Here's the skinny on Chrome from those of you who've already taken it out for
a spin:
Chrome is nice...but no dice. After succumbing to the overwhelming buzz
about the browser, I was one of the first in this part of the world to get
my copy. My immediate impression (from using the browser and reading the comic)
is that the Google Chrome team designed the browser for the pages, not for
the humans browsing.
Reload All Tabs (or Refresh All, in IE talk) is missing. Imagine your
Internet connection going off briefly, and you have like 19 tabs open (after
all, memory usage isn't an issue). You will have to refresh each page one
at a time. Also, when Flash crashed in one of my tabs, it crashed in all tabs.
Where is the isolation? "Evil:%" as a link on mouse-over or typed
in the "omnibar" crashes Chrome completely, warranting a restart.
Also, it had a problem handling a certain malicious site I came across.
-Anonymous
I love Chrome. Yes, it is sparse, but it doesn't have the excess baggage
and Band-Aids of 10 years of kludges. Its approach to security, processes
and even compilation of JavaScript are all innovative and it shows. It seems
rather solid for a beta (a shame it used the unpatched version of WebKit as
the MS press hounds are HOWLING about insecurity already).
I imagine that what Google did with Chrome is very similar to what MS
needs to do with Midori: start from scratch based on today's paradigms.
-Rob
I have tried Chrome briefly. One of my home pages is a Microsoft personalized
Live page. I could log into my Live account but the personalized pages would
not display -- it always went to the Live search screen no matter what I did.
I also could not figure out how to get the bookmarks listing to always be
open on the left side of the program as in IE and Firefox. When you have a
wide screen, there's plenty of room to have that open and still have horizontal
space for page display. It did seem faster than IE but about the same as Firefox.
Biggest concern is what Chrome is doing under the covers to track activity
and report back to Google. Call me paranoid but...
-Jim
I gave Chrome a whirl and I've been kind of puzzled by the number of people
that say it is so much faster than other browsers. I did a side-by side comparison
on three of our own sites that are kind of slow and I did not see any appreciable
difference in performance between Firefox 3, IE 7 and Chrome. I did like the
sparse layout so that more of the page shows in the browser, but it wasn't
as big a difference as I thought it would be. Overall, it is a nice browser
but as someone who works at a Web design firm, my main reaction is, "Great,
another browser to test against." Oh well, more work for us.
-Cameron
I tried Chrome on Vista Business and got an execution error. It loaded
the interface but I could not load any pages.
-David
I thought I had a solution in Chrome only to be disappointed
once again. I have two Gmail accounts. Firefox only allows me to have one
opened at a time (I open them both, but when I access one account, the other
one automatically gets signed out). I thought for sure Chrome was the answer
-- especially after reading the introductory comic strip about different access
for each tab and how crashing one would not crash any others. I -- foolishly,
it appears -- concluded that since the tabs were not synched together in any
way, I could open both Gmail accounts and access them without fearing one
would get logged out.
Not so. In Chrome, the same symptom appears when I open both accounts;
accessing one for action signs out the other. Perhaps only one may run from
any single machine? Not the case. I open one in Firefox and the other in Chrome
and both may be accessed in turn without knocking the other offline. My conclusion:
Chrome is smoke and mirrors. Great concept, poor execution. Perhaps I'm not
knowledgeable enough to understand how it works. If all the tabs in Chrome
work independently of each other, how would it know to sign one Gmail account
offline when the other is accessed without knowing that I'm opening both accounts
from the same machine in two different browsers? My head hurts.
-Earl
And readers continue the debate started by a few
letter writers last week over IE bundling and how it affects market share.
There is a big difference between bundling, as the original writer apparently
intended (embedding), and John's interpretation. IE was and still is embedded
and can never be removed completely without doing irreparable damage to the
OS. I agree that the browser market share stems significantly from this embedding.
If, instead, the browser was just a bundled app on top, not unlike AOL's offerings
(and others), then a great many people would immediately download their browser
of choice and delete IE.
Instead, it is a question of why have two browsers if I have to have
the one anyway. By your statements, John, how can anyone use any ISP other
than AOL? That is how.
-Thomas
Jeff had the correct idea, even if he used the wrong word to express it.
