I've always argued that windows is far better than linux, because it's not
going to fragment in the way linux does. It's a huge problem. You write an
app for linux and you can never tell what their system is going to be like.
They could be on redhat, or ubuntu, or any of the popular distros.
Yeah, an HP or Dell will be cheaper, but the parts they use are garbage, and the support is dirty rotten terrible. Drives, power supplies fail because they use cheap garbage ones.
Now, the "average" user is scared to even open the PC. Many "average" users now even see fit to just trash the machine when it gets spyware! Jeez, just reinstall Windows...oh wait, maybe the machine didn't come with a Windows disk! That's another common Dell trick these days, to save...what? Fifty cents?
However, these "average" users don't even KNOW you can build your own computer! Thus they would not be "asking from an 'end-user' point of view" because they don't know to ask if they should build a computer!
Thus: if anyone's smart enough to ask, I would unflinchingly tell him/her to build a system from scratch. If they're not smart enough to ask that question, hopefully they're at least smart enough to buy a Mac.
"Every other form of media has gone digital -- music, newspapers, movies,"
True. Music has gone digital, mostly because people take their un-copy-restricted CDs and rip them into MP3s. Then they can use the MP3 on as many computers and devices as they want, give it to friends, and have backups. Newspapers exist as un-copy-restricted HTML pages, which may be printed, sent to friends, and stored digitally without restriction.
What the publishing industry is peddling right now is copy-restricted garbage. It will be locked to a particular computer or device. I can't have backups of the text or lend it to a friend. Often I can't even print it. If the Microsoft operating system that stores the text wipes it out, oh well, go buy another one. Meanwhile the publishing industry salivates at the thought of copy-restricted electronic textbooks that expire after a single semester!
This copy-restricted garbage will not take off. If I want digital content, I'll go for something that does not have these ridiculous restrictions. Such unrestricted media can and will take off, because it has advantages--i.e. it's searchable, and cheap to distribute. For example, Wikipedia is far superior to its dead-tree equivalents for these two reasons alone. Also, the Amazon Shorts model looks promising. But I'll take a dead tree over copy-restricted garbage anyday.
If this goes wrong it will be horrifying. All your data locked up. MS' ultimate tool to control exactly what you do with your computer.
MS Technet on the new scheme
The system uses BitLocker Drive Encryption through a chip called TPM (Trusted Platform Module) in the computer's motherboard.
It is partly aimed at preventing people from downloading unlicensed films or media.
"This means that by default your hard disk is encrypted by using a key that you cannot physically get at...
The government shouldn't be the only folks horrified at this one. MS wants to turn your entire computer against you, encrypting all of its contents and allowing you to read it only if MS wants to allow it. Even if you're okay with that, imagine if something in the scheme goes wrong? I've used the Windows Encrypting File System in XP, and if you lose your encryption key (not that hard--say, if you reformat your hard drive) you are permanently locked out of all the data you've encrypted.
If this is true, MS really wants a death grip on your computer. I'd never use Vista under those circumstances.
Stories like these, along with the rumors of already-present Windows back doors, are perfect proof of why open-source encryption products are the only secure solution. No outside eyes have reviewed MS source code, so who knows what back doors are in there? Full review is the only assurance of true security.
GnuPG comes to mind as open-source encryption software. Are there any Windows or Linux solutions that offer the same relatively transparent, on-the-fly disk encryption that's built-in to XP Pro?
Good point on the bank. Even worse about Amazon is the way the URL instantly changes anytime you type in www.amazon.com. It appends a bunch of random-looking letters and numbers to the end. "Average user" then concludes that any URL with "amazon" and a bunch of random letters at the end is a legitimate Amazon page.
because it puts the enforcement burden on the record labels. There would be millions of watermarked files floating around out there, and they'd have to sue enough people to scare folks into not sharing their files. Only through scaring people could the labels have enough impact with this--there's no way they could close the spigot with the lawsuits.
Even so, the labels might adopt something like this. But it would be in addition to their current copy restriction schemes, rather than a replacement for them. Consumers still lose as they'll still have to wrangle with FairPlay, WMA, or whatever copy restriction scheme the labels want to use.
