Microsoft got a bit of a shiner last week when users of T-Mobile Sidekick discovered their data had vanished into the cloud faster than a Richard Heene balloon.
At first, it was thought that all was lost, and Microsoft offered customers $100 in free services to make up for the missing bits and bytes. Loath to give up, Redmond techies went to work carefully restoring the databases and attendant backups. Voila! Much of this data is now coming back!
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/19/2009 at 1:17 PM4 comments
I was never a fan of Microsoft Works. It was just too different from Office in everything from interface to file formats. And that was probably the point -- make it so unlike Office that you had to actually have Office to get anything done.
Microsoft finally gave Works what it long deserved: retirement. In its place, and only available on new PCs starting next year, is Office Starter 2010.
Starter has only Word and Excel, and those versions are reduced-function (which could be good or bad depending on what functions get pulled out). I'd actually like to see these apps and, if I like 'em, to see them hosted in the cloud.
My favorite word processor of all time was from New Horizons and ran on the Amiga. It was graphical, clean, fast and ultra easy. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't see the need for more than a handful of fonts -- unless, of course, you're art directing one of my magazines (and many of those fonts are custom-built). Starter Word could be perfect for me, at least on a netbook.
Do crazy fonts and feature overload drive you batty? Let it all out at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/19/2009 at 1:17 PM7 comments
Does Michael Dell have a point when he says consumers would be better off buying laptops than netbooks? A few readers think he does:
I think I agree with Mr. Dell on this one. There is always a tendency toward tech inflation, where everyone seems to want a 17-inch display on a laptop. What for? But before you know it, you have these behemoth laptops with terrabyte drives and multi-gigabytes of storage -- the whole "desktop replacement" thing. It strikes me that netbooks are a reaction to those monsters, but I think they are the wrong reaction.
I bought a cheap netbook just to play around, and I'm not sure that even a better one would be a useful tool. Better, I think, to go with one of the ultra-light notebooks, like the ThinkPad X series. You get a real keyboard and a responsive machine.
-Anonymous
You're right -- netbooks make a good SECOND device, primarily for their portability and battery life, access to the Internet for e-mail, and their ability to do real work in a pinch. The point is that most of the consumer interest in netbooks is still in their price. Many people are NOT looking at the netbook as a second device; they are looking at it as an inexpensive PRIMARY device. And this is where Michael Dell makes his point.
As a primary device, a netbook is simply NOT cost-effective. Yes, it is less expensive than a full-sized laptop but by a very small amount. To save $50 to $100, you have to give up a 2GHz-plus Core 2 Duo laptop with 2GB-plus of RAM and a 320GB hard drive AND a 14-inch screen in exchange for a 1.6GHz single-core Atom processor with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. That is not very much more money to pay for a full-size laptop that can to everything you need it to do. As a primary device, portability and battery life are less important than full functionality. What we don't want is for consumers buy a netbook and only later learn that they did not get what they bargained for from that $50 to $100 savings. As for Michael Dell, he just doesn't want to have to keep cutting his margins to compete.
-Marc
As for netbooks, all Doug wants is good software to synch up your netbook with your laptop. Readers weigh in:
Doesn't Cisco offer a product suite that does just that?
-Dana
No, that's NOT too much to ask. Nor, I'd hope, are my own pet wants: a real on-board fax modem, for use when the built-in Wi-Fi has nothing to connect to; a PCMCIA slot for using a Sierra Wireless AirCard in, when only cellular GPRS/EDGE/etc data service is available; and a real Centronics printer port, for use when the only emergency printer at hand is of the older parallel port variety.
While Firewire and standard 9-pin serial ports would be welcome, too, along with a SCSI host adapter connector, I wouldn't insist too absolutely on any of those -- but I certainly would gladly pay extra to have them.
-Fred
Ater Exchange 2010 hit RTM status last week, Doug applauded the replacement of .PST backups -- mainly because he never really figured them out. Joseph sympathizes...sort of:
I hate to say it, Doug, but not good for a Redmondian. However, in your favor, PSTs have been in use for about 10 years. Oops...wait a second. That doesn't make you look good at all.
Seriously, you are not alone. There are many, many people that struggle with understanding this, just like there are people that will never understand that you don't have to put description1, description2, description3 as separate fields in a database table. At these times, when I'm reminded of my superiority, I just want to take a break, grab my club and go kill some dinner.
-Joseph
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/19/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
There's a new editor in chief for Virtualization Review -- and he's already making waves.
Bruce Hoard was the founding editor of Network World, and is now driving Virtualization Review and The Hoard Facts blog. Here's more about Bruce.
This week Bruce is taking a hoard, I mean hard look at the Xen hypervisor. Not only is Citrix pushing Hyper-V harder than Billy Mays used to push household cleaners, but Red Hat is moving away from Xen in favor of KVM which it spent millions to acquire.
Though a relative virtual newcomer, Bruce quickly understood the core market dynamics and used that insight to explain Red Hat's overall strategy and impact on Xen. According to Bruce, Red Hat still has nice things to say about Xen and commits its support. But it's clear that Red Hat has other plans: It sees a three-way market ruled by Microsoft, VMware and Red Hat's KVM.