IE does not come 'bundled' with the OS; it is a component of the OS. John
is incorrect in his assertion that one needs a browser in order to download
anything, particularly another browser, from the Net. That's why one can use
FTP. Yeah, yeah, I know, try telling that to your normal PC-challenged user.
I can remember when IE did come separately from Windows. It is precisely because
MS has made IE a basic component of its OS that I despise it so much. The
only reason I ever use it is to visit Windows Update occasionally to check
on patches. Otherwise, I use Firefox and even obsolete Netscape 9. As far
as how one can get the first browser on a new machine if IE were once again
separated from the OS, since most people buy their computers with the OS already
installed, and since most vendors include massive amounts of "extras"
that are suitable only for deleting, these vendors could easily include installation
media/packages for each of the popular browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Opera,
IE, even Netscape, despite its obsolescence. MS would finally begin to get
an accurate guage for its market share and there could finally be real competition.
I'm confident that IE would be left eating EVERYONE's dust.
-Anonymous
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on September 08, 20080 comments
Regular Redmond Report readers know there's nothing I like better than good,
old-fashioned competition, and now the browser market is showing signs of becoming
a real battleground.
Even before Google made its Chrome play, the competition was already heated.
Recently, management consultancy Janco Associates claimed that IE had only a
58 percent
market share. Oddly, it gave Google Desktop a 4 percent share, even though
that isn't even a browser.
Janco believes the downward IE trend could continue, dropping
to less than half by year's end. Hmm...and how much share will Google's
non-browser have by then, I wonder.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 04, 20080 comments
It wouldn't be a Mailbag section without some reader letters about Vista. Brian
starts us off by explaining why his company won't be adopting the OS any time
soon:
For my corporation, I feel it's an unnecessary migration to go from XP
to Vista. The migration plus the learning curve for users is not necessary
since there is little that is tangible lost for us by staying on XP, a now
stable and well-known platform with huge user acceptance. It's a big decision
for a company to commit the resources to migrate. In this vein, management
must see a business-need incentive to approve the leap.
-Brian
Meanwhile, another reader doesn't think sticking with XP is a good idea:
To quote your bit on Mojave: "If these [compatibility, performance
and stability] issues can be solved, Vista will be OK. If not, XP will suffice."
No, XP will not suffice. You writing that is a disappointment, and if
I have to tell you why, then you don't get it.
-Anonymous
And Walter steps up in Vista's defense...and wonders about the ribbing we've
been giving it:
My problems with Vista have been far fewer and less drastic/dramatic
than with any other Microsoft OS. In fact, of all the permutations of Microsoft
OSes, Vista has more than lived up to its expectations. I've read your newsletter
faithfully for a couple of years and nary an issue passed without you or some
member of Redmond mag's staff really giving Vista the business. In
fact, you tout Macs and their OSes as the thing to buy.
As with everything, people like what they like. I'm very, very satisfied
with Vista. Very. A friend of mine wrote you fairly much the same thing and
your condescending reply was more than I could take. If you want to continue
to rag on Vista, I suppose you're going to no matter what. But at least keep
in mind that there are plenty of folk out here that like Vista. Everybody
has a right to an opinion...and that includes those who like Vista.
-Walter
While some of you questioned Doug's daughter's move to Mac, one reader seems
all for it:
Don't cave in to the anti-Mac whiners. After supporting Windows for 15-plus
years, I won't touch it unless I'm getting paid to. Mac and Linux systems
comprise my home network. MS can stick its garbage where the sun don't shine.
-Anonymous
And John's left scratching his head after one
reader's comments about Internet Explorer's market share:
I just had to comment on this quote from a reader: "In my opinion,
IE's share of the browser market is a direct result of its bundling with Windows.
If users had to download it separately, Firefox (or perhaps some other player
by now) would have the commanding lead in browser market share and IE would
be an also-ran at best."
How could a user download a new Web browser if a Web browser were not
bundled with Windows in the first place? Would you have to go out to the local
Best Buy and buy a copy? This never made any sense to me. If a computer did
not come with a Web browser pre-installed, just think how much less useful
it would be.
-John
Join the fray! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on September 04, 20080 comments
On
Tuesday, I gave a sneak preview of Google's browser called Chrome. Soon
after I wrote the item, the download became ready. Matt Morollo, our VP of publishing
here at
Redmond magazine, wrote to me raving about Chrome and how fast
it was. I also heard from a Redmond Report reader or two who were similarly
impressed.