Re:Skype and Google Talk are not the issue
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Vonage IPO
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· Score: 1
VoIP in the home is all about "the number" - the 10 digits that ring the house as well as provide a "point of entry" into my personal communications space from the standard PSTN.
Fair enough. I will continue to scream "Skype," because Skype has SkypeIn. It's a phone number, for the cheap rate of $35 a year. Better deal than Vonage, without crappy Vonage support. Further, Skype now has POTS-like telephone handsets. In a year or two this will kill Vonage.
Vonage is in a dead-end business.
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I am not surprised that Vonage wants to do an IPO. It's Citron's chance to take his money and run. The heads of the company must realize they're in a dead-end business. Vonage will get squeezed on both ends in the market they're in now (Internet-to-POTS calls.) Already Vonage is not the price leader in this arena, so people looking for a bargain will go cheaper. Plus, the Bells and the cable companies will eat Vonage alive, with their bigger marketing budgets and their ability to stuff flyers in millions of monthly bills. Not to mention the Bells and cable companies' ability to do underhanded things with QoS and whatnot.
Then there are the up-and-comers, like Skype. That's the future of VoIP. Skype is already a better deal than Vonage, and without one-year lock-in contracts. Skype's costs are likely lower too.
That's why I figured Vonage's strategy is to go IPO, or sell the company. Vonage has been sitting still. They have not been adding any new features to their service--such as a simple, "do-not-disturb" feature that AT&T has. Come on, it's an electronic network! The cost of adding new features must be minimal.
Plus, the quality of Vonage's service is absolutely abysmal. If Vonage works, great. If it doesn't work, good luck--they will screw you. I have personal experience here. No wonder they've registered vonagesucks.com.
I now pay over $40 a month for a Verizon landline, rather than a Vonage phone, and I'd much rather give my money to Verizon. However there are probably investors dumb enough to buy Vonage IPO stock.
So what if Google creates a "private" network? How is this different from Comcast's private network, Verizon's private network, etc.? The Internet is nothing but a network of networks. Maybe Google wants to control its own network traffic rather than buying bandwidth from someone else. How does this lead to all these crazy arguments about "world domination" and "Google locking out traffic from other search engines"?
This is a legitimate concern, though perhaps for the wrong reasons. By the time these copyrights expire, technology will have improved to an extent we can't imagine. If they're dealing with a circa-2005 copy restriction scheme, I'd bet it could easily be brute forced fifty years from now.
A better question might be, fifty years from now, will anyone have the technology to even access the works? Think how hard it is to play an eight-track, or even an old 45. If it's copy restricted, will anyone remember how it works? I'll bet no one is playing old WMAs in 2050.
This might be a huge problem if these copy restriction schemes fade into obscurity, people forget about the works and suddenly, decades later, they want to access them again. But then again, by then it might be easy to reverse-engineer these schemes.
I really don't think that using $49 Billion of your own money to start a charitable foundation could *possibly* be out of a motive to help your company financially. Why on earth wouldn't he reinvest it if his motives were to help Microsoft?
In the public's and regulators' minds, Gates and Microsoft are one and the same. Thus, the public and regulators will tend to go easier on MS if they see Gates in a positive light. Regulators will be less likely to penalize anticompetitive MS behavior, switch to Linux, or adopt OpenDocument. Members of the public will be more likely to criticize regulators if they go against MS wishes: "why are you penalizing that nice company and its wonderful CEO who is doing so much to fight world poverty? The worst thing they did was give me a free Web browser!"
I don't know if Gates is truly this cynical, but it is certainly possible that Gates' donations are driven, at least in part, by a desire to help his company financially.
He says Vista is more secure than Unix because a user can run as an "Administrator," yet the system will still prompt her if she does something that requires admin privileges (like installing a program) while even prompting for a password, if the user so desires.
This is a novel concept for Windows, but with sudo this has been possible in Unix for ages. Ubuntu is already configured like this by default and behaves exactly as Windows does. Users go about their usual business as unprivileged users; if something that requires privilege elevation happens, the system asks for a password. However, the user can only escalate her privilege level if she's in the wheel group. This behavior in Ubuntu is identical to what he's proposing for Vista.
