Let me keep this short and simple. Tomorrow is Patch Tuesday, and this one has
a fairly
normal
number of fixes, tweaks and repairs. And, like most patch cycles, these
fixes largely focus on remote execution exploits (is there any other kind of
exploit these days?).
Unlike most months where Windows and IE get corrected, these patches are mostly
for Office and Outlook.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/10/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Last week, Steve Ballmer jetted down to sunny Las Vegas for the MIX08 show,
where some 2,500 people went to learn what Microsoft is doing in Web development
tools.
At first, I was going to write this entire item based on what Redmond
Developer News writer Jeff Schwartz put in his terrific 1,252-word
article. Then I ran into Kate Richards, another Redmond Developer News
writer who just got back from MIX08, at the coffee machine.
I'm not sure if it was the Las Vegas memories or the stirring keynotes and
sessions, but Kate was pretty impressed. Topping her list was Silverlight,
the semi-new Web dev tool that has more downloads than a .JPEG of the Kardashian
sisters (these are the girls famous for having a father that [allegedly] got
rid of O.J.'s bloody evidence, for being Bruce Jenner's stepchildren and for
having a videotape I'd rather not describe). Microsoft also previewed some rather
stunning work it's doing for NBC's Beijing Olympics Web site.
But the real excitement came during Steve Ballmer's keynote, a real baring-of-the-soul
affair. Ballmer admitted that Vista didn't come out quite as well as he had
hoped, and that he wished Internet Explorer had been updated more frequently.
Ever optimistic, Ballmer believes that the Vista service pack will fix many
of the compatibility issues.
I have no clue why Microsoft agreed to this, but Ballmer then sat down for
a Q&A
with Apple bigot and self-centered venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. Kawasaki
rudely sported a new MacAir (only VCs can afford this creation) and asked a
rash of Apple-focused questions. (Kawasaki worked for Apple over 20 years ago
when the Mac was black and white, single-tasking and -- just like today -- horribly
expensive.) Ballmer kept his composure and answered Kawasaki's random questions
as best as he could.
Here's a crazy idea I'm pitching in my next print editorial: Microsoft should
buy the Mac OS. Am I nuts or on to something? Let me know at [email protected]!
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/10/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Security for virtual environments is a problem many shops haven't fully addressed.
But when you think about it, one hack can bring down a host of VMs -- not pretty.
McAfee has a new
program -- actually more of a service -- that audits the security of your
virtual infrastructure, including people and processes. Afterward, McAfee recommends
technology to protect your shop.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/03/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Rumors started
this weekend that Microsoft is set to make a major Software as a Service (SaaS)
announcement soon, perhaps detailing how nearly its entire portfolio of apps
-- from ERP to Office -- will adapt to the Web.
The company may also detail plans to build a bunch of huge new datacenters,
an announcement that seems geared toward Wall Street as much as IT.
And, in fact, it appears today that the rumors might be starting to come true:
Microsoft this morning announced a new step forward for its SaaS initiative,
Microsoft
Online Services, with online betas of Exchange and SharePoint Servers.
Are you using SaaS? If so, for what and how is it working out? If not, what
would it take for you to make the move? Write me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/03/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Like any community of vendors, the storage industry pumps out more hype than
a Hollywood premiere. Jon William Toigo has seen it all, but as a true storage
expert he easily separates fact from fiction, wheat from chaff, truth from marketing
hooey.
This
article he wrote is a fairly long read, but well worth it. Here are a few
highlights for those with tight schedules:
Toigo, in mentioning the 10-year anniversary of the SAN, goes on to predict
the death of fibre channel. I won't shed any tears. It never made sense to me
to network storage with fibre and computers with Ethernet.
Toigo also predicts that Microsoft will have huge success in the virtualization
market, and will "win the day over third-party virtualization wares."
Mr. Toigo sure ain't shy with his opinions!
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/03/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Microsoft last week disclosed plans to
cut
the price of boxed versions of Vista by up to nearly 50 percent.
Conspiracy theorists see a connection between this and the class-action suit
claiming that machines labeled as Vista Ready are less prepared than a narcoleptic
Boy Scout. I fail to see that connection, and instead believe that Microsoft
simply wants to build a little Vista momentum. To me this move has very little
meaning. I've argued from the start that users shouldn't upgrade existing systems
to Vista, but should wait 'til they need to buy a new PC.
All the letters
I've received from Redmond Report readers prove that point. Most of today's
machines don't take kindly to the upgrade, and a lot of new machines with Vista
fail to run Vista well. The advice from readers is to carefully spec out your
Vista machine. Pick solid high-end hardware and you may just have a joyous Vista
experience.
Just to keep things from being too easy, Microsoft actually has two logos:
Vista Capable for low-end machines, and Vista Ready for higher-end units. I
think I'll opt for Vista Ready!
