Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)
has
a new hack -- but only for those that also use Temporary Key Integrity Protocol
(TKIP). TKIP traffic can be decrypted, so your passwords, corporate info and
love notes could well be compromised.
The answer? Moving to WPA 2 or adding the Advanced Encryption Standard.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 20, 20080 comments
Jerry Yang
resigned
this week as CEO of Yahoo, but given the collapse in stock price and fall
in market share -- as well as the bungled deal with Microsoft -- many wonder
if Yang was yanked.
Yang may have been heckled by investors and the financial press, but let's
not forget his accomplishments. He co-founded Yahoo a decade-and-a-half ago
while in college and built it into a huge brand and a site with many innovative
(at least, at the time they were launched) services like Yahoo Mail.
I'd take 1 percent of Yang's success and be happy.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 19, 20080 comments
Cloud versions of Exchange and SharePoint have been put through their virtual
paces by a bevy of beta testers, who now say this stuff is
good
enough for release. As far as I know, the features are the same as the site-installed
versions.
I'm curious to see a real economic analysis comparing the cost of the subscription
services to installing, running and managing it all yourself. Any answers, readers?
Shoot your conclusions to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 19, 20080 comments
Within 24 hours of releasing an
item
on the Vista Capable program, I got 25 e-mails from Redmond Report readers --
which may well be a record. Thanks to all who wrote! We'll run as many of these
letters as we can, so check in tomorrow for more:
Microsoft should win this suit. Who buys because a sticker on the box
says it can do something? Most of us read reviews first and check the specs.
But then, phishing scams wouldn't work if everyone was that way.
-Bill
Microsoft should lose this case. If the logo is "Vista Capable,"
then it should apply to any Vista product. Microsoft should have incorporated
it for the computer hardware that could run any of the Vista products.
It is definitely a misleading statement and users don't need the frustration
in these trying times. It might direct them to the nearest Mac.
-Karen
My own feeling is that Microsoft ought to lose this one. It quite obviously
betrayed its own standards by lowering the specifications it set for qualifying
for the label to apparently help Intel meet its quarterly financial target.
HP apparently thought it was a rotten deal. I doubt if it's the only one.
Even though I use Vista on my personal desktop and notebook PCs and really
have no complaints about it, I think that the sooner Microsoft can successfully
leave Vista in the rearview mirror, the better it will be for us all.
Notice I said successfully; Microsoft really has to succeed with Windows
7. Maybe it could be called the "Magnificent 7." Do you think that
name would raise the bar too high? The current promotional campaign isn't
hitting a note with me. Life without walls? What kind of nonsense is that?
If you don't have walls, you don't have anywhere to hang your Windows. Truly
goofy.
-Dennis
"Vista Capable" should mean what it says. I think of this as
a consumer-satisfaction issue. Everyone who buys one of these "Vista
Capable" machines and tries to use it to run anything but Vista Basic
is going to be a dissatisfied customer -- dissatisfied with the computer company
and with Microsoft. Eventually, they will turn to another company, as they
should.
Any company that doesn't put their customers' best interests first (like
GM with its gas-hogs) deserves what will inevitably happen: going bust! And
it is beyond comprehension that today's "captains of industry" continue
to behave as stupidly as their predecessors.
-Erik
It would seem to me that if it is advertised as "Vista Capable,"
it should run any version of Vista. If it only runs one version of Vista,
then the software company has a legal obligation to say so. That is why some
cars require premium fuel, even when they will probably run OK on regular.
It is good of you to offer Microsoft cover, but it would have been better
if the company showed real concern for the customers. It seems to be more
concerned with damage control than making this right. It is not like it does
not have the money to fix this. If a system won't run Vista, say so. If it
only runs Vista Basic, say so. Microsoft knows when it is being deceptive.
So do you.
-Anonymous
I may not fully understand all aspects of the issue, but it seems to me
that if a machine is only capable of running Vista Basic, then the labeling
should say "Vista Basic Capable" or "Vista Basic Compatible"
or, better yet, "WARNING: This machine is only rated for Vista Basic.
Other versions of Vista have not been certified to operate on this machine."
If I bought a new machine that had a label saying "Vista Capable,"
I would be invited to purchase or upgrade to a version of Vista that has the
features that I want to use. If those features did not work, then I would
certainly want to sue somebody, either Microsoft or the machine manufacturer
who misled me with the ambiguous label.
-C.T.
In the early days of Vista Ultimate, I loaded it onto the only expendable
computer I had access to at work. It was a P4 1.8 GHZ with 512MB of RAM and
a 40GB HDD. I dual-booted this with XP Pro so I could have a look at Vista,
locations of user files and other functions. By the way, the computer had
on-board video, networking. Though with an experience rating of 1, I would
say it was barely capable.
Maybe the ratings could have been simplified to "Capable" (eventually
runs Vista) or "Ready" (will run Vista properly).
-Allan
Throughout its history, Microsoft has been misleading the business world
and consumers. It knew perfectly well the implication of this label, yet it
did it anyway without any form of disclaimer. "Vista Capable" means
to most consumers that the computer can run Vista no matter which version.
I am sure there are many consumers who probably didn't even realize there
were, in fact, multiple versions when it first came out. I just cannot wait
until this excuse of an OS passes by.
