Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) connected to a Windows 2012 server back-end is very capable of streaming video. It's kind of shocking how fast it is.
I've used some hosted remote desktop services over the past few years that are nearly indistinguishable from launching and using local applications - over a garden variety 10Mb/sec cable internet connection.
I used to also think that "they'll never overcome latency to the point where it's running at sufficient speed to feel like it's a local app" but at this point feel like that is a wrong assumption.
"focused on the use of consumer tech products in a business environment"
do we really need more of this? and will they be performing in-depth analysis of how much lost time & productivity comes with misappropriating consumer tech in a workplace?
We actually had similar - likely more extensive - screening entering the Shanghai Expo each day. I've never seen a security scene like that before - it was massive, and impenetrable. If the TSA worked like that I'd feel safer, for sure.;)
I was screened in Shanghai, then screened two more times in Seoul. Shanghai also has a gleaming, state-of-the-art airport with proper screening procedures and secured areas (including hand wandings for nearly every passenger.) Nothing is going to get through.
So the US is saying, basically, "we don't trust anyone to properly screen their passengers" when domestic US flights don't seem to approach this maniacal level of "security."
It's an insult to perfectly secure modern foreign airports that the US requires these ridiculous redundant security checks. Just last week I flew from Shanghai (China) to Seoul (Korea) and then to Seattle. When we got to Seoul we disembarked the plane in a secure area, went to the transfer area (still secure) and had to go through screening all over again. This seems silly; any transfer from any flight inside of the US doesn't require this step as long as you are still in a secured area. Does this mean the TSA doesn't think Korea can secure their airport? That seems like an insult.
But to make matters worse, there was a *separate* security check after we got our ticket checked but before we entered the Jetway to the plane to Seattle. But it wasn't so much a security check as it was a line of checkers making people open bags (where they dug around a bit, but not a lot) and each checker asked if we had any lighters. When asked about the two extra levels of security checks, the answer was always "US Flight."
a) Why is there a security check in a secured area? b) What is the point of the *second* security check before you get on the plane that doesn't really accomplish anything anyways?
I don't get it; it's insulting to other countries and costs way too much money. And I'm convinced we are paying for it with US tax dollars.
A single proper security check is be sufficient. Then, you're either in a secured area or you aren't. Maybe there are a handful of airports in the world that can't guarantee security of their "secured area," but the shiny modern airport in Seoul (Incheon) is not one of them (especially considering it also serves as a military airport!)
My point is that it doesn't really matter whether the forms are free or not - you need experienced people who know what to do with it; otherwise you can get yourself into some sticky situations pretty easily.
I've had my business for about nine years - and we do lots and lots of IT management & consulting.
Regardless of how small your business is you need to hire a competent accountant. Free forms are no substitute for education and experience in this field, and you can seriously screw yourself over (legally *or* financially) if you don't know what you're doing. I use the services of a contracted attorney, a contracted general business accountant, a contracted bookkeeper and a contracted federal tax accountant. And I've only got three people on our full time payroll.
Relying solely on free forms is similar to saying, "This free Linux CD will handle all of my company's data processing, storage, management, security & protection needs by itself. We won't need any IT staff at all!"
BrandNew details companies going through logo redesigns or branding shifts. Lately, it would seem (subjectively) that many companies, specifically from the retail & financial sectors, seem to think rebranding will fix their problems with market share or profitability. I would seem to think it had more to do with the economy in general, but clearly coming up with a snazzy new logo or branding message will magically increase profits just as easily.
(BrandNew is a great blog because even very large companies with unlimited resources often get it *very wrong*)
Most companies we work with want Office 2007, period, despite the learning curve. Can you substantiate your claim that "companies are looking for OpenOffice because they don't like the UI on Office 2007?" While it sounds good I am not so sure it's true.
But my beef was with the article--there's nothing solid there.
It's flimsy, light, and 'trendy' - not exactly the result of hard-core study. Not too many concrete reasons are given as to why online collaboration tools are *better* or fill specific business needs compared to word.
