Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell have been providing invaluable tools for years. Even if Microsoft released a rootkit detection package tomorrow, I would still use sysinternal's over anything Microsoft provides because "there is no anonymous team of programmers or writers behind Sysinternals". They put their name on everything they give away and sell.
When it comes to trust, people put their names on things they know are trustworthy. I can't count the number of times I've felt betrayed by Microsoft's products not doing what they're supposed to do, only to discover a flaw in their product that they knew about but didn't tell so as not to affect sales. I also can't count the number of times utilities such as NTFS for DOS have saved my butt in the field.
Virtual PC - 2004 - Microsoft When you run a Windows XP SP2-based virtual machine, it will perform slowly compared to a Windows XP SP1-based virtual machine."
Interesting that a Microsoft product has problem with their own Service Pack.
If such a small number of PHP users were involved with Java, what was the motivation to mimic Java's object model and move toward making PHP coupled to Java?
The Answer: MONEY.
PHP has become popular because it's easy to get started. Just cut and paste some scrap code in your HTML and you're in business. However, that same approach to building the language has led to a rat's nest of functions, without a whole lot of consistency. Although PHP's got one of the best documentations free on the web, in the long run if you scale your applications up you're going to need to put in a lot more elbow grease to make changes and maintain your code. Zend will be creating a market where maturing web applications will need the performance gains of their products.
So what's the alternative? I've been learning Ruby and the webframe work Ruby on Rails after reading a recent/. article. I'd be lying if I said it's been easy to learn. It hasn't. I'm not used to object oriented programming, and Ruby is pure OO. But even I can see at this stage of the game that Rails apps will be far easier to develop, maintain and make changes than similar code in Java or PHP. Rails still has performance hurdles to get over, but it's developing so fast that I'm sure it will match Java & PHP's speed (the framework's only been around for less than a year). Because Rails takes full advantage of the Ruby language, it's not something that will be ported to PHP or Java.
"Give 'em the razor, then sell 'em the blades" That's PHP and Java. Magically remove facial hair so you never have to shave again, that's Ruby and Ruby on Rails.
FTA: "But let's say that Google is as honorable as it claims and has no intention of doing anything more than making life better for everyone."
This reminds me of the day when our beloved Slashdot was bought. Concern were that it would lose its objective edge. Rob Malda said that if it happened, he'd start "Slashdot2". As it turns out, Slashdot has only grown and remained pretty much the same.
I suppose the same could happen here, where people could start "Wikipedia2" if Google mishandles it or tries to limit access.
Well if you guys would read the article, you'd see the parent comment was correct:
"..lambasted Microsoft for pushing a next generation machine to market in 2005, and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit. "In every cycle, some manufacturer not profiting from the current cycle is eager to kick-start the next one," he said at the time."
Yep. Stupidest. Comment. Ever.
Although I've never been a fan of Microsoft, even I hope they do well in the console market. It means cheap hardware for me to hack, and I don't care if it comes from Sony, Microsoft or maybe McDonalds someday.
But when was the last time you thought about Microsoft, except in frustration or anger? The company just announced a powerful new search engine, designed to take on Google -- but did anybody notice? Meanwhile, open systems world -- created largely in response to Microsoft's heavy-handed hegemony -- is slowly carving away market share from Gates & Co.: Linux and Firefox hold the world's imagination these days, not Windows and Explorer. The only thing Microsoft seems busy at these days is patching and plugging holes.
What has astounded me is Microsoft's inabilty to flourish in any are other than Windows and Office. Xbox is just beginning to turn a profit, but they have a long way to go before they can make up their losses and actually make money.
Nabisco used to be a cigarette company - that's right, Nabisco the _food_ company. Microsoft must shift away from Windows and Office as their main profit center. But the fact they have been unable to do this is an indication of the market's hatred for their past sins.
Maybe Microsoft wants to be forgiven and move forward, but the rest of the world is fresh out of sweet forgiveness, as am I.
This reminds me of the days when Novell NetWare has C2 Redbook certification. Microsoft came out with the same claim, that Windows NT 4.0 was C2 Redbook certified as well, except in the fine print it said "provided it was not connected to a network"! That was like buying a boat that was capsize-proof provided you didn't put it in the water. Of course the whole claim was a "me too" campaign to confuse and fool people, and it worked.
But people are no longer fooled by what the folks at Redmond say. Even my mom knows Windows is horribly broken, and she knows nothing of computers. The fact that such statements are being made are not just funny, they appear downright desperate.
