There WAS (is?) a link and details on the project plan. A little Google cache searching shows this. The direct link to http://www.specopslabs.com/david_development.htm still works, though it's not available from the home page (AFAICT).
Either way, the timeline breaks down like this (summary);
Phase 1 - 100% - Document theoretical model.
Phase 2 - 100% - Build business case.
Phase 3 - 10% - Produce architecture roadmap.
Phase 4 - 0% - Implement system design.
Phase 5 - 0% - Deployment and maintenance/updates.
This is a reasonable breakdown, though if Phase 4 is the coding stage, they have a boatload of work to do. Since most projects fail let alone products (more hostile environment), I would not be worried if I were Codeweavers, EMC (VMWare),... let alone Microsoft.
Looks like they are attempting to get investment capital.
Continuously playing 'second fiddle' to Microsoft is no way to develop software. They're counting on this factor, so why should we give it to them?
Not my point. The rough formula to rouse the troops -- 'if EVENT is not ACTION, BAD_THING occurs' -- is ineffective to me. I've heard it for years and it's ineffective.
That said, the rest of the article makes a point so I won't ding him for being passionate about it.
Its the age-old argument though. People write code they want to write, in the OSS world, and face it: Networked User Authentication is booo-oooring.
There are plenty of booring things...depending on the person. I no longer describe in detail what I do for a living. People don't get as excited as I am unless it's a peer -- and many of my peers think it's booring too. 1 or 2 phrases or a short sentence would be a tome these days.
IT managers want to be able to install servers and desktop client machines on their network that securely authenticate users against a centralized database. This should be a straightforward procedure. Until there is a standardized, interoperable, community and industry supported network authentication system included with most open source operating systems, Microsoft will continue to rule the enterprise.
Substitution of the above with a few blanks;
*BLANK* want to be able to *BLANK* on their *BLANK* that *BLANK*. This should be a straightforward procedure. Until there is a standardized, interoperable, community and industry supported *BLANK* included with most open source operating systems, Microsoft will continue to rule *BLANK*.
I'm not saying Van Emery is wrong. I'm saying that reading these types of comments makes me loose both interest and confidence in the message.
(*BLANK* substituted for ______ because of/. filters not liking _______.)
For backup? Nope, they did have enough money for an expensive backup program. Contracting has oddities to it.
That said, when you look at a couple dozen servers -- each with a unique task -- and no spare desktops (I had to scrape up test machines only if I found someone who "didn't need it right now"), they are going to have problems. The start of the bulge in the bell curve was beginning to be an issue as I left.
Many slashdoters may think this is a joke, but it is a serious problem for some users. I had a friend at college who's hand would sweat so profusely that he had to put a rag over his mouse to keep it from shorting out. No joke!
What you outlined here is basically what I thought would happen with Sun's 'mobile desktop' initiative (or whatever it was called), where they had everyone in the company not have a specific "workstation" but had them in pods.
In Sun's case, they were selling something that was mobile. The admins where I was did not set it up so that mobility was possible (or painless).
The mobile cart, though, is a good idea if it's limited to "work things" (mainly paper documents to either be processed or to assist with processing; handbooks, official standards,...).
... (or just give everyone a laptop, they're almost cheap enougn now)...
The facility I left did not have enough money for backup servers or parts. Everything would have to be replaced after it broke and only if under warranty. (Yes, I'm sure we're in agreement on how smart that idea was.)
The problem is that there are other things people usually need to get the job done -post-its, pens, telephones, documents, folders and so on. Also, since most computers use Windows, I have to reset display settings every time I move. THAT is the problem.
Yep. (Though the display problem could be fixed with some moderately clever login/logout scripting. Not tha these admins had that level of knowledge.)
Basically while using windows unless you have roaming profiles set up, and all software on network installs which work from all workstations, you don't have the ability to sit down anywhere and work, period.
That's right. I attempted to convince the admins for 6 months that the lack of automation and planning was a Bad Idea. I left with no change, though I did make sure everyone knew that what they were doing was a Bad Idea.
Here's basically what I recommended;
All local machines will be identical.
Repackage the runtime engines and install them locally.
Run all custom apps from the servers and update the servers only.
Push out updates if and only if the local machines needed it.
Plan for the network not the PC; all maintenance should be possible by eliminating differences client-side and putting all user-data and department data server-side.
There were quite a few other changes I recommended, though you get the idea. Did I mention they were all ignored?:{
I've always had respect for Steve Gibson, though I can understand why he gets such flack from technically knowledgeable people.
