It's not their first Mac app - we've been running Sophos AV (corporate, non-free) for over 3 years. It supports Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
-ted
Microsoft is the GM of software
on
Why Microsoft?
·
· Score: 1
I've never worked for Microsoft or GM, but from the outside the two look very similar.
For years both were/are giants in their respective industries - the standard of those industries if you will.
Years of shoddy products and internal political turmoil took their toll on both companies.
I wonder if Microsoft will avoid GM's fate - financial problems and an eventual government rescue? It's hard to imagine Microsoft with financial problems, but at one time in the not so distant past, it was also hard to imagine GM with financial problems.
We recently had our website redesigned, and our designers suggested we host at GoDaddy. I suggested that we host internally since it would save us $100/month, and thanks to VMware's ESXi, we've freed up a bit of hardware recently.
We are almost completely a Mac OS and Windows shop. I ran Red Hat, Fedora, and Ubuntu - as well as Solaris all through college, so Unix is familiar to me.
I have to say that setting up a LAMP server with SSH was a piece of cake. Our newest Ubuntu server distribution did almost everything for you. I didn't edit a single config file, and security updates are installed automatically - no manual CRON job configuration was necessary.
We had to tweak some permissions, but it was fairly painless.
Finally we snapshot the entire box once per week using VMware's tools as a backup - really easy.
I've got to say, I've been away from Linux for a few years and was pleasantly surprised at how refined it has gotten. Microsoft should be worried.
Is that it is depressing the prices on non-3D televisions. I really don't care about 3D TV. I do care about a quality 2D image, and there are tons of good televisions with great quality panels at nice prices thanks to the lack of 3D.
It's a great time to buy a TV if you don't care about 3D. The window is closing though. I suspect every TV will have 3D capability within the next year of product refreshes.
The reason for a credit check on any of these services is that the companies are extending credit. You are using a service on credit and you pay for the service at the end of the billing cycle.
When banks and credit card companies (at least most of them) extend credit, they extend credit with a LIMIT.
Cell phone companies should be required to do the same. You should get a limit based on your credit. You should not be able to exceed that credit limit without being aware of your bill, and making a payment to "free up" credit on your account.
You should also be able to opt out of services you do not want at no cost.
This isn't nanny-state stuff, this is basic consumer protection that will increase confidence in the communications market. -ted
We can all debate the merits of pay for use systems, but for me, this is nothing more than an academic exercise.
What happens when human life is lost? Do we as a society not even attempt to save someone's life because a fee has not been paid?
For all those who claim all life is precious - you just put a price on human life - in this case , had someone perished in the fire, the price would have been $75.00.
Sure, I don't like our empire, or the fact that we still think we can build nations and bring democracy to every corner of the earth. I do, however, like the technological progress that results from military spending.
It's the closest thing we have to real publicly funded research that most politicians can support.
The private sector has been dragging its feet on alternative energy for 30 years (yes Government does share the blame here). If the military decides it needs to be energy independent, and the physics/chemistry allows it - it will get done.
One can hope that any resulting innovations trickle into civilian life.
How about Google shares their ad revenue with me if I agree to watch the commercials?
I've been told many times that the show is not the product - the viewers are the product. Fine, if I allow Google to show me the ads using MY bandwidth, why not give me a cut of the ad revenue?
Book publisher money grabs are not new. I remember having to buy the same calculus book 3 times in college - Why?
The publisher moved around the chapters and slightly altered some of the problems. Never mind that calculus hasn't changed in hundreds of years.
These "new editions" instantly made the old books worth zero. If you took a chance on an old used textbook, you ran the risk of not being able to do the assigned work.
Book publishers are money grabbing scum, and they don't give a damn if poor students go broke trying to get an education.
Having worked for a community bank, I was forced by regulators to put controls in place to prevent people from accessing other user's data, or data they were not authorized to use.
These regulations are in place specifically because this problem has happened frequently in the past - well before the cloud computing phenomenon. Back then "cloud" stuff was called "hosted" or "serviced" applications.
