password? Nope, sudo will cache it for a certain length of time.
  
  UAC is actually a lot better than what there is available for linux, in desktop use...
  Yet you haven't explained how it's different than the above.
  
  Win7 is more popular now because people have got used to these features.
  Nope, it's because Microsoft finally got it to work, and polished performance to where Win7 is faster than XP, whereas Vista was slower than XP.
  I never claimed, and I don't think anyone claimed, that all the design decisions in Vista were bad. No, the issue is that the Vista release, like most Microsoft products, was at best beta quality, more like alpha quality. So Vista was Microsoft's way of, yet again, using their consumers as beta-testers, while collecting some revenue to justify finishing the product and releasing it as Win7.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
4. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Gregg+Alan · 2010-02-21 12:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  What in the world are you doing wrong that you get UAC prompts when opening Word? I'd like to see example steps on how to make that happen.
  
  --
  Here before all but 8486 of you.
5. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by asdf7890 · 2010-02-21 12:57 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Vista was mostly looked badly because they introduced new security features.
  This was one of the issues, yes, but not the only one and not even the most important one for many users. Vista's key problem was lack of drivers for a lot of hardware and some of the drivers available for common parts were not all that stable initially even though they passed relevant certififcation. Second came performance especially on "vista capable" (or "vista ready", which ever was the lower designation) machines (many reported significant issues on better kit too, though this situation improved greatly with service pack 1). UAC was thrid on the average user's list of hates though it sounded worse as it was usually the straw that started the major rant "it asked me for confirmation X times before very slowly failing to work because of driver problems!".
  UAC is not a bad idea, though it is not IMO particularly well implemented. They tried to so sudo but for the traditional Windows way of working (i.e. admin by default and adding blockers, where the sudo way starts unprivelaged). The result didn't fit as well as intended with Windows users processes and was sometimes overly naggy (three prompts for some file operations where sudo would need one escalation request) and just ended up being more OK buttons for clueless users to click, and to top it off it worked badly for people expecting a more linux/bsd/other way of doing thing - so essentually they failed to please either major group (i.e. neither those the feature was intended to protect nor those most likely to make a noise about such things were happy with it).
6. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by RzUpAnmsCwrds · 2010-02-21 13:02 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  With su you give full control over the root account, with sudo you need to write it every time you require root account.
  I like UAC, and I'm kind of an MS fanboy, but that's just wrong. There are solutions like gksudo that work much like UAC, including a user-friendly GUI and caching of credentials. Not to mention PolicyKit and other capability-based security mechanisms. Every major distro (e.g. Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.) has these features by default.
7. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by jpmorgan · 2010-02-21 13:13 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  However it's interesting to note that Randall Kennedy was one of the standard bearers in the public campaign against Vista. If you go through the most egregious condemnations of Vista posted to /., you'll find that a disproportionate number were sourced to Randall Kennedy at Infoworld. Many of which were about as truthful as the Windows 7 memory article.
  Kennedy has been an extraordinarily biased source about Microsoft for a long time, and over the past few years I've lost a lot of karma pointing this out. For me this feels like vindication.
8. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by tgd · 2010-02-21 13:29 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  sudo and the UAC are vastly different beasts.
  You may want to read up on winlogon, credential providers and user tokens, particularly relative to the UAC.
  The Vista and Windows 7 security model is vastly more sophisticated than out-of-the-box Linux implementations, and the UAC is related to that. Unlike su/sudo, the user does *not* transition to the administrative user, they switch between their administrative token, and the default neutered token, but in both cases other security policies can still be applied, but most importantly (especially where network security is concerned) *they still are themselves*. The network provider may or may not allow transparent use of the token across the network using the administrative token, depending on policies, but it *can*.
  The knee-jerk anti-Microsoft crowd on here tends to discount the sophistication of the Windows security model, but the reality is that its two decades more modern and more capable, particularly in networked environments, than the typical Linux system.
  That crowd could learn something by learning, in more detail, about the things they (incorrectly) discredit.
9. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Blakey+Rat · 2010-02-21 13:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yep, not only did they rip off sudo (which would've been fine), they managed to screw it up.
  First of all, Windows has had "sudo"-equivalent features for a long time-- since Windows 2000, I believe.
  Secondly, how did they screw it up? It works fine for me.
  No, the issue is that the Vista release, like most Microsoft products, was at best beta quality, more like alpha quality.
  The problem was that the OS was release-quality, but the drivers from various third-parties was beta-quality for a good year after the OS was released. (And this despite over a year of technical preview releases... fucking lazy driver writers!)
  Did Vista have bugs? Yah, it had a bug that slowed down file copies. But they were all fixed, and if you used Vista about a year after it came out it would be fine.
  (With one disclaimer: Vista was never designed to run on Netbooks, which was a market Microsoft didn't anticipate while they were developing it.)
  