I downloaded Chrome on a spare computer -- the one my daughter Lauren gave
me when she made her now famous and controversial switch
to the Mac -- and gave it a whirl.
Like the Google home page itself, the interface is sparse. It did a fine job
of importing my Firefox bookmarks (which are synced on my machines through Foxmarks),
so I was ready to browse. It did seem pretty snappy, and the tabs were easy
to figure out (it uses the same Ctrl-T shortcut as Firefox).
But I didn't see a lot of features -- they seemed as sparse as the interface.
I'm sure they're there, or will be, or maybe I just need to spend more than
five minutes looking for them. The good news for Microsoft fans (and shareholders):
It only runs on Windows!
Have you tried Chrome? What do you like or dislike and what does it mean for
the future of IE? Your expert analysis is welcome at [email protected].
Or if you want your comments to be considered for a review in our print magazine,
fill out the comment form here.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 04, 20080 comments
TNT Software, a veteran in the event log management and server monitoring space,
just
upgraded its
flagship product -- with an eye toward Vista and Windows Server 2008.
The company actually changed its plans midstream, according to VP of Sales
and Marketing Brent Skadsen.
"Our plan was to rush out an interim build of ELM to support the adoption
of Windows Server 2008 and Vista. Originally, the scope was to efficiently monitor
systems running these new operating systems," he said. "Then, it expanded
to run on the platform. As the project developed, it became clear, supporting
Windows Server 2008 required monitoring 64-bit systems and adding a mechanism
to manage the higher event log frequency. In addition to boosting the performance
and scalability, filtering features were designed to reduce the event noise."
What do you use to monitor servers, and would you recommend that tool to others?
Experiences welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on September 04, 20080 comments
Microsoft has long been jonesin' to be cool. Gates hangs with Bono, the Xbox
gets it into the kids' market, and the Zune (by the way,
here
are the details on some new Zunes) is a clear iPod wannabe.
Redmond also wants PCs to be cool. The Vista Aero interface is definitely slick,
and Microsoft wants hot-looking machines to go along with its hot software.
So who better to design these things than today's top fashion designers?
Microsoft last week schlepped
out to Las Vegas to attend PROJECT, an international fashion tradeshow.
The hope is to get designers working on sharp, new designs based around technologies
such as tablet PCs, as well as bringing more art to mundane items like screensavers.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 03, 20080 comments
Readers share their thoughts on the
second
beta of IE 8, the future of IE in general, and how it holds up against Firefox:
The beta 2 of IE 8 is a significant improvement over IE 7, although still
quite buggy on some sites because of the changes to comply with W3C standards.
I'm just wondering if sites will be willing to change for IE 8 to W3C or mark
as compatible with older versions of IE.
The feature that was the most impressive was the more secure capability
to identify dangerous Web sites such as phishing sites. Checking for dangerous
Web sites is a big jump for IE. In the beta 2 release, they stepped up the
warning message to be sure it is hard to miss. Yet to be seen is whether the
loose coupling helps with performance. The use of Accelerator to invoke a
map is a nice feature. The recoverability feature has limited value for my
use. The changes further place IE 8 as a browser that is trying to catch up
with Firefox along with the many Firefox add-ons, but also likely to keep
IE as a highly popular browser that remains as a corporate standard for most
Fortune 500 companies.
-Joe
I have not seen any reason to use IE over Firefox. I stopped using IE
because it kept crashing (locking up) and I have not had this problem with
Firefox. I have not used IE since V7 first came out so this may not be an
issue today. However, Firefox seems so much more flexible and extendable that
I have never considered going back. And with the new features in Firefox V3,
I just love it even more.
-Wayne
Unless Firefox becomes manageable at some point, it'll always be useless
in a business. With no ability to remotely install, patch, configure and monitor
Firefox, companies that care about security are forced to use IE no matter
which browser they prefer. Hopefully, the new version of IE will catch up
to Firefox's usability and performance advantages.
-Dave
There's no compelling reason to use IE over Firefox, though there's a
compelling reason to use Firefox over IE: The last time Microsoft gained a
monopoly in Web browser usage, it let the product stagnate for years, festering
into a massive security problem and massively slowing the development of the
Web in general.