Trusting someone else with your data is not a new problem, and one that is not going away. If the private sector does not deal with the issue, it will only be a matter of time until government expands current non-public data laws (GLBA, and SarbOx..etc.) to all hosted data.
In the manufacture of physical things it's very hard to compete with companies operating in other countries that have less worker protections, less environmental protections, and non-existent employee benefits.
Either we stop buying from manufacturers located in these countries or we push our legislators to prohibit the import of items manufactured under these conditions.
OR
We lower our standard of living to a 3rd world standard to "compete". Is throwing away your standard of living worth cheap light bulbs?
Your problem is that you are looking for competencies in specific technologies that may or may not be obsolete in 2-3 years.
I've been in IT for over a decade and I have a CS degree (and a background in EE). I understand the very fundamentals of this entire business, right down to machine code and registers - my education gives me an in-depth knowledge of all that is IT. I was educated to build IT products, but I chose to integrate/install/admin IT products - it's what I like to do.
During the course of my work, I've been exposed to lots of technologies that have come and gone - everything from Microsoft domains, UNIX, Netware, Ethernet, Token Ring, EMC SANs, Cisco routers and firewalls and a whole host of acronyms to lengthy to list here.
I deployed VMware's ESXi hypervisor and a bunch of hosts in a weekend having never touched the stuff in my life prior. How? I have the capability to learn new things because of my education coupled with my many years in this business.
The moral of this post is the following:
Get well educated IT help and stop worrying about the technology du jour. Talented IT people can learn anything you throw at them. The trick is finding people who are capable of learning on their own.
I feel your pain; working short-handed is never fun. Good luck finding the talent - it's out there.
I recently changed my iPhone plan on my work account to include the ability to tether (I don't want to jailbreak my work provided phone).
The choices were 2GB "DataPro" plan with tethering ($45) or a 2GB "Enterprise" plan with tethering ($60). It wasn't clear on the web-site what the differences were so I called AT&T.
After three transfers I finally got to someone who could explain the difference. The guy told me that the "Enterprise" plan is for users connecting to their own mail server - not a google/yahoo/hotmail type service.
I asked if they would actively block my connection to my mail server on the "DataPro" (non-enterprise) plan - and he said no - not yet. I asked if he would support (somehow) my connection to my mail server on the "Enterprise" plan, and he said no I'm on my own.
So AT&T is charging more for an "Enterprise" data plan and not giving ANY additional service - they only reserve the right to break your connection to your own mail server on a non-enterprise data plan.
Fuck those guys. We are leaving them the minute iPhone goes to Verizon, or some other carrier. Are we to trust this company with ANY policies regarding network fairness? No way.
I learned how a computer works before any IT concepts were thrown my way. Here is the stuff I learned at the beginning of High School:
1. How a stack machine works. 2. How a computer program works (via Pascal). 3. How to input data. 4. How to store data (arrays, linked lists, hashes...etc) 5. How to manipulate data (sorting, performing mathematical operations on data, building functions...etc) 6. How to output data in useful form (output to file, screen print)
OK, I admit, I learned to program on a CoCo 2 in basic well before High School, but complete novices were also learning this very same stuff in 9th grade.
Learning how a computer works, and eventually getting a CS degree helped me be a better "IT guy".
It's time for computer companies to admit they have no idea who their customer is, or what their customer wants. Most computer products try to be everything to everyone and end up disappointing all.
The secret to Apple's success is simplicity - identifying the smallest list of features that their customer base will find useful. Sure this makes some people unhappy, but the vast majority of their customers are happy with the feature set, and delighted by the ease of use that results from a device that doesn't try to do everything.
I used to want my computing devices to do everything. This usually resulted in building computers that could heat an entire house or carrying a laptop bag that weighed 50 lbs. Since converting my life to Apple's products (AppleTV, Mac Mini server, iMac, iPhones, iPods and iPads) I've been happier.
I was hesitant to get an iPad fearing that it's limited feature set would relegate it to a dust-collector in my technology scrap pile. I couldn't have been more wrong. On a recent weekend in Las Vegas, I didn't even bring my laptop bag. I was able to get remote access to my entire work network, read books and magazines, watch movies, and listen to music. Battery life was fantastic and I never once wished that I brought my laptop bag the entire weekend.