Does Red Hat stand a chance, or will Xen continue to rule the open source virtualization roost?
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/16/2009 at 1:17 PM1 comments
How do you make Vista run smooth, like the government seems to have done? Jim found his solution, but it didn't come cheap:
Actually, it was pretty easy -- except on the wallet. A new beefed-up system always helps to make things easier. In addition, replace all hardware with new hardware that has compatible drivers (or uses straightforward technologies). Running recent versions of software is always helpful, too. For the most stubborn issues, running Virtual PC 2007 with XP gets the rest of the job done. I was able to do all of this with a move to Vista 64-bit, which is even more challenging due to an even smaller amount of supported drivers, but still not a major problem except for the empty wallet). For every issue, there was an answer (almost always involving another purchase).
Happily, I am now running Windows 7 and I haven't even opened my wallet (yet) for replacement software. I did build a new system built on the new Intel i7-860...but that is another story for another time.
-Jim
Doug asked readers last week to share their favorite mobile OS. Matt gives his vote to Palm's:
My favorite mobile OS is Palm's new WebOS. I got a Pre last month and I love this thing. Touchscreen is great and the apps are FREE. My mail, contacts and calendar sync without any problems to my work MS Exchange servers. The form factor is small and light. This is the best smartphone on the market, I think.
-Matt
And finallly, a word of thanks from one reader:
I wanted to write and say thanks for your articles. I get a massive influx of newsletters in my inbox. Sometimes I am too busy to read them and just hit the delete button, but I always make sure to read yours. I like the content and your writing style.
I work with computers and know people only speak up when something is wrong; they never call or write to tell you their computer is working well. So I wanted to go out of my way to say keep up the great articles. I will be reading.
-Charles
Share your thoughts with us! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/16/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Nearly everyone is love with netbooks -- they're small, light, cheap, and the battery actually lasts long enough to get some real work done. I've railed several times (selfishly, I'll admit) against Apple for not having affordable laptops or even one netbook in its overpriced lineup.
One man (besides Steve Jobs, apparently) is not a fan of these tiny wonders. Michael Dell is not impressed with the tiny keys, tiny screen and slow performance. Dell (Michael, not the company) believes users are better served by laptops.
As smart and as rich as Michael Dell is, he's missing the point. Netbooks aren't meant to replace your core machine, but to act as a companion -- to be used on the road or anywhere that requires mobility. There's another advantage: By using a netbook, your laptop is safe and sound, and so is the data.
What I want to see built into all netbooks is good synchronization software so any change on either computer is reflected in the other. Is that too much to ask? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/16/2009 at 1:17 PM12 comments
Exchange 2010 might beat its own name to market. The 64-bit-only messaging server is now released to manufacturing so it can be bundled up and shipped to you, the paying IT customer. That puts Exchange 2010 on course for an early November commercial release.
Exchange 2010 requires Windows Server 2008, but it can also interoperate with Exchange 2003 and 2007, so you don't have to move all your servers all at once.
One new 2010 feature I find interesting is the ditching of .PST backups in favor of an easier archiving and retrieval scheme. I've never been able to really figure out .PSTs. Am I a dunce or are .PSTs more complicated than need be? Use any mail system you like and e-mail your conclusions to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/14/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Green technology, at a high level, makes perfect sense. Not only do we get to help the environment, but we can save gobs of cash at the same time. And that's the real point: Saving electricity means saving money.
So you'd think IT would be jumping all over it. But in the case of green, you have to spend money to save money. And in this economy, spending money today to save tomorrow just ain't gonna happen. Recent Gartner research bears this out. The research giant doesn't blame budgets as much as the failure of current green technologies, such as energy monitoring tools.
I'm not sure IT should rush headlong into huge green investments, but it should clearly be part of a long-term plan. Am I just a do-good environmentalist or is green a big deal? Don't use paper; send tree-free e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/14/2009 at 1:17 PM1 comments
I'm always suspicious when a journalist, even one with decent technical chops, calls a true technologist a failure and a bum. Computerworld blogger and longtime Redmond watcher Preston Gralla didn't call Ray Ozzie a bum, but he said something worse to an overachiever like Ray: He said Ozzie is a failure.
This fits the pattern of know-it-all self-proclaimed pundits claiming that Microsoft itself is going down the tubes. For those, I offer this bit of data: A recent IDC report shows that Microsoft drives more IT spending than any other vendor and produces millions of IT jobs.
Now, back to Ozzie. Has he utterly revolutionized Microsoft software? Not yet. Instead, he's laying the groundwork for this revolution through Azure and Web services. Heck, even Bing is turning out to be a solid competitor to Google, or so a dozen or so Redmond Report readers recently told me. Meanwhile, Microsoft is surviving the downturn quite well.
