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Google Reportedly Ditching Windows
Reader awyeah notes a Financial Times report that Google is ditching the use of Windows internally. Some blogs have picked up the FT piece but so far there isn't any other independent reporting of the claim, which is based on comments from anonymous Googlers. One indication of possibly hasty reporting is the note that Google "employs more than 10,000 workers internationally," whereas it's easy enough to find official word that the total exceeds 20,000. "The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google's Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google. ... 'We're not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,' said one Google employee. ... New hires are now given the option of using Apple's Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. 'Linux is open source and we feel good about it,' said one employee. 'Microsoft we don't feel so good about.' ... Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from 'quite senior levels,' one employee said. 'Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,' said another employee."
They probably use this one.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
Aaaand ... after reading TFA, it confirms ChromeOS and dogfooding:
Employees said it was also an effort to run the company on Google’s own products, including its forthcoming Chrome OS, which will compete with Windows. “A lot of it is an effort to run things on Google product,” the employee said. “They want to run things on Chrome.”
Put identity in the browser.
Except OS X isn't more secure. That's why it's always the first gone at pwn2own competitions.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
This is the Financial Times, not the New York Post, Mac OS Rumors, or some random blog. This reminds me of when the Wall Street Journal was reporting that Apple was going to Intel, and Slashdot said, "Never going to happen." Of course, it did happen. Folks, when a major newspaper like the FT, WSJ, or New York Times reports something, it's probably true. Which makes this very interesting. I think the most interesting aspect will probably be that feature parity for things like Google Chrome will probably benefit--no longer will Chrome, or Google Toolbar, or Google Earth lag behind on Linux and Mac, because Google employees are using Linux or Macs, because now Google employees will be using Linux and Macs.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Tell me... what IDE runs on ChromeOS? Where's the Emacs for Android? When I see that, we'll talk. Until then, I don't think that Google's going to be able to migrate it's most vital employees (engineers) to "eat their own dogfood." Might be interesting to migrate support staff, but that's not where the heart of Google is.
Well.... since ChromeOS is built on Ubuntu I'll bet that anything that runs on Ubuntu should run on ChromeOS.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
This is a new Symphony, entirely unrelated to the old product, build on top of Eclipse technologies and forked OpenOffice code.
http://symphony.lotus.com/
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
OS X has all the nice overflows, poor to no memory protection, problems with users ect that most consumer quality OS face.
Actually not really. It's not as prone to buffer overruns as C++ or C would be, thanks to Objective-C used to write most apps.
Also with Snow Leopard, it has fairly good memory protection at this point.
And the users are more partitioned off, because there are no programs that demand you run as admin the way you find Windows programs that flake out... not to mention no open ports by default.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, the number of unnecessary and undesirable services automatically deployed with Windows operating systems is quite profound. The automatic sharing of the C: drive as \\hostname\c$\, for example, has been nearly impossible to turn off for even a competent systems administrator without ripping out parts of the operating system you may want.
Shall we review the security risks of the almost mandatory use of dynamic DNS associated with Active Directory? Or the very poor security models of overburdening the Kerberos server underlying Active Directory with graphical and non-security related tools which have _nothing_ to do with that absolutely critical security service, yet are mandatory with the Windows "Server" releases required to run an Active Directory server? Or the denial of service attacks possible against an Internet-exposed Exchange server because it simply cannot handle a reasonable amount of direct SMTP traffic, especially broadly distributed spambots?
The Linux boxes simply do not run all these services and have all these vulnerabilities when they come out of the box because they don't _activate_ such services without giving the owner a patch to patch their systems. And users are not forced to run "Internet Explorer", that festering cesspool of security vulnerabilities, because someone locked the software update mechanism to a web browser with too many "features" to possibly secure.
windows key + r /u:domain\user application.exe
runas
return or enter key
when prompted enter your password
use a- prefix accounts within a group on the domain for local administrator access.
use normal accounts for login and day to day.
I don't care about the OS "fighting" but make sure you look at all the details first.
I have spoken with 4 Google employees, all who have given the same information.
They are moving to Mac or Linux, employee's option.
Exceptions are only given on a case-by-case basis.
Bullshit. I do a great deal of C/C++, R, C# development on XP and very, very rarely need to run anything as administrator. I can't even remember the last time I had to runas Admin other than installing software.
People managed to check email, schedule tasks and appointments, manage contacts and keep notes before Outlook came on the scene. There may no good one-stop alternative, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. Outlook is a bloated monster that, if running on its own, uses a horrible flat file database, and if running on a network, uses Exchange, which, when it works is great, but as anyone who has to debug it when it goes nuts knows, can be an absolute nightmare.
But there are some web-based apps like Zimbra and Gmail which are pretty darned good and that's certainly the direction my organization is looking at as we expand. Outlook-Exchange is absurdly expensive, and at some point you have to weigh the costs of all those Exchange CALs (not to mention all the Server CALs for accessing file and printer shares). For us its pure economics. With limited budgets and the need to expand, we're between a rock and a hard place, and if it means moving to a somewhat less convenient web-based mail/scheduling system, well, that's just the way it will be.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Do you see now why that won't be a problem for Google?
That's because the hackers want a Mac, not some lame old Windows box.
Sorry, but the contestants do not decide the order in which they attack the target computers. They are allocated timeslots randomly to each system. The Mac fails first because they haven't implemented some of the basic security precautions that the other operating systems have.
You can right click on any app in XP and choose "Run As". Same as sudo.
Very hard to find accounting programs that do not require Windows OS.
When you're a $24B company, you don't use Quickbooks. You use Oracle Financials or SAP, neither of which require Windows.
It works just great as a DAW controller. You project all kinds of knobs and sliders on the screen and use TouchOSC or something to control your gear or draw your automation with. Surely a lot more useful than a dedicated controller which does nothing else at all besides controlling, and which has a fixed surface. Ever heard of the Jazzmutant Lemur? Like that - only cheaper.
Keynote and Pages replace 99.99% of what most office workers due in PowerPoint and Word. Plus, they're more intuitive and have better graphics capabilities.
A long time linux user, I sent in a resume to google HR in India and they
replied asking me to resend in MS Doc format!
No need for online things like zimbra or gmail, the built in Mail, iCal and Address Book apps all have exchange integration, and between the three of them, cover all the functionality that Outlook does.
We'll see how long it takes Google to start frantically doing the back-stroke.
I don't think we will see Google doing a backstroke anytime soon. When you think about how badly Google was compromised, and what someone could do to them if they are every compromised like that again. What are their options.
1. Find a way to live without Microsoft and all the software that will ONLY run in a MS Environment.
or
2. Give to it, take the easy way, run MS software and just expect that you can survive any system breach no matter how badly you are compromised.
If it takes 5 years and a billion dollars, I am sure it will be worth it to Google in the long run. Also note. Google is not "talking" about switching. They are not trying to get a better price from Microsoft. They just quietly started to mandate that MS is not an option any longer.
vi +
How is objective-c any less prone to a buffer overrun than C++?
Because more strings are likely to be C null-terminated strings in a C++ program, where pretty much every string in an Objective-C application will be an NSString.
Yes I know C++ also has string collection classes, they just aren't used with as much consistency.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley