People can bitch about the apparent tunnel-visioned business model that they adopt with WGA. The fact of the matter is that if the tables were turned and Apple were the most dominant and pervasive OS, there would be similar tactics employed. You bet your life that Apple would hunt you down with their 'iCanDoNoWrong' activation software. It's just that way it is, being a monopoly, good or bad.
Microsoft is in business to make money and do the bidding of its shareholders, period. If one accepts that fact, then expect that they have to do something to protect their interests because it does affect their bottom line. Again,/. people might not care but then again, it's not your bottom line, on the line.
Not so many years ago, Steam arrived on the scene in the PC games world. Everyone moaned and complained. Groups formed to try and find ways to circumvent it (and I suspect they still do). Everyone said it was organised spying because the software had to 'phone home', nobody wanted to activate their game on-line. Now, Steam does a whole lot more than just phone home, it's practically Borg! Yet, I don't really have a problem with it. Maybe Microsoft could use their model instead? It certainly doesn't treat legitimate customers as potential criminals as far as I can see.
I accept that WGA is just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. However, if one accepts that there is a global piracy problem for Microsoft to deal with, how would/. people solve it? Don't bother to chime in 'Make it free' or 'Make it Open Source and then I'll pay for it' or 'sell it for peanuts because no-one will pirate it then' - yeah, right. Business is business.
It does look dreary, dull and univiting to get work done. They might as well have put it in the storage basement, at least that might have had some cachet. Ok, I know it's only a conference room afterall but urghhh.
Without trying to be too pedantic (or too serious), these rooms are for serious emergencies. There are plenty of other Microsoft departments dealing with day-to-day security and bug fixes. The most obvious I can think of is QFE (Quick Fix Engineering team).
Although this is a monumental cock-up, I am not that surprised. HMRC is a recent merge of two big heavyweight Government agencies - Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. If that wasn't hard enough to deal with, during the last year or so, the Government has decided that there are too many civil servants (might well be true) but has simply decided to lay off huge numbers of employees with little consultation of forethought as to how the work would continue under the same pressures and targets. Let's not even talk about the implementation of the IT systems which far from helping automate or compliment the workload, it has generally increased it.
I find it hard to believe that in 2007, an agency like HMRC continues to correspond with other Government agencies by courier when we are talking about such sensitive and massive quantities of UK citizen data. Even if it were sent by secure FTP or something, it wouldn't have been very much trouble to do. It's a dark day for everything British.
Sometimes you wish Steve had a official spokesman to speak on Microsoft's behalf but in this instance, I think he as a valid point. Windows Mobile has actual devices and actual customers, in large quantities at the moment, whatever your personal feelings towards him. But he did say he welcomed the competition. It still remains to be seen what form this will take. People are still speculating over whether there will be a Google branded phone, rather than just a software platform for others to plug into and develop. I hope they do go for it, it can only be good for competition, maybe even ruffle a few feathers at Apple. The cunsumer should win (hopefully).
It's not that inevitable. What ever Apple does in this space, it has to be a success for them to bother in the first place, they have to get it right. They don't have the luxury of throwing good money after bad, making half-baked products, simply because others are already doing it. Also, being a software and hardware vendor, it makes it even more important to pick the right battles. I personally think they've picked the wrong product. They already have multiple desktop form factors, laptops, servers and even a set top box but this is one diversification too far. Unless, this is where they see the whole personal computer market heading....
Here we go again.
Even integrating Apple's touch technology into the current desktop mix would create a whole new way of computing... Er, no. This way of computing already exists and has done for quite some time. I bet you thought the IPhone was a whole new way of communicating too. Oh dear. If the rumours turn out to be true, I welcome the competition it will undoubtedly spark because that can only be good for personal computing in general. Don't delude yourself into thinking that they're about to create a whole new market that didn't exist before. I fully expect Apple's marketing machine to turn this into another media hype circus but the end result will be just another form factor to add to the list.
Er, haven't your read, the same problem occurs under Tiger too...