Ozzie, a failure? Nope. But what are your thoughts? What is Mr. Ozzie doing right and wrong? Send you evals to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/14/2009 at 1:17 PM2 comments
A rumor that Windows 8 will be 128-bit has been making the rounds recently. A couple of readers ponder when -- if ever -- we would need all that computing power:
I'm sure Microsoft is planning 128-bit at some degree, but it will be a LONG time before anyone would even consider that much address space. 64-bit is 18 exabytes. One EB is 1 billion GB, so 18 EB is 17.2 billion GB after you divide it by 1,024 each time! I personally don't know of any enterprise customers coming anywhere close to that kind of memory usage, so I can't imagine going to 128-bit already. 128-bit is 3.4e+38 which is 3.4 with 38 zeroes behind it. Calculator had to make it scientific notation because it couldn't fit the number in its display; heck, I don't even know what number that would be. For reference, it goes kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, zettabytes, yottabytes. One yottabyte has 25 zeroes in it, so 128-bit will be some number far larger than a yottabyte. We would have to start measuring things using a larger standard such as how NASA uses the light year versus miles or meters to measure the universe.
Today, most 64-bit computers are using Microsoft's implementation of x64, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft's implementation of x64 is able to address 16 TB of address space compared to the 18 EB in true 64-bit, which is less than 1 percent of true 64-bit. Microsoft's implementation of x64 allows each process to address its own 8 TB of virtual address space. Once we start filling that up, I'm sure true 64-bit systems or a new implementation of it will be out allowing each process to address its own 8 EB (8 EB for the kernel and 8 EB for each process) of virtual address space. We don't even have hard drives that can get to 1 PB let alone exabytes, so this is why I would be surprised if 128-bit is really being considered so soon.
-Clint
It's not clear to me what I would need with a 128-bit desktop machine, but one never knows for sure. For example, back in the 1970s and 1980s, IBM's System 34 and System 36 mini-computers had machine instructions that would add or subtract binary numbers up to 2,096 bits in length. Makes 128-bits seem downright puny by contrast.
-Don
The principal reason for a processor with a 128-bit instruction set is addressability to very large memory and data storage addresses (what the techies call "I/O addressability"). Another reason is the ability to expand the number of operation codes (e.g., load address, left shift, right shift, test under mask) a processor can support. Yet another reason is the number of general registers an operating system can use for multi-tasking. If one needs to do floating-point arithmetic for very large or very small numbers to a high degree of accuracy, a 128-bit instruction set makes this possible.
However, a 128-bit processor may operate slower than a 64-bit or 32-bit processor if the application programs do not need these features. I could explain all of this in greater detail, but your eyes may glaze over after the first sentence. This is microcode and assembler language stuff.
-Roger
Meanwhile, a few more of you just aren't buying it:
Come on, Doug -- get real. I've been reading you for lots of years (I was an Amiga zealot for WAY too long). But 128 bits? Have you heard ANY rumor whatsoever about any chip manufacturer releasing a 128-bit chip? And why? What is 128 bits going to give you?
Pshaw. You've been taken in by a someone making a joke. Albeit one more appropriate for April 1, but a joke nonetheless.
-Michael
So, has someone been duped? See "Windows 8 to Be 128-Bit? No. Good God, No."
-Damien
So, will IT bounce back in 2010, like Forrester predicts? These responses give a mixed outlook:
Forrester is probably right. The SMBs that I have worked with have kept chugging forward with all of the IT projects they can afford. They want to be ready for the rebound and be at their best. I left a Fortune 500 in June because I found a job closer to home, but (more importantly) this company is forward-thinking. They are working for the future by working projects to expand vertical markets.
I have two clients I do programming for, one an SMB and the other another Fortune 100 subsidiary. The company I left was in a cut-everything mode. The Fortune 100 client has stopped all contract work, regardless of significant long-term cash savings. Based on these examples and since there are a lot more SMBs out there than Fortune 500 companies, I can see Forrester's report having significant merit.
-Anonymous
Here at the University of California, there are pay cuts and layoffs this year in IT -- big layoffs, "temporary" pay cuts. The feeling is that both will continue in 2010, and maybe longer.
-Jon
Check in on Friday for more reader letters, including Vista solutions and favorite mobile OSes. Meanwhile, share your thoughts by e-mailing Doug at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/14/2009 at 1:17 PM0 comments
Are you tired of buying food in bulk, skipping vacations and driving around that old clunker because of the recession? Help may be on the way, says Forrester Research, which predicts that IT will pick up serious steam this winter.
Call 'em crazy, but analysts at Forrester actually believe we'll have a "tech-boom" next year. I just hope it's not like the tech boom we had this year. That turned out to be more of a kaboom -- as in, the market imploded!
What do you think? Will 2010 be a very good year, or will you still be buying food in bulk, skipping vacations and driving around that old clunker? Let us know at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/12/2009 at 1:17 PM1 comments
The just-mentioned Forrester report argues that Microsoft will be a huge beneficiary of the 2010 tech boom. Recent research for IDC bears that premise out.
The report finds that over the next four years, there will be a nice rise in IT employment. And where will most of these jobs center? On Microsoft technologies, of course. In fact, nearly 15 million people owe their jobs to Redmond. And nearly 6 million more IT jobs are expected in the next four years.
As they say in "Jaws," we're going to need a bigger magazine!
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/12/2009 at 1:17 PM1 comments