The great thing about having a magazine, newsletter or Web site (and I've got
all three!) is you get to complain and people have to listen. Today's beef:
Vonage pop-up ads!
One reason I moved to Firefox (besides wanting my kids to think I'm cool) is
it promises to reduce pop-ups. And it does, except for those coming from one
company -- Vonage. I've got the pop-up blocker active, but to no avail. Vonage
just busts on through!
Obviously, the company is purposely bypassing these protections, leading me
to launch a one-man boycott of Vonage. I wouldn't buy their phone service if
it was free (well, maybe if it was free and they corrected their horrible IP
voice quality).
You know what's wild? I never get these pop-ups on IE6!
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/13/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Usually, it takes Microsoft three versions to get a product right. That means
Windows Mobile
6 must be pretty darn good!
The new software for smart phones and other small devices supports Office apps,
boasts better synchronization with Outlook and now Vista, and has contacts listed
alongside their call history.
Of course, with all these features one has to wonder what kind of degree is
required to make the thing work!
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/13/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Microsoft is a bit like the Boston Celtics -- they just can't win. Here Redmond
goes and builds a desktop operating system it believes is as secure as any (well,
maybe not DOS), only to have critics complain that
Vista
can be hacked by attacking third-party programs. For instance, ARCserve
Backup from CA is just one source of buffer overflow attacks, security experts
say.
The problem, according to our own Security
Watch newsletter author Russ Cooper, is that old versions of software don't
avail themselves of new Vista security features. I'm not sure if updating to
Vista, updating all your hardware and buying new versions of all third parties
is quite what IT is looking for.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/12/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Tomorrow is the day IT folks all know and don't love. Yes, folks, it's almost
Patch Tuesday already (seems like the last one was only a month ago, doesn't
it?).
Get your crew ready, as a cool
dozen bulletins are set for release. So far, there is no word on whether
we should expect Vista patches, or fixes for the Word and Excel zero-day exploits.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/12/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
I'm not a fan of Microsoft's entry into the security market, at least when it
moves into areas that were pioneered by third parties that fixed holes Microsoft
should have plugged in the first place. But it is hard to argue with a complete
solution, no matter who it comes from, and that is what Microsoft's Forefront
is fast becoming.
At the recent RSA security show in San Francisco, Microsoft announced a management
console to watch and control a variety of Forefront tools, whether they
protect desktops, Exchange or SharePoint.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/12/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Microsoft is investigating a
flaw
in Excel similar to the four zero-day flaws the company is still working
to patch in Word. Thankfully, there has been limited activity so far.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/07/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Nothing is ever simple in Redmond. Product names are more confusing than they
have to be (first there's a code name that's usually pretty good, then a final
name that's usually pretty bad, and after we all get to know the product, Microsoft
changes the name to something even worse).
And when it comes to MS Word file formats, Microsoft is spinning a story as
a tangled as a plot from "24."
While it could have just included OpenDoc -- the same format used by OpenOffice
and other tools -- in Word, Microsoft instead decided to help start
an open source project to build a translator that would turn Word OpenXML
files into OpenDoc and vice versa.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/07/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Recently,
Newsweek interviewed Bill Gates and gave him an open forum
to promote Vista and complain about those "lying" Mac ads.
Time
took a different approach, recently publishing a
rambling
and disjointed review of the new OS.
Despite some praise, the review -- in a rare moment of lucidity -- called Vista
"an embarrassment to the good name of American innovation, but it's perfectly
fine."
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/07/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
When AMD starting gaining steam with cheap and blazingly fast PC and server
chips, all the major hardware makers jumped at least partly on the bandwagon
-- except Dell, which stubbornly and publicly refused give AMD an inch.
Behind the scenes, though, Intel was paying Dell big bucks to use its chips.
While this may not be illegal or even unethical, it's the subject
of a shareholder lawsuit; Dell didn't report about $1 billion in such payments
openly enough, the suit charges.
All this chaos led founder Michael Dell to take
back the reigns of the company he started in an Austin dorm room 27 years
ago.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/06/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
The man behind the Zune
has
left Microsoft, and no one is really saying how or why. Bryan Lee, by all
accounts, got the Zune out on time and in stores in time for Christmas. I looked
superficially at the specs and thought it compared quite favorably to the iPod.
That is, until Redmond Report readers set me straight, pointing out the Zune
won't play tunes Microsoft originally promised it would, such as WMA tracks
bought from Napster and other music services, or even from Microsoft itself.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/06/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Congratulations! You get to memorize a brand-new acronym. While Cisco has firewalls
with names like PIX, Centri and Catalyst, acronym-crazy Microsoft named its
latest firewall
IAG
2007 (which is about as intuitive as ISA, its previous product).
IAG isn't just a complicated name; it's a complicated product and has an even
more intricate history.
Let's start with the product. IAG combines ISA with VPN and firewall software
that Microsoft got when it acquired security appliance maker Whale Communications,
which had hardware similar to that of Network Engines, Celestix and others.
The appliance story is a bit tangled, so let me walk you through it. Although
Whale was a maker of appliances, Microsoft decided not to compete against other
hardware makers (check out our take on this issue here).
Instead, both Celestix and Network Appliance will build IAG hardware devices.
Sounds like a pretty sweet deal all around.
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/06/2007 at 1:15 PM0 comments