It was damn cool to walk on the plane with only an iPad and a pair of headphones in tow.
I'm not saying Apple's way is the only right way. There may be another company out there that figures their customers out as well as Apple has, but for now, I haven't seen it.
4.0.1 is far from perfect - how about addressing a few of the following bugs before worrying about jailbreakers:
- Poor Bluetooth compatibility. Accessories that worked under iOS3 are flaky (or do not work at all) in iOS4. Lots of BT functions are broken - phone book transfer - switching between audio and handsfree results in no audio, frequent BT disconnects...etc. - Occasionally upgrades to 4.0.1 result in poor battery life and excessive operating heat from the device (I have seen this on at least 5 phones). Wiping the device and restoring the phone fixes the issue (in every case so far) - so it's an upgrade problem - Pathetic performance on the 3G model. Either make the performance better or exclude the device from further upgrades. - Poor radio performance. I have heard a few complaints from my users that cellular radio performance is worse after the iOS4 upgrade. Phones frequently fail-over to Edge when 3G is available on other devices.
Trading a stable phone for multitasking was not what we wanted when our users upgraded to iOS4.
How many buyers care about the engine in their car? Forget about "car guys" - I'm talking about the other 95% of the car market.
Most people I see buying cars look at size, style, and reliability. The engine choice is almost irrelevant for many buyers.
I recently asked my sister what engine she would pick for her next car. Her answer: whatever gets good fuel economy and can get her onto a highway at a decent speed. Forget about the more "exotic" options like diesel and hybrid drivetrains.
Computer purchases are a similar thing. How many people really care what CPU is in their iPhone?
The flaw in Murdoch's strategy is that to effectively charge for something that everyone else is giving away for free, you need to convince all the other "free guys" to charge for their stuff.
This works in industries where the barriers to entry are high, but on the web, anyone can be a journalist - hell, you don't even need to know how to operate a web server any more - all you need is a hosted wordpress account and you are off to the races.
That's where Murdoch will focus his energies next - raising the barriers to entry. I can easily see this slimeball "partnering" with ISPs to restrict access to free sites. Unless we have clear regulator enforced net neutrality laws, Murdoch and his types will restrict our right to free press and force all of us to pay for his "news".
We have all of those tools, yet they still do not do what I want.
I want the ability to authorize updates centrally and have clients regularly check-in, and install updates on a pre-defined schedule - without user intervention.
As far as I can tell, that does not exist. We have Mac OS Server and unlimited client ARD. Manual pushes of software packages work fine if all the clients are online during the push.
They are close. All the pieces are there, Apple just needs to stitch them together a bit better.
Task server can collect the client summaries, but for some reason, off-line clients aren't reported accurately.
Maybe we just need to work with it some more.
It doesn't work well for offline clients. We have tons of laptop carts, and when the laptops are off-site or turned off and stowed in the carts, updates are missed. Finally, the end user still needs to be an admin to install the updates. None of our end users have administrative access.
I'd also like another thing that microsoft provides with their update server; a summary of the update status of each client machine.
I use apple's software update server to distribute patches and updates at my company. I never understood why apple gives us a mechanism to centrally control and distribute patches, but no way to automatically install them.
This is one thing that Microsoft got right. Centrally distributing and installing patches is stupidly easy in the windows world. It pains me to say this, but the lack of automatic patching will bite apple and their users one day.
Data center floods, Katrina, and the BP oil spill the Gulf. All have one thing in common - a government that was not prepared.
I chuckle when I hear my more conservative friends complain about the level of competence or disaster response times we find in government. These are the very same people who want less government and lower taxes.
You can not have a small, cheap, government that is staffed by geniuses and prepared for every possible problem. Smart people cost money, resources cost money.
While this flood was an avoidable occurrence, do taxpayers really want to pay for redundant EVERYTHING at the local, state, and federal government? Probably not.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not their first Mac app - we've been running Sophos AV (corporate, non-free) for over 3 years. It supports Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. -ted
I've never worked for Microsoft or GM, but from the outside the two look very similar.