10.5.0 has only been out for a week and all I've seen so far are people bitching about 10.5.0's ultra lean firewall which has actually regressed from 10.4.10; the Java incompatibilities; the Trojan, dressed as a codec specially for the Mac and now fundemental problems copying from one volume to another external volume. Though it pains me to say it, it's a big software project which only gets bigger at every release and things will never be perfect from day one. Even Apple make mistakes. Long gone are the days when testing was everything. Face it, YOU are the test and hopefully, it might be fixed in a point release if enough people are vocal about it.
The problem for Apple is that if they manage to gain new customers who purchase Leopard, it'll be harder to hide behind some of Microsoft's recent own goals in Windows Vista when they have some whoppers of their own to deal with. That core, evangelistic following of everything 'i' will have a smaller voice against the swell of must-have junkies that might be tempted to switch because they already own an IPod or IPhone but cry foul when they see no real difference with their Windows experience. Apple sets itself up with such lofty values and ideals and at a measureable premium, no wonder people are upset with even the little things.
But I thought Macs had no step 3!! That tickled me a little... Only time will tell whether this trojan manages to infect large numbers of Mac users. It's inevitable that they will be subject to more attacks as they become more popular. It doesn't matter how smart the average Mac user thinks he/she is. Far too many do not have any malware protection installed, much like the blissfully unaware Windows 98 users of old. For many, it will be like turning back the clock 10 years...
So what is your solution? If you accept that Windows is the most used OS in the world, equating to 100's of millions of installations and that Microsoft loses a lot of revenue due to software piracy, you would expect that they would want to do something to curb what is a big problem. You only have to look at the Asian market in particular, where piracy is so rife that even government agencies are far from compliance. Do you shrug your shoulders and hope they'll cough up one day? Do you write it off and just be thankful that they want to use your product/s? Or do you actually do something about it because it has a real effect on the bottom line?
Clearly, no protection is ever foolproof and the nature of anti-piracy makes everyone a suspect first, a customer second. But that doesn't stop the need to do something to curb the problem. Passports can be forged; driver's licenses can be forged; money can be forged. Yet this hasn't stopped governments from issuing them.
I don't know anyone who hasn't used Winzip at some point but I know of zero non-corporate customers have actually bothered to pay for it I dread to think how much money Winzip has lost over the years. Even they are now doing something about it in their later versions.
As an aside, I sometimes wonder, if Apple had become the most dominant force on the desktop, would they be experiencing the same piracy problem? If so, how they would be controlling piracy - would they be any kinder to genuine customers? I rather suspect that in the end, business is business.
I have had a look at http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html and I have to say that some of those "features" that the iWorld are going to have to cough up for, are quite laughable. Six of these features are screensavers - SCREENSAVERS people! Twenty-four of these "features" bundled into an update for iChat and include such innovative things as 'More Smileys'. Oh dear. If Microsoft attempted to get away with this kind of marketing, they'd be fighting lawsuits in Massachusetts or the EU by now.
I don't need to go too deep into the blatant if, latent copying of "features" already found in Windows. I never thought I would ever be able to utter the words 'Cupertino, start your photocopiers' but some of those features look remarkably similar to what we've already seen in Windows Vista for almost a year now. Even Mary J Foley has her doubts http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=505
This is the sixth iteration of version 10 since 2001 and it's going to cost yet another $129 to upgrade. It's been plagued with delays and I think Apple aren't really bothered that much - they are treating their core users with utter contempt. I really believe that Apple is going to swiftly move beyond the traditional desktop arena pretty soon. They've already lured their user base onto x86 so that when they cut 'n' run, you be able to jump to another x86 platform. OK, that's probably a little far-fetched but seriously, I think they're not that bothered about trying to compete with Microsoft feature for feature on the desktop anymore - they may even abandon it altogether and instead focus entirely on swallowing up the lucrative digital multimedia space using an embedded flavour of their OS. Then they can update it with much less scrutiny.
Years ago, I remember when it was 'cool' to have Linux flavour dual-booting on a windows PC. It didn't matter that the sound didn't work or that it took a while just to configure the networking right. No-one complained about the plethora of bloatware that got installed - some of which was usable and others that required a working knowledge of C++. It didn't matter that the crude GUI was a poor mash-up of Windows 95/3.11 dialogs and had all the usability of a wooden gas oven. We just wanted to stick it to Microsoft.
