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 03/10/20080 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/10/20080 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 03/03/20080 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/03/20080 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:
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/03/20080 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 03/03/20080 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/25/20080 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/25/20080 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/25/20080 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/25/20080 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/11/20080 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.
More
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/11/20080 comments