For years both were/are giants in their respective industries - the standard of those industries if you will.
Years of shoddy products and internal political turmoil took their toll on both companies.
I wonder if Microsoft will avoid GM's fate - financial problems and an eventual government rescue? It's hard to imagine Microsoft with financial problems, but at one time in the not so distant past, it was also hard to imagine GM with financial problems.
-ted
We recently had our website redesigned, and our designers suggested we host at GoDaddy. I suggested that we host internally since it would save us $100/month, and thanks to VMware's ESXi, we've freed up a bit of hardware recently.
We are almost completely a Mac OS and Windows shop. I ran Red Hat, Fedora, and Ubuntu - as well as Solaris all through college, so Unix is familiar to me.
I have to say that setting up a LAMP server with SSH was a piece of cake. Our newest Ubuntu server distribution did almost everything for you. I didn't edit a single config file, and security updates are installed automatically - no manual CRON job configuration was necessary.
We had to tweak some permissions, but it was fairly painless.
Finally we snapshot the entire box once per week using VMware's tools as a backup - really easy.
I've got to say, I've been away from Linux for a few years and was pleasantly surprised at how refined it has gotten. Microsoft should be worried.
-ted
Is that it is depressing the prices on non-3D televisions. I really don't care about 3D TV. I do care about a quality 2D image, and there are tons of good televisions with great quality panels at nice prices thanks to the lack of 3D.
It's a great time to buy a TV if you don't care about 3D. The window is closing though. I suspect every TV will have 3D capability within the next year of product refreshes.
-ted
The reason for a credit check on any of these services is that the companies are extending credit. You are using a service on credit and you pay for the service at the end of the billing cycle.
When banks and credit card companies (at least most of them) extend credit, they extend credit with a LIMIT.
Cell phone companies should be required to do the same. You should get a limit based on your credit. You should not be able to exceed that credit limit without being aware of your bill, and making a payment to "free up" credit on your account.
You should also be able to opt out of services you do not want at no cost.
This isn't nanny-state stuff, this is basic consumer protection that will increase confidence in the communications market.
-ted
We can all debate the merits of pay for use systems, but for me, this is nothing more than an academic exercise.
What happens when human life is lost? Do we as a society not even attempt to save someone's life because a fee has not been paid?
For all those who claim all life is precious - you just put a price on human life - in this case , had someone perished in the fire, the price would have been $75.00.
This doesn't seem right.
Sure, I don't like our empire, or the fact that we still think we can build nations and bring democracy to every corner of the earth. I do, however, like the technological progress that results from military spending.
It's the closest thing we have to real publicly funded research that most politicians can support.
The private sector has been dragging its feet on alternative energy for 30 years (yes Government does share the blame here). If the military decides it needs to be energy independent, and the physics/chemistry allows it - it will get done.
One can hope that any resulting innovations trickle into civilian life.
-ted
How about Google shares their ad revenue with me if I agree to watch the commercials?
I've been told many times that the show is not the product - the viewers are the product. Fine, if I allow Google to show me the ads using MY bandwidth, why not give me a cut of the ad revenue?
-ted
Book publisher money grabs are not new. I remember having to buy the same calculus book 3 times in college - Why?
The publisher moved around the chapters and slightly altered some of the problems. Never mind that calculus hasn't changed in hundreds of years.
These "new editions" instantly made the old books worth zero. If you took a chance on an old used textbook, you ran the risk of not being able to do the assigned work.
Book publishers are money grabbing scum, and they don't give a damn if poor students go broke trying to get an education.
The iPad is just another tool in their toolbox.
-ted
Having worked for a community bank, I was forced by regulators to put controls in place to prevent people from accessing other user's data, or data they were not authorized to use.
These regulations are in place specifically because this problem has happened frequently in the past - well before the cloud computing phenomenon. Back then "cloud" stuff was called "hosted" or "serviced" applications.
Trusting someone else with your data is not a new problem, and one that is not going away. If the private sector does not deal with the issue, it will only be a matter of time until government expands current non-public data laws (GLBA, and SarbOx..etc.) to all hosted data.