Now, some 9 or 10 years later, I've had look at Ubuntu and things are so much different. Things have improved immeasurably. I *could* use this on a day-to-day basis and live with it. The questions that remain are, how do you make this really appeal to the ordinary non-IT focused consumer who isn't necessarily bothered about 'sticking it to Microsoft' and just wants something that works? Obviously they're prepared to pay for new PC or an upgrade with Windows because that's what they're used to. If you 'sold' them the idea of a free OS and free applications and free utilities, sometimes, that does more harm than good. Sometimes, you can't give stuff away for trying. A lot of people are happy to pay for something if they see value in it and if they are properly supported.
I don't know if Linux will ever become truly mainstream but it will take the same type of aggressive and bullish marketing tactics that Microsoft used in the past, to do it and who's going to pay for that or oversee that? Also, there's a long way to go in terms of hardware manufacturer support and software developer support. It won't happen by trying to bad mouth Microsoft and relate your BSOD horror stories - we've heard it all before and there are enough people out there i.e. 10's of millions that are doing just fine thank-you. I think that the only really compelling argument for me is vendor lock-in and the open-source architecture model. But it's a tough sell at the moment for the average consumer. Ask the average Ipod owner whether they feel vendor lock-in and they'll stare back at you thinking you've asked them a question in Japanese. They are hapy to connect their Ipod to Itunes and buy music from the ITMS. It's so different on the PC front. There, and I didn't even mention gaming....
I would love to see a viable Office rival. It would only help stimulate what is a pretty much closed shop and it would keep the innovation train moving. It's going to take a massive R&D budget to even scratch the surface of the domination that MS Office has. I have a horrible feeling that Adobe will try and build some Flash-based memory hogging monster that will be drenched in eye-candy and probably require a browser to make work - urrrgh. But if they could improve on Acrobat and make it more Office-like, who knows, we might only need.pdf for reading and creating documents in the future.
Microsoft's biggest problem in trying to market Office 2007 is of course, Office 2003, XP and 2000. All of the previous versions following Office '97 are simply 'good enough' for most people. And yet, 2007 has raised the bar in terms of UI, features and intuitiveness that everybody else will be playing catch-up for years to come. Even Google has saddled up with Sun in their latest GooglePack.
Adobe will have to make some key decisions if it attempts to enter this space like:- will they make their products work across other platforms other than Windows/Mac? Infact, how do they win over OpenOffice fans who get their kicks for free? And given that the free, similarly featured OpenOffice product has not yet made a dent in the enterprise market space, how are they going to do better? They could always start by offering the Creative Suite for 1/4 price when purchased with their Office product. That would temp me to take a look at least.
If only there were more women in IT, it would make my day so much more enjoyable overall. Ultimately, a bad IT person is a bad IT person and they will only get so far before there is nowhere to hide anyway.
When I hear the gossiping conversations that the women have in certain other departments during coffee breaks and the subjects they get into, it makes me feel sad there aren't more women in my department. There's so much more colour and richness of social interaction that you just don't get with other male colleagues. When I visit my head office from time-to-time, the problem gets worse - it's like a working men's club on some floors and not in a good way.
Why should any male IT guy complain if a gorgeous woman joins the IT department? Surely it's the best of both worlds for most men -- a female that speaks in IT and looks good doing it! I wouldn't mind so much if I had to do the heavy lifting in the server room, it happens in every other working arena anyway.
Why should any male IT guy complain if a georgeous woman joins the IT department? Surely it's the best of both worlds for most men -- a female that speaks in IT and looks good doing it! I wouldn't mind so much if I had to do the heavy lifting in the server room, it happens in every other working arena anyway.
I wasn't going to mention that but --exactly. Windows Server Administration grew up on GUI's where the command-line equivalent utilities, in some areas, were implemented as an afterthought. I think this is why it put off a lot of Unix Admins that I used to know. Things have certainly changed and 2003 is almost as scriptable from the command line as the GUI. Server 2008 takes things to the next level entirely where you can deploy truly headless servers. I haven't even mentioned the Powershell.
