Microsoft has a crazy product launch strategy. While it always has a monster
press conference, sometimes the launch is before the product(s) ships, sometimes
when the product(s) ships and sometimes after the product(s) ships.
In the case of Microsoft's Sept.
8 virtualization launch, it looks like all of the above.
The company already has application virtualization tools it bought from SoftGrid
(available only to those with top-tier license deals with Redmond), is currently
running Hyper-V through the manufacturing process, and is close to finishing
Virtual Machine Manager 2008.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/14/20080 comments
You might think I pick on Google a lot, and I do. There's a reason, though.
Google has power, and with power comes scrutiny. Just look at what a U.S. president
goes through. Every decision is scrutinized (sometimes not scrutinized enough)
as a way of keeping this power in check.
Google is as close to a president of the Internet as you can get. So when Google
admitted that it tracks
our Web moves and sells this information to marketers, I was concerned.
In fact, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo -- the Web's Big Three -- all do this!
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/13/20080 comments
The Gartner Group has a
new
report
that says roughly what our upcoming
Redmond
magazine salary
survey says: IT is immune to our current economic malaise. Most shops plan to
add staff and, as the old laws of supply-and-demand state, this demand will
cause wages to increase.
Salaries are already going up, but for now they're roughly on a cost-of-living
basis, at an average increase of 3.6 percent. The good news? Bonuses are also
up, so get your speech ready!
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/13/20080 comments
Rod gives some advice to
another
reader
who mentioned using Linux for thin clients:
For Timothy who said he would use Linux to create a thin client, check
out Thinstation. Way
back in 2003, we made a major move into server-based computing. We converted
a boatload of Win 95/98 PCs into thin clients by booting from a CD or thumb
drive that reformatted the hard disk and installed Thinstation. For the few
systems that didn't work because of driver issues or when one of the PCs died
due to old age, we didn't spend time trying to get it to work -- just replace
with a Wyse thin client and move on. It was a great way to embrace Citrix
without replacing all of our client workstations all at once.
-Rod
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/13/20080 comments
This is funny, but also speaks to whether Google is respectful of our personal
privacy.
It seems that an Aussie gent lost his bloke. To commemorate his mate's death,
the 36-year-old Bill got snockered and passed out in front of his house, just
in time for a camera-laden Google van to drive by. The photos were posted
on the 'Net, much to Bill's chagrin.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/13/20080 comments
Our previous item points out that IT has been relatively recession-proof of
late. But if you really want to avoid economic catastrophe, you might want to
go into networking. There are currently some
60,000
networking jobs unfilled
, according to IDC.
I was scratching my head over this, 'til I remembered a couple of huge trends.
VoIP and unified communications both rely on powerful, efficient networks. And
as Web applications take off, the networks to access them must have enough capacity
and reliability.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/13/20080 comments
Visual Studio 2008 has been out for less than a year (I'm good enough at math
to at least know that one), but it's already getting its first refresh. A
new
service pack
for Visual Studio and .NET Framework 3.5 is done and is now
in the hands of those that actually manufacture this stuff.
Even if you're not a developer, there are a few things that may be handy to
know. The service pack makes software faster to develop and more data-driven.
Now you can tell your developers you want that new data-driven application,
and you want it now!
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/12/20080 comments
If the numbers from Janco Associates are real -- and I have my doubts -- Internet
Explorer's market share has
dropped
to 58 percent
, with Firefox picking up 19 percent.
That leaves 23 percent for "other" browsers. Others like what? Safari
is on 4 to 5 percent of machines, but most Mac people I know (like my two sons
Nick and David) use Firefox.
While I always welcome competition, I'm scratching my head over this one. For
instance, Janco calls Google Desktop a browser, when it runs inside a browser.
Hmm.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/12/20080 comments
Readers chime in on the
RTM
of SQL Server 2008
...and why, exactly, it's taking so long to get to customers:
It might be taking so long because it relies on VS 2008 SP1.
-Daniel
You can download from MSDN five different versions of SQL 2008 RTM which
I think are pre-pidded to be non-eval/dev type installations (or you can choose
the eval install which expires after 180 days, I think). This download typically
attract developers first wanting to test things out. However, if you try to
install this on a box that already has Visual Studio 2008 installed you can
run into some problems until they release Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (the current
beta SP1 doesn't seem to help avoid the problem that prevents installation).
In my book, this is not ready for primetime, since you have to wait several
days to get a patch. I would have wanted MS to delay the SQL 2008 release
until VS 2008 SP1 is ready to help me avoid all the installation issues it
presents. Hopefully, SQL 2008 + VS 2008 SP1 patch in a few days will help
restore my confidence.
-Robert
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/12/20080 comments
The opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics were driven by over a hundred
media servers...one of which apparently failed. Thanks to some good eyesight,
IT savvy and the miracle of digital video recorders, we now have a
recording
of a Blue Screen of Death
projected onto the ceiling of the Bird's Nest
stadium in Beijing.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/12/20080 comments
Microsoft has been making some decent efforts in the area of green computing.
A nearly free hypervisor is one great move.
Now Microsoft is touting the benefits of System
Center Configuration Manager, which is Energy Star-compliant by virtue of
its ability to configure hardware to hibernate, sleep and shut down when not
in use.
My only complaint? Vista is a huge hardware hog, meaning we're wasting lots
of watts running this OS -- at least, those of you that have taken the plunge.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/11/20080 comments
Microsoft may come clean on its security flaws each and every month, but for
Google it seems to take an outsider to point out weaknesses.
That's just what happened at the recent Black Hat conference, where security
maven Tom Stracener from Cenzic Inc. showed
how Google Gadgets can be hacked to steal passwords and personal information,
and perhaps ultimately pilfer transaction data.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/11/20080 comments