The Windows 7 beta has
leaked out
beyond the small base of testers Microsoft originally intended, and I for one don't think Microsoft is the least bit upset.
In fact, Microsoft seems to be talking more about Windows 7 than about its shipping products. And its Vista commercials mention Mojave (the code name for Microsoft's Vista taste test) way more than Vista itself. Let's face it: Vista is the Blagojevich of the PC market. Everyone wants to steer as clear as possible.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/05/20090 comments
Despite Apple's reputation, Macs need protection, too -- as these readers will attest:
I get weekly reports from US-CERT about cyber threats. One of the recent ones was about OS X. Actually, most of the weekly ones are about open source software and, increasingly, OS X. I guess in the downturn of the economy, folks figure they are getting a bargain buying their software at the "dollar store" (OK, Macs from Neiman Marcus). I guess you get what you pay for -- disposable software or a gated community with holes in the fence.
-Dan
Many years ago, a friend gave me a disk of files for my Mac SE. At least one of the files was infected with a virus. My Mac became infected also. I immediately bought an anti-virus program and removed the virus. That lesson taught me the importance of running an anti-virus program, and I have done so ever since. I've never had a problem since then.
-Anonymous
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/18/20080 comments
Cisco -- or, for the purpose of this story, Captain Obvious -- released a study showing that hacker attacks are
getting more sophisticated
. Doesn't this happen each and every year?
Diving into the details, Cisco says spam makes up about 90 percent of all e-mail traffic. (Since my e-mail is published everywhere, including in this newsletter, spam is about 99 percent of all my mail.) There's also a new form of personalized spam; this way, phishers trick you into thinking the mail is truly legit. Botnets are also getting trickier, the network giant says.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/18/20080 comments
Let's say there's a big independent convention that does nothing except gather your customers and promote your products. Oh, and they offer you the keynote so you can shock the world with amazing new products. "Where do I sign up?" you might ask.
But if you're Steve Jobs, you'd ask, "How can I bail?"
That's what Apple and Jobs are doing with Macworld. Job cancelled his keynote and next month's Macworld will be the last Apple will support. Instead, Apple will push its own events. Can you say proprietary?
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/18/20080 comments
SQL Server is in the news this week nearly as much as Gov. Blagojevich. No, SQL Server didn't try to sell a Senate seat, refuse to leave office and go for a jog. Instead, SQL Server gained a new beta of what will probably be SQL Server 2010 and got a bunch of new security tools for the current version and a new service pack.
Starting with what's shipping today (or near-abouts), we have beta versions of two SQL Server security tools. Both the Anti-Cross Site Scripting Library and the Code Analysis Tool are built to deflect SQL Injection attacks.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/18/20080 comments
Microsoft bought Seadragon Mobile a year or two back for its mobile GUI. As I recall, Seadragon lets users drill into content on small screens so you can actually read words and see images -- pretty handy for someone like me who has 48-year-old eyes and refuses to get glasses. But is Seadragon good to go on Microsoft-powered phones? Not yet.
So what exactly does it run on? How about an iPhone? That's right: Microsoft is shipping a preview version for Apple fans, while the Windows Mobile faithful has to wait. And it's all because the iPhone has a strong enough graphical processing unit (GPU) to run the new interface.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/17/20080 comments
Doug wrote his
column on Monday
from the front lines of a bad New England ice storm -- and he wasn't alone:
Similar to yourself, I live in Southern New Hampshire, just outside of Portsmouth. We were without power for two days, but I was able to hook up a portable generator to do the following: 1) get the refrigerator working, 2) get the heat working (it's gas -- just needed to get it started) and 3) get the wireless Verizon modem working. For some reason, even though my Comcast cable was down, the Verizon FIOS fiber was not broken.
This is one of those occasions where my wife was glad I'm a geek! We were able to stream videos and catch up on the news even though we were confined to a couple of rooms.
-Anthony
You must be near us in Nashua. We're still on generator but we're OK. Add one to the geek factor: I rigged up my neighbor with a 2,000-watt inverter I bought so he's got mini-power -- enough to heat a portion of the house and get them hot water (by hooking it to the car battery and using the car's alternator).
Our dead-end street is an island of eight "powerless" homes surrounded by houses with power that are taunting us with Christmas lights!
-Kevin
I just read your blurb about your powerless marooning in a sea of ice. As a Marlborough, Mass. native, we were spared the worst, but our hearts go out to those inconvenienced (and worse). We got ice here but only half as much as you did, meaning our power was only out for about 12 hours. There is something to be said for underground utilities and living near intersections on the grid!
-Richard
Just wanted to let you know to be ready as the weather we have is headed your way. Out here on the Central Plains (Central Iowa) the high for today is 3. On Sunday, the temperature dropped over 40 degrees in a matter of a few hours and the winds were 30 mph or greater. We were at 50 in the morning and -3 this morning. Hope you get heat at home soon.
-Anonymous
About 15 years ago in Lanesboro, Mass., we had 30-below-zero for more than a solid week. The last night of the 30-below weather, the power line on Route 7 snapped at 2 in the morning. The loss of power caused all the hot water heater lines to freeze in our house in the middle of the night. That was not pretty. The whole community was affected.
Ice storms are not pretty. Even here in Virginia Beach, we had that same problem about seven years ago. We lost so many trees around the house. It was like a maze trying to get through it with a chainsaw. Which, thank God, I had at the time.
-Kurt
Glad to hear you're weathering the winter. That's the reason I left Minnesota for the California Bay Area.
-Scott
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/17/20080 comments
Usually, when Microsoft tells customers to get ready for a new product, I yawn. But in the case of IE 8, it has a point -- at least for IE shops.
Earlier this week, we reported that IE 8 had the fewest bugs of any mainstream browser -- and it's still in beta. If those security testing results are correct, IE 8 will be far safer than earlier Microsoft revs.
Microsoft expects a final product in the first quarter or 2009, and
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/17/20080 comments
I used to hate
Wired
magazine for its design (lesson here is to never give your art director meth and an unlimited library of fonts). Eventually, the design settled down and it seemed to lose its "We're smarter than you" attitude. The mag is now pretty darn good.
But all is not perfect in Wired-land -- and perhaps it can take some of the money it saved on all those fonts to hire some better headline writers. My beef is with a recent cover story about Ray Ozzie: "Can This Man Save Microsoft?" Given that I follow Redmond's finances -- which seem to set a new record each and every quarter -- I was confused by the premise.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/16/20080 comments
Almost every shop I've ever talked to or toured is multi-vendor, heterogenous and a beast to maintain. One can go single-vendor and heterogenous, but the software isn't as good -- and it's
still
a beast to maintain.
That's why it's no surprise that the majority of enterprises have some form of open source. Actuate, which has a complement of open source tools, says that over half of U.S. companies use open source, with substantially more in Europe.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/16/20080 comments
Netscape was a pretty slick browser; due to an antitrust settlement with Microsoft, it contained both the Netscape and Internet Explorer rendering engines. Now, how about a browser with three rendering engines?
Why would you want such a thing? If you're a regular old surfer, you don't. But if you're a Web developer looking at compatibility, you do!
Lunascape, available for the last year as an alpha,
gets good marks
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/16/20080 comments