Unfortunately, with Windows being such a prevalent server OS, there are way too many poorly trained Windows Server Admins out there who would shudder to even launch 'cmd' and who are too comfortable with idea of clicking Next, Next, Next, OK and Cancel. I wonder, if Apple were dominating in the Server market, if their *nix relationship would have made better Sys Admins generally, even if some switched to support Windows Servers?
I would agree somewhat. However, Apple puts it products up on a pedestal and says to the world, "we're better, we're smarter, we cost a lot more and we look good doing it". So that is why even when the smallest problem occurs, it becomes a big thing. In this instance, it matters not where the technology came from originally or what it is supposed to do or even how many people use it. It only matters that it's broken and worse, Apple's response in its regular security update is to disable it. That is why "lunch is served" (to quote the first reply to this story).
Clearly, there is still a market for Works, even if it is mainly bundled with OEM installs. It's not a too much of a leap to suggest that future versions of Works resemble more like a service rather than a local application and it will then compete well with Google Docs and others. However, I don't see why people are complaining about software that they admit having *never used*, now becoming free with advertising. How is it hurting exactly and why would that force you to move to *nix?
As an aside, I'm tired of the Borg-style Gates icon used whenever an MS item appears on/. It was funny for about 5 minutes but that was several years ago. Nobody would dare put an icon with an angel&halo + devil&fork with Job's face on both but we accept that the Ipod is now a ubiquitous dominating product and the Iphone will doubtless do the same on the crest of nothing put hype and very good marketing alone. It's time to move on...
The thought of having a portable IP address 'everywhere' is actually quite scary. Your entire on-line electronic life could, in future, be mapped out from start to finish, recorded and stored and then sold on to whoever wants to pay up for it. I don't care what anyone says about "I've got nothing to hide", this information could be used for all sorts of mayhem in the wrong hands - the governments would be rubbing their hands in collective glee. "Sure, let's give every person on earth an IP address and we'll track them till and to death without having to argue-in a single new law."
It's bad enough that we have mobile phones whose whereabouts are tracked by their triangulated position of the phone masts. We have the explosion of CCTV here in London where the average person is filmed 200-300 times a day. We hear the common pre-recorded message on business telephone systems warning us that our conversations will be recorded and so on etc. Pretty soon, the term "getting away from it all" for a holiday will take on a whole new dimension where you actually pay to be taken to a place where you cannot be traced, contacted, located or even seen but still get to enjoy some kind of freedom. It would be kind of like a public version of the witness protection program.
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People can bitch about the apparent tunnel-visioned business model that they adopt with WGA. The fact of the matter is that if the tables were turned and Apple were the most dominant and pervasive OS, there would be similar tactics employed. You bet your life that Apple would hunt you down with their 'iCanDoNoWrong' activation software. It's just that way it is, being a monopoly, good or bad.
Microsoft is in business to make money and do the bidding of its shareholders, period. If one accepts that fact, then expect that they have to do something to protect their interests because it does affect their bottom line. Again, /. people might not care but then again, it's not your bottom line, on the line.
Not so many years ago, Steam arrived on the scene in the PC games world. Everyone moaned and complained. Groups formed to try and find ways to circumvent it (and I suspect they still do). Everyone said it was organised spying because the software had to 'phone home', nobody wanted to activate their game on-line. Now, Steam does a whole lot more than just phone home, it's practically Borg! Yet, I don't really have a problem with it. Maybe Microsoft could use their model instead? It certainly doesn't treat legitimate customers as potential criminals as far as I can see.
I accept that WGA is just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. However, if one accepts that there is a global piracy problem for Microsoft to deal with, how would /. people solve it? Don't bother to chime in 'Make it free' or 'Make it Open Source and then I'll pay for it' or 'sell it for peanuts because no-one will pirate it then' - yeah, right. Business is business.
It does look dreary, dull and univiting to get work done. They might as well have put it in the storage basement, at least that might have had some cachet. Ok, I know it's only a conference room afterall but urghhh.
Without trying to be too pedantic (or too serious), these rooms are for serious emergencies. There are plenty of other Microsoft departments dealing with day-to-day security and bug fixes. The most obvious I can think of is QFE (Quick Fix Engineering team).
