Mailbag: Trust Open Source?

I still have my old, patched, hippie pants. What I miss is being the size I was when they fit.

As for trusting open source software, or any software for that matter, my motto is "trust, but verify."
-Dave

I trust open source 100 percent. I have used Open Office for years, both on Windows and Mac; I do not use MS Office. I also use Firefox on Windows and have had no problems -- it's also much faster than IE. Nothing is 100 percent secure (I work in IT and manage Windows desktops/servers, Cisco, F5 Firepass -- they all need to be patched). But 100 percent for open source! I introduced many people to OO and Firefox and haven't heard any complaints.

Do I miss my hippie jeans (and also my tie-dyed shirts and bell bottoms)? Sure do...but I still have the long hair!
-Bob

Actually, I don't trust any computer, no matter who wrote the software. I manage to make a pretty good living working on them, but I have no delusions that they are making my life better. If you do trust them, don't cry about how your life got screwed up. You messed it up putting your faith in a stupid machine.

I will say that you can install any software in an exploitable manner. Most software can also be installed in a reasonably secure manner. If you do it right, it will work (yup, even Microsoft software); if you do it wrong, it won't work well (yup, even Microsoft software). What would be helpful would be to get past the name-calling and accusations and focus on getting a tool that does what you need.
-Anonymous

Got anything to add? Let us have it! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on July 28, 20080 comments

Vista Cash Back

The bad news for HP? Kido is a blogger, and her entire story of two months worth of e-mail and telephone calls ended up on Valleywag. Kido eventually got her $200 back, and HP got far more than $200 worth of bad press.

Posted by Doug Barney on July 28, 20080 comments

DNS the New Hole?

Those folks sure were prescient as Microsoft recently had to patch its DNS implementation -- a patch that itself caused problems such as Exchange outages.

Nevertheless, Microsoft is "urgently warning" IT to patch their DNS. The vulnerability can allow spoofing attacks, although no such attacks have yet been reported.

Do you take DNS security seriously? Share your thoughts and advice by writing [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on July 28, 20080 comments

Hyper-V Runs Solaris -- With a Little Help

The most interesting part of Transitive might not be its product, but one of its advisors. Dr. Mendel Rosenbaum is a technical advisor to Transitive. Virtualization buffs may recognize that as the name of VMware's co-founder and chief scientist. Is it any wonder, then, that QuickTransit also works with VMware?

Posted by Doug Barney on July 28, 20080 comments

Mailbag: Thoughts on Jobs

Mr. Jobs IS a rather remarkable man, but every remarkable human in history has had to retire at some point.

Organizations need to plan for the same and the rest of us can count our blessings to have coincided in time with the lives of the living remarkable.
-Anonymous

I watched the iPhone 3G announcement video a while back and I was taken aback at how gaunt Jobs looked. Not being an Apple customer, I don't keep track of what happens there so I was not even aware he had been sick. After reading that investors are dumping stock simply on the rumour of his ill-health, I can't imagine what will happen if/when he passes away.

I agree with you. The industry will, eventually, lose one of the most important figures in the history of personal computing. Get well, Steve!
-Dan

One reader thinks the recent BlackBerry flaw, now patched, still isn't enough to make people turn to the iPhone:

What? No one is dropping the BlackBerry to get an iPhone. If you can find a 3G network, if Father Steve allows you to run the app you need and if you don't mind doing hard resets to restore your phone once or twice a day, you might want an iPhone. If you don't mind very short battery life unless you turn off the GPS and Wi-Fi, you might want an iPhone. If you want to restrict yourself to one carrier -- and not the best one, at that -- you might want an iPhone. If you want to send the phone in just to change the battery, you might want an iPhone.