  --
  Comment of the year
10. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by tgd · 2010-02-21 13:37 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  The UAC, in Vista, nagged constantly early on because of poorly written software. The UAC prompting means a program at launch either via code or manifest, or certain other compatibility-conditions (like being an installer) needs access to the user's administrative token, rather than the default neutered token. Typically that means its doing something it shouldn't have been doing, such as writing files into the installation directory rather than the user's profile (and thus needing administrative rights) or, for example, writing runtime settings into the local machine's registry rather than the user's registry.
  The UAC prompts became far less common as time went on because publishers fixed their software that was doing things that even in XP they shouldn't have been doing (and getting more secure in the process).
  They're reduced in Windows 7 primarily because a request for privilege escalation that is a direct result of a user action (based on a bunch of criteria, including a valid digital signature on the application, and I believe on the MSI that installed it) gets escalated automatically.
  You *really* should almost never see a UAC prompt. Now, if you're a developer and are doing things that need to be escalated all the time, then no shit you're going to see it a lot. But a normal end user should virtually never see one on up-to-date versions of software on Vista or Windows 7. If you are, you should contact whoever publishes the software in question and tell them to fix it.
11. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by mobby_6kl · 2010-02-21 13:42 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If Microsoft decided to sue people for spreading false information about their products, slashdot would be really in trouble!
12. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by jon3k · 2010-02-21 13:44 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  "The Vista and Windows 7 security model is vastly more sophisticated than out-of-the-box Linux implementation"
  
  SELinux is enabled by default on Fedora. I wouldn't call UAC "vastly more sophisticated".
13. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by jon3k · 2010-02-21 13:48 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  From a technical perspective I think UAC was a huge step in the right direction. From a usability standpoint I think they really shot themselves in the foot. You're assuming the exact same people are saying both of these things, when that's obviously not the case. You create this abstract group of people ("linux fanbois") and then attribute every argument against Microsoft to them as if everyone is saying the exact same thing. They're not. It's a sweeping generalization.
14. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Anpheus · 2010-02-21 14:19 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  First, let me say that SELinux is an enormously complex system that has the potential to provide huge security benefits for administrators, and that it is the bar by which other OS security infrastructure should be measured against.
  With that out of the way, you're comparing apples to orange-seeds here. UAC is merely a component of the overall security model, and should most directly be compared to gksudo, sudo and su and other methods of user-initiated rights elevation. Additionally, the Windows security model does support some really fine-grained stuff now with mandatory access controls, support for signing trusted executables and all sorts of other complexity that the IT administrator can get into if they want. It's not as easy as SELinux yet, I don't think, but it's not far away either. It's not vetted by the NSA either, so I suppose that'd be a minus.
15. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by SanityInAnarchy · 2010-02-21 14:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  First of all, Windows has had "sudo"-equivalent features for a long time-- since Windows 2000, I believe.
  Vista forced everyone to actually use them, or something similar.
  
  Secondly, how did they screw it up? It works fine for me.
  It's possible it's been fixed by now, both from Microsoft's side and from the developers' side.
  I definitely remember getting five or six separate UAC prompts during the installation of a single piece of software.
  
