IE 8 has a cool new feature that prevents clickjacking -- those attacks where surfers are lured, like in a phishing attack, to a malicious Web site. Once there, the user's browser is taken over by the hacker, who can install malware, steal passwords or maybe just visit a few unseemly sites!
Chrome and Firefox wish they had this feature, as their browsers are vulnerable to these attacks. Google is working on a fix, but I'm sure it was mighty busy over the weekend -- especially after it declared that the entire Internet, even Google itself, was malware.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/02/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Vista Service Pack 1 solved a few problems -- but created a whole host of others! Now Microsoft is giving it another shot, and has sent a
beta version of Vista SP2 to select users.
Windows 7 is built on the Vista base, and I assumed that meant it would be slow, unstable and incompatible. But Microsoft has seemingly worked wonders with this code, and Windows 7 appears in every way to be a winner. The question is: Did any of this magic rub off on Vista SP2? If so, that could be a swell OS. We'll find out by the middle of the year, SP2's expected general release date.
Am I too harsh on Vista? Set me straight at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/02/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
A week or so back, we told you how the European Union (EU) is
still pestering Microsoft over the bundling of Windows and Internet Explorer. I was never a fan of the tight bundling, but it's been a done deal for so long I've mostly forgotten about it.
The authorities, especially those in the States, have essentially conceded to Microsoft the right to continue this bundling and the tight integration (it takes mad IT skills to delete IE from a Windows machine). The EU, however, never forgot and may force Microsoft not to remove IE, but to fully disable the browser.
I'm siding with the EU on this one, and I'll tell you why. Many in IT have Firefox or other browsers as the standard because it's more secure. That's all well and good, but IE is still in place, even if it's not used, and still offers an attack vector. The EU could be forcing Microsoft to show the world precisely how to disable IE with techniques IT can then use to offer IE-less machines for sale.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/30/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Now that Windows 7 is edging closer to release,
the feds are looking at key documents and specifications to make sure the operating system is open to third parties and competitors.
This all stems from the 2002 final antitrust judgment that dictated Microsoft open the specs and APIs to the market just as much as they're open to Redmond insiders. Since then, there have been complaints back and forth that Windows isn't open enough, but by and large the industry has been satisfied. Changes were made, but speaking as someone who covered the Justice Department investigation, it was more of a wrist slap than a body blow.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/30/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Last week, Doug wrote about the
rough quarter Microsoft just had -- profits are down and layoffs are up. Did Vista have anything to do with it? Is Windows 7 going to give Microsoft the boost it needs? Here are some of your thoughts:
In your item about what went wrong with Microsoft's earnings, you said regarding Vista: "Then there is the Vista problem. Many who would like a faster machine believe that Vista is slower than XP, no matter how many gigs of RAM you throw at it." This is a perception that is thrown out by the media and writers of technical publications that are either under pressure to do so, or are purely misinformed and have not run comparisons themselves. It is no longer true that XP outperforms Vista. The only advantage XP has is on boot-up on laptops, where Vista lags by about 20 to 30 seconds. Once booted up, Vista outperforms XP. With desktops with dual-core processors and above, Vista performs or even outperforms XP at boot-up.
Microsoft failed on two levels, in my opinion, regarding Vista: It released it at a time when hardware and software vendors still had not created stable drivers and software updates, and secondly Microsoft has a horrible marketing department. Maybe it should have been laid off a long time ago.
-Asif
The interesting part of this article is that it seems to show that Microsoft simply does not have any understanding of its customers. I run a startup global sourcing business, and I spend a rather significant part of my day playing games with one operational problem after another with Vista. As if that is not bad enough, Microsoft provides virtually no customer service; other than a publication like Redmond Report, there is no one to talk to. Because of this, I can only assume that no one in Microsoft is listening.
Personally, I think that Microsoft is on the slippery slope of ultimate failure. I am a small fellow in the world, but I have three computers in the business and three at home that will eventually migrate to Apple or Linux. Microsoft is, in my humble opinion, the soon-to-be Chrysler of the software industry, looking for a handout to keep the doors open just a little longer. Will Microsoft's vast cash reserves last it through the need to convince the public that there is good reason to invest in Windows 7 -- or even to download Vista SP2?
-Bill
I think you are right about Microsoft for 2009; it will be glad to see the back of 2008. It will really reap the benefits through 2010, though, when Windows 7 -- I know the marketing wonks won't like it, but couldn't they keep that as the name? -- and Server 2008 R2 are established. Certainly, both products will be on top of my list late this year. We have skipped Vista entirely and I'll be working hard to ensure that we adopt Windows 7 relatively early especially as application compatibility appears pretty good in the beta so far. I think you can keep the rose-tinted glasses on.
