Tag Archives | Microsoft

Microsoft ad: Linux is a competitor worth evaluating

By Ted Roche on January 7, 2004 in Home Page

CNET News.com – Front Door reports Microsoft ad campaign digs at Linux. “The software giant launches a marketing assault on Linux, in a sign that the open-source solution may be a mounting threat to its server system sales.”

The Register responds with its usual ascerbic Microsoft ad push cranks up the ‘get Linux’ volume. “Would you buy a used fact from this company?”

I think it is great for Microsoft to name names and make it clear what alternatives their customers should be considering. As a vendor, it’s only reasonable that they highlight those facts that bolster their case. While the Microsoft studies do show some advantages in some situations for their solutions, I hope this encourages customers to do their homework and consider the many other information sources out there, too.

MSKB via KBAlertz: How to Run a dBASE IV Report File in FoxPro

By Ted Roche on December 30, 2003 in Home Page

KBAlertz is a very useful and free service for those who need to keep up with the Microsoft KnowledgeBase. Visit the site and you can sign up for free email notification when KnowledgeBase articles of interest are posted or update on the Microsoft site.

Today, I received notice that “How to Run a dBASE IV Report File in FoxPro” was updated. Most curious. My dealings with dBASE IV were few and decades ago. The article describes how various dBASE IV files can be manipulated by Microsoft FoxPro for DOS and Windows 2.5 and 2.6 as well as Visual FoxPro for Windows 3.0. I’m not convinced the Visual FoxPro reference is correct, as I thought the migration material was only available in the 2.x versions, but I no longer have VFP 3.0 installed to check.

It is curious as to why this article was flagged as updated. Wonder what changed…

And another one’s gone, and another one’s gone…

By Ted Roche on December 27, 2003 in Home Page

Andrew Coates posted to the FoxForum Wiki, asking for advice on his new role as Developer Evangelist at Microsoft Australia. Best of luck, Andrew!

Andrew linked to a similar post on the c2 website, revealing that Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki and master of many of the software arts, is also heading for Microsoft-Redmond, with a title of “Architect.” I hope this bodes well for Microsoft and Ward.

Ken Levy posts monthly Visual FoxPro letter on Microsoft site

By Ted Roche on December 23, 2003 in Home Page

Ken Levy, VS Data Manager at Microsoft, posts his monthly December Letter from the Editor. There’s some interesting news on new features appearing in “Europa,” the next version, and also the announcement of a public beta of the product, in the first half of 2004.

Greetings from Waltham!

By Ted Roche on December 18, 2003 in Home Page

Greetings from the Waltham offices of Microsoft, where I am demonstrating this for the Boston Area FoxPro Users Group.

Q and A on Microsoft’s XML-schema license

By Ted Roche on December 15, 2003 in Home Page

Hentzenwerke Intergalactic also points out Q and A on Microsoft’s XML-schema license: Gary Edwards on OpenOffice.org forum.
The decision by Microsoft to restrict the schema to their OfficeXP products XML within licensing and patent protection means that developers once again find themselves in legal trouble just trying to do their jobs. Can I use a third-party tool to manipulate the XML? To display it? To print it? To transform it into something else?

Here’s what the current Microsoft license looks like:

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp

Microsoft Linux?

By Ted Roche on December 12, 2003 in Home Page

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has these two columns (“MS-Linux? It Could happen” and “2004: The Year Linux Grows Up (or Blows Up) “)proposing that Microsoft could ship its own Linux distribution. Microsoft’s Services for Unix product is a foot in the door. I just have a hard time seeing them reverse their poisonous FUD diatribes against the “viral,” “un-American,” anti-Constitutional Open Source.

I prefer the parody http://www.mslinux.org site. Check it out for a good laugh.

Microsoft MS03-051 patch for Front Page Extensions fails to appear in Windows Update

By Ted Roche on December 11, 2003 in Home Page

This is a particularly nasty patch, as it can affect web servers with hardly anything running other than IIS and Front Page Extensions. The update fails to show up in Microsoft Update – it still hadn’t appeared on my web server, so I hunted down the patch myself (hint: start at http://www.microsoft.com/security – that’s the home page for IE on my web servers!) and installed it. Delayed patch ends Microsoft’s patch-free month early. “A glitch in Microsoft’s Windows Update automated patching service caused a security fix that was released last month to be delivered to computer users on Tuesday, the same day Microsoft proclaimed December would be a patch-free month.” [InfoWorld: Top News]

Microsoft Clarifies Intentions to Retire JVM-Based Products

By Ted Roche on December 10, 2003 in Home Page

Mary Jo Foley and Daryl Taft follow up on Microsoft backpedalling on removing a bunch of products that included Java. Some are given a one week reprieve (oh, I’ll run out to buy them!), others will be patched with an updated Java. Details at http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1407759,00.asp

No Microsoft patches this month?