Archive | Microsoft

Asa Dotzler: Linux not ready for the desktop

By Ted Roche on July 14, 2005 in Microsoft, OpenSource, Technology

Asa Dotzler opines that Linux not ready for the desktop, surely not the first to have that opinion, but he identified four areas where he felt improvement was necessary:

1. Migration: Asa suggests that Linux install side-by-side on a Windows machine and read all the settings and preferences and set the same on the Linux side. While this sounds like a killer feature, I’ve found most people haven’t even set much beyond the defaults, and those who have are comfortable enough with the concept to customize their software again. Switching from Windows to Linux (or Mac) is also not a one-for-one match and new capabilities in the software need to be discovered, too. A “Migration Wizard” could be a killer app for the Aunt Tillies of the world, who’d like it to just work for them, but for corporate environments where much is pre-set for the user, IT should be able to script a similar though perhaps not as thorough effect.

2. Stability: by stability, Asa is referring to what Windows users call DLL Hell: the problems with library dependency conflicts between different software installs. This is a universal problem with computers, and Linux is no further along a solution than Microsoft is. The simple answer is to stay within the lines and only install the software that your distribution’s installer has to offer. That’s a pretty frustrating answer, but the major distros do supply a vast array of software these days.

3. Complexity: Asa seems to be complaining that there are too many configuration choices. Freedom to configure the software the way you want is an advantage, but the difficulty of supporting clients who have tinkered with their settings is a counterbalance. Again, this is a universal challenge: have you taken a look at many tabs in Tools|Options in Word lately? Too many choices! Unless they don’t have the one you want…

4. Comfort: “The final major issue is comfort. Linux must feel comfortable to Windows users.” I have to respectfully disagree. People can learn to adjust, and most do. Witness the radical and sometimes trivially silly differences in UI between Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000 and XP. The world didn’t end because Microsoft installed a Teletubbies background on top of a Candyland theme, and hid common options five layers down behind difficult-to-navigate cascading menus and modal dialogs. People can learn to adjust, and that needs to be factored in to the transition process, along with a patient teacher and helpful support available. To duplicate the UI that Microsoft rolled out (and which version?) may aid in muscle-memory exercises, but it doesn’t open up the minds to new possibilities. Apple argues you should “Think Different” and the effect on many switchers — the It Just Works Effect – argues they have done a better job of the Computer-Human Interaction design than Microsoft did.

Patch Tuesday – everyone’s getting in on the act!

By Ted Roche on July 13, 2005 in Microsoft, Technology

Patches are flying in from everywhere! Mozilla patches FireFox and Thunderbird, Oracle issues 50 patches, and Microsoft releases its monthly batch, including a critical one (“Remote Code Execution” – from a word processor!) that affects Word 2000 and 2002. Also, Apple releases OS X Tiger 10.4.2 with its own security updates.

InfoWorld reports Mozilla patches bugs in Firefox, Thunderbird. “The Mozilla Foundation on Tuesday fixed a number of security bugs in its Firefox Web browser, many of which will also be patched in upcoming releases of Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail client and Mozilla Internet software suite.”

Also in InfoWorld, Oracle releases critical security updates. “Oracle has released its latest quarterly batch of security updates, offering fixes for several dozen security flaws in its database, application server, business applications, and other products.”

Microsoft re-released MS05-033, a patch for their Services for UNIX 2.0, as well as MS05-035, the Word 2000 and 2002 vulnerability, MS05-036, another remote code exploit vulnerability affecting Windows 2000 and later (and likely the unsupported Win98 and ME as well) and MS05-037, yet another remote code exploit vulnerability in JView. Read all the details in the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for July, 2005

[UPDATE] Office Watch (formerly Woody’s Office Watch) notes that the exploit affects Microsoft Works 2002, 2003, 2004 and Works Suite 2000 and 2001.

Not to feel left out, Apple joins in with an update to OS X Tiger to version 10.4.2. Here’s what the Software Update widget says:

“The 10.4.2 Update delivers overall improved reliability and compatibility for Mac OS X v10.4 and is recommended for all users. It includes fixes for:

file sharing using AFP and SMB/CIFS network file services
single sign-on authentication and reliable access to Active Directory servers
autologin for managed user accounts
AirPort and wireless access
Core Graphics, Core Audio, Core Image, including updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers
Finder updates including finding on Kind and using Slideshow
synchronizing your iDisk with .Mac
installation reliability
managing Dashboard widgets
Address Book, Automator, iCal, iChat, Mail, Safari, and Stickies applications
compatibility with third party applications and devices

“For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n301722. For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798”

Jon Udell on LAMP and WAMP: the best of both worlds is somewhere in the middle

By Ted Roche on July 12, 2005 in Microsoft, OpenSource

Jon’s Radio blogs LAMP and WAMP:

“Although LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/Python/PHP) is often synonymous with open source, Windows can be a solid leg supporting the platform. The rising popularity of PHP on Windows servers is one indication of this trend. To zealots in both camps this may look like an unholy alliance, but I live in both camps and it makes perfect sense to me…. In some ways Windows and open source are fellow travelers, and have been for a long time.” [Full story at InfoWorld.com]

Whither .NET? by Andy Kramek

By Ted Roche on July 11, 2005 in Microsoft

Alex Feldstein blogs “Andy Kramek, a well-known software developer writes a very insightful article on why .NET could be a big problem and a failure for Microsoft. He contends, that aside from ASP.NET (which is what ASP should have been from the beginning), there is no compelling reason for developers to jump to .NET… I tend to agree.”