Despite its warts, Word *works* and people generally know how to use it. It's tested, it's a known entity, businesses know how much it costs, etc. They're not ready to experiment yet.
Obviously online services have a totally different set of pros & cons, but this article doesn't really seem to address those.
Even if online suites were clearly better suited to business than locally installed software, *this* article does not make a suitable case for switching.
My concern is C-level execs who see this kind of stuff and make sweeping decisions for their company based on a trendy 'puff' piece like this.
I would advise them to go ask Gartner or someone who actually knows how to research this stuff.:)
I've been in IT for a long time - and my company manages a whole lot of backup systems. Our customers usually have mirroring/RAID, and volume shadow copy, and disk backups, and tape backups, and...
As networks grow in complexity I am starting to think it would make sense to require IT pros to get licenses. Even though it would cost me a ton of time & money to license my staff, I think it would prevent idiotic stuff like this from happening--or at least make the licensing board directly responsible for a screwup like this.
Kinda like an electrician, but more like the BAR than anything else - screwing something up big-time (through ignorance or incompetence) could get an IT Pro "disbarred."
There's *no* good excuse for this, period. If your database can't be snapshotted so you can get a clean backup of it--use a different database technology which can.
Support doesn't cost more or less the same; that's a huge assumption in your argument that is generally incorrect.
As an engineer, I like a lot of open source software. As a business owner it's hard to find well-rounded engineers who a) understand open source, b) aren't social retards.
And really, I have spent way too much time in the past tinkering with open source to get it to work the way I want--at this point it's just easier to buy something off the shelf which is already finished. Let the vendor deal with making software work the way you want.
Yes, I know this is an unpopular opinion around here - but sometimes/. needs some balance. Has anyone ever figured out why open source software, with a $0 acquisition cost, hasn't completely taken over the world yet?
Everything that's mentioned on this list has some Achilles heel--though it's suitable for some purposes it's not an exact replacement for what's mentioned.
Many of the "geekier" replacements (i.e. Digium which is actually Asterisk) have hidden admin costs. OpenOffice has hidden training costs (and frankly, every non-technical person we've put in front of it hates it--they all want Office 2007.) The ticketing systems are pretty lightweight. SugarCRM is pretty lightweight. MySQL doesn't scale. BaseCamp is simplistic as far as project management goes (and it's not open source?)
Open Source and free apps have been around for decades - yet there's a reason companies still get away with *charging lots of money* for enterprise apps...
I own a small Managed Service Provider in Seattle. I've wanted to use open source for years as much as possible--but the commercial alternatives have always been better fits for our needs and our customers' needs.
Yes, OS X is a better OS overall- but many seem to forget how incredibly painfully sloooooow OS X was back circa 2001 when it was just introduced. Zero backwards compatibility with the installed base and nearly impossible to use for anything useful; it took Apple a full two years to release something worthwhile (10.2!) Apple does indeed move faster than Microsoft with OS upgrades, but when you control the hardware and have an installed base that's willing to throw out their old apps to buy upgrades it makes things a bit easier.
Vista has a lot going for it; under the hood is really what Microsoft should be focusing their marketing efforts on. We're talking volume shadow copy (without requiring an external device like Apple's time machine), an incredibly sophisticated event management subsystem, and a very good problem reporting & resolution center. These things don't exist on OS X but sure would be handy.
To be sure, OS X wins for UI innovations such as Expose (which I use constantly when using one of my Macs) and the UI generally "gets out of the way." And yes, the UNIX underpinnings score points with me (and Cocoa is great!) But Vista is not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be, and Microsoft seems on track to getting those last few things sorted out. It happened with Windows XP when it was first released; it happened with OS X when it first came out.. it'll be a little while longer before everyone just takes Vista for granted like they do XP but we'll get there.
Offline Folders on a Windows client connected to a Windows server work reasonably well but sometimes get screwed up.
Novell's iFolder is a very interesting alternative... runs on Linux/Apache/Java stack & only transmits changed blocks over an SSL connection.