This Vista feature is definitely an improvement, but the MS VP is incorrect to suggest that it's somehow an advance beyond what Unix already offers.
IE is part of Windows in the same way Konqueror is part of KDE. (Wow, a lot of other people came up with that while I wrote this!:)) If you removed Konqueror from KDE - actually, I'm not really sure how that would ripple, but the concept is the same. I think Konqueror handles the desktop in the same way Nautilus runs the GNOME desktop and IE runs the Windows desktop.
You're misinformed here. It is perfectly possible to install KDE and use it as you DE without installing Konqueror. KDE has a separate application (don't know what it is offhand) that sticks the icons on the desktop, and yet another application (kicker) that gives you the KMenu and taskbar.
If you choose to install KDE without Konqueror, most KDE apps will still work just fine unless they use Konqeror for some reason--and offhand I can't think of *any* KDE apps that use Konqueror. This includes KMyMoney, the counterpart to MS Money which, as the MS VP correctly states, does require MSIE.
I know all this because I use Gentoo and with it one can install as much or as little of KDE as one wants to. KDE sans Konqeror works fine, if you don't want Konqueror's excellent file and Web browsing capabilities.
Maybe they are not going to catch google at this "raw brute-force search engine game"... good for them!
Some say they are already going in this direction, which is why they acquired del.icio.us. Why have computers characterize pages when humans will do it for you, and for free? Sometimes I search for things in del.icio.us, and the other users' bookmarks turn up some good results. It will be interesting to see if Yahoo can harness this in a big way.
This makes no sense: if a blog gets mean comments, disable comments! Yet story says that bad comments force Washington Post to shut down entire blog? Either this story is very misleading, or Post folks aren't all that smart.
As prices go up, we find ways to recycle. I remember reading a news story about an old abandoned railroad bridge. It sat there for decades. As the price of steel has been sky high lately, the railroad figured out it could make money by selling the bridge (as the old saying goes) and floating it down the river for recycling. (Preservationists who got used to the picturesque bridge didn't like the idea!)
Copper is already being recycled; there are folks in developing countries who hack apart old computers to recover the copper. More old copper would be found as the price goes up.
Freon was banned, which led to the production of substitutes as well as a thriving secondary market for Freon.
So, even if we run out of copper, I say so what...the market will come up with substitutes, and meanwhile, there is plenty of old copper out there to recycle.
On a related note, it seems MS is afraid to change the default configuration of Windows file permissions because it would break existing apps that either were written for Windows 9x, or that were not written to conform to the standards of the Windows 2000/XP file tree. Would MS consider tightening the file permissions, even though it will break many existing apps, in order to demand better behavior from app developers and have a more secure system?
Also, it seems to me that Windows' dual focus on consumer machines and business deployments holds it back. For example, while backward compatibility with old apps is important for enterprises, it is not nearly as important for consumers, yet backward compatibility is one reason why the default XP file permissions have not changed. Has MS ever considered splitting Windows into separate versions--one for businesses and one for consumers--that would address the specific needs of each market? From what I can tell, XP Media Center Edition, XP Home, and XP Pro are not truly "separate versions" for the purposes I'm discussing here. For example, the future "Home" version could have even tighter security than the "Pro" version, on the assumption that the "Pro" machine is administered by pros. The "Home" version might break existing non-compliant apps, but that would be the price to pay for more security.
I like the subscription model. I used it before I switched to Linux (I guess the subscription model wasn't compelling enough to keep me in Windows.)
But most people don't understand the subscription model and, when they do, they're hostile to it. People don't want to pay money month after month for music.
"Plays for Sure" will never give MS an upper hand over Apple. Consumers don't much care if their music is WMA or AAC; what they want is cool, easy-to-use software and hardware. Apple has this cornered. No other device comes remotely close to iPod, and Apple cemented this lead when they released Nano. The companies making WMA players, like Creative, are coming out with some pretty sorry hardware. It's heavy, boxy, and very unstylish. Creative came close with that Zen Micro, but then Apple whipped them again with Nano.
What MS needs to do is use those billions to come up with a really good portable player. Or, use those billions to fund and subsidize hardware makers who come up with good players, the same way Intel subsidizes PC makers. As long as all the WMA hardware is rotten, WMA and "Plays for Sure" are going nowhere, even with rental music.