SourceSafe History Redux: using VFP to generate VSS History Files

By Ted Roche on July 11, 2005 in SourceSafe

In the original post, I showed a simple Visual FoxPro program to generate a week’s worth of activity history from Visual SourceSafe. Andrew MacNeill observed that it would not work for him, as he was supporting more than one database. Here’s one solution: change the original program from shelling out with a single command. Instead, generate a batch file, and then execute it. Here’s a sample:


SET TEXTMERGE TO VSSHIST.BAT
SET TEXTMERGE ON NOSHOW
\ SET SSDIR=C:\MY DOCUMENTS\SOURCESAFE
\ SET VSSEXEDIR=C:\PROGRAM FILES\VSS\WIN32
\ %VSSEXEDIR%\ss history $/ -R -vd <<DTOC(DATE())>>~<<DTOC(DATE()-7)>>  -B -O@History.txt
SET TEXTMERGE OFF
SET TEXTMERGE TO
!VSSHIST.BAT
SET SSDIR=
SET VSSExeDir=

[UPDATED]: My blogging software made mincemeat out of the slashes, greater-than and less-than signs. Copy with care, and proof your result.

The SSDIR environment variable is recognized the the SS.EXE SourceSafe command-line executable: if set, it points to the SRCSAFE.INI file and the location of the data files SourceSafe is to operate on. The second environment variable, VSSExeDir is one I use to simplify the batch file, but putting the absolute path to the SourceSafe executables in one place, you can refer to it within the file, and only need to change it in one place should you change paths. Think #DEFINE in other languages.

Partners: Crunchy and good with ketchup

By Ted Roche on July 11, 2005 in Microsoft

Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley notes Feeding the Voracious Microsoft Beast. “Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may love Microsoft’s partners. But that doesn’t mean he has any trepidation about continuing to chip away at their markets.”

Microsoft has always loved their partners: they’re crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

It’s pretty well-known that announcing a “strategic partnership” with Microsoft means, if you’re lucky, the company will get swallowed whole and you might walk away with cash or, if you’re less lucky, Microsoft will suck the blood, sweat and tears out of the company and leave a cold dead husk. With maybe a shot at an intellectual property infringement suit and a billion-dollar out of court settlement. And maybe not.

Follow-up: weekly SourceSafe history reports

By Ted Roche on July 11, 2005 in SourceSafe

Andrew follows up on my 30 June post on Ted Roche – Building SourceSafe Activity Reports using VFP. “Ted hasn’t updated this yet but his code for generating weekly activity reports from Visual SourceSafe is going to help me out plenty… We had to make some adjustments for databases that are not stored in the root directory (mine are stored in another folder).”

Well, actually, the problem is that the code as written in the original post assumed that the SourceSafe client on the machine running the report was set up to point to the repository of SourceSafe data by default – an obscure registry setting. If not, use the trick in Andrew’s post to set the SSDIR environment variable to point to the SourceSafe repository of interest. Also, it’s a very good idea to run this on the local machine with the SourceSafe repository, as network traffic can slow the performance by orders of magnitude. Andrew goes on to note:

“By the way, Ted’s work is licensed with Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License,… If you use it, great. If you fix it, pass the fixes along using the same license. A great approach for offering code. ” My thoughts exactly.

Microsoft Longhorn Beta 1 to be released Summer 2005

By Ted Roche on July 8, 2005 in Microsoft

Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft Reconfirms Longhorn Targets. “Beta 1 of Longhorn is still on track for this summer, Sanjay Parthasarathy reiterated that Longhorn Beta 1, which will not include the new user interface bits, is due this summer. Beta 2, which will showcase the new interface, is due out some time in the first part of 2006. The final Longhorn client release is still, as of now, due out in the latter half of 2006.”

Isn’t that curious. Microsoft has previously used “Beta” like much of the rest of the software industry for a feature-complete product with testing required but all major features in place. In particular, Microsoft’s “Marketing Betas” to the public were primarily used by the MS Marketing teams to determine how to pitch the product and how to respond the the FAQs. This beta is more likely what most would consider an alpha, with features yet to be completed, making evaluation of the product more difficult. This comes across to me as primarily a PR effort to show that Microsoft is still in the game. With the dropping/delay of major features (WinFS), release of others separate from the Longhorn OS (Avalon and Monad) and the addition of others (RSS), Longhorn still feels like too much of a moving target and not a product with a fixed feature list. It will be interesting to read how the industry press reviews this “beta.”

Microsoft ships Tablet PC patch

By Ted Roche on July 6, 2005 in Microsoft

OSNews reports Microsoft Posts Tablet PC Fix. “On Tuesday, Microsoft posted a patch to its web site designed to prevent the problem, known as a memory leak. This error has plagued Microsoft’s Tablet PC operating system for a long time. In addition, the software giant has promised not to charge for security fixes, but will charge for virus protection.”

Microsoft rumored to be purchasing adware maker Claria