You're exactly right. The nice thing about it is that it's comprehensive... it makes it simple to just get to work, instead of hunting down functionality written into various resources maintained by different people, all of which need to be obtained separately and glued together. Think of it like Java, except that the language you write in doesn't have to be Java, you pick the one you're comfortable with. Ultimately it all gets compiled into the same thing, so language choice has been reduced (almost) to a mere matter of pure preference. That's why you'll often see three groups of people in the VB.Net vs. C#.Net argument... one for each, and one to say, "Guys, it really doesn't matter." It's almost a running joke at this point.:)
I care. I maintain, and develop for, windows systems all day... then come home to all linux systems with the exception of an XP Pro VM I keep tucked away for emergencies. I'm not switching frameworks, and the business is not switching platforms. What's more, like most.net developers, I like the framework and the dev environment. They're the sort of things that MS actually got right.
It seems to me that the popularity of.Net should be obvious to those who frequent slashdot.
The part about opening it up for development is huge. Even then, consider that most in-house developers for mobile devices now are.net programmers working with the compact framework. PalmOS is long dead (yes, I said that).:)
The two big questions will likely be something like, "Can I run our existing [say... salesforce.com quick-reference] app on this phone... or at least quickly write a new one?" and more importantly, "Will it work with our exchange systems?" If the answers are "no" and "no", even the boss with the Porsche won't want one.
You've struck on a few things there that I've been thinking for a long time.
I would happily spend money on a solid linux distro that does what I want it to. In fact, I'd pay a premium over the competing version of Windows. The problem is that for that money I expect it to, as you said, feel like a commercial OS.
I'd really like to see better development environments (eclipse makes me want to wretch, netbeans is pretty slick). I suppose I'd consider java again if we can get everyone off of blackdown and on to the real jre. I'd even like to clean up a bunch of my.net work and run it in mono if someone comes up with something better than monodevelop. Something tells me that's a ways off though.:)
I always laugh a little when people feel clever pointing out little problems with MB episodes. Anyone who thinks they're meant to be rigorous experiments is missing the whole point of the show. Mythbusters is like a YouTube series with a fun cast and a budget... and I love it that way. As Kari and Grant said on tour recently, they're often figuring this stuff out as they go... learning cool stuff as they shoot.
Besides, I think most of us already know that the best ways to test most myths would be so boring it would never make TV in the first place.
I don't write Word documents on my phone, but I do look up CRM data from it. The application I wrote does it easily, and it a suitable format. Too bad I'll never be able to do that on an iPhone.
I'm not MS's biggest fan, but windows mobile devices are very easy to write for.
You mentioned that even if people released an Exchange killer, it might not do anything. In point of fact, this is already the case.
Companies like Zimbra have released (even OSS versions) of complete exchange replacements that are very much, "just works" solutions. And yet, I don't personally know of any companies that use it.
Much of the agenda, I believe, comes from frustrations that MS causes geeks. I can't effectively bitch about Word not working with XYZ, because MS doesn't really care. They don't care because there's no alternative... so what am I to do? In the meantime, format lock-in prevents people from using different solutions. My sales rep's PPT is not going to translate cleanly to any other vendors powerpoint replacement, and vice-versa.
The nice part is, solutions like Exchange can be replaced, so long as everyone sees the exact same functionality at the user-level. Best case solution, which is possible, would be one where everyone goes home on Monday, IT replaces Exchange Monday night, Tuesday morning everyone comes in and nobody notices that anything is different.
I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think that's rule #1 at all. Rule number 1 is usually "get the job done".
For example, the many thousands of companies that use services like Salesforce.com, SugarCRM hosted, Zimbra hosted, etc., don't appear to have a real problem with external solutions. It's entirely a company-by-company, solution-by-solution issue. Many places probably don't want all their accounting done with the Online Edition of Quickbooks, but don't have a problem with using SF for their CRM or having their website and associated databases hosted externally.
But yes, there are always exposure concerns, even with internally hosted solutions. Personally, I often wonder if places like SF wouldn't generally do a BETTER job of protecting your data then a smaller company would with an internal solution. I've seen smaller businesses do some pretty stupid things that put their internal systems at risk, if only to provide access to data for employees outside the building.
Oddly I had to authorize a family member to use my checking account before they were able to do deposits for me. I was using BankOne before it was bought up in the last year or so.
You should've seen what TurboTax (boxed) did when I let it import data from one of my brokerage accounts. It told me I owed about $2,900. I just about had a heart attack until I realized that it took incomplete data (no purchase dates or prices), didn't warn me, recorded all the sales as income and added it to what I owe against.