Right now there is so much interference between wifi access points in my apartment building (and of course some of that might be cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc.) that the wifi is often unusuable. I hope some of that spectrum goes to a better wifi solution.
I read this column in the WSJ days ago. It figures that this Bialik guy would send it in to Slashdot, because most Slashdot readers would either laugh at Mossberg's assertions or frown in disgust.
Lots of you found yourself logging in, probably multiple times, using passwords you could barely remember because you are forced to change them so often. Then, you entered a world of computing where much of the power and variety of the technology was closed off to you in the name of security or conformity by an information-technology department in your large corporation or organization. Various Web sites were off-limits, as were tools like instant messaging, even though they might have legitimate business purposes.
Others of you, lucky enough to work in a home-based business or in any business or organization too small to have an IT department, could get right to work, using the full range of changing resources and tools offered by software and Internet companies.
Now, I'm no professional admin and never will be. That's all the more reason to laugh at what Mossberg says. To him, sys admins are people who lock off all the good, powerful stuff he wants to use--presumably because they get a kick out of keeping ol' Walt from getting work done. Meanwhile, the folks with the "home-based business" can jump on the computer and "get right to work," without meddling professionals to get in their way.
What? Is he NUTS??? I'm no PROFESSIONAL admin, but I take care of my OWN home computer, as well as pitching in with the occasional problem with the machines of my family and friends. I don't just jump on my computer and "get to work"!! Computers take a TON of maintenance to keep them running. First I had to decide what system to purchase. I have to call support and sit on hold when things break. I have to install new parts to replace the broken ones. I have to install, re-install, and re-install Windows again and again. Now, I have to learn how Linux works because I'm sick and damn tired of Windows and its holes and spyware.
When I ran Windows, I had to keep AV up to date. I had to make sure Windows was set up correctly. I had to decide what software to procure, install it, and then clean up all the stuff the new installation broke.
At work, all this stuff is the job of the PROFESSIONAL ADMINS who run the computer systems. They have to keep the AV up to date, buy new computers, come to my office to fix stuff when it breaks. They have to deal with the vendors when their crap doesn't work. They have to roll out new software. All this while using applications that are MUCH MORE complex than anything I use at home. I maintain one printer; the admins take care of HUNDREDS of them, and I can print to any one of them. They take care of time-card systems, databases, and who knows what else.
I don't know what Mossberg is smoking when he says that the "home based" person "just gets to work." Maintaining ANY PC is a lot of work. If it weren't, enterprises wouldn't need IT departments! All the work of maintaining a PC doesn't go away just because you're "home based." It only means that now, YOU are in charge of fixing things. No more calling the IT folks, saying "my computer's dead," and having them bring up another one from the storeroom--now, YOU have to sit around and wait until Dell decides to send a tech over. Now YOU have to make sure the AV is up to date. YOU have to clean up the mess when some unpatched Windows flaw causes you to wipe out your data--oh, YOU were making backups, right?
So maybe the professional admins decide they don't want IM on their systems. Boo hoo. Pick up the PHONE, man! Long distance is cheap. The professional admins have a tough job, and if they think locking off IM will make their job easier, that's fine with me. It's their job to take care of the computers; I'll let THEM do it!! After all, I don't want the computer admins coming into MY office and telling me how to do MY job--they're not trained in what I do.
You must be one of those people who dont believe that the outside world affects you. What you do doesnt make much difference, it is the other 10 billion idiots out there, having linux at home and in your business doesnt help you much when 80% of the world is down.
Absolutely. I remember when the SQL slammer worm came out. All of the Internet came to a crawl with all the traffic that was bouncing around. I needed to do online research but couldn't get any work done. Bank ATM machines weren't working.
Sad that it's hard to escape MS flaws even if you don't personally use MS software.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever heard of GNU autoconf?
Yeah, an HP or Dell will be cheaper, but the parts they use are garbage, and the support is dirty rotten terrible. Drives, power supplies fail because they use cheap garbage ones.
Now, the "average" user is scared to even open the PC. Many "average" users now even see fit to just trash the machine when it gets spyware! Jeez, just reinstall Windows...oh wait, maybe the machine didn't come with a Windows disk! That's another common Dell trick these days, to save...what? Fifty cents?