I bought a LaserJet 5m and duplexer off eBay for less than $200. The older LaserJet's are built like tanks, and with the design of the toner cartridges, they really don't wear out.
600dpi, Postscript, built-in network adapter, compatible with Linux. Just because newer printers print at higher resolutions with more pages per minute doesn't necessarily make them better in my view.
Browser wars will heat up to the extent that Microsoft permits this to happen, intentionally or unintentionally. Microsoft is the major force that determines the outcome, despite other vendors' agendas for the near term. If it does not respond, then a critical threshold eventually will be breached in market share.
The fact that Gartner is saying this has more to do with business and the stock market than it does about technology.
Geeks pay attention to Torvalds and other techies about the technical merits. Suits pay attention to Wall Street and other business oracles about the financial merits.
Microsoft is more about business than it is about technology. I care about technology, they care about money. When you understand that, you learn to tune out 80% of the crap that's out there.
That's when the Linux gaming market will really take off.
That's also when Linux on the Desktop will take off. Say it any way you want, if the average home user can't play games they won't use the desktop. Period.
Games have always pushed hardware, pushed software and pushed more people to spend too much money on a new computer so they can play the latest game. Why else does Intel, ATI and nVidia give early releases of their new chips to top game manufacturers? So they can develop games that will bog down the current hardware and make people want to buy new.
Don't agree? Then ask yourself this: if you could only choose one OS and could not switch, which would it be? What about your family?
Until gaming is prevelant on the Linux platform, the Desktop Domination Dream will remain just that: a dream.
Over the last 5 years Microsoft and their cronies have been crowing about who's going to "own the livingroom". The idea has been to get away from the PC and onto the TV.
I'm sure Linux making such deep inroads isn't going to sit well with Gates and Ballmer. I'm also sure they will attack Linux with all their legal and marketing muscle. Expect to see a bloodbath over this one.
I worked for a large call center that did support calls for both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard (different support contracts, same building). As part of our training, we heard several phone calls that were recorded from previous agents to teach lessons on how to handle extreme situations. It was chilling to listen to domestic disputes.
There's also the practice of "jacking in", where an agent allows a trainee or a supervisor to hook a headset into the agents phone and listen in to the call. During my stay with the company, it was very routine for agents to be on a call, press mute, and talk about the customer without them being able to listen.
Call centers are a tough, tough job. They have a high turn-around because of the stress. If you get angry with a support agent, chances are they will hit the record button on the phone so they can keep a record of your call should there be a need to follow up a complaint.
Bottom line: be polite, be patient. Support techs are just people. If you're rude, then chances are you'll be laughed at or mocked behind your back.
Microsoft should own the anti-spyware market, and for that matter the anti-virus market as well. Both viruses and spyware are largely a product of Window's poor track record as an OS that can protect itself.
I think it's nuts that Windows is so vulnerable out of the box that it cannot reasonably be connected to the Internet without a slew of 3rd party software JUST to make to do what it's supposed to do: be an operating system.
If Microsoft can own the markets, then they will also own the responsibility of any and all major problems with Windows. So when a 13 year old snot-nosed programmer releases the next killer virus, we will only need to point the finger at one company.
I personally think Microsoft will own the anti-spyware market and let the anti-virus market continue as usual. Why? Think about what spyware is for: market research. Microsoft loves to gather personal information on their customers. If they could control the anti-spyware market, they could conceivably own the spyware market too.
"Any actual placing of an ad on Whag's forehead is entirely at Whag's discretion, and I must warn you that I haven't told him that I'm selling his forehead on eBay, so he may be a little opposed to the idea at first. But with a little prodding and some cold hard cash, I'm sure it'll all work out."
I predict there will be several hundred of these within 24 hours on eBay. Just goes to show that whatever great heights mankind can reach, stupid people can stoop much lower.
Simplest way I've done it is to setup IPCop on both ends. You can use throw-away hardware (Pentium or greater) with little RAM and hard drive space and two network cards. VPN's are a breeze to setup.
The only issue will then be bandwidth, the faster the better. My main site uses cable and the remote site uses ADSL, and it's fast enough to be usable, but not as fast as a thin-client (Citrix) installation is. But we're talking trade-offs of cost for speed here, but since it's so cheap to do you can set it up and try it and see if it's the right solution for you.
I bought my Happy Hacking keyboard for less than $25.00 off eBay. The HH Lite 2 is the cheaper model, and I've seen them go for under $19.00. BTW, it simply the best keyboard I've ever owned.