I called an accountant instead and ended up eating the cost of TurboTax.
I talked to an MS rep a year or so ago who said the trick with that is you can sell OEM copies if you sell them with a critical hardware component. Since windows technically requires a mouse (per their hw req lists), people just bundle it with a $1 mouse and sell the OEM copy of Windows for much less than the retail copies. It was a just a loophole, and they may have worked it out since then, but it was legal at the time.
What I'm wondering is if the downgrade rights you get with Vista will still apply, and if you'll be able to buy media kits for XP after all this.
I've read that OLED displays have a very short life. After a quick check, Wikipedia confirms that it's a longstanding problem with the technology. Here is the relevant section from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oled#Drawbacks:
"Drawbacks
The biggest technical problem left to overcome has been the limited lifetime of the organic materials. Particularly, blue OLEDs typically have lifetimes of around 5,000 hours when used for flat panel displays, which is lower than typical lifetimes of LCD or Plasma technology. However, recent experimentation has shown that it's possible to swap the chemical component for a phosphorescent one, if the subtle differences in energy transitions are accounted for, resulting in lifetimes of up to 20,000 hours for blue PHOLEDs. [19]
Also, the intrusion of water into displays can damage or destroy the organic materials. Therefore, improved sealing processes are important for practical manufacturing and may limit the longevity of more flexible displays.
Commercial development of the technology is also restrained by patents held by Eastman Kodak and other firms, requiring other companies to acquire a license.[citation needed] In the past, many display technologies have become widespread only once the patents had expired; aperture grille CRT is a classic example.[citation needed]"
The problem is, why would Google/YouTube refute it? They didn't post the video, they have no interest in keeping it up and they couldn't defend it if they wanted to. It doesn't belong to them. What might be needed is some sort of request resolution, whereby the requests are issued to the poster, not the service, and they can duke it out without YouTube being caught in the middle.
HP's customer support is particularly bad this way.
They insisted that I do all kinds of goofy things when the mobo friend in my laptop. Lost the calls three times (their side) talking to tech support. Resupplied ALL information for every call (excuse was, "our tools are slow", no BS). They tried to tell me I couldn't send the laptop in with the HDD removed (source I didn't own on the disk). They called me a thief when they shipped my laptop back missing the drive bay covers and I called to complain, said they were making a note never to replace a missing part for my laptop, and threatened to hang up on me when I cursed under my breath. This was after 8 weeks, start to finish.
I got a hold of a security guard on the HP campus in the middle of the night, got transferred to the VM of HP's POC for BBB related issues, left a nasty message. I emailed every corporate email address I could find at HP, and then filed a lengthy BBB complaint.
A couple days later I got a call from an American citizen, employed in the US, who straightened everything out in about 5 minutes.
HP blows, and I feel like an ass for having bought one. The bigger lesson? Call BEFORE you buy any piece of equipment, find out if ANY of their tech support is outsourced to India, and if the answer is 'yes', don't ever purchase a laptop or desktop from that company again. I haven't had a customer service problem with a PC or laptop since... personal or business.
As someone stated earlier, buy a machine with Vista Business on it, then you can call MS licensing and get a key from them for XP Pro, legally. You'll need media though. They might even get you a media kit for XP Pro... don't know that for sure though.
I'm running one machine on vista business as a test, and it wasn't a new "built for vista" machine, making it a miserable experience all the way around. There are just way too many aggravations with UAC, driver signing, etc. that would make it an absolute nightmare, and we don't even have that many workstations. Have they even fixed the fact that the admin pack doesn't work in vista yet?
I think the numbers probably reflect a lot of uptake on the SA/Vol licensing too, which is much like what you're saying. Lots of people are entitled to Vista, but won't touch it with a ten foot pole.
The problem with this is that they gave the teams securing the network 3 hours to prep.
As someone who had to take over company's network, exactly what this exercise is meant to simulate, I can say it does take more than 3 hours to secure the services and appliances they were given without taking things offline. What's more, you usually don't have four seasoned hackers banging on your network's doorstep in your first three hours of employment. Also consider that most businesses don't keep a 10k record CC# database on a machine behind an unsecured perimeter appliance with a bunch of hokey other services running on them, accessible from outside the lan. The expectations of the whole process are a bit ridiculous to begin with, but if you gave them a day or so to secure their network and services, I'm sure they'd have done much better.