However, these "average" users don't even KNOW you can build your own computer! Thus they would not be "asking from an 'end-user' point of view" because they don't know to ask if they should build a computer!
Thus: if anyone's smart enough to ask, I would unflinchingly tell him/her to build a system from scratch. If they're not smart enough to ask that question, hopefully they're at least smart enough to buy a Mac.
"Every other form of media has gone digital -- music, newspapers, movies,"
True. Music has gone digital, mostly because people take their un-copy-restricted CDs and rip them into MP3s. Then they can use the MP3 on as many computers and devices as they want, give it to friends, and have backups. Newspapers exist as un-copy-restricted HTML pages, which may be printed, sent to friends, and stored digitally without restriction.
What the publishing industry is peddling right now is copy-restricted garbage. It will be locked to a particular computer or device. I can't have backups of the text or lend it to a friend. Often I can't even print it. If the Microsoft operating system that stores the text wipes it out, oh well, go buy another one. Meanwhile the publishing industry salivates at the thought of copy-restricted electronic textbooks that expire after a single semester!
This copy-restricted garbage will not take off. If I want digital content, I'll go for something that does not have these ridiculous restrictions. Such unrestricted media can and will take off, because it has advantages--i.e. it's searchable, and cheap to distribute. For example, Wikipedia is far superior to its dead-tree equivalents for these two reasons alone. Also, the Amazon Shorts model looks promising. But I'll take a dead tree over copy-restricted garbage anyday.
If this goes wrong it will be horrifying. All your data locked up. MS' ultimate tool to control exactly what you do with your computer. MS Technet on the new scheme
FTA:
The system uses BitLocker Drive Encryption through a chip called TPM (Trusted Platform Module) in the computer's motherboard.
It is partly aimed at preventing people from downloading unlicensed films or media.
"This means that by default your hard disk is encrypted by using a key that you cannot physically get at...
The government shouldn't be the only folks horrified at this one. MS wants to turn your entire computer against you, encrypting all of its contents and allowing you to read it only if MS wants to allow it. Even if you're okay with that, imagine if something in the scheme goes wrong? I've used the Windows Encrypting File System in XP, and if you lose your encryption key (not that hard--say, if you reformat your hard drive) you are permanently locked out of all the data you've encrypted.
If this is true, MS really wants a death grip on your computer. I'd never use Vista under those circumstances.
GnuPG comes to mind as open-source encryption software. Are there any Windows or Linux solutions that offer the same relatively transparent, on-the-fly disk encryption that's built-in to XP Pro?
Good point on the bank. Even worse about Amazon is the way the URL instantly changes anytime you type in www.amazon.com. It appends a bunch of random-looking letters and numbers to the end. "Average user" then concludes that any URL with "amazon" and a bunch of random letters at the end is a legitimate Amazon page.
Even so, the labels might adopt something like this. But it would be in addition to their current copy restriction schemes, rather than a replacement for them. Consumers still lose as they'll still have to wrangle with FairPlay, WMA, or whatever copy restriction scheme the labels want to use.
http://www.gnupg.org/
Fair enough. I will continue to scream "Skype," because Skype has SkypeIn. It's a phone number, for the cheap rate of $35 a year. Better deal than Vonage, without crappy Vonage support. Further, Skype now has POTS-like telephone handsets. In a year or two this will kill Vonage.
Then there are the up-and-comers, like Skype. That's the future of VoIP. Skype is already a better deal than Vonage, and without one-year lock-in contracts. Skype's costs are likely lower too.
That's why I figured Vonage's strategy is to go IPO, or sell the company. Vonage has been sitting still. They have not been adding any new features to their service--such as a simple, "do-not-disturb" feature that AT&T has. Come on, it's an electronic network! The cost of adding new features must be minimal.
Plus, the quality of Vonage's service is absolutely abysmal. If Vonage works, great. If it doesn't work, good luck--they will screw you. I have personal experience here. No wonder they've registered vonagesucks.com.
I now pay over $40 a month for a Verizon landline, rather than a Vonage phone, and I'd much rather give my money to Verizon. However there are probably investors dumb enough to buy Vonage IPO stock.