He is one of those people who you have to adjust for, and if you don't you'll just miss the point of what he's trying to say. Once you do, what he says makes a whole lot of sense and he does not come off as a light-weight tech by any means.
His main focus, for many years, seems to be this;
Explain technical issues to moderately technical people so that they do not consider themselves idiots.
Hype it up a bit for effect.
Important: Tell the nit-pickers to #uck off.
The hype rubs many geeks the wrong way since we want to know the real details and with those details we can figure out for ourselves if something is important or not.
When his errors or lack of total completeness is brought up, he drops into #uck off mode. Yep, he is a bit arrogant, though most techies are. He does have an ego and will snipe back if sniped...so?
I have friends who I don't agree with, who do things I don't like, though if it's in character I let it pass; "Jack is being Jack".
Hammer Steve Gibson when he deserves it, though consider that most of the time he's not so horribly off the mark when you consider his audience and basic attitude.
In most college classrooms, professors don't particularly care to assign seats to anybody, yet students for the most part tend to seat themselves in more-or-less the same positions anyway. I wonder if this is related to want to have a favorite seat in the computer room.
Habit.
Before college, every teacher assigned me a seat for each class. In college, they didn't...but I nearly always sat in the same place.
In a college computer lab, all of the terminals in a group are supposed to be identical and interchangable. However, it seems like users are building up a trust relationship with the computer they've used sucessfully before rather than wanting to take the chance with a computer they haven't met yet. It's almost as if users are presuming that most unfamiliar computers will fail on them...
I had the same problem with department groups. By contract with the primary customer, the subcontractors were told "no departmental 'ownership' of machines not in offices". That meant specifically no pictures, no knick-knacks, all documents locked up in another room when the worker goes home. No labels on machines.
Two things destroyed this idea;
IT never got out of firefighting mode to impose standards.
Departments and individuals immediately took the attitude "if I'm not here, others can use my machine" as if that would satisfy the contract requirements.
Reasons for why this does not work -- and many machines and people ended up being idle -- were basically;
Without being able to sit down anywhere (possible if IT did make that possible), people stopped trying to use just any machine and focused on one or a small group "in our area".
People would stop working if a specific -- "my machine" mentioned above -- was not available.
Add to this lack of customer interest and management, and this becomes a bit of meat to fight over when other tensions arise.
The Microsoft references are 2 of the 8 listed sets of documents on Morgan Keegan's list.
If you read the others that focus mainly on communications with SCO, it looks like IBM is just being complete or simply curious; the case be dammed, who knows what this net will drag in?
That said, I am fully willing to consider that Microsoft is behind the SCO/Baystar/... mess strictly as an abuse of the market.
Not more evil but its something that doesnt really help the community that much (as there are plenty of good Win installers out there like Nullsoft's). at the same time it gives ms some volley to say 'hey we support open source too!'
NSIS, while good at what it does, does not generate MSI packages.
Making MSI packages is a pain, so this project is welcome.
That said, I have no interest in it beyond Windows; MSI is a good attempt at package management, though it is not as nice as the package formats of RPM or DEB and the associated tools. (Yes, there are about a dozen 'necessary' additions and changes to RPM/DEB & tools I'd like to see.)
So setting up even a single Linux box here at work is not an option because the policy is to not have systems where only one employee knows how to maintain it.
While I'm on your side as far as 'if it ain't broke...', replacing a few systems or consolidating them and using Webmin (in a limited capacity), might be a good idea in the long term. The learning curve is not that great, and short cheat-sheets can be whipped up if someone is entirely unable to understand what they are doing.
The only downside is that you need to keep Webmin itself up-to-date because if it makes a mistake, you're back to relying on the people who know Linux. If Webmin is kept to specific tasks, and the software is conservatively updated, you'll do well with it. Bleeding edge releases on either the Webmin or server side are not a good combination in any situation, so avoiding these problems is a matter of common sense.
That said, currently I'm recovering from not wanting to strangle the sys admins at a small document processing facility (~50,000 documents/day, 200 front-line staff, 30 others including 3 admins). The phrrase I used often was "Don't you ever want to turn someone's kneck into meat?".
They didn't want to learn anything about Unix -- even the HPUX mini on-site that had not been maintained since it was installed a year ago. They thought that default or no passwords were A-OK on any application because the people who worked there were stupid. (Real quote: "Comeon! Do you think anyone who works here will be able to figure out how to cause any dammage?"...meanwhile, they hired many temps and had a few check theft scandals in the 5 and 6 digit ranges.)
