Any time you have dozens of hackers
attacking thousands of systems, you know a fix is on the way. And that's just what IE is getting. A day after Microsoft
released a workaround but no promise of a fix, the company reversed course and is slaving away on an
out-of-cycle patch due today.
The attacks originally focused on IE 7 but spread down to IE 5 and 6, all the way up to the IE 8 beta. This is one patch well worth installing.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 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
And Google recently unveiled its "Native Client" to speed up Web browsers and improve security. Kevin wonders if there's something else about the name that he's missing:
I noticed that Google is abbreviating the Native Client as NaCl. That happens to be the chemical shorthand for sodium chloride (aka, table salt). Is that just a coincidence? If it was intentional, I'm missing the clever reference.
-Kevin
More reader letters coming your way tomorrow, in 2008's last Redmond Report! Meanwhile, send us your thoughts by writing your comment below or e-mailing Doug at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on December 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 suggests that IT get ready for a fast, smooth rollout. This time around, Microsoft's advice makes a lot of sense.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 17, 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.
This is all good news. Along with growing support for open source, moves like this signal a kinder, gentler, more accommodating Microsoft.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 17, 20080 comments
Last week, Doug reported on Microsoft's entry into the fashion world with its
new line of "Softwear" T-shirts. Cool or not? James offers his opinion:
Would I wear a shirt with Uncle Bill's mug or the word "DOS" on it? Nope. Wait, let me rephrase that: HELL NO! That ain't cool -- not even "sorta kool." If that's what Microsoft thinks is cool, it's no wonder that its lame-@ss commercials fell flat on their face. With all its money, you would think those guys out in Redmond (on the other side of the lake) could at least buy a clue.
-James
Scott gives his take on the open source business model and just how lucrative it is (or isn't):
I've heard more than enough about business models, open source earning potential and what CEOs say! The unrealistic citation of some U.K. company that tried to force users into a Linux PC scenario hardly typifies the open source mantra. The firm tried too hard to save a buck for an organization of its size.
Open source is not a lucrative proposition, and to that I would like to add a little information. I see three different open source business models at play in industry today: those that want to be acquired (e.g., Zimbra, MySQL and Zen), those that want to generate income via support contracts as a way to keep the company and still generate revenue (e.g., RedHat), and those that are willing to beat their own path to success -- look at Digium.
Digium started by buying the rights to a silly V.90 modem modification that allowed it to work as VoIP. ZapTel, if memory serves. It then developed hardware as a product. Asterisk was born from Digium in the early days with the promise that if you bought Digium hardware, Asterisk would be supported. Asterisk is now the de facto in open source VoIP. Great model right? Nope! After Asterisk had been in the wild for a period of time, various products emerged based on that piece of software. SwitchVox emerged as the most robust product; Digium acquired and now sells/supports this product. Hugely successful on the scope and range of Digium. I actually dislike the the SwitchVox product...but I love the model. Open source released into the wild and recaptured as a viable product. Hmm.
-Scott
And finally, John wants to make sure we've got our sources straight:
I just wanted to point out that WhiteHat Security did not issue the report you reference in your Redmond Report item, "U.S. Balance of Trade Great -- for Malware!" The WhiteHat report was in relation to Web site security flaws. The report you referenced is the one by Sophos regarding malware.
-John
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on December 16, 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.
So I settled in to read just why Microsoft was in such dire straits. A couple thousand words into the story, I knew all about Ozzie's college education, white hair and shyness...but I had no clue if or why Microsoft was in trouble.
Microsoft has challenges, but it owns messaging, owns the desktop, owns more than half of the development market, and has a big chunk of the Web. It has also announced exactly how all of this can move to Web -- and has production and beta software to prove it. I wish I owned a company that was in as rough a shape as Microsoft!
Posted by Doug Barney on December 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.
The 50 percent number seems low if you define open source use as any use. In fact, Gartner agrees and puts the number at more like 85 percent.
According to the Actuate survey, over 75 percent of companies develop software with open tools, while little more than half use open operating systems such as Linux. Hmm...I'll go with the trends, but the OS numbers sound a mite low.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 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 from one reviewer who praises the ability to toggle between the engines. On the downside, it's too clunky and buggy to serve as a day-to-day browser.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 16, 20080 comments
Readers share their thoughts on
multi-core processors:
Dual-core processors show promise, but it is up to the software to take advantage of it! Both OSes and apps need to step it up. My single-core desktop (AMD 2500+ 1.8GhZ cpu) streams video very smoothly (i.e., I can watch and record HDTV signals via USB tuner). My dual-core (Intel 1.8GhZ) laptop runs rings around the desktop when editing/rendering the recorded video. But try watching or recording with the dual-core laptop, same USB tuner. No way.