I suppose instead of 'Linus ', they should be named "Adolph," after "Coors."
So what if Google creates a "private" network? How is this different from Comcast's private network, Verizon's private network, etc.? The Internet is nothing but a network of networks. Maybe Google wants to control its own network traffic rather than buying bandwidth from someone else. How does this lead to all these crazy arguments about "world domination" and "Google locking out traffic from other search engines"?
A better question might be, fifty years from now, will anyone have the technology to even access the works? Think how hard it is to play an eight-track, or even an old 45. If it's copy restricted, will anyone remember how it works? I'll bet no one is playing old WMAs in 2050.
This might be a huge problem if these copy restriction schemes fade into obscurity, people forget about the works and suddenly, decades later, they want to access them again. But then again, by then it might be easy to reverse-engineer these schemes.
In the public's and regulators' minds, Gates and Microsoft are one and the same. Thus, the public and regulators will tend to go easier on MS if they see Gates in a positive light. Regulators will be less likely to penalize anticompetitive MS behavior, switch to Linux, or adopt OpenDocument. Members of the public will be more likely to criticize regulators if they go against MS wishes: "why are you penalizing that nice company and its wonderful CEO who is doing so much to fight world poverty? The worst thing they did was give me a free Web browser!"
I don't know if Gates is truly this cynical, but it is certainly possible that Gates' donations are driven, at least in part, by a desire to help his company financially.
This is a novel concept for Windows, but with sudo this has been possible in Unix for ages. Ubuntu is already configured like this by default and behaves exactly as Windows does. Users go about their usual business as unprivileged users; if something that requires privilege elevation happens, the system asks for a password. However, the user can only escalate her privilege level if she's in the wheel group. This behavior in Ubuntu is identical to what he's proposing for Vista.
This Vista feature is definitely an improvement, but the MS VP is incorrect to suggest that it's somehow an advance beyond what Unix already offers.
You're misinformed here. It is perfectly possible to install KDE and use it as you DE without installing Konqueror. KDE has a separate application (don't know what it is offhand) that sticks the icons on the desktop, and yet another application (kicker) that gives you the KMenu and taskbar.
If you choose to install KDE without Konqueror, most KDE apps will still work just fine unless they use Konqeror for some reason--and offhand I can't think of *any* KDE apps that use Konqueror. This includes KMyMoney, the counterpart to MS Money which, as the MS VP correctly states, does require MSIE.
I know all this because I use Gentoo and with it one can install as much or as little of KDE as one wants to. KDE sans Konqeror works fine, if you don't want Konqueror's excellent file and Web browsing capabilities.
Some say they are already going in this direction, which is why they acquired del.icio.us. Why have computers characterize pages when humans will do it for you, and for free? Sometimes I search for things in del.icio.us, and the other users' bookmarks turn up some good results. It will be interesting to see if Yahoo can harness this in a big way.
This makes no sense: if a blog gets mean comments, disable comments! Yet story says that bad comments force Washington Post to shut down entire blog? Either this story is very misleading, or Post folks aren't all that smart.
Copper is already being recycled; there are folks in developing countries who hack apart old computers to recover the copper. More old copper would be found as the price goes up.
Freon was banned, which led to the production of substitutes as well as a thriving secondary market for Freon.
So, even if we run out of copper, I say so what...the market will come up with substitutes, and meanwhile, there is plenty of old copper out there to recycle.
Also, it seems to me that Windows' dual focus on consumer machines and business deployments holds it back. For example, while backward compatibility with old apps is important for enterprises, it is not nearly as important for consumers, yet backward compatibility is one reason why the default XP file permissions have not changed. Has MS ever considered splitting Windows into separate versions--one for businesses and one for consumers--that would address the specific needs of each market? From what I can tell, XP Media Center Edition, XP Home, and XP Pro are not truly "separate versions" for the purposes I'm discussing here. For example, the future "Home" version could have even tighter security than the "Pro" version, on the assumption that the "Pro" machine is administered by pros. The "Home" version might break existing non-compliant apps, but that would be the price to pay for more security.
But most people don't understand the subscription model and, when they do, they're hostile to it. People don't want to pay money month after month for music.