  The problem was that the OS was release-quality, but the drivers from various third-parties was beta-quality for a good year after the OS was released.
  If you can do that, I can claim that Linux has excellent video and wireless support, it's just those lazy driver writers. If Linux gets blamed for these things, Windows does, too.
  But it's also not the drivers that made it take far longer to boot than XP, while Win7 took less time than XP. Little, measurable performance hits like that is a big part of why I didn't upgrade.
  
  Vista was never designed to run on Netbooks, which was a market Microsoft didn't anticipate while they were developing it.
  Linux was never "designed" to run on Netbooks either, it's just flexible enough that it doesn't matter.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
16. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Nazlfrag · 2010-02-21 14:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There's a real difference between Gutmann's early Vista analysis and this smear campaign. Gutmann was trying to peer behind a veil of secrecy to find what Vistas content protection looked like and sure he missed the mark but it was an honest attempt to evaluate what the future held based on MS, ATI and other presentations, press releases and patents.
  Whereas this guy is clearly a shill out to smear MS based on blatant fabrication.
17. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by emjay88 · 2010-02-21 14:55 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  i think you'd appreciate this.
  
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  1178161 is prime...
18. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Ralish · 2010-02-21 15:14 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Depends what you mean by "vetted"; the NSA created SELinux, so nothing really compares to that, but they've regularly put out security guides in conjunction with Microsoft for every major Windows release (as well as for other operating systems). They're always comprehensive and a very solid resource on hardening Windows systems to varying extents, not to mention good learning material. Just don't get too overboard, a lot of the suggestions take security to extremes, to the extent that you'll definitely break a large number of programs by removing permissions and modifying defaults that they'd never expect to encounter (I say this from experience). They definitely don't get the attention they deserve:
  Windows 7 Security Compliance Management Toolkit
19. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Artifakt · 2010-02-21 15:24 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Back in Win 95 days, Microsoft could have required all 3rd party software to use .ini files located in that software's main directory, or they could have required them to all use the registry, and use it in specified ways. Microsoft could have told every 3rd party company wanting that valuable Windows compatible logo on their box to use some method that would have directly helped MS's security and/or indirectly helped intelligent users who were concerned enough about security to want policy level control even then, and even then MS had enough market share to make it stick. Instead, they definitely let some companies ignore the usual rules and apparently relaxed them further whenever MS's marketing wanted to brag about how much software was windows compatible. (The first is something some of Microsoft's key people have admitted to, the second is an outsider's inference, and I'm sure there are people who would disagree with me on it.)
  I'm hoping Microsoft has actually made all 3rd party sources write to some standards this time, and true support for multiple users under Microsoft's long standing model dictates, as you imply, that this should be under the user profile rather than in the install directory. What worries me is that Microsoft may still give some companies, such as Norton, favored status at bending the rules. I'm waiting to adopt 7 in part because I don't know how firm Microsoft has been on security. Microsoft had certainly transitioned from the Win 95-98 first ed. days of having a big market share but with room to grow, to one that had 95% of the market and no place to go but stagnate, well before Vista came out, but they didn't seem to have learned the lesson at all by then, which may be why I doubt they have fully learned it just yet.
  
  --
  Who is John Cabal?
20. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Bigjeff5 · 2010-02-21 15:53 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That's all fine and dandy, but the GP, or GGP, or whoever, wasn't talking about SELinux, they were talking about sudo specifically and UAC specifically, and between the two frameworks each of these items resides in the Windows framework is far more granular and robust.
  Windows 7 isn't billed as a hardened OS, just a secure OS, and it indeed fits that description very well.
  