-ted
In the manufacture of physical things it's very hard to compete with companies operating in other countries that have less worker protections, less environmental protections, and non-existent employee benefits.
Either we stop buying from manufacturers located in these countries or we push our legislators to prohibit the import of items manufactured under these conditions.
OR
We lower our standard of living to a 3rd world standard to "compete". Is throwing away your standard of living worth cheap light bulbs?
-ted
Your problem is that you are looking for competencies in specific technologies that may or may not be obsolete in 2-3 years.
I've been in IT for over a decade and I have a CS degree (and a background in EE). I understand the very fundamentals of this entire business, right down to machine code and registers - my education gives me an in-depth knowledge of all that is IT. I was educated to build IT products, but I chose to integrate/install/admin IT products - it's what I like to do.
During the course of my work, I've been exposed to lots of technologies that have come and gone - everything from Microsoft domains, UNIX, Netware, Ethernet, Token Ring, EMC SANs, Cisco routers and firewalls and a whole host of acronyms to lengthy to list here.
I deployed VMware's ESXi hypervisor and a bunch of hosts in a weekend having never touched the stuff in my life prior. How? I have the capability to learn new things because of my education coupled with my many years in this business.
The moral of this post is the following:
Get well educated IT help and stop worrying about the technology du jour. Talented IT people can learn anything you throw at them. The trick is finding people who are capable of learning on their own.
I feel your pain; working short-handed is never fun. Good luck finding the talent - it's out there.
-ted
Push and hold the power button. Works every time.
(I am not responsible for any data loss that results from the above advice).
-ted
I recently changed my iPhone plan on my work account to include the ability to tether (I don't want to jailbreak my work provided phone).
The choices were 2GB "DataPro" plan with tethering ($45) or a 2GB "Enterprise" plan with tethering ($60). It wasn't clear on the web-site what the differences were so I called AT&T.
After three transfers I finally got to someone who could explain the difference. The guy told me that the "Enterprise" plan is for users connecting to their own mail server - not a google/yahoo/hotmail type service.
I asked if they would actively block my connection to my mail server on the "DataPro" (non-enterprise) plan - and he said no - not yet. I asked if he would support (somehow) my connection to my mail server on the "Enterprise" plan, and he said no I'm on my own.
So AT&T is charging more for an "Enterprise" data plan and not giving ANY additional service - they only reserve the right to break your connection to your own mail server on a non-enterprise data plan.
Fuck those guys. We are leaving them the minute iPhone goes to Verizon, or some other carrier. Are we to trust this company with ANY policies regarding network fairness? No way.
-ted
I learned how a computer works before any IT concepts were thrown my way. Here is the stuff I learned at the beginning of High School:
1. How a stack machine works.
2. How a computer program works (via Pascal).
3. How to input data.
4. How to store data (arrays, linked lists, hashes...etc)
5. How to manipulate data (sorting, performing mathematical operations on data, building functions...etc)
6. How to output data in useful form (output to file, screen print)
OK, I admit, I learned to program on a CoCo 2 in basic well before High School, but complete novices were also learning this very same stuff in 9th grade.
Learning how a computer works, and eventually getting a CS degree helped me be a better "IT guy".
-ted
It's time for computer companies to admit they have no idea who their customer is, or what their customer wants. Most computer products try to be everything to everyone and end up disappointing all.
The secret to Apple's success is simplicity - identifying the smallest list of features that their customer base will find useful. Sure this makes some people unhappy, but the vast majority of their customers are happy with the feature set, and delighted by the ease of use that results from a device that doesn't try to do everything.
I used to want my computing devices to do everything. This usually resulted in building computers that could heat an entire house or carrying a laptop bag that weighed 50 lbs. Since converting my life to Apple's products (AppleTV, Mac Mini server, iMac, iPhones, iPods and iPads) I've been happier.
I was hesitant to get an iPad fearing that it's limited feature set would relegate it to a dust-collector in my technology scrap pile. I couldn't have been more wrong. On a recent weekend in Las Vegas, I didn't even bring my laptop bag. I was able to get remote access to my entire work network, read books and magazines, watch movies, and listen to music. Battery life was fantastic and I never once wished that I brought my laptop bag the entire weekend.