With desktop Linux still not having dented the 1% mark, will Syllable be the one to do to Windows what Firefox has done to IE?
No it won't, because Linux has something that took it a lot of time to achieve: mindshare. At best, Syllable can be a training OS that is unencumbered by Unix's long history to develop things that haven't been done before. Then those ideas can be ported to Windows and/or Linux.
Having said all that, I hope the Syllable team can prove me wrong.
I wonder if there's a way to verify the link between P2P distribution and CD sales. Suppose a record company were to promote two albums, say two bubblegum artists who are roughly the same in popularity and past CD sales. Artist #1 releases their CD through normal means, while Artist #2 has the record company deliberately prime the P2P networks with full mp3 copies of the album before its release date.
What would the results be? All things being equal, Artist #2 would sell more than #1 according to the Slashdot crowd, while the inverse would be true according to the RIAA. Who knows, maybe it would have no effect at all.
The multi-billion-dollar music industry is selling CDs like hot cakes but it claims its record label components, the artists under contract to them and support workers are suffering terrible financial and personal hardship because of online file sharing.
This is utter nonsense.
It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.
So let me see if I have this right. P2P networks help increase CD sales according to the slashdot crowd, which means more profit for the RIAA members. And now the RIAA is suing Joe and Jane User for sharing files through P2P, which means more profit.
Sounds like two healthy profit centers to me. I wonder if there's a way to reflect this through GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures)?
Case also was concerned that his company did not have appropriate in-house Linux expertise.
This is the main concern I hear, that support costs are the main reasons for switching back to Windows. It's a double-edged sword though, because everyone and his dog's got an MCSE, whereas I'm able to charge more for my Linux knowledge.
This was the same reason why people stayed with NetWare over Windows NT 3.51. Eventually with the release of NT 4.0, Microsoft was able to do more than NetWare for less cost. Linux will do the same thing. Microsoft does not have a lock on ubiquitous tech support, they merely have a head start.
Slashdot Mirror
Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell have been providing invaluable tools for years. Even if Microsoft released a rootkit detection package tomorrow, I would still use sysinternal's over anything Microsoft provides because "there is no anonymous team of programmers or writers behind Sysinternals". They put their name on everything they give away and sell.
When it comes to trust, people put their names on things they know are trustworthy. I can't count the number of times I've felt betrayed by Microsoft's products not doing what they're supposed to do, only to discover a flaw in their product that they knew about but didn't tell so as not to affect sales. I also can't count the number of times utilities such as NTFS for DOS have saved my butt in the field.
Way to go Sysinternals.
Virtual PC - 2004 - Microsoft
When you run a Windows XP SP2-based virtual machine, it will perform slowly compared to a Windows XP SP1-based virtual machine."
Interesting that a Microsoft product has problem with their own Service Pack.
If such a small number of PHP users were involved with Java, what was the motivation to mimic Java's object model and move toward making PHP coupled to Java?
/. article. I'd be lying if I said it's been easy to learn. It hasn't. I'm not used to object oriented programming, and Ruby is pure OO. But even I can see at this stage of the game that Rails apps will be far easier to develop, maintain and make changes than similar code in Java or PHP. Rails still has performance hurdles to get over, but it's developing so fast that I'm sure it will match Java & PHP's speed (the framework's only been around for less than a year). Because Rails takes full advantage of the Ruby language, it's not something that will be ported to PHP or Java.
The Answer: MONEY.
PHP has become popular because it's easy to get started. Just cut and paste some scrap code in your HTML and you're in business. However, that same approach to building the language has led to a rat's nest of functions, without a whole lot of consistency. Although PHP's got one of the best documentations free on the web, in the long run if you scale your applications up you're going to need to put in a lot more elbow grease to make changes and maintain your code. Zend will be creating a market where maturing web applications will need the performance gains of their products.
So what's the alternative? I've been learning Ruby and the webframe work Ruby on Rails after reading a recent
"Give 'em the razor, then sell 'em the blades" That's PHP and Java. Magically remove facial hair so you never have to shave again, that's Ruby and Ruby on Rails.
Why not install embedded GPS devices in everyone's skull? Then you can punish people for not consuming enough gasoline by taxing them for walking too.
FTA: "But let's say that Google is as honorable as it claims and has no intention of doing anything more than making life better for everyone."
This reminds me of the day when our beloved Slashdot was bought. Concern were that it would lose its objective edge. Rob Malda said that if it happened, he'd start "Slashdot2". As it turns out, Slashdot has only grown and remained pretty much the same.