  --
  Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
21. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by Bigjeff5 · 2010-02-21 16:22 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  First of all, that's not Microsoft's fault, that's the fault of that installer. I'm not sure exactly what would cause that, but I'd wager that it could happen if the installer runs a bunch of different programs to take care of sub-tasks-- usually Windows handles this seamlessly, though, which means that it must be doing it in a funky way.
  If the software follows Microsoft's best practices for security by installing itself in the proper directories, there is no UAC interaction at all. None. I've installed a number of programs like this. If a piece of software insists on installing itself in protected directories, or insists on running with administrative privileges, you may want to think twice about running it. Those are the kinds of software that open gaping holes in your PC's security.
  I'd wager the GP's software was attempting to do something it really had no business doing, and every time the installer did something unsafe, UAC double checked with the user first. It's annoying, yes, but only when you install shitty software, and it's really exactly the type of behavior you should want out of your security system.
  If the software really did need all that access to do something legitimate, and if they publisher had bothered to test it with Windows 7 and discovered the problem, Microsoft would have added an exception specifically for their software to group all the UAC requests into a single request to streamline the process. They do that kind of backwards compatability stuff all the time.*
  *They actually tried not to do this with Vista even though they did it for every previous version of Windows. That was part of the reason there were so many incompatibilities between XP and Vista, and it bit them in the ass. They reverted back to their old policy for Windows 7, and even put a seemless XP VM in the business and ultimate editions.
  
  --
  Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
22. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by complete+loony · 2010-02-21 17:49 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Some of that "poorly written software" was window's own control panel. In a number of cases there was very poor separation between user customisation and administration of system settings.
  
  --
  09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
23. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by heffrey · 2010-02-21 19:42 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I don't think you've got this UAC thing straight yet.
  I've never seen an app manifested as require-admin that didn't really need admin. If an app is not manifested then it runs virtualized and accesses to restricted areas get redirected to the virtual store. I think that most slashdotters see more UAC than more typical users because they are called in to do system maintenance.
  My wife got a Vista laptop around 9 months ago. A few months after she first got it I asked her what she thought about UAC. She replied, "What's UAC?" When I showed her she said that she'd seen that watching me using my machine, but never on her own machine.
24. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by LinuxAndLube · 2010-02-21 21:28 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  + 5, psychedelic for using enormously complex system and huge security benefits in the same sentence.
25. Re:Eh wouldn't surprise me... by weicco · 2010-02-21 22:26 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I'd say that the UAC in Vista nagged constantly early on because it was written to complain about software that was written to standard procedures at the time.
  There's a heck load of software which doesn't follow even the basic instructions found in MSDN. Also there is many programmers who doesn't even know that MSDN has these instructions. There is even programmers who don't know what MSDN is!
  
  There is nothing inherently "poorly written" about writing to the current working directory
  You do know that you shouldn't trust current working directory, don't you? There's this thing that even if application is installed in the folder X it can be started from folder Y and now your current workind directory points to Y. What's the problem in asking the Operating System where %APPDATA% is?
  
  Windows has added dozens of new layers of "default" directories over the years
  
  And they all can be found via environment settings.
  
  Also, seeing as how applications were allowed to do more or less anything in XP / NT
  No they weren't. User let them by running them with administrator privileges.
  
  --
  You don't know what you don't know.
Re:Reason by Beelzebud · 2010-02-21 11:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

That's simple. Money.
The fraud was not in the claims about Windows by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-21 12:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

from what it looks like. Rather, it was about the identity of the blogger. It looks like he was a paid blogger for InfoWorld and a Windows performance analyst at the same time, and wrote the Windows memory consumption post under a pseudonym without disclosing the relationship to InfoWorld. It doesn't mean the memory consumption article's contents are faked or wrong. Its conclusions are disputed, but that's a a separate issue. The issue is disclosure of its authorship.
1. Re:The fraud was not in the claims about Windows by TheRaven64 · 2010-02-21 12:21 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No, he lied about his identity. He was just plain wrong about Win7. He's a liar and an idiot, but they're separate issues.
  Fortunately, my user CSS puts a big red [IDIOT WARNING] after any link to InfoWorld, so I didn't make the mistake of clicking on it and giving them some ad revenue.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
2. Re:The fraud was not in the claims about Windows by Beelzebud · 2010-02-21 12:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I really don't think it was a case of him merely "being wrong" about Win7. His software company sells a suite that is supposed to make Windows "run better". He had a direct motivation for lying about the performance of Windows. That's fraud in my book, and not merely "being wrong".
3. Re:The fraud was not in the claims about Windows by postbigbang · 2010-02-21 12:50 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  See http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=75498&messageID=1468379 for what he claims he is and does.
  
