Bow Down to Steve Jobs (and His Logo)

Interesting little piece here in Fast Company about how logos can serve almost as religious symbols to folks who aren't religious already. Do you figure anybody has the same loyalty to the Windows logo as adherents of the Church of Apple have to their fruity symbol? We're thinking probably not...

Posted by Lee Pender on October 04, 20101 comments


Goldman Sachs Masters the Obvious with Microsoft Rant

It's one of those head-slapping moments. Some guru from Goldman Sachs comes out and makes a bunch of suggestions about how Microsoft should run its business, and we at RCPU sit here and slap our heads saying, "Why didn't we think of that?" Except we did...and we weren't the only ones.

Goldman downgraded Microsoft's stock at some point over the weekend, and, in doing so, a Goldman analyst went off on a rant about what Microsoft needs to do to get itself out of the decade-long stock-price slump it's in. As Todd Bishop's always excellent blog reports, Goldman had three suggestions for Redmond. And we quote, from the Goldman report as quoted on Bishop's blog:

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Posted by Lee Pender on October 04, 20105 comments


Microsoft Responds to Patch Tuesday Post

Last week, we mentioned that Microsoft's last Patch Tuesday wasn't as all-inclusive as it might have been regaring the Stuxnet worm. Well, late last week, we got an update from a Microsoft spokesperson who wanted to tell us that Microsoft hasn't just buried its head in the sand on Stuxnet. We quote:

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Posted by Lee Pender on September 20, 20100 comments


Google Fires Allegedly Creepy Engineer

File this one under "E" for ewwww. Google back in July fired an engineer, which wouldn't normally be news except that he was evidently fired for spying on teens' Gmail and Google Voice accounts. We're talking minors here. Now, apparently, the fellow isn't accused of having done anything, you know, perverted or whatever. But still -- ewwww. Also, this isn't exactly an endorsement for cloud computing. It's just kind of creepy, really.

Posted by Lee Pender on September 16, 20102 comments


Microsoft Says It Can Prevent Adobe Exploits

The Enhanced Migration Experience Toolkit , or EMET, is apparently the magic elixir that can stave off hacker incursions. And if you've ever been incurred, you know how important that is.

Posted by Lee Pender on September 16, 20101 comments


Reader Feedback: Windows XP Lives!

As expected, our entry last week about Windows XP slowly dying brought XP fans out with claims that the operating system is very much alive and well. (And it must be, considering your editor is using it right now.) Frank writes:

Hey, I'm running XP until I can't. Vista and Windows 7 both have network issues connecting to multiple domains. Until someone can tell me how to:

1) Login to one domain
2) Connect to file shares in another domain
3) Did I forget to mention that the domains cannot directly trust each other or become part of the same tree, directory, etc.? (Whatever the new buzz word is for Active Directory, NDS, etc...)

I haven't played with the Windows XP compatibility in Windows 7 yet, but it would not be enough to allow all applications to see the drive shares. Ah, the fun of having someone else in charge of a large part of my work space and the ability, or rather lack thereof, to do something about it.

I hate the control changes when browsing files. I used to be able to use backspace (very fast and quick 'look Ma, no mouse needed!' in Windows XP) to change up directory levels. In Windows 7, it gets into a round-robin and doesn't come out! And don't get me started about that horrid ribbon in Office 2007 and 2010. Yuck to the core! Dang, Microsoft, just pull the rug right out from under me and give me nowhere to land. I do like some of the speed differences in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 to get to a desktop. But that's about it.

Maybe Linux desktops will be a thing of the future.

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Posted by Lee Pender on September 16, 20105 comments


Editor's Note: RCPU To Have Guest Writers

Faithful readers (and those of you who only check in once in a while), your editor is expecting a major life event that could happen at any moment. As such, RCPU may suddenly be taken over by guest writers for a week or more. Not to worry, though. These folks are the Earl Morrall of RCPU writers. (Of course, you know that Earl Morrall was the greatest backup quarterback of all time. He led the undefeated 1972 Dolphins to nine of their 17 wins…at the age of 38.) Scott Bekker, Jeff Schwartz and Doug Barney are all prepared to strap on the helmet in case your editor has to spend some time on the sidelines. Just don't start liking them more than you like the "normal" RCPU... Also, other than this entry, RCPU is going to be pretty short the next couple of days. So enjoy that while it lasts.

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Posted by Lee Pender on September 15, 20100 comments


Microsoft Releases Beta of Dynamics CRM 2011

This is the release that's meant to be a Salesforce.com killer. Wonder what Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com's CEO, of course) will have to say about that...

Posted by Lee Pender on September 15, 20100 comments


An Imperfect Patch Tuesday

Apparently yesterday's patches were not quite good enough. Four zero-day bugs from the infamous Stuxnet worm seem to have gone un-patched.

Posted by Lee Pender on September 15, 20100 comments


Group Reports Growth in Tech Jobs

Is the recession over? Does it feel over? It doesn't really matter all that much what the stock market is doing or what leading economic indicators say as long as the job market is still lousy.

Fortunately, though, a group called TechAmerica says that tech jobs actually picked up a bit in the first half of 2010... by 0.5 percent. But hey, a bump is a bump.

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Posted by Lee Pender on September 15, 20100 comments


Redmond Fights Russian Trickery

So, those darn Russians are at it again, infiltrating dissident groups and confiscating their computers in the name of...checking for pirated Microsoft software. Redmond, blissfully unaware of this sort of thing, is now familiar with the law of unintended consequences.

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Posted by Lee Pender on September 13, 20103 comments


HP Buys Security Firm

HP got its spend on again this week, dishing out $1.5 billion for security company ArcSight after beating out Dell in the 3Par sweepstakes earlier this month. (And, apparently, security is not a bad place to be these days…)

Posted by Lee Pender on September 13, 20100 comments