I'm glad that it has started its photocopiers up again, because Mozilla
and Apple need something to compete against. But Microsoft has proven time
and again that it doesn't innovate, and as soon as its products are "good
enough" that its competitors lose ground, it stops progressing. We need
to make sure it continues to have something to copy.
-Anonymous
In my opinion, IE's share of the browser market is a direct result of
its bundling with Windows. If users had to download it separately, Firefox
(or perhaps some other player by now) would have the commanding lead in browser
market share and IE would be an also-ran at best. Security exploits would
orient around Firefox or whatever browser that happened to be the most popular.
In the past, I've used every available version of IE, Netscape, Firefox
and several of Opera. I've found that each one has had its share of annoying
quirks and agreeable features. I like the fact that Firefox doesn't use ActiveX
and I also like the fact that IE uses integrated Windows authentication. It
all comes down to usefulness. Neither browser is the be-all/end-all platform
by which to enjoy the Internet. IE 8 will be no better or worse; it'll just
be the next version with its set of features and quirks as the all the previous
versions have had.
-Jeff
I think that the big thing missing in IE are plug-ins. Now, I'm not an
expert, and I know that some plug-ins for IE exist, but the one I really miss
is something like Foxmarks. I have four PCs and at least with Firefox all
PCs' bookmarks are constantly in sync.
-Dave
I am happy that Firefox is out there because this forces Microsoft to
make IE a better browser. The features in IE 8 will be a direct result of
this.
The only other Web browser that could give IE a run for its money would
be Apple's Safari. If Apple plays its cards right, it could sneak in Safari
on everybody's PC through the use of all the "i" devices it sells.
-Brian
Speaking of Apple, Doug wrote
last week that his daughter has finally decided to go the MacBook route
-- and that means paying for Mac Office. A few readers have other ideas:
I'm still an Apple hold-out -- there's something about its superior attitude
about the security of what is a completely closed system. But they are very
pretty machines and I understand the allure. But shelling out over $100 for
MS Office as a requirement? No way -- have your daughter download OpenOffice.
I've been recommending it to tons of people recently, and use it on my Eee
PC (Debian Linux). We all find it smoothly integrates with our MS Office (or
Gmail Docs, Spreadsheet, etc.) files, and it's free!
-Coleen
Why shell out for Mac Office? Wait 'til September and use the release
of OpenOffice 3.0 (which will have a Mac version).
-Ron
Finally, these readers are over the Mac-love:
Perhaps you should simply go work for an Apple magazine since it is very
apparent that not only do you not like Vista, you also don't like PCs.
-Joseph
For someone who is the editor in chief of Redmond magazine, I find
that you are decidedly anti-Microsoft (from reading the Redmond Report daily).
I know your goal is to be independent, and I appreciate that. However, recommending
to your family (and everyone else, I imagine) to buy an Apple? It seems to
me that anyone with as many contacts in the Microsoft world could help his
daughter keep her computer from "slowing down" after two years.
I would hope to get some news and insight into the world of Microsoft.
After all, your editorial mission "is to provide readers with the information,
strategies, and behind-the-scenes insight into Microsoft and the Windows computing
platform so they can make better informed decisions regarding their organization's
IT infrastructure." I think its time you changed the name: Cupertino
magazine, anyone?
-Anonymous
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on September 03, 20080 comments
I lived through the John Scully era at Apple. This long-departed CEO did a few
things wrong (can you say Newton?), but one thing he did absolutely right was
to allow Mac clones. Scully was ultimately let go; Steve Jobs returned and promptly
killed the clones.
There is one feisty clone maker out there: Psystar of Palo Alto. Psystar apparently
has some kind of license for the Mac OS which the company thinks gives it the
right to make clones. Apple, of course, sued. Unexpectedly (at least to me)
Psystar
sued back, claiming that Apple has an illegal monopoly over its operating
system.
I hope Psystar wins. For many shops, the Mac is simply not an option since
it comes from a single vendor. If there are multiple sources, the Mac becomes
a possibility -- and this competition puts pressure on Microsoft to improve
the desktop.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 03, 20080 comments
Microsoft has a bunch of new TV commercials (no Seinfeld yet) about the Mojave
experiment. Like in the old Folgers commercials, users are shown a new operating
system, love it, and are then told it's Vista.