Still, I walked the line of blowing my lid and rubbing noses in the problems vs. not saying anything at all. People, unless forced, will not change and I did not have a role that would allow me to set standards. I spent 6 months attempting to make these folks concerned -- and even wrote a few documents as suggestions/recommendations on how to improve how Windows itself is used and to reduce the current work load...to no effect.
I have been thinking all week why the NIST should standardize the windows API.
Good idea, though the API itself is not enough. Chances are that the API will be incomplete and sample reference implementations will not appear quickly or will have gaps (though Wine could be considered a base implementation).
If the code needed to do proper data conversion/reading were portable, Microsoft's APIs or not, that would be more to improving competition.
..about these internal memos, sometimes they're too funny to be true, its like they feel compelled to give us even more ammo!
Fortunately, Microsoft has instituted a new policy called "True Words". Now, all internal memos are available to anyone who is interested, including the general public -- no legal mucking around needed!
Here is a sample from a memo sent yesterday;
Doug said, banter is gravy but not on a Tuesday. Fogotten beaverskins, soaked, will affirm our continued reliability.
I found it interesting that Baystar wants SCO to give up on UNIX to pursue the "intellectual property process." In other words, Baystar wants SCO to give up the only service it offers and pursue legal action against Linux (and Linux users) even more than it is now! In fact, if they do this (and a few other things), then Baystar might change their mind about recalling their stocks..
SCO excutives decided to make enemies and maybe an incredible amount of money. SCO products are horrible when compared to most of the other options out there. Over time, they would have to restructure (ala Novell) or slowly scale back as customers slowly went away.
If SCO wins, Baystar could have a cash cow that could last decades and drag in a boatload of investors to Baystar. If SCO looses, Baystar is out $20 million and has to cover those losses or loose investors. If Baystar says "give me my money back" they can tell investors "see, we are looking after your investments".
If SCO wins or looses, Baystar has invested in SCO...and they have to show that the money was spent wisely or they will be in deep trouble with current and future Baystar investors.
I wonder who would benefit most from this (cough Microsoft cough cough....)
No doubt they would. The 'score or we're taking the ball home with us' tactic is smart even if Microsoft benifits (and MS has).
[SCOX stock price].. but now it's at 7.96. That's why I'm a geek and not a Wall Street suit, I can't see any logic in the stock market. Isn't this NYTimes article more bad news for SCO?
I can predict 3-18 months into the future what the trends will be for some stocks...and I'm 100% wrong within that time frame. The market takes an additional 3+ months to figure it out even when the trend (to me) is obvious.
Should have invested gobs of money in IBM after they fell out of favor. The mid-90s restructuring and comeback was predictable and sucessful.
Re:Antivirus SW redundant for open-source...
on
GNOME for Grandma
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I was about to post a reply that conceed a couple points to you...till I thought of something that simplifies the issues greatly (and lets me not conceed anything!:) );
Do any other operating systems suffer from the list of problems that plauge Windows but not (currently) Linux?
To narrow it even more;
Does Mac OSX suffer from the list of problems that plauge Windows?
My point;
Why should Linux, in comparison to OSX, be worse for the same list of issues?
Side note: I have no problem with closed-source software, would like to work for a closed-source commercial software company again(!) just as I would like to work at an open-souce commercial software company. Increased use of closed-source software (commercial or not) is a given as popularity increases though how much is debaitable.
Re:Antivirus SW redundant for open-source...
on
GNOME for Grandma
·
· Score: 1
Anti-virus software will be needed if Linux goes mainstream because a lot of security problems aren't the result of a software vulnerability. Trivial passwords, socially engineered virus emails, trojan horses, etc. Patch your code all you want but an uninformed or careless user can still let all sorts of malicious code in.
Linux is as mainstream as MacOS, or very close to it (if MacOS isn't mainstream, er, well then!).
Linux already has virus detection software...though there are no Linux viruses (or exceedingly few) to detect. Most of the anti-virus software is to scan mail feeds and network directories.
Keeping in mind that your choice of hardware is ultimately yours, I personally would like to express my opinion that buying a Dell is a bad idea.
It was $225 (corporate excess), got almost 2 years out of it, so I'm not complaining. Dropped it a couple months ago and cracked the hinge...still works well enough, but not ideal (little wobbly).
If you have specific recommendations beyond a Thinkpad or "Do not get Dell", let me know. Dell sells a whole-hell of a lot of laptops, so they will tend to show up more often -- defective or not.