-Stephen
What do you think? Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/30/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
When I look for items to bring you in the Redmond Report newsletters, I have a vast new source of material. It may sound confusing, but
RedmondReport.com is our new Web site that brings together Microsoft news from across the Web. We're so committed to this being an open site that we don't even link to our own stories.
Do me a favor -- check out this site and let me know what you like, dislike and how we can make it richer and more satisfying. Impressions can and will be sent to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/30/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Here are more of your thoughts on how Lotus Notes stacks up against Microsoft products:
We have been a Lotus Notes shop from the get-go and currently have no plans to switch. The primary reason for us is the support from IBM. IBM support cannot be matched by anyone! I used to spend hours on the phone with IBM until I got someone who knew what I needed. But in the past five to 10 years that has all changed. Now when I call I usually have an expert on the phone within minutes, and they guide me step by step to resolve the problem. I cannot think of a time in recent years that my problem was not resolved within 30 minutes or less.
Notes does have some issues which I hope are fixed in upcomming releases. The biggest problem is the time that it takes to open an e-mail with a large attachment. For some reason it takes a long time when you first click to open the e-mail, and then again about the same amount of time to open the attachment. It is as if the client is having to download the attachment twice!
-Harry
I work for a Fortune 100 in Salt Lake City. We use Lotus Notes, which many internally call "Bloated Goats." Every time I do ANYTHING in Notes, messages are displayed on the status bar indicating what's happening. These messages go something like: "Looking up address of server. Checking that the server is there. Checking for new e-mail." Have IBM programmers ever heard of local caching? Why not cache the address of the server, then look it up only if it isn't there? And why does Notes have to check for new e-mail when I attempt to look up a contact in the address book? This slows everything down and is a huge loss of productivity.
Before version 8 (the current release), Notes didn't even support standard Windows Ctrl+Click and Shift+Click to multi-select. And Windows has been around for...how long now? Version 8 had a major UI overhaul that ALMOST makes Notes usable. Outlook is just plain faster and easier to use. No question about it.
-Craig
Our company is not an IBM shop, but we do use Lotus Notes heavily as a collaboration tool and file store. We have several thousand databases connected with our Notes servers, and any one of those databases can connect to any other through Notes. This allows us to create an e-mail package that contains all the information for a project (even though that project info may come from many different regions around the world) and pass the e-mail from person to person. There's basically only formatted text in the e-mails, and instead of having attachments in the message, there are links to the files in the databases. When clicked, Notes will open up the associated file, no matter where it resides. This really stands out when projects are updated frequently since clicking the links will open the current revision of any given file. (Of course, if a message leaves our Notes environment, the e-mail functions like Exchange/Outlook where the files are attached inside the message, and no further updates are received unless manually sent to the recipient.)
The real downside to Notes is that it still feels like e-mail was an afterthought. I first used Notes in the mid-1990s, and I thought the same thing about Notes mail back then. I much prefer the Outlook interface, but for our business processes, Notes is the better product.
-Floyd
Way back in the early 1990s, Lotus products came with the computers we purchased and they were easy to use. We were able to learn how to use them in-house without going to a class (plus, they were Editor's Choice winners at the time). Lotus had better collaboration than Microsoft as well as better security. Lotus' downfall was that the transition from AmiPro to Word Pro happened when Microsoft's operating system was unstable and caused many crashes compared to older products. We had employees that liked the products, but got frustrated due to the crashes. But Lotus' direction and concepts were ahead of Microsoft's.
I am now so frustrated at Microsoft Word, it isn't funny. Changing numbering and bullets has always been a breeze with Word Pro. Now, I find myself banging my keyboard because Word does something irrational because I changed something that works logically and easily in Word Pro. I like Excel better than 1-2-3, but still use Word Pro because it does everything that we have thrown at it.
-Tommy
It's probably better to compare Lotus to a combo Exchange/SharePoint. Comparing Lotus to just Exchange by itself is comparing an apple to an orange. Lotus is a development platform in addition to the usual e-mail, calendaring/scheduling, etc.
We develop our own Lotus apps. Sure, eventually we'll end up with Exchange/SharePoint. We just migrated from Novell and one migration per year is enough for me. However, unlike the Novell vs. MS war, Lotus is backed by IBM and we all know that IBM isn't going away any time soon. I think Lotus will be around for a bit, unless IBM dumps it to some other company.