It was damn cool to walk on the plane with only an iPad and a pair of headphones in tow.
I'm not saying Apple's way is the only right way. There may be another company out there that figures their customers out as well as Apple has, but for now, I haven't seen it.
-ted
Apple,
4.0.1 is far from perfect - how about addressing a few of the following bugs before worrying about jailbreakers:
- Poor Bluetooth compatibility. Accessories that worked under iOS3 are flaky (or do not work at all) in iOS4. Lots of BT functions are broken - phone book transfer - switching between audio and handsfree results in no audio, frequent BT disconnects...etc.
- Occasionally upgrades to 4.0.1 result in poor battery life and excessive operating heat from the device (I have seen this on at least 5 phones). Wiping the device and restoring the phone fixes the issue (in every case so far) - so it's an upgrade problem
- Pathetic performance on the 3G model. Either make the performance better or exclude the device from further upgrades.
- Poor radio performance. I have heard a few complaints from my users that cellular radio performance is worse after the iOS4 upgrade. Phones frequently fail-over to Edge when 3G is available on other devices.
Trading a stable phone for multitasking was not what we wanted when our users upgraded to iOS4.
-ted
How many buyers care about the engine in their car? Forget about "car guys" - I'm talking about the other 95% of the car market.
Most people I see buying cars look at size, style, and reliability. The engine choice is almost irrelevant for many buyers.
I recently asked my sister what engine she would pick for her next car. Her answer: whatever gets good fuel economy and can get her onto a highway at a decent speed. Forget about the more "exotic" options like diesel and hybrid drivetrains.
Computer purchases are a similar thing. How many people really care what CPU is in their iPhone?
-ted
The flaw in Murdoch's strategy is that to effectively charge for something that everyone else is giving away for free, you need to convince all the other "free guys" to charge for their stuff.
This works in industries where the barriers to entry are high, but on the web, anyone can be a journalist - hell, you don't even need to know how to operate a web server any more - all you need is a hosted wordpress account and you are off to the races.
That's where Murdoch will focus his energies next - raising the barriers to entry. I can easily see this slimeball "partnering" with ISPs to restrict access to free sites. Unless we have clear regulator enforced net neutrality laws, Murdoch and his types will restrict our right to free press and force all of us to pay for his "news".
-ted
We have all of those tools, yet they still do not do what I want.
I want the ability to authorize updates centrally and have clients regularly check-in, and install updates on a pre-defined schedule - without user intervention.
As far as I can tell, that does not exist. We have Mac OS Server and unlimited client ARD. Manual pushes of software packages work fine if all the clients are online during the push.
They are close. All the pieces are there, Apple just needs to stitch them together a bit better.
-ted
Task server can collect the client summaries, but for some reason, off-line clients aren't reported accurately. Maybe we just need to work with it some more.
It doesn't work well for offline clients. We have tons of laptop carts, and when the laptops are off-site or turned off and stowed in the carts, updates are missed. Finally, the end user still needs to be an admin to install the updates. None of our end users have administrative access.
I'd also like another thing that microsoft provides with their update server; a summary of the update status of each client machine.
Hopefully apple will provide this in the future.
Only works if the logged in user is an administrator. My end users do not have local admin permissions.
I use apple's software update server to distribute patches and updates at my company. I never understood why apple gives us a mechanism to centrally control and distribute patches, but no way to automatically install them.
This is one thing that Microsoft got right. Centrally distributing and installing patches is stupidly easy in the windows world. It pains me to say this, but the lack of automatic patching will bite apple and their users one day.
Data center floods, Katrina, and the BP oil spill the Gulf. All have one thing in common - a government that was not prepared.
I chuckle when I hear my more conservative friends complain about the level of competence or disaster response times we find in government. These are the very same people who want less government and lower taxes.
You can not have a small, cheap, government that is staffed by geniuses and prepared for every possible problem. Smart people cost money, resources cost money.
While this flood was an avoidable occurrence, do taxpayers really want to pay for redundant EVERYTHING at the local, state, and federal government? Probably not.
-ted