As short hand, I tend to divide laptops into ~4 groups (from memory);
Top - IBM, Sony (most), Toshiba (most), Apple,...
Middle - The remaining Sonys and Toshibas followed by Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway
OEM - The non-brand name laptops from the makers of the brand-name laptops listed above. Maybe an Asus or Sagar.
I do not trust HP/Compaq because Compaq tended to do goofy things with their hardware and I'm not sure which way the systems were tainted (did HP or Compaq 'win'?). Sony does odd things too, though most of those are to support extra features that -- if they work with Linux -- would be interesting. Toshiba is good, standard, nice.
Thinkpad - Yep. Very nice. I'd rather not spend $3,000~ for a properly equipped one though.
Do not go to the IT department. They have screwed up, and will move to cover their asses in the easiest way; making you a scapegoat and likely sending you ass to jail.
Agreed on going to the dean. If you use what I call the Columbo method -- after the dumbly and wise detective on TV -- you can also go to the IT department though this is a bit more risky but may silently solve the problem.
The Columbo method works basically like this;
"I'm no expert, though shouldn't there..." (and give a base -- even misworded -- comment on what is wrong)
Other phrases: "You know, I was wondering..." / "I find it curious that..."
Now, don't follow through and 'catch the bad guy'...you're only talking after all -- and *you're* not the expert! These things confuse you!
"If only someone could do something about that. Do you know anyone?"
Change the subject and leave or if the mood is right, just smile and leave. A "Yep, I find that interesting" as you go might also get it to sink in.
If anything, be a little funny but do not be condecending.
Who to talk to? Pick someone who is in the IT department who does not have an ego or a nasty attitude. Be unexcited, and mention your concerns as if you're commenting on the weather.
Note: If using https:\\ instead of http:\\ works, mention that *you* found a work around, though https should be the default -- after all -- for all those other people who haven't noticed yet. But what do you know?
Slashdot Mirror
There WAS (is?) a link and details on the project plan. A little Google cache searching shows this. The direct link to http://www.specopslabs.com/david_development.htm still works, though it's not available from the home page (AFAICT).
Either way, the timeline breaks down like this (summary);
Phase 1 - 100% - Document theoretical model.
Phase 2 - 100% - Build business case.
Phase 3 - 10% - Produce architecture roadmap.
Phase 4 - 0% - Implement system design.
Phase 5 - 0% - Deployment and maintenance/updates.
This is a reasonable breakdown, though if Phase 4 is the coding stage, they have a boatload of work to do. Since most projects fail let alone products (more hostile environment), I would not be worried if I were Codeweavers, EMC (VMWare), ... let alone Microsoft.
Looks like they are attempting to get investment capital.
Not my point. The rough formula to rouse the troops -- 'if EVENT is not ACTION, BAD_THING occurs' -- is ineffective to me. I've heard it for years and it's ineffective.
That said, the rest of the article makes a point so I won't ding him for being passionate about it.
There are plenty of booring things...depending on the person. I no longer describe in detail what I do for a living. People don't get as excited as I am unless it's a peer -- and many of my peers think it's booring too. 1 or 2 phrases or a short sentence would be a tome these days.
Substitution of the above with a few blanks;
I'm not saying Van Emery is wrong. I'm saying that reading these types of comments makes me loose both interest and confidence in the message.
(*BLANK* substituted for ______ because of /. filters not liking _______.)
For backup? Nope, they did have enough money for an expensive backup program. Contracting has oddities to it.
That said, when you look at a couple dozen servers -- each with a unique task -- and no spare desktops (I had to scrape up test machines only if I found someone who "didn't need it right now"), they are going to have problems. The start of the bulge in the bell curve was beginning to be an issue as I left.
Sure that was "sweat", sunshine?
OK, you're right.
In Sun's case, they were selling something that was mobile. The admins where I was did not set it up so that mobility was possible (or painless).
The mobile cart, though, is a good idea if it's limited to "work things" (mainly paper documents to either be processed or to assist with processing; handbooks, official standards, ...).
The facility I left did not have enough money for backup servers or parts. Everything would have to be replaced after it broke and only if under warranty. (Yes, I'm sure we're in agreement on how smart that idea was.)
Yep. (Though the display problem could be fixed with some moderately clever login/logout scripting. Not tha these admins had that level of knowledge.)
That's right. I attempted to convince the admins for 6 months that the lack of automation and planning was a Bad Idea. I left with no change, though I did make sure everyone knew that what they were doing was a Bad Idea.