  --
  ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Re:Reason by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-21 12:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well, I'm sure Apple is a little worried considering Windows 7 is actually good. Now, it's still Windows but let's be honest, it's pretty good. Consider UNIX has been around for getting on 40 years meanwhile Windows is what, 15 years old? Given that I would say yeah it's starting to getting pretty decent.
Maybe Mr Kennedy ... by WrongSizeGlass · 2010-02-21 12:20 · Score: 4, Funny

... just had a memory problem of his own?
Re:Reason by WrongSizeGlass · 2010-02-21 12:23 · Score: 5, Funny

I wonder what his motivation for lying like about it was.
I'm not sure, but Craig Barth is an anagram for Hair Grab Ct, which is obviously the location of the next clue.
Stay Glassy.. by greg_barton · 2010-02-21 12:24 · Score: 4, Funny

Was he also CEO of Jukt Micronics?
More information by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-21 12:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

ZDNet, an InfoWorld competitor, was about to go public with an exposé on Randall C. Kennedy and Devil Mountain Software, but InfoWorld actually beat it to the punch by disclosing the matter itself.
InfoWorld's editor in chief, Eric Knorr, should be commended for dealing this matter quickly and decisively when he discovered Mr. Kennedy's deception. At the same time, he should think very carefully about the series of decisions that led to this outcome.
Randall C. Kennedy was an InfoWorld blogger known for his outrageous, inflammatory posts. Often these posts appeared to disregard the facts, overinflate the issues, or otherwise ignore the tenets of basic journalism in favor of sensationalism and manufactured furor. Doubtless InfoWorld appreciated the traffic such posts drove to its site. What it should have realized, however, was that beyond contributing to InfoWorld's success, Mr. Kennedy had a personal incentive for generating that traffic: promoting his own company, Devil Mountain Software. With that as his motive, he had far less incentive to consider InfoWorld's journalistic integrity when crafting his blog posts. Preserving that integrity was the job of InfoWorld's editorial staff. They failed to do so.
Compounding the issue is InfoWorld's decision to partner with Mr. Kennedy on the "Windows Sentinel" project, InfoWorld's in-house branded version of Devil Mountain Software's exo.performance.network Windows monitoring product. The original post announcing Windows Sentinel is currently hidden behind a password, but the Google cache clearly shows that InfoWorld was aware that Mr. Kennedy was behind Devil Mountain Software all along:

Today, I'm happy to announce the beta version of InfoWorld Windows Sentinel, a joint project with the exo.performance.network founded by InfoWorld Contributing Editor Randall C. Kennedy. ... According to Randall, the main point is "to develop a more concise picture of the Windows computing landscape.
InfoWorld's editorial staff should have seen that allowing a contributor to use InfoWorld's brand to promote his own company's products and/or services constituted a conflict of interest at best, and at worst, a serious breach of InfoWorld's responsibility to provide truthful, unbiased reporting to its readers.
InfoWorld needs to think very carefully about how to proceed in future if it hopes to recover its integrity after this incident. In an age where publications are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their power to drive revenue, it is more important than ever that editors take a stand for the paramount importance of high-quality, thorough, accurate reporting and editorials, untainted by financial interests or the pursuit of personal gain. InfoWorld stumbled by continuing to support Randall C. Kennedy when it should have, at the very least, questioned his judgment. It can and must do better.
1. Re:More information by Nefarious+Wheel · 2010-02-21 12:48 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  In an age where publications are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their power to drive revenue, it is more important than ever that editors take a stand for the paramount importance of high-quality, thorough, accurate reporting and editorials, untainted by financial interests or the pursuit of personal gain. InfoWorld stumbled by continuing to support Randall C. Kennedy when it should have, at the very least, questioned his judgment. It can and must do better.
  I suspect you are the editor of a publication in competition to InfoWorld. Your arguments are carefully thought out, your written English is impeccable, your paragraph construction is correct, you are careful with names and you're posting Anonymous Coward.
  Nothing wrong with all that (or anything wrong with your post) but it's a shame I can't add you to my friends list. I would have, for that post.
  