-Dave
And another reader shares his opinion on the government's role during a bad economy:
As many have stated, in times of dire need, we need government. I don't believe in the "research and development" line, but rather in providing additional resources to assist companies in their development and revitalization.
What I believe needs to be said to the some 200 million sheep out there is that government, especially our officials, need to lead by example. Why should a senator earn $250,000 a year when the average American earns a mere $30,000 to $40,000 a year and can still manage to pay their mortgage, utilities, debt, etc.? Why doesn't our new president, if he really wants to back his promise of change, lower his salary from $400,000 a year to $100,000 a year instead of ceasing raises for employees and cabinet members? This is the biggest misspending in our government and yet no voter has the guts to stand up and scream about it.
-Anonymous
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].z
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/28/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
When Microsoft shipped Hyper-V, it was supposed to be the beginning of VMware's long, inexorable descent into computer oblivion. Hyper-V has been out a while and already has, according to some, about a quarter of the hypervisor market. That combined with a tough economy must spell disaster for the VMware balance sheet, right?
Wrong! VMware knocked it out of the park this past quarter with revenue up 25 percent. Like Microsoft, which reported increased revenues, VMware profits were also down.
Sounds like you IT whizzes are getting better at driving down prices!
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/28/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
IE 8 has moved from the beta stage to what used to be called a late beta, but Microsoft now says is a release candidate (RC). In this case,
IE 8 is on RC1, which I guess means that once it hits RC2, 3, 4 or 5 we may have a finished product.
Release candidate also means the software has all the final features and UI elements. I'm curious to see how this new IE test release works. Many of you have written me and had big problems with IE 8 stability; in some cases the beta interfered with the rest of the PC.
If you have IE 8 RC1, write me at [email protected]. I'm doing a feature story based on your reactions!
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/28/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
A few years ago, there was a lot of buzz about a $300 Linux PC from Wal-Mart. The excitement dimmed after users found the hardware wanting and the operating system less intuitive than a congressional bill.
Microsoft, though, apparently saw a two-pronged threat. If the machine actually worked, it could hurt Windows. And even if the OS was junk, customers might snap 'em up anyway and just load a Windows bootleg.
Now Microsoft critics (who also dislike Novell because it's too close to Redmond) are starting to dig up this old dirt after Microsoft formed a taskforce, then pressured Wal-Mart to warn customers that piracy is illegal and tried to get the hardware vendor to focus more on Windows.
The blog item about it starts out pretty cogent, then descends into an incomprehensible swirl of randomness and unstructured glop. Bloggers take note: You need more than words to be effective. They have to be put in some kind of order and ultimately try to accomplish something. Check it out for yourself here.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/28/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
Doug
asked readers last week what, if anything, makes Lotus products better than Microsoft Exchange or Outlook. Here are just some of your replies:
I have worked in Notes and Outlook shops. I currently work in a company with Notes applications and Outlook e-mail. Overall, I find that Outlook hangs at various times much more than Notes, such as editing contacts or launching attachments. But there are some Outlook features (such as dragging e-mail to calendar) that I find really helpful and like.
Overall, I find applications built with Lotus very helpful. The interface can be horrible, especially applications built five or more years ago, but those applications keep running with each new upgrade. My concern with cloud computing continues to be there are times when I don't have connectivity and I would like to be productive. Lotus lets me do that. Salesforce and others do not.
-David
After recently being involved, during user assessment, in a project to determine which of several messaging/collaboration products suited our needs best, I can categorically say that I found Notes to be awful. Before anyone thinks that is because I'm used to Exchange and SharePoint, I'd like to point out that my organisation is Unix and IMAP currently and there is a Notes deployment in another business unit. The decision was to go down the Exchange route after a very broad consultation in an organisation that has no history of adopting Microsoft technologies on any strategic scale.
-Stephen
You asked, "Why are Notes and related products better than Exchange and Outlook?" From a corporate perspective, it isn't. So that begs the question, "Why are we still using Notes, then?" I think that answer is not so simple but boils down to several factors. The first is resistance to change. Notes is good enough, so why change it and risk the ire of the end user whom we alienate so often already? Second is skill set. We already have several fully trained Notes admins. Why should we (as a company) pay to retrain the admins then go through the growing pains of learning new idiosyncracies; not to mention the costs of conversion?