Here's basically what I recommended;
All local machines will be identical.
Repackage the runtime engines and install them locally.
Run all custom apps from the servers and update the servers only.
Push out updates if and only if the local machines needed it.
Plan for the network not the PC; all maintenance should be possible by eliminating differences client-side and putting all user-data and department data server-side.
There were quite a few other changes I recommended, though you get the idea. Did I mention they were all ignored? :{
He is one of those people who you have to adjust for, and if you don't you'll just miss the point of what he's trying to say. Once you do, what he says makes a whole lot of sense and he does not come off as a light-weight tech by any means.
His main focus, for many years, seems to be this;
Hype it up a bit for effect.
Important: Tell the nit-pickers to #uck off.
The hype rubs many geeks the wrong way since we want to know the real details and with those details we can figure out for ourselves if something is important or not.
When his errors or lack of total completeness is brought up, he drops into #uck off mode. Yep, he is a bit arrogant, though most techies are. He does have an ego and will snipe back if sniped...so?
I have friends who I don't agree with, who do things I don't like, though if it's in character I let it pass; "Jack is being Jack".
Hammer Steve Gibson when he deserves it, though consider that most of the time he's not so horribly off the mark when you consider his audience and basic attitude.
Habit.
Before college, every teacher assigned me a seat for each class. In college, they didn't...but I nearly always sat in the same place.
I had the same problem with department groups. By contract with the primary customer, the subcontractors were told "no departmental 'ownership' of machines not in offices". That meant specifically no pictures, no knick-knacks, all documents locked up in another room when the worker goes home. No labels on machines.
Two things destroyed this idea;
IT never got out of firefighting mode to impose standards.
Departments and individuals immediately took the attitude "if I'm not here, others can use my machine" as if that would satisfy the contract requirements.
Reasons for why this does not work -- and many machines and people ended up being idle -- were basically;
Without being able to sit down anywhere (possible if IT did make that possible), people stopped trying to use just any machine and focused on one or a small group "in our area".
People would stop working if a specific -- "my machine" mentioned above -- was not available.
Add to this lack of customer interest and management, and this becomes a bit of meat to fight over when other tensions arise.
Ha! Yes they do, here's a guy who is famous for making a helpful comment -- he even put it in the margin!
If you read the others that focus mainly on communications with SCO, it looks like IBM is just being complete or simply curious; the case be dammed, who knows what this net will drag in?
That said, I am fully willing to consider that Microsoft is behind the SCO/Baystar/... mess strictly as an abuse of the market.
I don't see any HD connectors, just RCA and S-Video. Would the data come over the ethernet jack from another machine?
NSIS, while good at what it does, does not generate MSI packages.
Making MSI packages is a pain, so this project is welcome.
That said, I have no interest in it beyond Windows; MSI is a good attempt at package management, though it is not as nice as the package formats of RPM or DEB and the associated tools. (Yes, there are about a dozen 'necessary' additions and changes to RPM/DEB & tools I'd like to see.)
While I'm on your side as far as 'if it ain't broke...', replacing a few systems or consolidating them and using Webmin (in a limited capacity), might be a good idea in the long term. The learning curve is not that great, and short cheat-sheets can be whipped up if someone is entirely unable to understand what they are doing.
The only downside is that you need to keep Webmin itself up-to-date because if it makes a mistake, you're back to relying on the people who know Linux. If Webmin is kept to specific tasks, and the software is conservatively updated, you'll do well with it. Bleeding edge releases on either the Webmin or server side are not a good combination in any situation, so avoiding these problems is a matter of common sense.
That said, currently I'm recovering from not wanting to strangle the sys admins at a small document processing facility (~50,000 documents/day, 200 front-line staff, 30 others including 3 admins). The phrrase I used often was "Don't you ever want to turn someone's kneck into meat?".
They didn't want to learn anything about Unix -- even the HPUX mini on-site that had not been maintained since it was installed a year ago. They thought that default or no passwords were A-OK on any application because the people who worked there were stupid. (Real quote: "Comeon! Do you think anyone who works here will be able to figure out how to cause any dammage?"...meanwhile, they hired many temps and had a few check theft scandals in the 5 and 6 digit ranges.)
Still, I walked the line of blowing my lid and rubbing noses in the problems vs. not saying anything at all. People, unless forced, will not change and I did not have a role that would allow me to set standards. I spent 6 months attempting to make these folks concerned -- and even wrote a few documents as suggestions/recommendations on how to improve how Windows itself is used and to reduce the current work load...to no effect.