Judging by the brief accounts of each teams actions, I'd guess that in more realistic scenarios they would make reasonably effective admins.
Do we dare to dream of a world where you couldn't (and wouldn't have to) guess, with 99% accuracy, which office suite a company was using before you emailed them a document? The idea seems totally far fetched to me.:(
"The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."
Slashdot Mirror
You're exactly right. The nice thing about it is that it's comprehensive... it makes it simple to just get to work, instead of hunting down functionality written into various resources maintained by different people, all of which need to be obtained separately and glued together. Think of it like Java, except that the language you write in doesn't have to be Java, you pick the one you're comfortable with. Ultimately it all gets compiled into the same thing, so language choice has been reduced (almost) to a mere matter of pure preference. That's why you'll often see three groups of people in the VB.Net vs. C#.Net argument... one for each, and one to say, "Guys, it really doesn't matter." It's almost a running joke at this point.
I care. I maintain, and develop for, windows systems all day... then come home to all linux systems with the exception of an XP Pro VM I keep tucked away for emergencies. I'm not switching frameworks, and the business is not switching platforms. What's more, like most .net developers, I like the framework and the dev environment. They're the sort of things that MS actually got right.
.Net should be obvious to those who frequent slashdot.
It seems to me that the popularity of
It's easier than all that... freeze them!
Oh wow, tell me you worked for KWOM Communications. :)
The part about opening it up for development is huge. Even then, consider that most in-house developers for mobile devices now are .net programmers working with the compact framework. PalmOS is long dead (yes, I said that). :)
The two big questions will likely be something like, "Can I run our existing [say... salesforce.com quick-reference] app on this phone... or at least quickly write a new one?" and more importantly, "Will it work with our exchange systems?" If the answers are "no" and "no", even the boss with the Porsche won't want one.
You've struck on a few things there that I've been thinking for a long time.
.net work and run it in mono if someone comes up with something better than monodevelop. Something tells me that's a ways off though. :)
I would happily spend money on a solid linux distro that does what I want it to. In fact, I'd pay a premium over the competing version of Windows. The problem is that for that money I expect it to, as you said, feel like a commercial OS.
I'd really like to see better development environments (eclipse makes me want to wretch, netbeans is pretty slick). I suppose I'd consider java again if we can get everyone off of blackdown and on to the real jre. I'd even like to clean up a bunch of my
I always laugh a little when people feel clever pointing out little problems with MB episodes. Anyone who thinks they're meant to be rigorous experiments is missing the whole point of the show. Mythbusters is like a YouTube series with a fun cast and a budget... and I love it that way. As Kari and Grant said on tour recently, they're often figuring this stuff out as they go... learning cool stuff as they shoot.
Besides, I think most of us already know that the best ways to test most myths would be so boring it would never make TV in the first place.
I don't write Word documents on my phone, but I do look up CRM data from it. The application I wrote does it easily, and it a suitable format. Too bad I'll never be able to do that on an iPhone.
I'm not MS's biggest fan, but windows mobile devices are very easy to write for.
You mean it's not supported on OS/2?!?! F'ing Microsoft.
Does the beta connector work in Outlook 2007? How well does it integrate with MS's AD?
You mentioned that even if people released an Exchange killer, it might not do anything. In point of fact, this is already the case.
Companies like Zimbra have released (even OSS versions) of complete exchange replacements that are very much, "just works" solutions. And yet, I don't personally know of any companies that use it.
Much of the agenda, I believe, comes from frustrations that MS causes geeks. I can't effectively bitch about Word not working with XYZ, because MS doesn't really care. They don't care because there's no alternative... so what am I to do? In the meantime, format lock-in prevents people from using different solutions. My sales rep's PPT is not going to translate cleanly to any other vendors powerpoint replacement, and vice-versa.
The nice part is, solutions like Exchange can be replaced, so long as everyone sees the exact same functionality at the user-level. Best case solution, which is possible, would be one where everyone goes home on Monday, IT replaces Exchange Monday night, Tuesday morning everyone comes in and nobody notices that anything is different.
I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think that's rule #1 at all. Rule number 1 is usually "get the job done".
For example, the many thousands of companies that use services like Salesforce.com, SugarCRM hosted, Zimbra hosted, etc., don't appear to have a real problem with external solutions. It's entirely a company-by-company, solution-by-solution issue. Many places probably don't want all their accounting done with the Online Edition of Quickbooks, but don't have a problem with using SF for their CRM or having their website and associated databases hosted externally.
