Readers share their thoughts on the news of the impeding death of Windows XP:
Wow, are all the computers running XP just going to die on that day? In less than 1000 days MS will stop supporting XP. That doesn't mean it's dead. It just means we won't be getting the updates every Tuesday. We probably won't need them because the hackers will be concentrating on Win 7 or Win 8 (or whatever the current over bloated MS OS is at the time). My theory has always been that if it works for you there's no reason to change. I know a few people that are still using Win 98! It still works and you don't need 8 MB of RAM to support it.
-Gary
No more XP? Apparently the Mayans were off by 16 months. The end is not until April 2014.
-Pat
For our purposes, XP is the most reliable and functional OS that Microsoft ever developed. We've had nothing but problems with Win 7 on new machines. We've kept XP on 'old machines' and on laptops and netbooks with 'no problems.'
As you mentioned, laptops and netbooks won't handle Win 7. I very much doubt that they will be able to handle Win 8 either. Microsoft seems to think only of Microsoft, with little attention to OEMs, app developers or end users.
-Dick
If it ain't broke why fix it? That's what I always say. I haven't seen anything in Win7 that jumps out to make me want to replace all the XP OS systems in my company (over 100). The few new computers we bought last year from Dell came with XP Pro with the option to upgrade to Win7 when the company was ready. That option for XP preinstalled is no longer available now. You are now forced to use Win 7 from Dell.
-Mark
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to [email protected]. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/29/2011 at 1:18 PM2 comments
Google is a pretty good search engine, Gmail is a decent (though intrusive) e-mail system and Google Maps doesn't make nearly as many dumb mistakes as MapQuest. And Google Apps are generally pretty good. All this goodness makes it an easy choice for many to move their computing lives over to the Google cloud.
But here's a cautionary tale from a man who calls himself Thomas Monopoly (but whose real first name appears to be Dylan).
Dylan, er Tom, trusted Google enough to put photos, videos, calendars, documents, e-mail messages and his e-mail address, as well as bookmarks, contacts and banking info into the Google cloud. Oh, and his Web site, for which he paid, was also Google-driven.
All was fine until a Google computer decided that Tom, er Dylan, violated its terms of service, but apparently offered no details. All of Dylan's, er Tom's data, Web site, and e-mail address were purged. Gone for good.
With most companies you can at least reach a real person -- however, the outcome may not always be satisfactory. For Tom, er Dylan, all he got was Web and e-mail support from Google supporters. He finally heard from a real Google employee who tried to help to no avail.
I love the cloud, but only use it for ancillary tasks and for backup.
What is your experience? Come clean at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/27/2011 at 1:18 PM8 comments
I'm not a fan of huge companies looking over my shoulder, and Google is a huge offender. But its latest move really ain't so bad. It just started alerting users when it thinks their computers have become compromised. Okay, this means Google is probing our systems. I'm not entirely comfortable with that, but there's nothing totally wrong with an extra layer of protection.
In theory, I like this idea, but want to make sure the details are all sorted out.
Any advice for the Google-meisters? I'll pass it along if you write to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/27/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
Readers share their thoughts on the current smartphone landscape:
I gave up on Windows mobile with WM7. It has been too slow to market, has no application support and Microsoft honestly fashioned the phone after the failed Zune! I no longer deploy it unless asked to. I'm on a Droid device. The VPNs don't work, but everything else does. I can RDP through my TS Gateway to control all my servers. I run Touchdown for improved Exchange sync. I have a number of other little apps for personal things like listening to radio, etc.
My wife has an iPhone. Better designed than the Droid, in my humble opinion, but no available keyboard and no flash support. It's tough to RDP when half the screen is used by a virtual keyboard.
I also manage BlackBerry devices and BES for my company. They're OK, but they don't do much.
Sad to say, but Windows Mobile is dead. A least it brought us push synchronization for the good smart phones to use.
-Bryan
The new "Mango" handsets are going to be sweet and the OS is awesome. I have a Samsung Focus and love it.
-Scott
Get on board with Android.
That "Mango" may be ripe, but it's full of worms.
-Jacob
I told you before that if the iPhone came to Verizon I'd leave my Windows phone in a heartbeat. Well it became available, I switched, and I don't regret it. I won't have a Mac in the office, don't have an iPad but I do love my iPhone...
-Shirley
I have a BlackBerry, a WP7, and an Android. Overall, the WP7 is the best -- particularly if you have a Zune subscription. I use it with either Bluetooth headphones or Bluetooth speakers for music. The e-mail experience is great, Netflix is nice, the Play To feature is unique, and the Panorama App is very cool. I develop apps for all three phone types and app development on the WP7 is the best experience.
-Anonymous
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to [email protected]. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/27/2011 at 1:18 PM2 comments
I've been to many Microsoft shareholder meetings and they were all the same. Microsoft would pooh-pooh optimistic analyst projects, blow them out of the water, and at the meeting act humble and sheepish for making Wall Street look so foolish.
Not much has changed, except for MSFT share prices. Every quarter is a new record, though the growth is steady instead of explosive.
Take this past quarter. Microsoft pulled in almost $6 billion in profits, making Wall Street look stupid once again. So how did the stock do? It remains as limp as a dead nightcrawler.
What is going to take to give MSFT shares some legs? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/27/2011 at 1:18 PM4 comments
One reader discusses Microsoft's charitable side:
I do think Microsoft is a good corporate citizen and is doing a lot of good for the world. However, tagging Microsoft with the full 360,000 hours of volunteering and the full $14 million dollars irks me.