Some critics bashed the whole thing as a set up, arguing that Vista was running
on super high-end hardware to make it look good. Microsoft
is fighting back, pointing out that Mojave/Vista is running on year-old
HP laptops with just a couple gigs of RAM.
To me, that isn't the issue at all. As Mojave rightly points out, Vista looks
and feels just fine (though many of you think the interface changed just for
the sake of change). The issue is all about compatibility, performance and stability.
If you've been reading the Redmond
Report Mailbag, you've heard plenty on this. If these issues can be solved,
Vista will be OK. If not, XP will suffice.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 03, 20080 comments
Mention Vista and the critics come out of the woodwork. This week, readers share
their thoughts on why they haven't migrated to Vista:
I read your article in Redmond Report and just wanted to respond. The
main driver for our organization wanting to continue to run XP is the stability
of the OS, minimal issues, and the cost in time and money to replace old hardware.
Today, these older desktop machines run acceptably well with XP, but they
would not meet the hardware requirements for the new OS.
Secondly, we have monitored the issues surrounding Vista and believe we would
be significantly adding to our work load if we migrated. Most organizations
have more work on their to-do list than they have resources to accomplish
them, leaving only the most critical and cost-effective projects to be funded.
The value is not high enough to make the move at a corporate level.
-Jonathan
Even with all the problems we had with the XP SP3 upgrade, I still like
XP a lot more than Vista!
-Tony
I tell all of my customers and clients not to buy anything with Vista
on it. If you really need a new system, look online for machines that still
ship with XP. Often, these are refurbished machines, so the end user has a
tough choice to make: get an antiquated machine with XP or I can de-Vistafy
your machine for you. And people are buying it; there is an actual demand
for this service. What choice does the user have? Try to work with Vista and
pray that any software they buy that isn't explicitly rated for Vista has
a 50/50 chance of working, and you all know the penalty for returning opened
software.
This Vista debacle is beyond belief. Learning Linux, any distro, is easier
than dealing with Vista. The tech support time is so high that it is prohibitive.
The only people who have made money on Vista is Microsoft, and while I have
nothing against capitalism, this is out and out theft. Vista does not work,
and NO amount of patching by Microsoft will ever get it to work with the ease
and finesse of XP Pro. This has to be illegal, but who can afford to sue Microsoft?
-Ari
I work for a school district and we have no plans to move to Vista.
-Anonymous
The poor economy has less to do with our reluctance to go to Vista here
at the City of Eugene, than the fact that there is no perceived advantage
to go to Vista, even with some increase in security. The UAC, with all its
prompting, is seen by management as too burdensome for the users. There is
great reluctance on the part of upper management to force this on our users.
The move to Vista would be costly in having to upgrade many workstations to
1GB or more of memory. Then the departments would see an annoying UAC and
no bang for their buck after buying more memory.
The culture here is "everybody a local admin." With IT already
seen as a cost center, we really don't want to make the departments pay more
money in hardware costs for an annoying OS. There have been suggestions in
upper management that if we went to Vista, we are to rip the UAC out of our
install set. No increase in security with a hardware cost to the users translates
into no Vista for us.
-Robert
After many hours of saving and retrieving ghost images from my XP machine,
I decided to upgrade to Vista. What a big mistake! I have now decided to downgrade
back to XP, because I cannot connect to the Vista machine using NET USE after
many hours of trying, and I am sick and tired of searching for solutions.
It shouldn't be that hard for an experienced IT pro. Computers are supposed
to make life easier, and upgrades are supposed to do just that -- upgrade.
Vista is not ready for prime time.
-Richard
I'm waiting for Vista SP2, hoping that will finally restore the Fax Wizard
that even XP Home had, and that MS, in its infinite wisdom, opted to leave
out of Vista Home Premium. But I'm not holding my breath waiting, and my hopes
aren't high. I'm more likely to go the dual-boot route with Ubuntu, where
a fax printer is just another package that's part of the distribution.
Beats me how Microsoft can think it's encouraging customer loyalty when
it refuses to allow customers to buy the MS products they want.