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/03/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
When Microsoft is wrong, I'm not shy about telling the world. When it's right,
I'm the first to pat 'em on the back. In the case of the
new
class-action lawsuit over Vista Ready logos for PCs, I'm patting and complaining
all at once.
Here's the rub. Dell, HP, IBM et al have been selling millions of PCs with
Vista Ready logos. Consumers complain that many of these units can't handle
higher-end revs of Vista, especially the Aero interface.
Here's where I defend Redmond. Vista comes in many forms and the lower-end
versions do run on these machines. On the other hand, Aero is graphics-intensive,
and requires the kind of GPU processing that used to be the domain of top engineers,
scientists, videographers and pimply faced teenage gamers. And, to be legally
precise, the logos don't say "Vista Aero Ready."
On the other hand, Vista does not play nearly as nice with hardware as I'd
like. I've upgraded three or four older machines to XP, and in each case it
was surprisingly flawless. Vista is a lot more demanding, making it tough to
upgrade our current machines. And -- let's face it -- many of the units sold
by Best Buy and Circuit City may run Vista, but they move slower than
an Oscar acceptance speech.
Have you bought a Vista machine that wasn't up to snuff? Share your stories
by writing me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/25/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
I am not a fan of Microsoft buying Yahoo. Yahoo has nothing that Microsoft hasn't
already built or bought, and is, in fact, a legacy Internet company.
Now, a New York Times wonk has what he calls a better idea: Redmond
should buy SAP.
I'm not entirely sure this guy's neural connections are working properly. Look
up "legacy" in the IT dictionary and SAP is the first definition.
SAP does have great technology and, after a long process of installation, has
helped many companies operate more efficiently, rationalize supply chains and
tie in partners. But is it the future? No.
That said, I'm not sure if NYT author Randall Stross realizes that Microsoft
currently owns four separate ERP platforms: Great Plains, Axapta, Navision and
Solomon. Not only that, but Microsoft is currently re-architecting these ERP
tools so they'll be more modern than anything SAP has.
I'm actually pretty darn comfortable with Redmond's ERP plans, and believe
buying SAP would be a move backward.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/25/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Ask entrepreneurs and IT pros what's hot, and you won't hear much about browsers,
fat client OSes and Cat 5 cable. You
will hear a lot about virtualization.
In fact, the vast majority of IT pros have
"a
strong interest in virtualization." Still, only a minority in IT are
currently doing virtualization.
Redmond readers are different. Many (if not most) of you are virtualizing,
according to our own research.
Fortunately, there's a brand-new resource that will tell you all you need to
know. VirtualizationReview.com
is now up and running, and it comes with a new
newsletter with weekly analysis.
Let me know what you think of the site and what you need to know about virtualization
by writing [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/25/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
When I was a kid, I owned a wall hanging made by my grandfather that was inscribed
with an old English evening prayer -- including "If I should die before
I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my Soul to take."
I treasured it, but it also scared the bejeepers out of me. I wanted to wake
up.
Now, we have to worry about our computers either never waking up or waking
up hacked.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation claims that encrypted disks can be, er,
decrypted while the
computer sleeps. BitLocker from Microsoft was cracked by EFF and Princeton
University experts by finding passwords in RAM, which isn't flushed during sleep
or hibernation.
Microsoft isn't the only vendor with this the problem; Apple has it, too!
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/25/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
How many Web sites or services have you signed up for, only to forget your user
name or password? Here's the problem: You try to register, but the user name
you want is taken, so you add a bunch of random numbers to the end of your name
(say, dbarney8256). And even though nothing special is happening on the site,
the security gods who run it demand a complex password (say dBarn&y8256H20).
Got those committed to memory? I thought not. Use the Web long enough, and
you end up with dozens of these non-intuitive user names and unintelligible
passwords.
Single sign-on is one answer, and within high-end corporate environments, single
sign-on often gets you access to wide range of corporate info. But it does nothing
to help you remember the sign-on to your (my) favorite motorcycle forums.
A bunch of companies that don't particularly like each other have
agreed to help. Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo are all members
of the OpenID Foundation, which hopes to offer one user name and one password
that gets you onto all of your favorite registered sites. Just make sure you
keep that info very, very safe!
Microsoft had a decent approach to this. It was called Passport. Unfortunately,
not enough sites backed it and Passport is now largely used to access Microsoft-only
content.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/11/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Last
month's Patch Tuesday had less action than a Kate Hudson romantic comedy.
Tomorrow's, though, will be a
little
more intense, with a dozen fixes expected for everything from Visual Basic
to IE and Office. Microsoft's most-loved client OS, XP, gets some tweaks, as
does the New Coke of software, Vista.
A lot of the exploits concern that old bugaboo, the remote execution of code.
And seven are deemed critical.
I have to hand it to Microsoft. While other vendors quietly release fixes,
Microsoft sticks its neck out each and every month and boldly proclaims where
its faults lie. And that takes guts. Agree? Let me know by writing [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/11/2008 at 1:15 PM0 comments