"Plays for Sure" will never give MS an upper hand over Apple. Consumers don't much care if their music is WMA or AAC; what they want is cool, easy-to-use software and hardware. Apple has this cornered. No other device comes remotely close to iPod, and Apple cemented this lead when they released Nano. The companies making WMA players, like Creative, are coming out with some pretty sorry hardware. It's heavy, boxy, and very unstylish. Creative came close with that Zen Micro, but then Apple whipped them again with Nano.
What MS needs to do is use those billions to come up with a really good portable player. Or, use those billions to fund and subsidize hardware makers who come up with good players, the same way Intel subsidizes PC makers. As long as all the WMA hardware is rotten, WMA and "Plays for Sure" are going nowhere, even with rental music.
Right now there is so much interference between wifi access points in my apartment building (and of course some of that might be cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc.) that the wifi is often unusuable. I hope some of that spectrum goes to a better wifi solution.
Lots of you found yourself logging in, probably multiple times, using passwords you could barely remember because you are forced to change them so often. Then, you entered a world of computing where much of the power and variety of the technology was closed off to you in the name of security or conformity by an information-technology department in your large corporation or organization. Various Web sites were off-limits, as were tools like instant messaging, even though they might have legitimate business purposes.
Others of you, lucky enough to work in a home-based business or in any business or organization too small to have an IT department, could get right to work, using the full range of changing resources and tools offered by software and Internet companies.
Now, I'm no professional admin and never will be. That's all the more reason to laugh at what Mossberg says. To him, sys admins are people who lock off all the good, powerful stuff he wants to use--presumably because they get a kick out of keeping ol' Walt from getting work done. Meanwhile, the folks with the "home-based business" can jump on the computer and "get right to work," without meddling professionals to get in their way.
What? Is he NUTS??? I'm no PROFESSIONAL admin, but I take care of my OWN home computer, as well as pitching in with the occasional problem with the machines of my family and friends. I don't just jump on my computer and "get to work"!! Computers take a TON of maintenance to keep them running. First I had to decide what system to purchase. I have to call support and sit on hold when things break. I have to install new parts to replace the broken ones. I have to install, re-install, and re-install Windows again and again. Now, I have to learn how Linux works because I'm sick and damn tired of Windows and its holes and spyware.
When I ran Windows, I had to keep AV up to date. I had to make sure Windows was set up correctly. I had to decide what software to procure, install it, and then clean up all the stuff the new installation broke.
At work, all this stuff is the job of the PROFESSIONAL ADMINS who run the computer systems. They have to keep the AV up to date, buy new computers, come to my office to fix stuff when it breaks. They have to deal with the vendors when their crap doesn't work. They have to roll out new software. All this while using applications that are MUCH MORE complex than anything I use at home. I maintain one printer; the admins take care of HUNDREDS of them, and I can print to any one of them. They take care of time-card systems, databases, and who knows what else.
I don't know what Mossberg is smoking when he says that the "home based" person "just gets to work." Maintaining ANY PC is a lot of work. If it weren't, enterprises wouldn't need IT departments! All the work of maintaining a PC doesn't go away just because you're "home based." It only means that now, YOU are in charge of fixing things. No more calling the IT folks, saying "my computer's dead," and having them bring up another one from the storeroom--now, YOU have to sit around and wait until Dell decides to send a tech over. Now YOU have to make sure the AV is up to date. YOU have to clean up the mess when some unpatched Windows flaw causes you to wipe out your data--oh, YOU were making backups, right?
So maybe the professional admins decide they don't want IM on their systems. Boo hoo. Pick up the PHONE, man! Long distance is cheap. The professional admins have a tough job, and if they think locking off IM will make their job easier, that's fine with me. It's their job to take care of the computers; I'll let THEM do it!! After all, I don't want the computer admins coming into MY office and telling me how to do MY job--they're not trained in what I do.
With this column, I have l
Absolutely. I remember when the SQL slammer worm came out. All of the Internet came to a crawl with all the traffic that was bouncing around. I needed to do online research but couldn't get any work done. Bank ATM machines weren't working.
Sad that it's hard to escape MS flaws even if you don't personally use MS software.