The Mac Commercials Are Working

The great thing about my kids having Macs is not having to rebuild the darn things every six months because their machines have more viruses than The Andromeda Strain. The bad part? Having to drive an hour to get a new iBook power supply!

This trip did help me get close to my son and do a little market research. According to my salesguy, the Mac TV commercials have increased business, as have the new line of Intel-based gear.

The real surprise came when it came time to pay. The salesguy looked suspiciously at my card when I refused to give my phone number, then looked again and asked, "Didn't you use to be a computer journalist?"

"Still am."

Turns out the sales consultant used to do PR for the old Digital Equipment Corp., and once briefed me on some X.500 messaging tools. Then he pulled out his cell phone and showed me my e-mail address and phone number from seven years ago. Good times, good times!

Posted by Doug Barney on April 05, 20070 comments


Open Source Meets the Network

I used to spend eight to 10 hours a day writing and thinking about networking technology (God only knows how I stayed sane) as executive editor of NetworkWorld and then editor in chief of Network Computing.

This experience allowed me to bluff my way through a meeting with StillSecure, which has a new network platform that is entirely open source. While focusing on security and unified threat management, the Java-based Cobia platform includes a veritable smorgasbord of functions, such as routing, firewalls, virtual private networking, DNS and WiFi.

There are also an increasing number of open source VoIP tools. Could Cisco be threatened by open source the same way as Microsoft?

Posted by Doug Barney on April 05, 20070 comments


Windows Not the Only One With Security Problems

In the rush to embrace Web 2.0-style apps and development, some have turned a blind eye to a problem Microsoft knows all too well: security. For instance, did you know AJAX apps can be taken over by hackers just as Windows and IE apps can?

Hackers can "hijack" the JavaScript and read what's written inside the JavaScript messages. Google and Microsoft AJAX tools are both affected.

One answer, an analyst says, is to use authentication when transmitting private information.

Posted by Doug Barney on April 05, 20070 comments


Funny Kid's Stuff

I love the Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" commercials even more than I love the beer. In fact, I can listen to a dozen or so of the commercials straight, while I tap out after six cans of the beer.

My son Dave is also a fan, and just let me know about a bunch of PC-related parodies. They aren't quite as good as the real thing, but "Mr. Giant E-Mail Attachment Sender" is pretty dang funny.

Listen to them here. To hear the real Bud Light commercials, go here.

Posted by Doug Barney on April 05, 20070 comments


Windows Not the Only One With Antitrust Problems

The European Union is so tough on monopolies, it'd probably like to ban the board game, if it could.

Now, Apple is feeling the EU's fury as iTunes is being looked into for limiting competition. At issue is the fact that an English music lover can download songs only in England.

But in Europe, people travel a lot; English soccer hooligans go to Germany for strong beer and high-quality fist fights, and the Germans go to the French Alps to watch their riders lose in the Tour de France.

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for Microsoft to sell a few Zunes!

Posted by Doug Barney on April 05, 20070 comments


Ask a Ferrell

This weekend, I took my son Nick to Blades of Glory, the new comedy starting Will Ferrell and Napoleon Dynamite. It's a great film, once again proving the fancy critics with large vocabularies wrong (for comedies, my family only goes to movies that critics have utterly panned, like Dude, Where's My Car?).

I'm not here to tell you how to spend your $12. I'm here to tell you that the stars of this movie included the Web as part of their press junket just as much as "Good Morning America" and "Live With Regis and Kelly."

Besides an interview with Break.com, my son David (he gives me so much Redmond Report content that I'm going to have to start cutting him a check) pointed me to a great interview with the one and only "Ask a Ninja."

By the way, my youngest son Nick is stealing a page from his dad's playbook, launching a blog just as curmudgeonly and opinionated as his old man's. Most of the comments he's gotten are from me using fake names and fake e-mail addresses. This 11-year-old busted me when he saw that all the messages came from the same IP address (damn you, static IP!).

Feel free to check out his site and leave feedback -- just don't be creepy, rude or inappropriate (that's reserved for messages sent directly to [email protected]).

Posted by Doug Barney on April 04, 20070 comments


Diskless PCs Are Back

A decade ago, diskless PCs were all the rage, at least according to the vendors, analysts and the sheepdog IT press. Even though they were cheap (not cheap enough, though) and relatively secure from data theft (this was before every single worker had a high-speed 'Net connection), diskless boxes never really took off.

With virtualization, Citrix and Microsoft's terminal services all surging, maybe local drives are now a bit passé, at least for desktops. Recognizing this possibility, Microsoft this week announced new licensing options for Vista, including the ability to run Vista on a variety of thin clients. One option lets the software run on "virtual machines centralized on server hardware."

Unfortunately, only Software Assurance customers can get these licenses. Given the cost of Software Assurance, I'll just run Vista on my hard drive, thank you very much!

Posted by Doug Barney on April 04, 20070 comments


Is the Great Google Too Great?

Redmond Channel Partner magazine, written for Microsoft resellers (some partners consider this word a slur but they do, in fact, resell software), has a newsletter written by Lee Pender. I love Lee's stuff, except when it sinks in how much better his is than mine!

Recently, Lee tackled Google, asking if Google knows too much about us and is using this information inappropriately.

In fact, forget the Patriot Act, the NSA and the CIA. If Google ran U.S. national security, they would have found Osama bin Laden surfing for girlie pictures in Bora Bora!

Read Pender's views and highly refined writing here.

Posted by Doug Barney on April 04, 20070 comments


The Mouse Patch Is Here

Yesterday, I gave you a heads-up on a patch for a flaw within the Windows animated mouse cursor. Microsoft felt the hole was severe enough that instead of waiting for the monthly Patch Tuesday, it created a mini-Patch Tuesday, which is today.

Get your mouse fix here.

Posted by Doug Barney on April 03, 20070 comments


Online vs. Print Reading Habits

Who reaches the end of more stories: those thumbing through a newspaper or magazine, or those staring at a shimmering 1024x768 pixel LCD? Apparently, we'd rather singe our eyes with a computer screen than enjoy the crisp, traditional look of ink on paper.

I have two guesses as to why this is true. Web stories tend to be shorter than print, and through smart searching, we can find the articles we actually want to finish. As for me, I still love print!

Posted by Doug Barney on April 03, 20070 comments


Knowledge = Savings

Want to save money on your next purchase of Microsoft software? No, don't buy illegal dupes from Bulgaria. I'm not talking about saving 100 percent; I'm talking about substantial discounts on volume purchases.

Knowing how to negotiate and deeply understand Redmond licensing options is important, but as licensing guru Scott Braden points out, you can't start to bargain until you know exactly what you already have.

Scott also points out that Microsoft itself is pushing new ways to get an accurate software inventory.

See what Scott has to say in his exclusive monthly column here.

Posted by Doug Barney on April 03, 20070 comments


The Mouse That Roared

Tomorrow, Microsoft plans to release an out-of-sequence patch to block a zero day exploit. This is an unusual flaw in that hackers can use the animated cursor to take control of the entire computer.

Attacks have been limited so far, but they could pick up with news of the flaw. Best get to patchin'!

Posted by Doug Barney on April 02, 20070 comments