-Anonymous
Join the fray! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 19, 20080 comments
IT jobs never used to be cool. Then everyone -- celebrities, girlfriends and
grandparents -- all got PCs. Now music, movies and the making of the movies
all happen on some kind of PC-like device.
So let's all agree that IT is now undeniably cool. The next step is deciding
which areas are the coolest. Security is hot; it's the place where IT fights
off hackers from China, Bulgaria and the little doofus that lives next door.
But what's
ultra-cool within the totally cool world of security, which lies within
the undeniably cool world of IT?
The security jobs worth bragging about in the singles bar are all front-line
positions. Fighting cyber crime hand-to-hand are the top slots. These positions
include hacker investigators, penetration testers (you pretend to hack) and
forensics. We need more of all three, in my opinion.
What is your dream IT job? Send your dreams to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 19, 20080 comments
Last week Tarkan Maner, the CEO of Wyse Technology, came by the well-lit Redmond
magazine offices for a sit-down. Very cool, very smart, and utterly outspoken
-- just the kind of exec I like. After taking about Wyse's approach to client
virtualization, Tarkan showed me how Wyse software can present a virtual PC
desktop on an Apple iPhone. Slick.
Microsoft is also looking this way and promises now to make its new Web-based
Office apps available
on the iPhone.
Seems to me the Wyse approach is harder; it's showing and manipulating the
actual Windows desktop. Microsoft, it seems to me, is simply displaying its
Web apps on a Web-ready iPhone.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 18, 20080 comments
The lawsuit over "Vista Capable" labels is heating up as more and
more internal
e-mails pop up, showing a pitched debate over what "capable" means
and how Microsoft should proceed. The verdict could really come down to parsing
words.
Here's the core issue: Microsoft agreed to provide the "Vista Capable"
logo for computers that could only run Vista Basic. Critics argue that this
was misleading, that consumers wouldn't understand this limitation. Even Microsoft
insiders
such as Jim Allchin felt this way.
But words have meaning and the labeling, one could argue, was technically correct.
What do you think? Should Microsoft win or lose this case? Verdicts accepted
at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 18, 20080 comments
After Sun announced that it plans to
lay
off up to 6,000 employees over the next year, Doug asked readers what their
own companies are doing to deal with the economy:
I work for a company in the transportation industry, which is already
getting hit due to the high cost of aircraft fuel. We've taken the path of
a hiring freeze and a budget freeze. We've also pushed all IT software purchasing
and projects back to 2010. Only essential purchases/projects are allowed.
-Nicholas
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 18, 20080 comments
Microsoft is
shipping
two new servers aimed at small businesses. Windows Small Business Server
(SBS) 2008 is pretty obviously aimed at smaller shops (not sure if Joe the Plumber
placed his order yet) and is based on its big brother, Windows Server 2008 itself.
SBS also comes with SQL and Exchange -- a one-stop shop.
We've looked at an earlier rev and found it solid, pretty easy to set up (some
readers disagreed with this notion as I recall), but not great at scaling by
making multiple servers work together.
Microsoft is also shipping Windows Essentials Business Server 2008, aimed at
mid-size businesses. I was curious about the Essential product. The press release
wasn't clear on what exactly it contained, and it took quite a bit a sleuthing
on Microsoft.com before it became clear that Essentials is really a higher-end
version of SBS with management software, security and SharePoint added to the
mix, and with SQL Server only in the premium edition.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 18, 20080 comments
Late last week, Redmond
continued
its Live PR push, announcing or at least pre-announcing a heap of new consumer
products and services.
Microsoft plans to enhance its Windows Live services with new Redmond-crafted
tools along with items built by partners such as LinkedIn and Flickr. Microsoft
also continues to pump out developer tools for the cloud and Web services --
so many, in fact, that it's actually hard to keep track. And I keep track for
a living!
Microsoft really needs to distill this all into one cohesive, understandable
strategy -- a tough thing for a company of programmers to do sometimes.
Posted by Doug Barney on November 17, 20080 comments
Sun Microsystems, one of the few tech companies with true spunk, is
pink-slipping
some 6,000 workers. That's almost the entire population of the small Massachusetts
town I live in.
Sun has been going through a difficult transition. Ten years ago it was like
Apple; almost all of its technology -- SunRay, SPARC and Solaris -- were entirely
its own. It's transitioning to a dual strategy, hanging on to its unique technology
while embracing other technologies (hint: like Windows!).
The Sun layoffs are a pre-emptive strike. It expects business to slump and
customers to delay buys, and wants to get ahead of the problem. Every smart
business person I know is doing the same. What about you? How are you preparing
for what could be an economic tsunami? Give us advice we can use at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 17, 20080 comments
For this month's Patch Tuesday, John got way more than the
two
patches Microsoft announced:
It is curious that the patches that Microsoft sends to the home users
seldom matches the number you give. This week I got eight updates to my home
computer. No, these were all new. I use my computer daily, and on patch Tuesday,
M$ sends me updates that install when I shut down for the day. This week it
was EIGHT. That is a lot more than the TWO you warned me about. Do you have
any idea why the count is different?
-John
Have an answer for John? How about a comment on anything else covered today?
Send 'em all to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on November 17, 20080 comments