The iphone is a toy, and not a very good one, and is not suited for business use. The BlackBerry may not be perfect but it works and it works every time you use it, something no one can say about the iPhone.
-John

Doug asked for advice recently on how to keep multiple machines in synch. Jeff thinks the answer is in Google:

Just give in to the dark side. Turn your life and your documents over to Google. No OS needed, any computer will do. If that won't work, try Mozy. Great backup program. Restores are a little slow but you can initiate them yourself. I recommend only restoring what you need to begin with; get the rest when you get your full machine up and running. If you have Google popping all your e-mail accounts, you'll always have copies of them.
-Jeff

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on July 24, 20080 comments

Jobs OK?

The New York Times looked into the matter and reporter John Markoff writes that Jobs himself has been reassuring friends and Apple board members that he's just fine. There's apparently a problem that caused him to lose weight, and he had surgery to straighten that out (imagine that: surgery to actually gain weight!).

Still, there's pressure for Apple to disclose its succession plan in the event that Jobs steps down. If Apple ever does get a new leader, could that person please, please license the Mac OS to hardware OEMs like HP and Dell? The market needs a good $500 Mac laptop.

Posted by Doug Barney on July 24, 20080 comments

Windows Leader Leaps to Juniper

When I first heard the news, I figured Johnson was taking the rap for the poor market performance of Vista, and the fact that Microsoft lost over a billion dollars in its online business.

I was wrong. Johnson is the new CEO of Juniper, the high-flying network gear maker. Juniper is one hot company. A nobody seven years ago, it's now arguably the only networking company that can truly challenge Cisco. Good luck, Kevin!

Posted by Doug Barney on July 24, 20080 comments

VMware Doing Great -- So Why'd It Dump the CEO?

Second quarter revenues of almost half-a-billion dollars were up 54 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Profits are shining, as well -- up $14 million to $61 million in quarterly profits. And it's expecting to grow almost 50 percent this year compared to '07.

Jeepers. I guess Greene really did mess up! I'm sure there are plenty of companies that would want her to screw them up to the tune of 50 percent growth!

Of course, those stunning growth rates did nothing to please the Brooks Brothers-clad stock set. These clowns say VMware isn't growing as fast as they expected, making Greene a colossal failure in their eyes. Nuts, eh?

Posted by Doug Barney on July 23, 20080 comments

Open Source Open to Hacks

That's why it may be a surprise to some that open source apps have more holes than a pair of hippy jeans, and are far less secure than commercial apps.

Do you trust open source? And do you miss your old, patched, hippy pants? Send answers to both to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on July 23, 20080 comments

Facebook Bites Back

This 20-year-old moron was caught drunk driving (it's easy to get caught when you crash and nearly kill someone). Then, two weeks later, someone posted Facebook pictures of Lipton posing with a bunch of beer cans and wearing a striped prison shirt. That's not going to look too good at trial.

Do social networking sites like Facebook have any role in your organization? Tell me yes, no or maybe by writing to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on July 23, 20080 comments

Mailbag: Google Going Evil?

You're dead-on with your assessment of Google. I've had the same concerns myself for some time now.
-Paul

I have to echo your thoughts. I had rather positive feelings about Google until I was invited to an interview at their shiny new datacenter in Central Oregon last year. After a VERY bizarre interview -- unlike anything I had ever experienced in 20 years in IT -- I did some more checking and had to reach the same conclusion. I don't know for sure if Google is evil, but it is certainly doing a lot to make me think so!

One example: The name of the fake company that it hides behind that houses their datacenter (the sign outside) is "ValDeMoort Industries." Now, I have to ask, who would name their datacenter after the ULTIMATE EVIL character in Harry Potter? It was dumb, but maybe not. Maybe it is really a message?

Honestly, I think Google just suffers from being an extremely immature company run by extremely immature billionaires. Microsoft has had the advantage of 30 years of experience, BG hired some of the top business managers in the world right out of the gate, and he "grew into" his success.
-Jim

Nope, I totally agree with you. While I'm a MS partner and respect MS, I don't always agree with them either -- but at least you can talk to someone.

Google bought Postini recently. If Postini weren't such a great product, we would have dumped it 100 percent becuase of the crap we have been going through. And this is an understatement.
-Don

Yes, I think Google has too much and it needs to be cut back. No one should get any slice of Yahoo; it should stand on its own two feet. Ditto with MS on the same subject, so yeah -- they are becoming the evil twins.