-Fred
In the spirit of constructive criticism, Doug asked readers what
they would do to improve Vista. Here are some of your suggestions:
Abandon the current Vista. Start all over with the XP code base. Rid
yourself of the arrogance of imposing automatic updates (on any and all OS
components). Rid yourself of the arrogance of imposing "proprietary rights
enforcement" and any other nanny-ware on your potential customers. Rid
yourself of the arrogance of filtering/sanctioning/certifying what third-party
software can run on the new OS platform (no one ever asked Mr. Bill to interfere
in this manner). Stop making changes to the interface just for the sake of
change. Drop the pretense that the new OS is any more secure than XP (XP SP2
is perfectly secure if you simply don't use Internet Exploder and if you avoid
ActiveX).
Ask the user (for a change) what, if anything, the user would like to
be different in the new OS before developing change requirements. Undertake
some legally binding commitment to the user community (possibly through a
performance bond) in which you can promise and try to convince users that
this new OS does not contain a built-in rootkit or any other clandestine/stealth
functionality that can run or act without the user's cognizance. Have some
motivation in developing this OS product other than the planned, periodic
obsolescence of your former product just in order to generate revenue. Stop
thinking of your customers as "Mom and Pop Stupid" who simply want
to store recipes and family photos. Recall that the P in PC stands for "Personal"
and not for "Proprietary."
-Anonymous
Add several "Classic" options to allow Vista to run older stuff
in the same locations as in XP. Make a wickedly fast desktop search for documents
and e-mail. Make a far smaller menu of Vista options (Not Pro, Ultimate, and
on and on). Add a "speed accelerator" option.
-Dave
Remove the @!%$ DRM from Vista. I should not have to bear the burden of
this additional overhead if I am not using it. It should be an add-on pack
if someone wants premium content.
-Lee
First, simplify and fix access security. I used to be a pro with VAX/VMS
ACL rules and organization, so I'm somewhat familiar with the concept. If
you have ever tried to change ownership or access rights on a file structure
under Vista, I find it an unworkable nightmare.
Second, if you are joining a new Vista machine to your home network, this
takes a lot of hunting and digging. It is so simple under XP to specify the
local group name, turn on sharing for specific folders, and be done. I about
never found the place to change/specify the local group name (like MSHOME)
under Vista.
-Wayne
I would work on the hibernation/standby issue. Vista aften crashes after
you shut the lid on your laptop. XP rarely has issues with hibernation/standby.
Slow startup is more like 2000 Professional also, so without standby you
get to wait for up to 10 minutes for the system to turn on and load your profile.
Then you get to wait until it checks every connection before it is responsive.
I often have wireless turned off; takes a long time for Vista to realize the
radio is off and allow me to work.
-Cindy
I'm from Switzerland and I work in the same building as the Swiss Supercomputing
Center, where they have the CRAY system. I think Microsoft should go there
and check it out. No matter how powerful the CRAY supercomputer is, the operating
system is very light. All the supercomputing power is used for computation.
Now, Microsoft should learn something from this. If you have a powerful
PC, it doesn't make sense that all resources are sucked up by just booting
the system.
-Dave
Simply, Windows XP SP3.
-Mark
We already have fixed Vista. It's called Linux.
-Anonymous
One word: LEOPARD!
-John
My fix for Vista? Buy a Mac. It just works.
-Bob
But despite all the bad press, there are plenty of people who do like Vista.
A few of them share their thoughts:
Vista ain't broke. Don't waste time "fixing" it.
-Anonymous
I have been a staunch Vista basher for a few months now. Then I realized
that I had not actually run anything other than the beta on some test boxes.
Thinking back to the days of the intro of Windows 2000 and Windows XP (yeah,
I am getting really old), I realized I hated all of them when they came out.
After forcing myself to take the plunge and just immerse my computing into
the new OS (yes, I also upgraded to Server 2008), I soon found myself wondering
how I ever got by on the previous stuff.
Well, I am about one month into the total immersion and, to tell the
truth, the experience is no more frustrating than what I have experienced
in the past. Sure, the drivers thing is a big pain, but I have found in the
past that the sooner you figure it out and start becoming an expert instead
of a whiner, the higher your stock rises in the company when everyone else
finally gets on board. I almost hate to say this now, but I can't stand using
XP anymore.