  --
  Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
2. Re:More information by recoiledsnake · 2010-02-21 14:01 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  InfoWorld's editor in chief, Eric Knorr, should be commended for dealing this matter quickly and decisively when he discovered Mr. Kennedy's deception. At the same time, he should think very carefully about the series of decisions that led to this outcome.
  Wrong, looks like he knew all along.
  From http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=75498&messageID=1468379 [zdnet.com]
  
  IDG knew. Galen Gruman, Executive Editor of InfoWorld knew. As
  did Eric Knorr. And several others. But poor Gregg Keizer - hey,
  the man was looking for an anti-Microsoft angle at every turn, and
  he let his zeal get the best of him. I honestly never meant any
  harm, especially to Gregg.
  Slashdot should ban all articles from InfoWorld. After all, most of the anti-Vista fud articles posted here were written by Randall Kennedy.
  One example among the many: Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/11/0110251
  
  --
  This space for rent.
3. Re:More information by irockash · 2010-02-21 14:10 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Based on your acute observations I suspect he meant to post on a sight other than /.
  I'll say...
So what about Gregg Keizer? by JoshuaZ · 2010-02-21 12:47 · Score: 4, Interesting

According to the linked reports (both those in the summary and this one at ZDNet- http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=31024) the only reporter for InfoWorld who "Barth" was quoted by was Gregg Keizer. This raises a question: Did Keizer know about this deception? And if not, how did he get contacted by Barth initially? It is possible the Keizer was deceived but some sort of answer would be nice.
Funny, I hired him for a job once by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-21 13:03 · Score: 3, Informative

We used to use him to cobble up sales plans. He'd do some performance reports under a pseudonym, quote these fake 3rd parties in a report, then we'd produce a whole range of sales materials quoting all these 'different' sources and the roll up.
Took the analysts about a year to figure out that it was just one guy. Which was fine because the guy was hard to handle. He was like a teenager. When we fired him, he turned into a big problem.
NEWS! Slashdot doesn't check facts, gets letter. by History's+Coming+To · 2010-02-21 13:05 · Score: 3, Funny

So Slashdot posted a second hand story from another site with a (potentially) misleading headline, without checking the facts, because it would drive traffic? And now they've had a letter from a lawyer? Big surprise. I'd be proud to get banned for this post.

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Re:Reason by Trev311 · 2010-02-21 13:11 · Score: 5, Funny

That's simple. Money.
Slashdot get trolled, news at 11 by beakerMeep · 2010-02-21 13:25 · Score: 4, Informative

I wonder if Slashdot will follow up on the anti-adobe fake-flash-developer cant-handle-mobile-development-becuase-there-are-no-roll-overs troll that's further down? Yeah unlikely.

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meep
Re:Doesn't make memory usage good though. by im_thatoneguy · 2010-02-21 14:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

Were you needing that memory for something else and when you did, did Windows 7 not give it up immediately?
I see these sorts of posts all the time and wonder what exactly it is that all these people want unused RAM for. I payed for it. I want it in use dammit! And unless you're on a notebook there is no reason to not have 4-8GB of RAM. Even DDR3 RAM is now less than $20 a gig. So what you're saying is no OS should use more than $5 of RAM?
Yup... by recoiledsnake · 2010-02-21 14:33 · Score: 5, Informative

That guy was behind a lot of anti-Vista FUD, especially stuff that was reported here on Slashdot.
Some samples here:
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/23/1710245
Researchers Sour on Vista Service Pack 1 Performance

Researchers from the Devil Mountain Software group is claiming that a series of in-house benchmark tests showed that users hoping to receive a speed boost from the update will be disappointed.
"Devil Mountain ran its DMS Clarity Studio framework on a laptop Barth described as a "barn burner" -- dual-core processor, dedicated graphics, and either 1GB or 2GB of memory -- to compare performance of the SP1 release candidate that Microsoft released last week with the RTM version that hit general distribution last January. The Vista RTM was not updated with any of the bug fixes, patches or performance packs that Microsoft has pushed through Windows Update since the operating system's debut. 'One gigabyte, 2GB [of memory], it didn't make a difference,' said [CTO Craig] Barth. 'SP1 was never more than 1% or 2% faster.'"
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/08/18/2016228.shtml
One Third of New PCs Downgraded To XP?