But yes, there are always exposure concerns, even with internally hosted solutions. Personally, I often wonder if places like SF wouldn't generally do a BETTER job of protecting your data then a smaller company would with an internal solution. I've seen smaller businesses do some pretty stupid things that put their internal systems at risk, if only to provide access to data for employees outside the building.
Oddly I had to authorize a family member to use my checking account before they were able to do deposits for me. I was using BankOne before it was bought up in the last year or so.
You should've seen what TurboTax (boxed) did when I let it import data from one of my brokerage accounts. It told me I owed about $2,900. I just about had a heart attack until I realized that it took incomplete data (no purchase dates or prices), didn't warn me, recorded all the sales as income and added it to what I owe against.
I called an accountant instead and ended up eating the cost of TurboTax.
I talked to an MS rep a year or so ago who said the trick with that is you can sell OEM copies if you sell them with a critical hardware component. Since windows technically requires a mouse (per their hw req lists), people just bundle it with a $1 mouse and sell the OEM copy of Windows for much less than the retail copies. It was a just a loophole, and they may have worked it out since then, but it was legal at the time.
What I'm wondering is if the downgrade rights you get with Vista will still apply, and if you'll be able to buy media kits for XP after all this.
The problem is, why would Google/YouTube refute it? They didn't post the video, they have no interest in keeping it up and they couldn't defend it if they wanted to. It doesn't belong to them. What might be needed is some sort of request resolution, whereby the requests are issued to the poster, not the service, and they can duke it out without YouTube being caught in the middle.
HP's customer support is particularly bad this way.
They insisted that I do all kinds of goofy things when the mobo friend in my laptop. Lost the calls three times (their side) talking to tech support. Resupplied ALL information for every call (excuse was, "our tools are slow", no BS). They tried to tell me I couldn't send the laptop in with the HDD removed (source I didn't own on the disk). They called me a thief when they shipped my laptop back missing the drive bay covers and I called to complain, said they were making a note never to replace a missing part for my laptop, and threatened to hang up on me when I cursed under my breath. This was after 8 weeks, start to finish.
I got a hold of a security guard on the HP campus in the middle of the night, got transferred to the VM of HP's POC for BBB related issues, left a nasty message. I emailed every corporate email address I could find at HP, and then filed a lengthy BBB complaint.
A couple days later I got a call from an American citizen, employed in the US, who straightened everything out in about 5 minutes.
HP blows, and I feel like an ass for having bought one. The bigger lesson? Call BEFORE you buy any piece of equipment, find out if ANY of their tech support is outsourced to India, and if the answer is 'yes', don't ever purchase a laptop or desktop from that company again. I haven't had a customer service problem with a PC or laptop since... personal or business.
As someone stated earlier, buy a machine with Vista Business on it, then you can call MS licensing and get a key from them for XP Pro, legally. You'll need media though. They might even get you a media kit for XP Pro... don't know that for sure though.
To be fair, most of us are... for about 30 minutes.
I can second that... stressing the "at least".
I'm running one machine on vista business as a test, and it wasn't a new "built for vista" machine, making it a miserable experience all the way around. There are just way too many aggravations with UAC, driver signing, etc. that would make it an absolute nightmare, and we don't even have that many workstations. Have they even fixed the fact that the admin pack doesn't work in vista yet?
I think the numbers probably reflect a lot of uptake on the SA/Vol licensing too, which is much like what you're saying. Lots of people are entitled to Vista, but won't touch it with a ten foot pole.
The problem with this is that they gave the teams securing the network 3 hours to prep.
As someone who had to take over company's network, exactly what this exercise is meant to simulate, I can say it does take more than 3 hours to secure the services and appliances they were given without taking things offline. What's more, you usually don't have four seasoned hackers banging on your network's doorstep in your first three hours of employment. Also consider that most businesses don't keep a 10k record CC# database on a machine behind an unsecured perimeter appliance with a bunch of hokey other services running on them, accessible from outside the lan. The expectations of the whole process are a bit ridiculous to begin with, but if you gave them a day or so to secure their network and services, I'm sure they'd have done much better.
Judging by the brief accounts of each teams actions, I'd guess that in more realistic scenarios they would make reasonably effective admins.
Do we dare to dream of a world where you couldn't (and wouldn't have to) guess, with 99% accuracy, which office suite a company was using before you emailed them a document? The idea seems totally far fetched to me.
Meh. Not surprised.
"The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."
A more realistic word: Porn.