Other things worth looking into include Microsoft Groove--let's you synchronize an entire workspace with yourself on other computers or other people - and is relatively network & environment-independent (though Windows only)
I have to dissent against the prevailing popular view here: I use Vista Business on a Toshiba laptop that came with it preinstalled, and upgraded a 1.5-yr-old XP machine to Vista. So far, Vista itself has been decent. It's a tad slower because of the overhead of the new security model combined with the new graphics stuff, but I actually sort of _like_ it. I have traditionally been extremely skeptical about anything coming out of Redmond, but the last 18 months of product releases has been pretty good - Office, Exchange, Sharepoint and Vista all included.
Many people here may not remember what XP was like when it first came out: everyone swore they'd stick with Windows 2000. XP was just rewarmed 2000 with some graphical improvements, right? It was slower and bugger - why switch from something we knew worked so well?
Perhaps some of you remember when Mac OS X first shipped? It was the slowest thing ever to be foisted on the commercial computer market; yet nowadays it's incredibly slick and tight.
Six years later, XP is great. OS X is awesome. They're tested, secure, and very very useful.
I don't for a second think Vista is as good overall as Mac OS X - but it does have a lot of new stuff going on under the hood that's very intriguing - and believe it or not, I think Microsoft got a lot RIGHT when they shipped it this time around. Most of the problems I've seen are third party companies playing catchup: maybe they didn't take MS seriously that they would actually ship an OS this year? Give Vista a couple of years and it'll be widespread and XP will seem archaic in comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
what Anonymous Coward just said.
haven't tested personally, but it looks good, and doesn't require any "roll-your-own" crap.
http://azure.microsoft.com/en-...
Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) connected to a Windows 2012 server back-end is very capable of streaming video. It's kind of shocking how fast it is.
I've used some hosted remote desktop services over the past few years that are nearly indistinguishable from launching and using local applications - over a garden variety 10Mb/sec cable internet connection.
I used to also think that "they'll never overcome latency to the point where it's running at sufficient speed to feel like it's a local app" but at this point feel like that is a wrong assumption.
"focused on the use of consumer tech products in a business environment"
do we really need more of this? and will they be performing in-depth analysis of how much lost time & productivity comes with misappropriating consumer tech in a workplace?
We actually had similar - likely more extensive - screening entering the Shanghai Expo each day. I've never seen a security scene like that before - it was massive, and impenetrable. If the TSA worked like that I'd feel safer, for sure. ;)
The not-exactly-exhaustive check at the jetway was bizarre and pointless. Where are you going to purchase a lighter from in the airport?
I was screened in Shanghai, then screened two more times in Seoul. Shanghai also has a gleaming, state-of-the-art airport with proper screening procedures and secured areas (including hand wandings for nearly every passenger.) Nothing is going to get through.
So the US is saying, basically, "we don't trust anyone to properly screen their passengers" when domestic US flights don't seem to approach this maniacal level of "security."
It's an insult to perfectly secure modern foreign airports that the US requires these ridiculous redundant security checks. Just last week I flew from Shanghai (China) to Seoul (Korea) and then to Seattle. When we got to Seoul we disembarked the plane in a secure area, went to the transfer area (still secure) and had to go through screening all over again. This seems silly; any transfer from any flight inside of the US doesn't require this step as long as you are still in a secured area. Does this mean the TSA doesn't think Korea can secure their airport? That seems like an insult.
But to make matters worse, there was a *separate* security check after we got our ticket checked but before we entered the Jetway to the plane to Seattle. But it wasn't so much a security check as it was a line of checkers making people open bags (where they dug around a bit, but not a lot) and each checker asked if we had any lighters. When asked about the two extra levels of security checks, the answer was always "US Flight."
a) Why is there a security check in a secured area?
b) What is the point of the *second* security check before you get on the plane that doesn't really accomplish anything anyways?
I don't get it; it's insulting to other countries and costs way too much money. And I'm convinced we are paying for it with US tax dollars.