And do you think that MS buying Yahoo's search business will help MS? I don't think it will help at all. MS will screw it up and it will burn. The problem that I see is that what will Yahoo then get for income to do other things such as its one-of-a-kind chat system which feature-for feature kills anyone else? I would invest in Yahoo, but only if King Carl steps down and leaves.
-Bruce

I guess I would rather opt for free services from a vendor that provides open source options for those not willing to fork out money for an expensive OS that is unreliable, less secure and a huge resource hog. I can't wait for the Google phone.
-Nathan

I live in a Microsoft/Dynamics world all day long and I'm happy with that world -- it keeps that regular paycheck coming. But I don't want to see a monopolists dictating to that world, Microsoft, Google or anyone else.
-Ron

Doug recently asked readers to name their favorite defunct IT magazines. Here are some of your nominations:

I'll take InfoWorld over any of the others any day. I wouldn't say it's defunct either. I continue to get lots of good stuff from them.
-Bruce

It's still in print, but nothing the way it was in the "good old days." The magazine: Computer Shopper. To pore over the endless advertisements when looking to build your own systems was priceless.
-Michael

My favorite defunct magazine is not one related to my current occupation: Drag Racing USA. Back in the '70s, before it went defunct, this magazine covered both the races and the newest machines, regardless of what class the car was in.

One of the last magazines that I received featured a new short dragster that Big Daddy built and called the Swamp Rat. Two weeks later, I'm at my local drag strip, Renegade Raceway. Don Garlits brought his longer dragster and raced it. While I was walking through the pits, he was signing some pictures for fans. When he was signing a picture for me, I asked him, "Where is the Swamp Rat?" He looked at me kinda funny and asked, "Where did you hear about that?" I told him, "In Drag Racing USA."

Turns out it was Don's favorite magazine, too, and I got to spend quite a bit of time talking with him between the races about his newest dragster and his career in general. I regret to say that I no longer have that signed picture, but I do have the great memory of getting to talk with one of drag racing's great giants in his prime. That is a memory for a lifetime that would not have happened without that magazine.
-Les

And yesterday, reader Chris suggested that the iPhone fan who got teased by a television reporter while waiting in line should've responded with some snark. One reader thinks that's missing the point:

I think Chris did miss something. It's true that the man in line for an iPhone didn't exactly "own" the reporter, but he also didn't sound like he was going to run home and cry. What he said was on the money. The question was insulting and in no way should pass for news reporting. The idea of attempting humor in response to such a condescending question is inappropriate, and acting like the reporter's behavior was funny would have just encouraged him.

What those news people were doing is like something elementary school kids do whenever they don't understand something. It was nothing but a smug attempt at trying to belittle others to make themselves feel better about themselves. It is a common behavior among luddites or the technically-challenged to attempt to demean those that understand or enjoy what they do not. If anyone wants to eschew electronics, then let them continue to bang blocks of wood together. It's none of my business. I don't see computer experts walking around with microphones asking everyone without the most recent phone or PDA if they are virgins or eunuchs.
-A person who doesn't own an iPhone and probably never will

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on July 23, 20080 comments

Stunning VMware News: A Free Hypervisor

Maritz did make some rather bold pronouncements in this week's earnings call. First, he announced that ESXi, the embedded hypervisor, will be free. With bundling deals with all the major server makers, this makes ESXi almost part of the operating system.

This is big news, but it's not VMware's first free tool. It has the VMware Player for PCs, and VMware Server, a stripped-down tool, is also free.

Maritz also gave a glimpse of the future. ESX, the enterprise hypervisor, remains immensely important, but the more critical aspect is building out the overall infrastructure.

I think VMware should design infrastructure tools that are totally independent of the hypervisor, and support Xen and Hyper-V. That's VMware's future.

Does a free ESXi change the game? Send your take to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on July 23, 20080 comments