Then there are other considerations such as cost benefits of upgrades vs. crossgrades; discounts on other product lines; OS support for OSes other than Windows; etc. Lastly, at our company, there seems to be a significant emphasis on not making employees more marketable to other companies. If this is the case, then teaching them Notes instead of Exchange is a good way to mitigate the chances of someone jumping to another job.
-Thomas
Christopher shares his take on Live Mesh:
Mesh has come in quite handy for me. I'm using it on two desktops, a laptop, my phone (AT&T Tilt) and my wife's phone (AT&T Blackjack, version 1). My biggest use for it has been to sync my music. No more sitting at the computer moving songs over and waiting for them to transfer over USB or Bluetooth. Now I can just copy the songs I want to a folder on the laptop or desktop and walk away, and they go to any other device I have told it to sync to. I've used it for a few other things also -- made a folder to keep track of CAB files for the phones, one for copying around installation files that I wanted to remember at work, etc. And the built-in remote desktop feature is just a little bonus.
So far, about the only complaint I have about it is the phone client is a little big in the memory area (just checked: 4.5MB while running ATM -- not much for a desktop app, but quite a bit on a phone), and it doesn't auto-start when the phone comes on (I'm sure I could rig that, but I'm not going to yet).
-Christopher
Readers share their misgivings about the next versions of Windows and Internet Explorer:
While Windows 7 seems to run under Microsoft Virtual PC on Vista, finding an anti-virus solution was not as easy. OneCare will not be offered and Symantec's Norton does not run in a virtual environment, leaving AVG and Kaspersky as possible candidates. I opted for AVG, and so far it appears to be functioning correctly on Windows 7 beta, under Microsoft Virtual PC, under Windows Vista Ultimate.
For some of us that prefer the "one neck to choke" approach and thus use mostly Microsoft configurations, the demise of OneCare is going to be problematic.
-Bruce
I haven't even looked at the IE 8 beta. I am a teacher and we are currently using Windows XP, IE 7 and Office 2007 -- they work so well that I am afraid to let the hounds loose. Until I know that all the "bugs"
are out, I will not change OSes or Internet Explorers. I have enough problems just trying to keep the classroom teacher's computers running, the lab going, the servers up and running, the e-mail working, etc., etc., etc. Why change things until you know they will work without a lot of hassle and grief?
-Sharyn
On the topic of how to save the economy, a couple of readers think shrinking the government is not the best idea, while one reader points the finger at foreign workers:
I've got the feeling that I'm not going to be liked too much by this, but the role of the government in an economic meltdown is to spend money, hire people and run on debt. That is the only way to keep from a complete meltdown, and the reason is simple: When there are a lot of unemployed people, problems grow and get worse. The only way around it is for the government to increase services and employment. The government is able to run on debt, whereas the people are not.
The other thing that the government must do is invest in research and development. This will allow for new products which companies can then sell. This is how our economy works. The worse thing to do right now would be to shrink the government and demand it to operate like the average person.
-Nick
I've worked for three government agencies. When I started in 1993, there were four of us in my department plus a secretary. Now it is me and an assistant. While some tasks have been moved to another department, many more have been added. I am now up to 14 years behind on work that needs attention. There is just not enough time to do it.
When I tell people what I do, they are amazed at the low salary. Government has been reduced to the point where it is barely functioning in some areas. So don't compare government to the private sector. Just get government to spend money wisely.
-Michelle
H-1B visas mean cheap slave labor. People who commit immigration fraud should be put in jail, and Microsoft is a great place to start.
-Dave
And Earl gives his answer to the timeless question of whether Apple is, in fact, cool:
One of my clients is a high-end interior designer. He displays pictures of his work on his laptop. He asked my advice about a new laptop computer and I recommended that he go to the Apple store. Image is everything in his business. If he can adjust to the Mac, it will impress his clients more than a PC. (But most of my clients who use both Macs and PCs find the PCs easier to use.)
So if we are talking about style, Apple is cool. If we are talking about social responsibility and openness, Apple is not cool.
-Earl
More letters coming your way on Wednesday! In the meantime, share your own thoughts by writing to [email protected] or fill out the form below.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/26/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments
The Conficker worm, an RPC attack that's been in the wild since last October, is taking a squishing but it keeps on wriggling. And the fact that the worm is still very much alive has been the source of
much finger-pointing.
CERT, for instance, claims that it's Windows Autorun that makes it so easy for the worm to slink from machine to machine. CERT advises that Autorun be disabled and criticizes Microsoft for what it calls "ineffective" guidelines. Microsoft's answer? Poppycock!
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/26/2009 at 1:16 PM0 comments