I suppose the same could happen here, where people could start "Wikipedia2" if Google mishandles it or tries to limit access.
Well if you guys would read the article, you'd see the parent comment was correct:
"..lambasted Microsoft for pushing a next generation machine to market in 2005, and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit.
"In every cycle, some manufacturer not profiting from the current cycle is eager to kick-start the next one," he said at the time."
Yep. Stupidest. Comment. Ever.
Although I've never been a fan of Microsoft, even I hope they do well in the console market. It means cheap hardware for me to hack, and I don't care if it comes from Sony, Microsoft or maybe McDonalds someday.
But when was the last time you thought about Microsoft, except in frustration or anger? The company just announced a powerful new search engine, designed to take on Google -- but did anybody notice? Meanwhile, open systems world -- created largely in response to Microsoft's heavy-handed hegemony -- is slowly carving away market share from Gates & Co.: Linux and Firefox hold the world's imagination these days, not Windows and Explorer. The only thing Microsoft seems busy at these days is patching and plugging holes.
What has astounded me is Microsoft's inabilty to flourish in any are other than Windows and Office. Xbox is just beginning to turn a profit, but they have a long way to go before they can make up their losses and actually make money.
Nabisco used to be a cigarette company - that's right, Nabisco the _food_ company. Microsoft must shift away from Windows and Office as their main profit center. But the fact they have been unable to do this is an indication of the market's hatred for their past sins.
Maybe Microsoft wants to be forgiven and move forward, but the rest of the world is fresh out of sweet forgiveness, as am I.
Rot in hell Microsoft.
This reminds me of the days when Novell NetWare has C2 Redbook certification. Microsoft came out with the same claim, that Windows NT 4.0 was C2 Redbook certified as well, except in the fine print it said "provided it was not connected to a network"! That was like buying a boat that was capsize-proof provided you didn't put it in the water. Of course the whole claim was a "me too" campaign to confuse and fool people, and it worked.
But people are no longer fooled by what the folks at Redmond say. Even my mom knows Windows is horribly broken, and she knows nothing of computers. The fact that such statements are being made are not just funny, they appear downright desperate.
Are you now, or have you even been, a member of
the Communist Party?
I bought a LaserJet 5m and duplexer off eBay for less than $200. The older LaserJet's are built like tanks, and with the design of the toner cartridges, they really don't wear out.
600dpi, Postscript, built-in network adapter, compatible with Linux. Just because newer printers print at higher resolutions with more pages per minute doesn't necessarily make them better in my view.
Browser wars will heat up to the extent that Microsoft permits this to happen, intentionally or unintentionally. Microsoft is the major force that determines the outcome, despite other vendors' agendas for the near term. If it does not respond, then a critical threshold eventually will be breached in market share.
The fact that Gartner is saying this has more to do with business and the stock market than it does about technology.
Geeks pay attention to Torvalds and other techies about the technical merits. Suits pay attention to Wall Street and other business oracles about the financial merits.
Microsoft is more about business than it is about technology. I care about technology, they care about money. When you understand that, you learn to tune out 80% of the crap that's out there.
For those of you new to Slashdot, here it is again to put this story in perspective:
First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you -- OSS is here right now
Then you win.
That's when the Linux gaming market will really take off.
That's also when Linux on the Desktop will take off. Say it any way you want, if the average home user can't play games they won't use the desktop. Period.
Games have always pushed hardware, pushed software and pushed more people to spend too much money on a new computer so they can play the latest game. Why else does Intel, ATI and nVidia give early releases of their new chips to top game manufacturers? So they can develop games that will bog down the current hardware and make people want to buy new.
Don't agree? Then ask yourself this: if you could only choose one OS and could not switch, which would it be? What about your family?
Until gaming is prevelant on the Linux platform, the Desktop Domination Dream will remain just that: a dream.
So in addition to "Reality TV" we're going to have "Non-Reality TV" as well?
Over the last 5 years Microsoft and their cronies have been crowing about who's going to "own the livingroom". The idea has been to get away from the PC and onto the TV.
I'm sure Linux making such deep inroads isn't going to sit well with Gates and Ballmer. I'm also sure they will attack Linux with all their legal and marketing muscle. Expect to see a bloodbath over this one.
I worked for a large call center that did support calls for both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard (different support contracts, same building). As part of our training, we heard several phone calls that were recorded from previous agents to teach lessons on how to handle extreme situations. It was chilling to listen to domestic disputes.