Microsoft may in fact allow its employees to get paid while volunteering, but I doubt it. Most large companies require that volunteer time be on your own nickel, so those 360,000 hours are not Microsoft's -- they are the hours of the great people that work at Microsoft.
Also, most companies do a matching system for the donation to United Way -- dollar for dollar or two for one -- but they usually count the entire amount as having come from the organization rather than from the big-hearted employees of Microsoft.
Yes, I understand that without Microsoft providing its employees with well-paying jobs, none of this would be possible. However, the credit should go where it belongs. There are great people working at Microsoft.
-Joe
And because the Ribbon e-mails will never stop, here's one more:
The kindest thing I have to say about the MS sadists who dreamed up the Ribbon is that they did, at least, provide a customizable QAT to help users restore a bit of order to what otherwise I wouldn't give squat for.
-Fred
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to [email protected]. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/25/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
I've been covering IT since June 4, 1984. Using computers back then wasn't so easy. CP/M was a command prompt nightmare and MS-DOS forced you to memorize commands so much that when you came back from vacation you had to relearn half of what you knew.
Twenty-seven years later, things are far better...unless you want to install HP printer drivers before you actually connect the hardware. I downloaded a LaserJet 1012 driver, but was told I needed WinZip. Weird, but OK. Unzipped 40 files with no indication as to which is the install file. None seemed to fit the bill.
I went to Add Printers seeking a shortcut but there is no option for the 1012.
Clicked on "run," nothing runs. Is this XP or HP? Who knows.
At first I felt stupid, like there was something wrong with me. Then I thought back to the dozens upon dozens of printers I've installed rather easily over the last few decades. So who's the dummy? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/25/2011 at 1:18 PM6 comments
In keeping with my recent "Blowing off Steam" column, here's another pet peeve of mine. I love the fact that we have Wi-Fi routers, but I just hate the way most of them work. Initial setup is usually easy: Set your password and choose your style of encryption. Everything is fine 'til something happens, like the power going out, or maybe it just fails. After that, the password disappears, and reconfiguring -- unless you are a network admin -- often requires a call to India.
Oh, and after you've owned the router for a year, it costs the same to buy a new one as it does to get tech support to help you set the old one back up.
For me, many of these problems went away when I gave up the cheap DSL (which is less stable than Lindsay Lohan) for expensive but rock-solid cable Internet service.
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/25/2011 at 1:18 PM10 comments
Systems management third parties are not all huge fans of Redmond. These companies have made sometimes-flaky software usable, and their reward is to have Microsoft try to take over their business. So it is with mixed feelings that I offer news of the upcoming release of the far-from-smoothly-named Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2012 (makes you pine for the days of a Coke, Mustang or Whopper).
The news is the new Ops Center can handle clouds, discover your network devices (no big breakthrough here) and work with Linux and Unix devices (again, no real breakthrough).
If MS management software is the best, it should win. But if it just follows third-party advances and is sold by leveraging existing licenses, then customers should stick with hard-working pioneers. But what do I know? You who know all should school me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/25/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments
Cisco is the Microsoft of the networking world. Look at the companies it either killed outright, bought, forced into other mergers or at least decimated. Remember 3Com, Cabletron, BayNetworks, Nortel, Ascend, Banyan and Wellfleet? This is as much carnage as we've ever seen in software.
Cisco either bought or killed its main rivals, so it should be flying high, right? Not bloody likely. The network king is about to boot 10 percent of its workforce -- that's about 6,500 workers. Great timing given our economy and lack of tax revenues.
Of course, Cisco tried to make it seem like a good thing. By getting rid of all this dead weight, the company can finally "focus on a network-centric growth strategy." That has to boost the ego of all those pink-slippers who held the company back all those years.
I can't blame Cisco. It really was pushed to the edge. After all, in its latest quarter, it made only $1.8 billion on sales of around $10 billion. Gosh, those margins are a tad less than 18 percent. What a kind company to only fire 10 percent of its workers!
I am not a scion of industry, but this just seems wrong, the same way it was wrong for Microsoft to boot 5,000 workers just to improve its margins. Am I a Commie or a commonsense American? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/22/2011 at 1:18 PM25 comments
Windows Phone 7 hasn't been out that long, but already Windows Phone 7.5 -- code-named for some godforsaken reason "Mango" (not sure what is so wrong or confusing about Windows Phone 7.5) -- seems ready to ship. In fact, the heat of August might bring the lesser heat of Mango.
The good news for Windows Phone 7 customers (if you are one, share your impressions at [email protected]) is you can upgrade to Mango, er, Windows Phone 7.5.
I use a BlackBerry and am entirely underwhelmed. I can move to my son's Android phone, but the "a" key sticks. Or I can wait 'til next summer for a free iPhone upgrade. Or I can go the Microsoft route. What do you advise? Tell me what to do at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/22/2011 at 1:18 PM6 comments
Are you upside on your mortgage? Did you get the good and bad news that your kid got into Harvard, but you are unfortunately not indigent? Would $250,000 help out? All you have to do is be the one person to hunt down the creeps behind the Rustock spam botnet. (You may need to move to Russia, which is where these jerks are apparently from.)
Rustock is mostly shut down, which means the perpetrators have long gone underground -- so deep that even Raskolnikov couldn't find them.
While the $25 million Bin Laden bounty was never collected, this is a good-faith effort by Microsoft. Good luck, botnet hunters.
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/22/2011 at 1:18 PM1 comments