July 08, 2008

A FOSS manifesto: We don't need no stinkin' users!

They make it so easy! Just when I think I've run out of story ideas for lampooning the FOSS movement, along comes some idiot with a taste for shoe leather to reenergize my rant engine. This time around it's Jason Harris, a developer in the KDE community. Mr. Harris' beef is with users: He thinks KDE doesn't need any. In fact, if you're not contributing something to KDE -- code, bug reports, man pages -- he could care less whether or not you use KDE. And if you complain about KDE -- its bugs, features, or development direction -- you're... more

TAGS: Linux, Productivity, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

July 01, 2008

A classic NT/Windows 7 gem from the blogosphere

One of the best parts of blogging is the opportunity to interact with readers. Through the comments mechanism attached to virtually every blogging platform, both fans of a blog and its detractors have an opportunity to voice their opinions. And sometimes, the contents of a blog site’s comments section surpasses – in terms of intrinsic value – the original posting. Case in point: The recent rant by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi over at NeoSmart.net. In his posting, Mr. Al-Qudsi is attempting to discredit the anonymous author of the mysterious “Shipping 7” blog, a person who claims to be a Microsoft insider working... more

TAGS: Apple, Hardware, Linux, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

June 24, 2008

The mythical "Vista application"

I love analysts. Whether it's predicting tomorrow's next big thing or sounding the death knell for yesterday's industry pacesetter, analysts never run out of new ways to get it wrong. Case in point: Windows Vista and the "app gap." According to Evans Data Corporation (EDC), less than 10 percent of developers are writing for Microsoft's current state of the art. The majority (49 percent) are still writing for XP, while a small, but growing, contingent (13 percent) are focusing on Linux. Meanwhile, the myriad major media outlets continue to decry the lack of new Vista applications. "It's the OS that... more

TAGS: Apple, Linux, Productivity, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

June 17, 2008

Handicapping the Windows 7 alternatives

It's been an interesting couple of weeks on the desktop OS front. Microsoft's big reveal regarding Windows 7 and its Vista heritage sent many of my blogospheric contemporaries scrambling to justify their myriad off-base predictions. Having anticipated this outcome weeks ago, I was free to ponder an even more radical set of possibilities -- specifically, which of the current crop of Unix-based OS is best positioned to knock off Windows 7 come late 2009. Note the timeframe qualifier above. I'm not interested in what's available today. Rather, I'm looking 12 to 18 months out in an effort to divine what... more

TAGS: Apple, Hardware, Linux, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

June 10, 2008

Intervention: How to salvage Windows 7

I had an interesting conversation this past week with Ben Rudolph, former marketing guru at Parallels and now a member of the Microsoft Windows 7 team. Apparently, my recent pronouncement of death for his new charge struck a nerve. In addition to setting up a flurry of conference calls with his fellow team members, Ben picked my brain a bit about what I felt they needed to do/say to salvage their next generation desktop OS. Always willing to interject myself into others’ business, I offered the following "pledge" points for Microsoft to ponder: Performance. Pledge that Windows 7 will perform... more

TAGS: Hardware, Productivity, Virtualization, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

June 05, 2008

Windows 7: R.I.P.

Death throes. That’s how I’d describe the latest barrage of white papers from Microsoft. The company’s flagship, Windows Vista, is thrashing around in the shallows like a wounded animal, fighting in vain to escape the inevitable. As with any good life and death struggle, there’s a great deal of screeching and wailing – “Vista’s not a failure, we’ve sold over a 100 million licenses!” Then, in a final flurry of “hooves and teeth,” it succumbs – another victim in the vicious OS circle of life. A bit too melodramatic? Perhaps. But when you analyze the tone of the company’s recent... more

TAGS: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

June 03, 2008

Desktop Windows: Is it time to "cut and run?"

Cutting and running. A bad idea for chainsaw massacre movie villains, scissors-wielding grade school students and the occasional foreign incursion. But what about IT? At what point does further investment in a platform or technology cease to make sense? Until now, I've been advising Vista fence-sitters to wait for Windows 7. However, last week's "big reveal," in which Microsoft finally confessed that Windows 7 will be nothing more than "Vista warmed over,"  has forced me to reconsider my position. I'm now more convinced than ever that Windows is doomed - at least on the enterprise desktop. What Microsoft's aging (in... more

TAGS: Apple, Hardware, Linux, Productivity, Virtualization, Windows Vista, Windows XP

May 29, 2008

Microsoft to logo applicants: Support Windows 7...or else!

Lessons. Lessons. Everywhere you look, there are more lessons to be learned from the Vista debacle. Don't overpromise. Don't under-deliver. Get the ISV/IHV community involved early and often. And most importantly, make sure that whatever changes you introduce are indeed "fully-baked" before the OS goes out the door. Judging by the level of secrecy surrounding Windows 7, it seems that Microsoft has taken the first two lessons to heart. Now comes news that Microsoft is revamping its logo requirements for vendors wishing to obtain the company's "Certified for Windows Vista" seal of approval. In addition to the normal mountain of... more

TAGS: Hardware, Windows Vista, Windows XP

May 28, 2008

Windows 7 gets all "touchy-feely"

What a difference a week makes! Just last Friday I was dissecting Microsoft's latest pro-Vista marketing spin and lamenting the lack of corroborating evidence to my "ready for Windows 7" missive over at the Windows Sentinel blog. There must have been something in the Kool-Aid at that annual Memorial Day picnic, because when the employees returned their previously hog-tied tongues were suddenly loosed. First, there was the interview with Steve Sinofsky, in which he emphasized how Windows 7 would build on the foundation laid with Vista. Then came the Windows Vista team blog posting by Chris Flores stating that there... more

TAGS: Hardware, Productivity, Windows Vista, Windows Vista, Windows XP

May 26, 2008

Microsoft trashes Windows XP

It's like politics. You start out by focusing on your ideas, how you want to improve things, maybe change the world a bit. But as the campaign slogs on, or as the legislation stalls, or the opinion polls begin to dip, you lash out. First at the media - for their "unfair, biased coverage" - then at  your opponent. Until finally your "talking points" become little more than a laundry list of the "other guy's" faults and why you think he/she is "unsuitable" for public office. Such is the case with Microsoft's campaign to win the IT community over to... more

TAGS: Linux, Windows Vista, Windows XP

May 20, 2008

It's a bumper crop of VM goodness!

Life in the blogosphere has its ups and downs. Some weeks there's little to write about. Others, you're inundated with too many juicy story ideas to count. Last week was all about virtualization. After savaging Microsoft's Hyper-V Achilles' Heel, I was pleased to discover a new beta release of VMware Workstation 6.5. Also dropping in to pay a visit: Virtual PC 2007 Service Pack 1. Truly a bumper crop of leads to follow-up! First, I just got done putting the latest VMware 6.5 pre-release (Beta 2?) through its paces. The earlier beta was already pretty solid (see my preview for... more

TAGS: Linux, Virtualization, Windows Vista, Windows XP

May 13, 2008

Hyper-V's Achilles' heel

Update: Since first posting this entry I've been in communication with Microsoft about the BSOD I encountered with the ATI installer. In an effort to assist them in their investigation, I recreated the scenario that caused the failure and proceeded to capture memory dump information for them to dissect. It's also worth noting that bug continues to be reproducible under Hyper-V Release Candidate 1. It seems to have something to do with the installer attempting to probe the hardware in order to identify the specific device make, model and revision - a common task performed by driver installation programs from... more

TAGS: Hardware, Linux, Virtualization, Windows Vista, Windows XP