A single proper security check is be sufficient. Then, you're either in a secured area or you aren't. Maybe there are a handful of airports in the world that can't guarantee security of their "secured area," but the shiny modern airport in Seoul (Incheon) is not one of them (especially considering it also serves as a military airport!)
Just because you have some old equipment doesn't mean it's in your best interest to reuse it. Dump it and get a real GPS.
was there a second crash?
"Efficient" languages are too complex. "Simple" languages are too inefficient.
Normally I'd write this off as "duh" but this is Rob Pike.
Oh wait, he's pushing something new that somehow manages to be easy and efficient? OK...
Do you not have accountants and attorneys though?
My point is that it doesn't really matter whether the forms are free or not - you need experienced people who know what to do with it; otherwise you can get yourself into some sticky situations pretty easily.
Just like IT.
I've had my business for about nine years - and we do lots and lots of IT management & consulting.
Regardless of how small your business is you need to hire a competent accountant. Free forms are no substitute for education and experience in this field, and you can seriously screw yourself over (legally *or* financially) if you don't know what you're doing. I use the services of a contracted attorney, a contracted general business accountant, a contracted bookkeeper and a contracted federal tax accountant. And I've only got three people on our full time payroll.
Relying solely on free forms is similar to saying, "This free Linux CD will handle all of my company's data processing, storage, management, security & protection needs by itself. We won't need any IT staff at all!"
BrandNew details companies going through logo redesigns or branding shifts. Lately, it would seem (subjectively) that many companies, specifically from the retail & financial sectors, seem to think rebranding will fix their problems with market share or profitability. I would seem to think it had more to do with the economy in general, but clearly coming up with a snazzy new logo or branding message will magically increase profits just as easily.
(BrandNew is a great blog because even very large companies with unlimited resources often get it *very wrong*)
[snore.]
Most companies we work with want Office 2007, period, despite the learning curve. Can you substantiate your claim that "companies are looking for OpenOffice because they don't like the UI on Office 2007?" While it sounds good I am not so sure it's true.
But my beef was with the article--there's nothing solid there.
Hi -I'm going to critique the article itself:
It's flimsy, light, and 'trendy' - not exactly the result of hard-core study. Not too many concrete reasons are given as to why online collaboration tools are *better* or fill specific business needs compared to word.
Despite its warts, Word *works* and people generally know how to use it. It's tested, it's a known entity, businesses know how much it costs, etc. They're not ready to experiment yet.
Obviously online services have a totally different set of pros & cons, but this article doesn't really seem to address those.
Even if online suites were clearly better suited to business than locally installed software, *this* article does not make a suitable case for switching.
My concern is C-level execs who see this kind of stuff and make sweeping decisions for their company based on a trendy 'puff' piece like this.
I would advise them to go ask Gartner or someone who actually knows how to research this stuff. :)
I've been in IT for a long time - and my company manages a whole lot of backup systems. Our customers usually have mirroring/RAID, and volume shadow copy, and disk backups, and tape backups, and...
As networks grow in complexity I am starting to think it would make sense to require IT pros to get licenses. Even though it would cost me a ton of time & money to license my staff, I think it would prevent idiotic stuff like this from happening--or at least make the licensing board directly responsible for a screwup like this.
Kinda like an electrician, but more like the BAR than anything else - screwing something up big-time (through ignorance or incompetence) could get an IT Pro "disbarred."
There's *no* good excuse for this, period. If your database can't be snapshotted so you can get a clean backup of it--use a different database technology which can.
hear hear - there's a reason tape is not dead yet in the enterprise.
Support doesn't cost more or less the same; that's a huge assumption in your argument that is generally incorrect.
As an engineer, I like a lot of open source software. As a business owner it's hard to find well-rounded engineers who a) understand open source, b) aren't social retards.
And really, I have spent way too much time in the past tinkering with open source to get it to work the way I want--at this point it's just easier to buy something off the shelf which is already finished. Let the vendor deal with making software work the way you want.
