Back in the '90s, the network computer folks, like Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy (the NC was really just a dumb terminal that talked to internal servers and/or the Internet), looked to Gartner for their cost of PC ownership studies. At the time, I had owned and used a lot of PCs -- those I bought and those my employers owned.
The numbers were staggering. Gartner claimed a PC would cost some $10,000 a year to own. I doubted that very much and I asked every IT person who also thought it was hogwash.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/30/20104 comments
While billionaires like Bill Gates, Ted Turner and Warren Buffett are giving away their money, Paul Allen is using some of his massive wealth to make money -- by suing the pants off everyone from FaceBook and Google, to Apple and AOL. Not everyone, exactly. These patent lawsuits somehow bypass Microsoft -- Allen's former employer and source of the money he used to create or, in other cases, buy up all these patents in the first place.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/30/201019 comments
Doug asked readers to send in some thoughts on today's broadband landscape:
DSL in Southern states (Texas, the Bible Belt, etc.) is, in fact, a lot faster (blazing) than cable. Cable on the west coast (Arizona, Washington, etc.) is, as the industry says, more "blazing" than DSL.
It depends on where you are geographically located to see which service is faster. Satellite service in Arizona is your best bet, as only a fool would have satellite in Seattle.
Everyone lays claim that they provide better service than the others. Any broadband user can go to a speed reporting Web site and run a speed test. Unfortunately, providers allow for data bursts, and your results will not even be close to what your true download speed is.
-Christian
Broadband! (DSL is not really broadband technology -- and it shows.) My local provider is Comcast. When I first signed on (month-to-month, no contracts), the performance varied a lot -- based upon neighborhood load. Total bandwidth was probably under 5Mbps. Today, it is 15Mbps, and I do not experience noticeable losses based upon the time of day. And the service is rock solid, with help being accessible 24/7.
The service is $45 per month, but I get a $10 discount for having digital TV service, so the net cost is $35 per month -- no contract. It's more expensive than DSL but it is also faster and more reliable and it doesn't limit the number of HDTV shows my family can watch at one time.
Satellite suffers from latency problems (and up-front costs), and DSL is dependent upon your Telco supporting your neighborhood with "fiber to the door." Plus, you sign a contract with the Telco, and the cost for truly high-speed service start at about $80 per month.
-Marc
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/30/20102 comments
There's an old hack that attacks apps that have hooks to Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) but don't actually invoke a specific path. Hackers can use these badly written hooks to load malware in place of the DLL upon remote servers.
Microsoft recently alerted customers to the fact that hackers are once again exploiting these flaws, and Redmond actually has some new workarounds, including disabling "TCP ports 139 and 445 at the firewall."
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/27/20101 comments
Many IT pros won't adopt a Microsoft product until at least its first Service Pack. If you are jonesin' to move to Exchange 2010, now might be the time -- the first Service Pack is out.
SP1 boasts better mail management and discovery, as well as improved unified communications and auto-logging.
Have you tried the latest Exchange, or do you prefer a non-Microsoft alternative? Answers to both equally welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/27/20100 comments
After Intel acquired McAfee last week, Doug asked if you were a friend or foe with the antivirus company. Here's some of your responses:
FOE, big time. As an IT support professional it causes me no end of problems. But from another point of view, that's great because it causes us to have to bill a lot more support hours! Seriously though, we do have our clients 'interests' at heart and, as a rule, we do not recommend this product to our clients, nor do we recommend Trend. We usually push Webroot Corporate Edition (Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus). Something occasionally does get through, but often that's because clients cancel their sweeps or don't leave computers on at night to allow full sweeps to take place.
-Stephen
I use Sunbelt Software's Vipre. It is much better, less of a resource hog and it catches things McAfee doesn't have a clue about.
Hopefully, if Intel is going to install McAfee at the firmware level, they will allow us to disable it.
My opinion: in its present form, McAfee is like the proverbial 'bull in a china store' and is just about useless. (Also, their sales staff won't leave you alone!)