Although this is a monumental cock-up, I am not that surprised. HMRC is a recent merge of two big heavyweight Government agencies - Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. If that wasn't hard enough to deal with, during the last year or so, the Government has decided that there are too many civil servants (might well be true) but has simply decided to lay off huge numbers of employees with little consultation of forethought as to how the work would continue under the same pressures and targets. Let's not even talk about the implementation of the IT systems which far from helping automate or compliment the workload, it has generally increased it. I find it hard to believe that in 2007, an agency like HMRC continues to correspond with other Government agencies by courier when we are talking about such sensitive and massive quantities of UK citizen data. Even if it were sent by secure FTP or something, it wouldn't have been very much trouble to do. It's a dark day for everything British.
I've seen a few articles about the apparent non-events at some Apple stores around the UK. I'm not sure if this particular one is actualy real but it did make me chuckle. http://www.surrealscoop.com/2007/11/iphone-launch-sees-breakthrough-for.html
Sometimes you wish Steve had a official spokesman to speak on Microsoft's behalf but in this instance, I think he as a valid point. Windows Mobile has actual devices and actual customers, in large quantities at the moment, whatever your personal feelings towards him. But he did say he welcomed the competition. It still remains to be seen what form this will take. People are still speculating over whether there will be a Google branded phone, rather than just a software platform for others to plug into and develop. I hope they do go for it, it can only be good for competition, maybe even ruffle a few feathers at Apple. The cunsumer should win (hopefully).
It's not that inevitable. What ever Apple does in this space, it has to be a success for them to bother in the first place, they have to get it right. They don't have the luxury of throwing good money after bad, making half-baked products, simply because others are already doing it. Also, being a software and hardware vendor, it makes it even more important to pick the right battles. I personally think they've picked the wrong product. They already have multiple desktop form factors, laptops, servers and even a set top box but this is one diversification too far. Unless, this is where they see the whole personal computer market heading....
Er, haven't your read, the same problem occurs under Tiger too...
10.5.0 has only been out for a week and all I've seen so far are people bitching about 10.5.0's ultra lean firewall which has actually regressed from 10.4.10; the Java incompatibilities; the Trojan, dressed as a codec specially for the Mac and now fundemental problems copying from one volume to another external volume. Though it pains me to say it, it's a big software project which only gets bigger at every release and things will never be perfect from day one. Even Apple make mistakes. Long gone are the days when testing was everything. Face it, YOU are the test and hopefully, it might be fixed in a point release if enough people are vocal about it.
The problem for Apple is that if they manage to gain new customers who purchase Leopard, it'll be harder to hide behind some of Microsoft's recent own goals in Windows Vista when they have some whoppers of their own to deal with. That core, evangelistic following of everything 'i' will have a smaller voice against the swell of must-have junkies that might be tempted to switch because they already own an IPod or IPhone but cry foul when they see no real difference with their Windows experience. Apple sets itself up with such lofty values and ideals and at a measureable premium, no wonder people are upset with even the little things.
So what is your solution? If you accept that Windows is the most used OS in the world, equating to 100's of millions of installations and that Microsoft loses a lot of revenue due to software piracy, you would expect that they would want to do something to curb what is a big problem. You only have to look at the Asian market in particular, where piracy is so rife that even government agencies are far from compliance. Do you shrug your shoulders and hope they'll cough up one day? Do you write it off and just be thankful that they want to use your product/s? Or do you actually do something about it because it has a real effect on the bottom line?
Clearly, no protection is ever foolproof and the nature of anti-piracy makes everyone a suspect first, a customer second. But that doesn't stop the need to do something to curb the problem. Passports can be forged; driver's licenses can be forged; money can be forged. Yet this hasn't stopped governments from issuing them.
I don't know anyone who hasn't used Winzip at some point but I know of zero non-corporate customers have actually bothered to pay for it I dread to think how much money Winzip has lost over the years. Even they are now doing something about it in their later versions.
As an aside, I sometimes wonder, if Apple had become the most dominant force on the desktop, would they be experiencing the same piracy problem? If so, how they would be controlling piracy - would they be any kinder to genuine customers? I rather suspect that in the end, business is business.
