Microsoft late last week released an
out-of-cycle
patch for IE
that fixes a hole in Vector Markup Language (VML) that could
let a hacker control your machine. Microsoft last month sent out the original
IE patch, but tweaked it to deal with the VML problem. So I guess it's a patch
for a patch.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 02, 20080 comments
Redmond Report readers have probably heard about my sons Nick and David and
their love for Mac laptops. Their older sister Lauren, on the other hand, has
been a real holdout.
Her first machine was a PC laptop -- I never even thought to suggest a Mac.
After that one started to die, I suggested a Mac; it would save me some headaches
and her some heartache. Nothing doing. Another laptop, a Toshiba I think, was
acquired. The screen on this baby died, and once again I pitched Apple, pointing
to her brothers' experience. Nope -- this time, an HP fit the bill. Now it's
two years later, and the HP is getting slower and less trustworthy. Another
PC? No, sir. This time Lauren demanded a Mac.
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 28, 20080 comments
I rarely use Internet Explorer. Sometimes (almost never), a site doesn't work
under Firefox, so I fire up IE, view the page and shut 'er right back down.
Microsoft is trying to entice people like me back into the fold with IE 8,
now in its
second beta. The new browser steals one cool feature of Firefox: When your
browser dies, it will restore your old session, including all the tabs.
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 28, 20080 comments
Doug
recently
asked
for a show of hands to determine who uses Mac servers for virtual
Vista and XP desktops. Here are your responses:
We don't use Mac servers, and I don't know anyone that uses Mac servers
in an enterprise environment. And using them to drive VM Vista or XP desktops
is even more out there. I'm sure there are a few people out there, but I very
much doubt that it is close to 23 percent, or even 3 percent. They may be
counting non-Windows as a whole as Mac servers (Unix, Linux, BSD, Mac).
-Dustin
I have not seen a single Mac server in an enterprise IT computer room.
Who are these virtual people?
-Anonymous
Well, we sort of use Mac servers. Being that we are a large university,
there is not much control over what the faculty or even tech workers for individual
departments do. I'm guessing that there are about 10 or so, but none in the
datacenter. I don't know of any that are being used to run virtual Windows
machines.
-Charlie
Yes, I use Macs for Hyper-V. I run Win 2003 images on a Dell with Win
2008. However, I have some Win XP and Win NT images that were virtualized
on MS VS 2005. When I migrated them over to the Hyper-V on Win 2008, I discovered
that Hyper-V only supports Vista, Win 2003, and Win 2008 and above. I also
saw that Hyper-V will only support two cores per image on Win 2003 images,
and I can only assign cores in multiples of two.
On my Mac Pro, I run Parallels Hyper-V server for Mac. It runs my Win
XP images just fine. Also, I can assign up to eight cores to any image including
Win 2003 and in multiples of 1. I have a Win 2003 Enterprise image as a TS
assigned with three cores, not possible with Hyper-V. Performance seems to
by equitable between images running on the Mac and the Dell. However, I have
not been able to add Win 2003 images running on Mac to a server farm that
has images running on the Dell.
-Stephen
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 28, 20080 comments
Vista has more features, and is far newer than XP. And it actually costs money
to remove the new Vista and install the seven-year-old XP.
So why would over
a third of new PC customers go through the trouble and expense of downgrading
to XP? Because XP works!
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 28, 20080 comments
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (or a skipping CD), there's good
news about IT spending. I've written about several reports pointing to higher
IT budgets. Research powerhouse Gartner is weighing in, reporting that overall
spending is
up
around 8 percent
.
What are you spending money on? Security? Services? New apps? Or just keeping
things running? Details may be sent to
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 27, 20080 comments
A week or two ago, Forrester Research raised a stink with a report saying that
enterprise uptake of Vista was
more
anemic
than a German POW. Microsoft spat back that other Forrester analysts
have a more upbeat view of Vista. Funny thing was, a Microsoft exec blogged
about the company's misgivings and got
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 27, 20080 comments
I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but kept putting it off.
It's not easy or fun to write about a loss. An old boss of mine passed away.
You may ask what that means to you. Well, that
boss was Ed Foster, creator of InfoWorld's Gripe Line, a column that
took vendors to task for rampant rip-offs, poor products and shoddy support.
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 27, 20080 comments
Readers share their thoughts on open source security in general, and the recent
Red
Hat hack
in particular:
I think that Red Hat getting hacked was a good thing. I am a die-hard
Linux user, but I do not go with the crowd that thinks that if you are using
any non-Microsoft OS, then you are safe from bad ware. Humans make mistakes;
the software that we create will have bugs, and bugs lead to holes, and holes
are how the bad boys get in. The sooner everyone starts thinking about security,
the better.
I have to admit that I do feel safer using Linux and Firefox while I
am surfing the Web, just as the people in the Twin Towers felt safe on Sept.
11, 2001, just before the planes hit.
-Raymond
I have countered for years that Mac and open source operating systems
are not targets -- not because they are so secure, but because there were
so few of them. The more that are out there, the more they will be hacked.
The hackers want quantity. It only makes sense that they will concentrate
their efforts where they will get the most results for the least amount of
work.
-Bernie
It is Microsoft's licensing that really burns me up, not so much whether
it has a better product than others. I'm not sure why those who clamor around
Microsoft don't get that. While there have been some who have made silly claims
about open source and its security, at least a company that uses FOSS or OSS
can hire someone (if they don't possess in-house talent) to review code to
ensure that everything is up to snuff. I have a few clients who have done
just that with Internet-facing Linux systems -- and it is one thing you cannot
do with closed source, no matter who it is. And that is the difference and
is why I will always look for an open source alternative for anything I use
and recommend.
-Anonymous
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 27, 20080 comments
Readers share their methods for dodging Vista:
As long as I was being forced to buy a new system to upgrade the OS,
I went and bought a iMac. Parallels gets me the few XP Windows apps I need
to use; for the rest I use Mac-based programs. Love the new Mac. It's a lot
easier to use and maintain than Windows. For supporting Mac users, iChat is
great and the built-in mike is live during screen-sharing sessions so we can
hang up the phone. XP is still in use in the corporate environs I haunt, no
change expected there.
-Eddie
For any of you who want to see what is involved in removing Vista, see
this
thread at CR4.
-Ari
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 26, 20080 comments
A
recent report
from
the Yankee Group about virtualization has some reasonable findings, such as
the fact that 75 percent of companies plan to use virtual wares in their datacenters,
and that 40 percent of current virtualization customers mix and match technologies
from different vendors. That all makes perfect sense.
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 26, 20080 comments
Kidnappers in Mexico might soon find the
federales
breaking down their
door. It seems that more and more affluent Mexicans are taking drastic steps
to be recovered in the event of a kidnapping -- like having transmitter chips
planted
in their bodies
More
Posted by Doug Barney on August 26, 20080 comments