Good idea, though the API itself is not enough. Chances are that the API will be incomplete and sample reference implementations will not appear quickly or will have gaps (though Wine could be considered a base implementation).
If the code needed to do proper data conversion/reading were portable, Microsoft's APIs or not, that would be more to improving competition.
Fortunately, Microsoft has instituted a new policy called "True Words". Now, all internal memos are available to anyone who is interested, including the general public -- no legal mucking around needed!
Here is a sample from a memo sent yesterday;
SCO excutives decided to make enemies and maybe an incredible amount of money. SCO products are horrible when compared to most of the other options out there. Over time, they would have to restructure (ala Novell) or slowly scale back as customers slowly went away.
If SCO wins, Baystar could have a cash cow that could last decades and drag in a boatload of investors to Baystar. If SCO looses, Baystar is out $20 million and has to cover those losses or loose investors. If Baystar says "give me my money back" they can tell investors "see, we are looking after your investments".
If SCO wins or looses, Baystar has invested in SCO...and they have to show that the money was spent wisely or they will be in deep trouble with current and future Baystar investors.
No doubt they would. The 'score or we're taking the ball home with us' tactic is smart even if Microsoft benifits (and MS has).
I'm in total agreement on this with you; it makes no friggen sense. For example, this time last year, it was well below 1/2 of the current price ($8.15 a few moments ago, $3.00 last year).
I can predict 3-18 months into the future what the trends will be for some stocks...and I'm 100% wrong within that time frame. The market takes an additional 3+ months to figure it out even when the trend (to me) is obvious.
Should have invested gobs of money in IBM after they fell out of favor. The mid-90s restructuring and comeback was predictable and sucessful.
Do any other operating systems suffer from the list of problems that plauge Windows but not (currently) Linux?
To narrow it even more;
Does Mac OSX suffer from the list of problems that plauge Windows?
My point;
Why should Linux, in comparison to OSX, be worse for the same list of issues?
In support of the previous person's comments -- and I don't entirely agree with them -- here are my comments.
In addition to that...
Linux is as mainstream as MacOS, or very close to it (if MacOS isn't mainstream, er, well then!).
Linux already has virus detection software...though there are no Linux viruses (or exceedingly few) to detect. Most of the anti-virus software is to scan mail feeds and network directories.
It was $225 (corporate excess), got almost 2 years out of it, so I'm not complaining. Dropped it a couple months ago and cracked the hinge...still works well enough, but not ideal (little wobbly).
If you have specific recommendations beyond a Thinkpad or "Do not get Dell", let me know. Dell sells a whole-hell of a lot of laptops, so they will tend to show up more often -- defective or not.
As short hand, I tend to divide laptops into ~4 groups (from memory);
Top - IBM, Sony (most), Toshiba (most), Apple, ...
Middle - The remaining Sonys and Toshibas followed by Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway
OEM - The non-brand name laptops from the makers of the brand-name laptops listed above. Maybe an Asus or Sagar.
Anyone else? Not worth considering.
Details on relationships between name-brand and OEMs. Few companies make laptops for themselves anymore.
I do not trust HP/Compaq because Compaq tended to do goofy things with their hardware and I'm not sure which way the systems were tainted (did HP or Compaq 'win'?). Sony does odd things too, though most of those are to support extra features that -- if they work with Linux -- would be interesting. Toshiba is good, standard, nice.
Thinkpad - Yep. Very nice. I'd rather not spend $3,000~ for a properly equipped one though.
Agreed on going to the dean. If you use what I call the Columbo method -- after the dumbly and wise detective on TV -- you can also go to the IT department though this is a bit more risky but may silently solve the problem.
The Columbo method works basically like this;
"I'm no expert, though shouldn't there ..." (and give a base -- even misworded -- comment on what is wrong)
Other phrases: "You know, I was wondering..." / "I find it curious that..."
Now, don't follow through and 'catch the bad guy'...you're only talking after all -- and *you're* not the expert! These things confuse you!
"If only someone could do something about that. Do you know anyone?"
Change the subject and leave or if the mood is right, just smile and leave. A "Yep, I find that interesting" as you go might also get it to sink in.
If anything, be a little funny but do not be condecending.
Who to talk to? Pick someone who is in the IT department who does not have an ego or a nasty attitude. Be unexcited, and mention your concerns as if you're commenting on the weather.
Note: If using https:\\ instead of http:\\ works, mention that *you* found a work around, though https should be the default -- after all -- for all those other people who haven't noticed yet. But what do you know?