I have had a look at http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html and I have to say that some of those "features" that the iWorld are going to have to cough up for, are quite laughable. Six of these features are screensavers - SCREENSAVERS people! Twenty-four of these "features" bundled into an update for iChat and include such innovative things as 'More Smileys'. Oh dear. If Microsoft attempted to get away with this kind of marketing, they'd be fighting lawsuits in Massachusetts or the EU by now.
I don't need to go too deep into the blatant if, latent copying of "features" already found in Windows. I never thought I would ever be able to utter the words 'Cupertino, start your photocopiers' but some of those features look remarkably similar to what we've already seen in Windows Vista for almost a year now. Even Mary J Foley has her doubts http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=505
This is the sixth iteration of version 10 since 2001 and it's going to cost yet another $129 to upgrade. It's been plagued with delays and I think Apple aren't really bothered that much - they are treating their core users with utter contempt. I really believe that Apple is going to swiftly move beyond the traditional desktop arena pretty soon. They've already lured their user base onto x86 so that when they cut 'n' run, you be able to jump to another x86 platform. OK, that's probably a little far-fetched but seriously, I think they're not that bothered about trying to compete with Microsoft feature for feature on the desktop anymore - they may even abandon it altogether and instead focus entirely on swallowing up the lucrative digital multimedia space using an embedded flavour of their OS. Then they can update it with much less scrutiny.
Er, that should read 'It's not so different on the PC front.'
Years ago, I remember when it was 'cool' to have Linux flavour dual-booting on a windows PC. It didn't matter that the sound didn't work or that it took a while just to configure the networking right. No-one complained about the plethora of bloatware that got installed - some of which was usable and others that required a working knowledge of C++. It didn't matter that the crude GUI was a poor mash-up of Windows 95/3.11 dialogs and had all the usability of a wooden gas oven. We just wanted to stick it to Microsoft.
Now, some 9 or 10 years later, I've had look at Ubuntu and things are so much different. Things have improved immeasurably. I *could* use this on a day-to-day basis and live with it. The questions that remain are, how do you make this really appeal to the ordinary non-IT focused consumer who isn't necessarily bothered about 'sticking it to Microsoft' and just wants something that works? Obviously they're prepared to pay for new PC or an upgrade with Windows because that's what they're used to. If you 'sold' them the idea of a free OS and free applications and free utilities, sometimes, that does more harm than good. Sometimes, you can't give stuff away for trying. A lot of people are happy to pay for something if they see value in it and if they are properly supported.
I don't know if Linux will ever become truly mainstream but it will take the same type of aggressive and bullish marketing tactics that Microsoft used in the past, to do it and who's going to pay for that or oversee that? Also, there's a long way to go in terms of hardware manufacturer support and software developer support. It won't happen by trying to bad mouth Microsoft and relate your BSOD horror stories - we've heard it all before and there are enough people out there i.e. 10's of millions that are doing just fine thank-you. I think that the only really compelling argument for me is vendor lock-in and the open-source architecture model. But it's a tough sell at the moment for the average consumer. Ask the average Ipod owner whether they feel vendor lock-in and they'll stare back at you thinking you've asked them a question in Japanese. They are hapy to connect their Ipod to Itunes and buy music from the ITMS. It's so different on the PC front. There, and I didn't even mention gaming....
I would love to see a viable Office rival. It would only help stimulate what is a pretty much closed shop and it would keep the innovation train moving. It's going to take a massive R&D budget to even scratch the surface of the domination that MS Office has. I have a horrible feeling that Adobe will try and build some Flash-based memory hogging monster that will be drenched in eye-candy and probably require a browser to make work - urrrgh. But if they could improve on Acrobat and make it more Office-like, who knows, we might only need .pdf for reading and creating documents in the future.
Microsoft's biggest problem in trying to market Office 2007 is of course, Office 2003, XP and 2000. All of the previous versions following Office '97 are simply 'good enough' for most people. And yet, 2007 has raised the bar in terms of UI, features and intuitiveness that everybody else will be playing catch-up for years to come. Even Google has saddled up with Sun in their latest GooglePack.