Yes, I know this is an unpopular opinion around here - but sometimes /. needs some balance. Has anyone ever figured out why open source software, with a $0 acquisition cost, hasn't completely taken over the world yet?
They ask for--actually demand it--by name when we put OpenOffice on their PC.
"Least-Bad Alternatives to Enterprise Apps."
Everything that's mentioned on this list has some Achilles heel--though it's suitable for some purposes it's not an exact replacement for what's mentioned.
Many of the "geekier" replacements (i.e. Digium which is actually Asterisk) have hidden admin costs. OpenOffice has hidden training costs (and frankly, every non-technical person we've put in front of it hates it--they all want Office 2007.) The ticketing systems are pretty lightweight. SugarCRM is pretty lightweight. MySQL doesn't scale. BaseCamp is simplistic as far as project management goes (and it's not open source?)
Open Source and free apps have been around for decades - yet there's a reason companies still get away with *charging lots of money* for enterprise apps...
I own a small Managed Service Provider in Seattle. I've wanted to use open source for years as much as possible--but the commercial alternatives have always been better fits for our needs and our customers' needs.
Yes, OS X is a better OS overall- but many seem to forget how incredibly painfully sloooooow OS X was back circa 2001 when it was just introduced. Zero backwards compatibility with the installed base and nearly impossible to use for anything useful; it took Apple a full two years to release something worthwhile (10.2!) Apple does indeed move faster than Microsoft with OS upgrades, but when you control the hardware and have an installed base that's willing to throw out their old apps to buy upgrades it makes things a bit easier.
Vista has a lot going for it; under the hood is really what Microsoft should be focusing their marketing efforts on. We're talking volume shadow copy (without requiring an external device like Apple's time machine), an incredibly sophisticated event management subsystem, and a very good problem reporting & resolution center. These things don't exist on OS X but sure would be handy.
To be sure, OS X wins for UI innovations such as Expose (which I use constantly when using one of my Macs) and the UI generally "gets out of the way." And yes, the UNIX underpinnings score points with me (and Cocoa is great!) But Vista is not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be, and Microsoft seems on track to getting those last few things sorted out. It happened with Windows XP when it was first released; it happened with OS X when it first came out.. it'll be a little while longer before everyone just takes Vista for granted like they do XP but we'll get there.
(written from Firefox on Vista.)
Offline Folders on a Windows client connected to a Windows server work reasonably well but sometimes get screwed up.
Novell's iFolder is a very interesting alternative... runs on Linux/Apache/Java stack & only transmits changed blocks over an SSL connection.
Other things worth looking into include Microsoft Groove--let's you synchronize an entire workspace with yourself on other computers or other people - and is relatively network & environment-independent (though Windows only)
I have to dissent against the prevailing popular view here: I use Vista Business on a Toshiba laptop that came with it preinstalled, and upgraded a 1.5-yr-old XP machine to Vista. So far, Vista itself has been decent. It's a tad slower because of the overhead of the new security model combined with the new graphics stuff, but I actually sort of _like_ it. I have traditionally been extremely skeptical about anything coming out of Redmond, but the last 18 months of product releases has been pretty good - Office, Exchange, Sharepoint and Vista all included.
Many people here may not remember what XP was like when it first came out: everyone swore they'd stick with Windows 2000. XP was just rewarmed 2000 with some graphical improvements, right? It was slower and bugger - why switch from something we knew worked so well?
Perhaps some of you remember when Mac OS X first shipped? It was the slowest thing ever to be foisted on the commercial computer market; yet nowadays it's incredibly slick and tight.
Six years later, XP is great. OS X is awesome. They're tested, secure, and very very useful.
I don't for a second think Vista is as good overall as Mac OS X - but it does have a lot of new stuff going on under the hood that's very intriguing - and believe it or not, I think Microsoft got a lot RIGHT when they shipped it this time around. Most of the problems I've seen are third party companies playing catchup: maybe they didn't take MS seriously that they would actually ship an OS this year? Give Vista a couple of years and it'll be widespread and XP will seem archaic in comparison.