-Gene
I don't like AVG, McAfee or Trend Micro. Microsoft's Security Essentials, ForeFront Client Security (FCS) and ForeFront EndPoint Protection (FEP) are the only antiviruses I have used lately. They have caught all viruses and stopped network outage at several customers I manage.
-Justin
Kaspersky.
So, I guess the answer is NO!
-M
Why would Intel buy a product that simply does not work?
-Anonymous
McAfee is THE ONLY company that is worse is Symantec. What they did to BackupExec is simply unbelievable. Intel made a bad move. Their products are just too random.
-Anonymous
Up until the last few years, I would have said a fan. The problem I have had with their software over the last couple of years is the bloat factor. Getting fatter and fatter while hurting client performance. The protection has been grand, but the client pain has hurt.
-Dru
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/27/20104 comments
I just told you that so-called poorly written apps that make DLL calls without a specific path are once again being cracked. Now we are learning that these "poorly written apps" come from heavyweights including Mozilla and Microsoft's own PowerPoint, Office and Live Mail (ouch).
The company that first warned of the flaw, Acros Security, argues that over 200 programs could be targeted. I guess even the top dogs can write flawed code from time to time.
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/27/20104 comments
The last VMworld show I attended in Las Vegas was packed with customers, and full of spankin' new products. Microsoft was on the verge of really pushing Hyper-V and had attractive young lasses passing out free poker chips promoting the new hypervisor.
VMware was none too pleased.
The bickering over shows continues and is actually typical of how competitors treat each other. Microsoft doesn't always make it easy for competitors to make a splash at shows such as Tech-Ed. So I guess it is only fair VMware won't let Microsoft show off Hyper-V since it is a direct competitor. That leaves Microsoft in a paltry 10x10 booth where it is only showing off Azure.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/25/20103 comments
Have you seen the ads for FIOS and Xfinity promising to set your PC ablaze with blinding-fast download speeds? So you shell out all the dough, lock into a long-term contract a car salesmen would love to have and surf.
Hmm. Why won't that YouTube video load? What's with that hourglass? How come your favorite Web site froze?
Well, besides issues with the backend servers, the networking pieces don't deliver as advertised, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/25/201010 comments
One reader thinks Windows Phone 7 has quite an uphill battle in store for itself:
I think Microsoft HAD a shot at the mobile phone market until Android messed things up good for them. If Apple was Microsoft's sole competitor in the mobile phone OS market, I think they would have a HUGE chance to really heat things up. I think developers (like myself) will see early success in application development with Android as opposed to Windows Phone 7 or iPhone because Android development starts with a focus on function and works its way toward outward appearance.
Windows Phone 7 development starts with appearance then on toward function. I developed an app for both Windows Phone 7 and Android. Before I could hit the ground running with Windows Phone 7 I had to wade through PDFs of how my app was supposed to look. The information was very much geared towards designers, which I am not. I then had to visit several other places for help and meaningful information.
With Android, I went to the main android development website and NEVER had to leave the site. The site is so well organized. It's almost impossible for developers to get lost. I was up and running with Android development in record time! My first application was an application that tapped into our company's time and attendance database to display a company In/Out Board (in real time, using almost no data transfer) right on your Android phone. HOW COOL IS THAT!?
Developers NEED to have functional success early in new application development. I'll leave it to the designers to then tell me that a yellow font on a green background might not look so nice.
I have no doubt that Microsoft will keep up the fight. But Android is going to make it harder to come from behind, way behind. Darn that Internet search company!
-Ryan
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/25/20101 comments
Office 14 (Office 2010) is barely out the door. However, scribes are already banging the Office 15 drum. Mary-Jo Foley, who writes Foley on Microsoft for Redmond, is starting to hear rumblings of a new killer feature.
While this secret feature is still not clearly confirmed, one possibility is improving the file collaboration features of Office Web Apps and integrating them more tightly with Office itself.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/25/20101 comments