In response to Doug's warning of the McAfee/XP crash problem, one reader discusses his overall thoughts on XP's reliability:
I have been running XP since it came out, and since Service Pack 1, I have exactly one crash. It was caused by a bad driver for a junky USB device. This has been only one fifth the number of crashes on my Windows 7 machine. Are you sure your check isn't issued in Redmond? We actually had the McAfee issue all over our state because we use the enterprise approach for our network. We did not see the never-ending reboot cycle, but we do not scan on boot either.
OK, I am done ranting, but I hate sound bite oversimplifications. I prefer to know exactly what happened and why. I know that doesn't play to your least common denominator crowd, but it is how we in the trenches get things done. At least you can get me going once a day. Thanks for the effort.
-Anonymous
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 28, 20104 comments
With the news of computer pioneer Ed Robers passing away last week, Doug wants to know some of your tech heroes:
Ken Olsen -- Digital Equipment Corporation. With a $60,000 loan, Grace Hopper as an adviser and the notion of time-sharing computers in his mind, he built DEC into a $13 billion corporation. Even at its peak he would land at a table in the cafe and eat lunch with whoever was at the table. He never behaved as though he was better than anybody else.
More than 10 years after it was broke up and sold off I still miss that company.
An old timer still going at it.
-Tim
I'm sure many people will rightfully cite Donald Knuth ("The Art of Computer Programming"), Brian Kernighan and Ken Thompson (Unix), Dennis Ritchie ("C"), Bill Gates & Paul Allen (Microsoft, MS-BASIC), C. Wayne Ratliff (dBase), Mitchell Kapor (Lotus 1-2-3), Charles Petzold (Windows Programming), and even Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs (Apple) as their heroes.
I'd like to throw in Anders Hejlsberg as my hero for authoring one of the most influential programs of all time: Turbo Pascal. Until then, the only programming environment most people had access to was some version of BASIC or hand coding assembly language programs. Other environments were available (COBOL, FORTRAN, C, Pascal) but at the cost of hundreds or thousands of dollars putting them out of the reach of most hobbyists.
The introduction of Turbo Pascal was significant not just because of its technical prowess and speed but also because of its price point -- less than a $100. Not only did this expose many developers -- both hobbyist and professional -- to a great language and tool set at little expense, but it also opened the door to other lower cost development tools and inspired the creation of such cousins as Turbo C, QuickC, QuickBASIC and MASM that helped forge a cottage industry of software houses that lead to where we are today.
Without Turbo Pascal who's to say how long it would've taken to get here, if ever, and to make so many of us nerds rich? So my hat's off to Anders Hejlsberg. Thank you!
-Erik
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 26, 20100 comments
I am astounded at the latest Google news. I already knew I hated Street View -- where Google vans take pictures of our homes, shops and neighborhoods. This is a huge invasion of privacy, in my opinion, and Street View has even been used by thieves to stake out houses.
Now, come to find out, Google is also recording if we have a WiFi hotspot, and if so takes down our MAC address.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 26, 201025 comments
If you subscribe to MSDN or TechNet Plus, you can be one of the first to get your hot little hands on SharePoint 2010 -- and you can choose your poison today -- either 32 or 64 bits. And if you are new to TechNet Plus, you can get 25 percent off SharePoint.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 26, 20100 comments
If you've been jonesin' for the latest and greatest version of SQL Server, you have only a week or two to wait, depending on your circumstance. As with SharePoint 2010, MSDN and TechNet Plus customers get first dibs and can download R2 on May 3. General release is a full 10 days later.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 26, 20100 comments
To the Microsoft naysayers and economic pessimists, I have but one thing to say: $14.5 billion. That is how much money Microsoft brought in last quarter setting yet another revenue record (wish the stock would do the same).
Windows 7 and the Windows division led the growth charge. In fact, the Windows division brought in $4.4 billion. I've got to watch this puppy more closely.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 23, 20101 comments
Virtualization Review magazine was born in two Framingham, MA-area restaurants -- Legal Seafood and Minado, an insanely great Japanese buffet.
Entrepreneurs are forever coming through Framingham (which ironically where half of the Redmond Media Group is based). These folks have to predict the future; otherwise they would blow their and their investors' money.
So selfishly I'd always ask what market they'd launch media in if they were me. Nine out of ten said virtualization. I mentioned this to my boss, Henry Allain, and before I knew it we were in full magazine and Web site launch mode.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 23, 20100 comments
Security software, such as antivirus, is supposed to prevent infection and keep our machines up and running -- just like a good tune-up on the family Caravan.
But an antivirus update from McAfee has the opposite effect. It made XP-based machines crash more than XP itself (I've had a million XP machines and it is the NASCAR of operating systems)!
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 23, 201012 comments
We start Friday's mailbag with a comment on the shelf life of Windows' Service Pack support:
Service Packs are FREE and operating systems which are not at the latest patch-level -- including service packs (which are mostly bundled security patches) -- pose a threat not just to the users of those systems but to all systems on the same network.
Despite the naysayers, Microsoft has always been reasonable about troubleshooting support, has (unlike Applicationle) always provided free patches and service packs. Aside from emergency troubleshooting, Microsoft is right to tell mean to install the latest service pack. There is no reason not to.
- C. Mark
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 23, 20103 comments
With his constant obscure references in his comedy, Doug thinks that Dennis Miller is full of himself. Here's what you think:
I like Dennis Miller and think he's a comedic genius. But one pretty much has to have a notepad or computer handy to look up his references that make you go "Huh?" Hmm, I smell justification for an iPad here.
-Anonymous
Dennis points out a lot of truth. Hurts huh?
-Anonymous
You are COMPLETELY right about Dennis Miller! Whereas I find him funny, he drops so many jokes that reference some over-educated sources, like a Bogvarian Opera (not sure if I spelled that right or really know what that is) or super political jokes that he completely loses you. It's like he's talking down to you.
Anyway, I've always felt that, and am glad others do as well.
-Dean
Used to funny but now is a pompous bag of hot gas.
-Anonymous
I long ago grew weary of listening to Dennis Miller's pretentious rants that seemed designed to showcase the fact that he thinks he is smarter than the average bear. He hit his stride as the News Guy on SNL and has been nothing but a bore ever since (including, but not limited to, his current Libertarian rants). I suspect his fans profess their undying affection for him because most of them are afraid to admit that they understand only about 70 percent of his references and thus would lose the air of superiority that they have also assumed.
-Stu
I'm glad to find out others think so too. (That he's more pretentious than he is funny.)
-Anonymous
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 21, 20107 comments
Virsto, short for virtual storage (finally a new company with a name that makes obvious sense!), came into town recently to introduce themselves and their first product. CEO Mark Davis sat down over a plate fine local seafood (I had salmon, very rare) and explained where his company came from and what it intends to do.
Virsto, as the name implies, is in the storage virtualization market, but with a twist. Its solution is based on a hypervisor. Virsto's two claims to fame are ease and speed of VM deployment through thin provisioning and maximizing I/O throughput. The whole idea is to avoid expensive proprietary disk arrays and turn white box disks into sophisticated virtual storage.
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 21, 20100 comments
My IT director, the awesome Erik Lindgren, wrote me recently about the death of Ed Roberts who created the first ever PC -- the Altair, and propelled Microsoft into the stratosphere with a rewrite of Basic. Oh, and he later became a medical doctor too!
Bill Gates never forgot the pioneer who made Microsoft what it is, so on Bill's personal Web site he and Paul Allen penned a touching tribute. Here's a quick excerpt:
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Posted by Doug Barney on April 21, 20101 comments