I would have thought the dual-core CPU would negate the video differences and the two systems. That leaves the OS. As it stands, I'll watch and record on the desktop, then do all edits and video ripping/burning on the laptop. CPU, OS or video problems -- you be the judge.
-Thomas
It seems the biggest benificiaries of multi-core CPUs are the makers of bloated anti-virus software. My dual-core laptop will frequently run a scan on start-up, which hogs one of the cores. But the other is free for other system tasks and applications. (Disk I/O still suffers.) But other than that, I don't see a big benefit over my previous single-core system.
-Marc
I recently went from an Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz with 1GB of RAM to an Intel Quad Core2 2.6GHz with 4GB of RAM at work. I definitely see a difference when I open apps such as Word, Excel, Access and Acrobat -- they launch faster. And the CPU fan does not kick in when I have 20 apps open.
-Rich
The problem with the apps needing to be written to support numerous cores has been the main reason I have not purchased a Core 2 yet (along with price, even though it has come down a lot). I have always suspected that some apps would run slower like you said. I do use a Pentium D, but that's not really two cores; it's more like one-and-a-half. And at 3.0GHz, it's just as fast as many Core 2s I have seen, in my opinion. A fast Pentium D (with a nice L2 cache) with at least 2 gigs of RAM and a healthy FSB speed to match runs even Vista Ultimate with no issues; I haven't seen any difference in the Core 2s performance on similar machines.
And as far as playing games is concerned, your GPU is the bottleneck before the processor is when you're running at 3 GHz and your GPU core is only running at 650MHz. In my opinion, there's still no reason to get a Core 2 yet.
-Matt
I just finished updating an IBM ThinkPad T23 (circa 2001) for a customer. It boasts an Intel Mobile Pentium III 1.2 Ghz and 384Gb RAM. Impressive! It is running XP Pro SP3 as snappily as any machine that I have dealt with. I thought I had gotten into one of those "under-powered machine, over-powered expectations" situations that our customers seem to have periodically. Was I wrong! On the other hand, I have an HP Pavilion dv4000 with a Centrino 1.6 and 1GB RAM and a Gateway Core 2 1.8 with 2GB RAM, and neither seem to perform as well. By performance, I mean I can't tap my fingers more than once waiting on the ThinkPad, but the other two are good for at least four or five taps.
Empiric reasoning and perception? I guess so, but perception is everything and I certainly perceive better performance from an eight-year-old machine than I do from the "vastly improved" four-year-old machine and two-year-old machine. Funny thing though: My customer probably spent twice as much for that IBM when he bought it as I did for either of its two technologically improved successors. So have we regressed along with the cost? Or better yet, what do we really need to get the job done?
-Michael
And you know that recent Apple recommendation to get anti-virus software for Macs? Not so fast:
I thought your piece called "Macs Need Anti-Virus, Too" was interesting enough that I tried to find out what was available for AV protection for my Mac. Then, I ran across this gem.
Just in case you haven't received a torrent of flame-mail already.
-Henry
Tune in tomorrow for more reader letters! In the meantime, let us know what you think -- leave a comment below or e-mail [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on December 15, 20080 comments
Google recently
unveiled a hunk of middleware code that speeds downloads and thus speeds the performance of Web apps.
The new Native Client is so fast that, apparently, you can even do fancy image processing over the Web. It's also meant to block malware. So far, though, the client doesn't work with IE. It'll be interesting to see if Google and Microsoft can come to terms and put these two tools on friendly footing.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 15, 20080 comments
It's a minor miracle that this newsletter is landing in your inbox today.
I live in Northern Massachusetts, right next to the New Hampshire border. My cable TV, then the Internet, and finally my electricity all went down Thursday night during a vicious ice storm. I spent the night listening to all the trees around me disintegrate.
For three days, my family hunkered down around the fireplace, the only source of protection against 15- to 20-degree temperatures. Finally, we bailed, largely to warm up my 2-year-old daughter who, despite the plunging temperatures (standing six feet from the flames, I could still see her breath), refused to wear socks or a proper shirt. We all fled north to my parents' house in New Hampshire where there's heat, power and warm food -- plus a couple of swell parents!
Any New England stories you have the ability to share? Send 'em (even by Pony Express) to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on December 15, 20080 comments
Reality check time. We're all led to believe that IE is far less secure than Firefox. I bought it, and have been in the Firefox camp ever since. But while this was clearly true for older IEs, it may not be the case for the latest incarnation.
IE 8, still in beta, appears to be taking the lead in Internet security. It's the safest, most bug-free browser, according to Utest, which invited users to submit their findings as part of a "battle of the browsers" bug contest.
Chrome, just out of beta, was found the least safe. My assumption is most tests were of the beta and Chrome hasn't had the gazillion-fix cycles that IE and Firefox enjoy.
The only problem for Microsoft: Few still trust or like IE. Maybe if IE lives up to the Utest finding, it can overcome the bad rap.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 15, 20080 comments