There's also the practice of "jacking in", where an agent allows a trainee or a supervisor to hook a headset into the agents phone and listen in to the call. During my stay with the company, it was very routine for agents to be on a call, press mute, and talk about the customer without them being able to listen.
Call centers are a tough, tough job. They have a high turn-around because of the stress. If you get angry with a support agent, chances are they will hit the record button on the phone so they can keep a record of your call should there be a need to follow up a complaint.
Bottom line: be polite, be patient. Support techs are just people. If you're rude, then chances are you'll be laughed at or mocked behind your back.
Microsoft should own the anti-spyware market, and for that matter the anti-virus market as well. Both viruses and spyware are largely a product of Window's poor track record as an OS that can protect itself.
I think it's nuts that Windows is so vulnerable out of the box that it cannot reasonably be connected to the Internet without a slew of 3rd party software JUST to make to do what it's supposed to do: be an operating system.
If Microsoft can own the markets, then they will also own the responsibility of any and all major problems with Windows. So when a 13 year old snot-nosed programmer releases the next killer virus, we will only need to point the finger at one company.
I personally think Microsoft will own the anti-spyware market and let the anti-virus market continue as usual. Why? Think about what spyware is for: market research. Microsoft loves to gather personal information on their customers. If they could control the anti-spyware market, they could conceivably own the spyware market too.
Chalk up another revenue stream for Redmond.
You think that's bad? These guys are auctioning their co-worker's forehead off on eBay , and he doesn't even know yet.
"Any actual placing of an ad on Whag's forehead is entirely at Whag's discretion, and I must warn you that I haven't told him that I'm selling his forehead on eBay, so he may be a little opposed to the idea at first. But with a little prodding and some cold hard cash, I'm sure it'll all work out."
Here's the auction here (which of course is up in the high bid ludicrousphere), but it looks like he won't be the first.
I predict there will be several hundred of these within 24 hours on eBay. Just goes to show that whatever great heights mankind can reach, stupid people can stoop much lower.
Simplest way I've done it is to setup IPCop on both ends. You can use throw-away hardware (Pentium or greater) with little RAM and hard drive space and two network cards. VPN's are a breeze to setup.
The only issue will then be bandwidth, the faster the better. My main site uses cable and the remote site uses ADSL, and it's fast enough to be usable, but not as fast as a thin-client (Citrix) installation is. But we're talking trade-offs of cost for speed here, but since it's so cheap to do you can set it up and try it and see if it's the right solution for you.
I bought my Happy Hacking keyboard for less than $25.00 off eBay. The HH Lite 2 is the cheaper model, and I've seen them go for under $19.00. BTW, it simply the best keyboard I've ever owned.
With desktop Linux still not having dented the 1% mark, will Syllable be the one to do to Windows what Firefox has done to IE?
No it won't, because Linux has something that took it a lot of time to achieve: mindshare. At best, Syllable can be a training OS that is unencumbered by Unix's long history to develop things that haven't been done before. Then those ideas can be ported to Windows and/or Linux.
Having said all that, I hope the Syllable team can prove me wrong.
I wonder if there's a way to verify the link between P2P distribution and CD sales. Suppose a record company were to promote two albums, say two bubblegum artists who are roughly the same in popularity and past CD sales. Artist #1 releases their CD through normal means, while Artist #2 has the record company deliberately prime the P2P networks with full mp3 copies of the album before its release date.
What would the results be? All things being equal, Artist #2 would sell more than #1 according to the Slashdot crowd, while the inverse would be true according to the RIAA. Who knows, maybe it would have no effect at all.
The multi-billion-dollar music industry is selling CDs like hot cakes but it claims its record label components, the artists under contract to them and support workers are suffering terrible financial and personal hardship because of online file sharing.
This is utter nonsense.
It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.
So let me see if I have this right. P2P networks help increase CD sales according to the slashdot crowd, which means more profit for the RIAA members. And now the RIAA is suing Joe and Jane User for sharing files through P2P, which means more profit.
Sounds like two healthy profit centers to me. I wonder if there's a way to reflect this through GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures)?
Case also was concerned that his company did not have appropriate in-house Linux expertise.
This is the main concern I hear, that support costs are the main reasons for switching back to Windows. It's a double-edged sword though, because everyone and his dog's got an MCSE, whereas I'm able to charge more for my Linux knowledge.
This was the same reason why people stayed with NetWare over Windows NT 3.51. Eventually with the release of NT 4.0, Microsoft was able to do more than NetWare for less cost. Linux will do the same thing. Microsoft does not have a lock on ubiquitous tech support, they merely have a head start.