"More than one in every three new PCs is downgraded from Windows Vista to Windows XP, either at the factory or by the buyer, said performance and metrics researcher Devil Mountain Software, which operates a community-based testing network. 'The 35% is only an estimate, but it shows a trend within our own user base,' Craig Barth, the company's CTO, said. 'People are taking advantage of Vista's downgrade rights.' Last year, Devil Mountain benchmarked Vista and XP performance using other performance-testing tools and concluded that XP was much faster. Barth said things haven't changed since then. 'Everything I've seen clearly shows me that Vista is an OS that should never have left the barn.'"
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/02/1418252
IE8 Beta 2 Fatter Than Firefox and XP

"Consuming twice as much RAM as Firefox and saturating the CPU with nearly six times as many execution threads, Microsoft's latest beta release of Internet Explorer 8 is in fact more demanding on your PC than Windows XP itself, research firm Devil Mountain Software found in performance tests. According to the firm, which operates a community-based testing network, IE8 Beta 2 consumed 380MB of RAM and spawned 171 concurrent threads during a multi-tab browsing test of popular Web destinations. InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy speculates that Microsoft may be designing IE8 for the multicore future. But until your machine sports four or eight discrete processing cores, IE8 will remain 'porcine,' Devil Mountain's Craig Barth says."

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1. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-21 15:34 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Doesn't matter. In my book, caught submitting false data, all data should be tossed out. Everything this guy has ever claimed is now suspect.
Re:NEWS! Slashdot doesn't check facts, gets letter by selven · 2010-02-21 15:35 · Score: 5, Informative

If you actually read the story in question on Slashdot, you'll see everyone point out what an idiot whoever put the story up is and explain that the whole point of memory is that you use close to 100% of it since every byte you use makes things go faster. It's been this way for years. kdawson et al's anti-MS biases get on the front page, and everyone kicks them down (unless they're justified).
Not quite. by bhpaddock · 2010-02-21 16:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

UAC is quite different from su / sudo.
Windows NT has always supports the notion of "root" level (aka "Administrator") accounts and standard or limited user accounts. It has also long supported "runas" - the equivalent of sudo. The purpose of that is to allow a standard user to run a program in the context of another user, generally an Administrator, on the same desktop.
UAC, on the other hand, could be called the opposite of "sudo." Instead of running specific processes as a more privileged user, it allows an Administrator to run processes as a LESS privileged user, with varying privilege levels. Technically, Windows has also supported something like this in the past via Discretionary Access Control mechanisms and custom security tokens. UAC brings several additional pieces to the table such as: Mandatory Access Control, more direct user/system control over this behavior, and various bits of supporting infrastructure to make it both more secure (i.e. UIPI) and more compatible with existing programs (File System and Registry virtualization, for example).
UAC also allows programs such as IE and Chrome to run at below-standard privilege levels ("protected mode" or "sandbox" mode), enables secure consent prompts for elevation (more convenient and often more secure versus credential prompts which are vulnerable to spoofing attacks), and more.
So no, UAC is not a ripoff of sudo.
Re:Windows 7 does use too much ram. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-21 17:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

As has been explained countless times, yes Windows 7 uses more memory BUT it uses most of it as disk cache. It's more like Linux now compared to older versions of Windows. Using otherwise unused memory for disk cache is a good thing and does not affect application performance or available memory negatively.
Re:Good for them.. by Endo13 · 2010-02-21 17:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

I am somewhat mystified how Mr. Kennedy thought that spreading FUD would actually help his career. Interesting tact..
It did, until those pesky things called "facts" got in the way.

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Re:Reason by dontmakemethink · 2010-02-21 19:17 · Score: 4, Funny

Makes sense, he lies to get money, lies about money to get sex, then gets fucked.

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War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
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