Adobe will have to make some key decisions if it attempts to enter this space like:- will they make their products work across other platforms other than Windows/Mac? Infact, how do they win over OpenOffice fans who get their kicks for free? And given that the free, similarly featured OpenOffice product has not yet made a dent in the enterprise market space, how are they going to do better? They could always start by offering the Creative Suite for 1/4 price when purchased with their Office product. That would temp me to take a look at least.If only there were more women in IT, it would make my day so much more enjoyable overall. Ultimately, a bad IT person is a bad IT person and they will only get so far before there is nowhere to hide anyway.
When I hear the gossiping conversations that the women have in certain other departments during coffee breaks and the subjects they get into, it makes me feel sad there aren't more women in my department. There's so much more colour and richness of social interaction that you just don't get with other male colleagues. When I visit my head office from time-to-time, the problem gets worse - it's like a working men's club on some floors and not in a good way.
Why should any male IT guy complain if a gorgeous woman joins the IT department? Surely it's the best of both worlds for most men -- a female that speaks in IT and looks good doing it! I wouldn't mind so much if I had to do the heavy lifting in the server room, it happens in every other working arena anyway.
Why should any male IT guy complain if a georgeous woman joins the IT department? Surely it's the best of both worlds for most men -- a female that speaks in IT and looks good doing it! I wouldn't mind so much if I had to do the heavy lifting in the server room, it happens in every other working arena anyway.
I wasn't going to mention that but --exactly. Windows Server Administration grew up on GUI's where the command-line equivalent utilities, in some areas, were implemented as an afterthought. I think this is why it put off a lot of Unix Admins that I used to know. Things have certainly changed and 2003 is almost as scriptable from the command line as the GUI. Server 2008 takes things to the next level entirely where you can deploy truly headless servers. I haven't even mentioned the Powershell. Unfortunately, with Windows being such a prevalent server OS, there are way too many poorly trained Windows Server Admins out there who would shudder to even launch 'cmd' and who are too comfortable with idea of clicking Next, Next, Next, OK and Cancel. I wonder, if Apple were dominating in the Server market, if their *nix relationship would have made better Sys Admins generally, even if some switched to support Windows Servers?
I would agree somewhat. However, Apple puts it products up on a pedestal and says to the world, "we're better, we're smarter, we cost a lot more and we look good doing it". So that is why even when the smallest problem occurs, it becomes a big thing. In this instance, it matters not where the technology came from originally or what it is supposed to do or even how many people use it. It only matters that it's broken and worse, Apple's response in its regular security update is to disable it. That is why "lunch is served" (to quote the first reply to this story).
Clearly, there is still a market for Works, even if it is mainly bundled with OEM installs. It's not a too much of a leap to suggest that future versions of Works resemble more like a service rather than a local application and it will then compete well with Google Docs and others. However, I don't see why people are complaining about software that they admit having *never used*, now becoming free with advertising. How is it hurting exactly and why would that force you to move to *nix? As an aside, I'm tired of the Borg-style Gates icon used whenever an MS item appears on /. It was funny for about 5 minutes but that was several years ago. Nobody would dare put an icon with an angel&halo + devil&fork with Job's face on both but we accept that the Ipod is now a ubiquitous dominating product and the Iphone will doubtless do the same on the crest of nothing put hype and very good marketing alone. It's time to move on...
The thought of having a portable IP address 'everywhere' is actually quite scary. Your entire on-line electronic life could, in future, be mapped out from start to finish, recorded and stored and then sold on to whoever wants to pay up for it. I don't care what anyone says about "I've got nothing to hide", this information could be used for all sorts of mayhem in the wrong hands - the governments would be rubbing their hands in collective glee. "Sure, let's give every person on earth an IP address and we'll track them till and to death without having to argue-in a single new law."
It's bad enough that we have mobile phones whose whereabouts are tracked by their triangulated position of the phone masts. We have the explosion of CCTV here in London where the average person is filmed 200-300 times a day. We hear the common pre-recorded message on business telephone systems warning us that our conversations will be recorded and so on etc. Pretty soon, the term "getting away from it all" for a holiday will take on a whole new dimension where you actually pay to be taken to a place where you cannot be traced, contacted, located or even seen but still get to enjoy some kind of freedom. It would be kind of like a public version of the witness protection program.
Ok, I digress; I'm taking a chill pill...