-Mike
As an early adopter of Vista and an IT manager of a medical device incubator
with 50-plus computers and laptops, we have completely moved to Vista, except
for a few engineers that have specific needs and have to run XP. I can tell
you confidently that since SP1, Vista has become even more stable and is more
secure the XP. The performance in some cases even surpasses XP. Although the
hardware requirements for Vista are definitely higher than XP, computers have
become so cheap that it does not really matter. I can also tell you that we
run Vista on a couple of our older Pentium 4 machines and they run just as
well as XP (of course, some of the eye candy is not enabled). Most of our
machines run 2GB of RAM, and again hardware is so cheap the cost is negligible.
My only point of writing this is that I am really tired of so-called
professionals such as yourself doing a disservice to Vista just because it
is popular to do so. If you really used Vista, you would know that it is now
very stable, compatible with most of today's software and hardware, 1,000
percent more secure than XP (not one malware or virus infection on any of
our computers; cannot say the same when we used XP), and runs just as fast
as XP on similar hardware (x64 Vista kills XP in speed and performance). Many
companies are slow in adopting Vista for the same reason they were slow in
adopting XP: Migration is expensive, time-consuming and eats up a lot of manpower.
-Asif
There's a lot of Vista-bashing (or Microsoft-bashing in general) in the
press and on blogs, which makes this
Computerworld article refreshing as it reminds us that XP -- the OS
people are stampeding to "downgrade" to -- was just as criticized,
echoing many of the same gripes, at the same point in its lifecycle. In fact,
Vista's much-criticized low adoption rate is slightly less pathetic than XP's
was.
Which is to say Microsoft will continue to listen to customer complaints
and release patches/service packs until Vista, like XP, is solid and hits
critical mass.
-Anonymous
We LOVE Vista. We have been running it since its release and we are very
happy with it. I use Vista on all of my company's PCs, as well as on my personal
gaming PC. We have not had any problems with Vista, and we have been installing
it mainstream for our clients, too, since that period (32- and 64-bit versions).
I really wish everyone would stop knocking Vista! Before Vista, everyone
hated XP; we were told how unreliable that was, and that it had so many security
flaws. Now, XP is the solution to everything, and we constantly have to hear
how Vista is the devil. I suppose I can only look forward to Windows 7, so
that we can hear how crappy it is and how wonderful Vista has suddenly become.
Vista is not Windows ME, and I wish people would stop flaming it as if it
is.
-Deric
You state in your Aug. 28 newsletter that you have never heard anyone
say they love Vista. Yet in the same newsletter you quote a letter
from "Scott" who says both he and his wife love Vista. You also
blame your daughter's failing
Toshiba laptop on Microsoft. I don't get it.
I am guessing that you are just trying to be sensational to elicit a
response, which you did from me. I read your magazine and newsletters to get
unbiased information. Can you say this information is unbiased? I will certainly
hold your newsletters in lower regard going forward.
-Chris
Check in tomorrow for more reader letters on Mac, IE 8 and more! Meanwhile,
share your own thoughts by leaving a comment below or sending an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on September 02, 20080 comments
There may soon be more competition in browsers as Google is reportedly
prepping
its answer to Internet Explorer and Firefox. No real details or features
were available, but the company has apparently been working on this puppy for
a couple of years.
Google must have been reading Redmond magazine. I wrote a column for
Redmond, "The
Barney Browser," in June 2008. My idea was for Google to build a browser
and focus on intelligently storing searches, along with archiving the overall
process of exploration. I wrote: "The Google Barney Browser integrates
searching with a file system so the intelligence that comes from searches can
be organized, used, shared and built upon. Perhaps these strings of pages can
be cached so if the site goes down, the information isn't lost."
But from what we know, Google is instead focusing on video and improving the
performance and safety of Web apps. I guess Google didn't read my column after
all.
A beta of the browser is supposed to be available today. What would you like
to see in a Google browser? Features welcome at [email protected].
And if you take this baby out for a spin, shoot me your impressions.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 02, 20080 comments
Windows admins and IT types are familiar with Patch Tuesday. Every month, Microsoft
publicly releases a bunch of fixes and you or someone on your staff gets to
fixin'.
The Web is a wilder, woollier and perhaps more dangerous world. Researchers
and vendors such as Cenzic have been pointing out how unpatched many Web servers
and apps are. In fact, Cenzic claims that seven
out of 10 sites aren't safe.
While a security company has an incentive to show flaws, this information should
make all of us pause. And after we pause, we should get to patchin'.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 02, 20080 comments